The reason some of us are such poor specimens of Christianity is because we have no Almighty Christ. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment to Jesus Christ. When we get into difficult circumstances, we impoverish His ministry by . . . struggling down to the deeps and trying to get the water (of help for our needs) for ourselves . . . We need to rely on the resurrection life of Jesus much deeper down than we do, to get into the habit of steadily referring everything back to Him; instead of this we make our common-sense decisions and ask God to bless them . . . Beware of the satisfaction of sinking back and saying 'It can't be done'; you know it can be done if you look to Jesus. Oswald Chambers

I first found the Lord as my Savior when I was 10 - about 47 years ago. For almost 5 decades now - every day - God the Holy Spirit has been underscoring the same truth in my heart, mind, life, and consciousness: 'In every situation, in every decision, in every issue that you face in your life today, turn first to me and give it to me. Salvation and strength is in letting your life go into My hands - but it can only be accomplished on an issue by issue, decision by decision basis' After all these years of training, this is a class that I still need to sit in every day. It is so easy to take matters into our own hands. Jesus says, 'Look to Me!'

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In one of the churches that I pastored, we got to know an elderly gentleman named David. David was a fine man of God - really the church patriarch. David was with us for about six years before God called him home. He was a good friend and a great supporter of my ministry, but he had a habit that, early on in my ministry at this church, started to get my attention. After every occasion when I spoke - and I mean every time: Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday prayer service, even the times when I taught Adult Sunday School - David would come up to me after the service, put his hand on my shoulder, look me square in the eye and say: 'Now Pastor, you have to always preach Christ!' Now of course he was right, Jesus is our Savior. But I really thought that I was preaching Christ. I could certainly preach Christ better - more effectively - more clearly. But I wasn't preaching Buddha or Mohammad or the Baal gods from the Old Testament. I was preaching Christ. One day I had had enough. Hand on my shoulder; face in my face; back against the wall: 'Pastor, you have to preach Christ!' I step forward: 'David, did I not just preach Christ?. Do I not always do my best to preach Christ, though certainly I could do better? Where are you coming from, sir?' This fine brother in the Lord looked at me, gave me a big, sweet smile and said: 'Oh yes, you do preach Christ, pastor, and we appreciate and enjoy it. I just want to remind you to remember to keep it up!' And he turned and walked away. Later that day, as I was thinking about what my friend had said, God the Holy Spirit came to me and said: 'Steve, is it wrong for me to remind you to tell my people that their salvation begins and ends with Jesus? Continue to preach Christ!'

Erasmus, a contemporary of Martin Luther, shares this:

Set Christ before you as the only goal of your whole life and direct all your efforts, all your activities, all your leisure, all your business in his direction. . . Look at Christ alone as the absolute Good, so that you may love nothing, marvel at nothing, want nothing but Christ or because of Christ. . .

As never before, we need to remember Peter's words to the Sanhedrin recorded in Acts 4:12: 'Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be (are) saved.' NIV Brother David was absolutely correct: We need to preach Jesus; teach Jesus; sing Jesus; write Jesus; and, more than anything else, through Christ's Holy Spirit, live Jesus - nothing wrong in remembering that at all!

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Commenting on Mark 4:38 - 'And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow; and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?' KJV - V. Raymond Edman writes:

Learn from the experience of the disciples. In their alarm they aroused Christ with the aspersion, 'Carest thou not that we perish?' He care? Who could care more than the Merciful One, the Compassionate Christ? Has He ever forsaken His own, failed them in their extremity, forgotten them? Never! Where He leads He loves, where He points He protects, where He plans He provides, where He sends He saves. Winds and waves will obey the word of Him, who makes the storm a calm . . . The devil will do his utmost to drive you back from the center of God's will and the outstretching of His power through you, or will try to drown you in the depths of despair and defeat. Sail on, despite Satan's sneers, snares, or storms.

Indeed, through God's Presence, Power, Strength, and Grace, we CAN 'sail on' today through any trial, problem, or storm.

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. . . the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ . . . If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose . . . What we have been told is how we men can be drawn into Christ - can become part of that wonderful present which the young Prince of the universe wants to offer to His Father - that present which is Himself and therefore us in Him. It is the only thing we were made for. C. S. Lewis

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Well, its Super Bowl Sunday again and - again - for the 37th year in a row, the team that ought to be in the game - the Kansas City Chiefs - are on the outside looking in - next year, surely, surely next year. Aren't you thankful - you did know this, didn't you? - that we don't have to wait 37 years to live victoriously in this life? We don't have to wait until 'next year.' We don't have to wait another hour, minute, or second. This is what the Apostle Paul says about Victory In Jesus:

What, then, shall we say . . . If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:31-39 NIV

And who are God's chosen? 'Whosoever' believes on Jesus and accepts Him as their Lord and Savior. John 3:16. The abundant life that Christ offers can be mine right now if I will yield myself to Him - and that is true victory, both in this life and the one to come.

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