Look inside this book.Where the Bush is Burning: A Daily Devotional by [Thomas Tice]

Category: Where the Bush is Burning
By Faith

By Faith

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By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.  

Hebrews 1:4 

‘By faith’ is the phrase the writer of Hebrews repeats often throughout this ‘Faith’ chapter. Having defined faith, he illustrates it from the lives of the ancient believers. He begins with Abel, and proceeds to Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses’ mother, Moses, Rahab and more. What is the common thread that runs through all these examples? They did what they did, ‘by faith.’ God was in their consciousness and interacting with them throughout their life. They did things that were different from one another and their experience of God was highly personalized, yet, each person genuinely experienced God, by faith. This is important to each of us because we are widely diverse. Our life experience, culture, background, education, and personality are different from each other. What is the common thread that runs through all of our lives? It is faith in Christ. We come from every conceivable stripe and variety to faith in the same Christ. They all looked forward by faith, to Christ. We look to the same Christ by faith.  

Our Great and Gracious God, 
we rejoice that You give us faith. 
We praise You that You lead us by faith, 
along the path of Your choosing.  

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning
What Is Faith?

What Is Faith?

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Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  

Hebrews 11:1 

What is faith? We use the word, but what is it really? Our text offers the divine definition, but in order for us to understand even that definition, it requires some consideration. What is substance? We would say substance is that which can be empirically experienced. What is evidence? Evidence is the objective, substantive proof of the reality of an event or a thing’s existence. So faith is in what is evidently real and genuinely substantive, even though we have not seen it as yet. What we hope for is based upon all we know of the character of God. It rests upon the presupposition that God ‘is and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him,’ as a later verse in the chapter says. Thus faith is treating as fact what God has said will be, without actually having seen it as yet. We need to have a working definition of faith if we are going to consider the heroes of the faith who appear in the rest of this chapter. Most of all, faith relates us to Christ. The whole book of Hebrews is to point the readers to Christ as the Mediator of the new covenant.  

Our God of Grace and Glory, 
we rejoice that You give us every reason to have faith in You. 
We praise You that all Your works 
point us to Christ. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

Perfected Forever

Perfected Forever

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For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.  

Hebrews 10:14 

How is it that Christ has perfected His redeemed and yet they are ‘being sanctified?’ The difference lies between justification and sanctification. When Christ hung upon the cross, God ‘made Him to be in sin for us.’ He imputed our sin to Christ. He has also imputed Christ’s righteousness to us. ‘Justification is an act of God’s free grace wherein He pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.’ In this, Christ has perfected forever His redeemed. God accepts us as being as righteous as Christ Himself because He has imputed Christ’s righteousness to us. We are also being sanctified. Sanctification is a work of God’s free grace whereby He renews us in the whole person after the image of Christ, and enables us to die, more and more unto sin, and to live unto righteousness. Eventually, when we see Christ, our sanctification will be equal to our justification. ‘We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.’ God accepts us as perfected and is also sanctifying us. 

Our Great and Gracious God, 
we rejoice that You have given unto us a whole salvation. 
We praise You that You will conform us 
completely to the Image of Christ.   

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

For Salvation

For Salvation

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So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation. 

Hebrews 9:28 

In what sense is the second coming of Christ, ‘for salvation?’ Redemption involves the whole of creation. The original sin affected Adam, Eve, all their descendants, and the physical world. Sin has had a negative effect on everyone and everything. The work of redemption which God has begun has yet to be entirely completed. This is true for us in a personal way. Paul refers to this and connects it to the return of Christ when He says, ‘being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.’ In that sense the return of Christ is ‘for salvation,’ because He will complete His work of sanctifying us entirely at that time. John refers to this by saying, ‘Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.’ Beyond that, Christ will redeem the whole of creation. This is, admittedly, a secondary reference, but we should include it in the idea of salvation in reference to the creation. Paul connects the two by saying, ‘because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.’ When Christ returns He will tie up many loose ends, not the least of which will be the restoration of creation to being a new heaven and a new earth. He will return ‘for salvation,’ with all that entails. 

Great God of Wonders, 
we rejoice that You are a Whole God, 
Who will accomplish a complete redemption.  
We praise You that Christ will come 
to fulfill all Your Word.  

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning
He Will Appear

He Will Appear

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So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation. 

Hebrews 9:28 

The return of Christ sets the final seal on all the rest of Scripture. Critics cavil about the book of Revelation because, in their estimation it seems tacked on to the rest of the New Testament. They accuse it of being a hodgepodge of fantastical ideas, which sets forth events they believe are preposterous. To those critics, the most appropriate response is, ‘Wait for it.’ Christ said, definitively and categorically, He would return. His apostles, Peter, Paul, John and others wrote extensively on the subject of His return. It remains, for us to believe the words of Christ, and the testimony of the Scriptures. That others refuse to believe it, mock it, and deny it is irrelevant. Just as surely as all the other prophecies of Scripture have come to pass at their appointed times, so this also, will occur. The writer of Hebrews affirms ‘He will appear a second time.’ We believe the testimony of all those who have said that Jesus shall return. This is the long view of history. This gives us hope for the rest of time and for eternity. ‘He will appear a second time….’ We believe it.  

Our Gracious God and our Savior, 
we look forward to the day when You will return. 
We praise You that You have given us Your Word, 
upon which we can rely.  

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

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