Devotional Index

June Devotional

God's Message: Choose Life

God, in His Word, the Bible, repeatedly goes on record, making it crystal clear that He is for life and not death! Jesus said in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." In the eleventh chapter of the same gospel, Jesus proclaimed, "I am the resurrection, and the life." Again in the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus boldly declares, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me." In the fifth chapter of John's first New Testament epistle we read: "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. The Bible message, the Bible platform, is definitely pro-life!

The good news of the message of life must be unashamedly and boldly proclaimed because the Scripture declares, and our experience verifies, the undeniable truth that all men are sinners. The Bible clearly states that there is none righteous, that all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God, that all we like sheep have gone astray and turned to our own way. All men, without exception, stand before a holy, righteous, and just God as guilty sinners. Furthermore, the Scripture calls to our attention the consequences or penalty for our sin. The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel declared: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." In the New Testament we read, "The wages of sin is death . . . . Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." The terrible price for sin is death! That is why Jesus said to Nicodemus in the third chapter of the Gospel of John: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God . . . . Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again."

God, because of his great love for us, recognized our life and death dilemma and by his grace provided life for us. That is exactly why Jesus continued to answer the questions of Nicodemus and proclaim the wonderful message that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (John 3:16-18)

How does the miracle of the new birth take place in our lives? The Bible answers that all-important question this way: "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1:12, 13) "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." (Romans 10:9, 10)

The message of the Bible is to choose Jesus Christ and through him receive the gift of God which is eternal life.

— Dr. Bill Lincoln
Seniors Ministry Pastor, Brookside Baptist Church, Brookfield