Articles by Dr. David Jeremiah
In the education and business worlds it is not uncommon to hear the term affirmative action, but what does it mean in our everyday life to affirm someone? Basically, it is a statement or action that encourages someone. The Bible is filled with promises that affirm an endless supply of riches, privileges, joys, and blessings that we’ve never appropriated. These are the promises in the Bible we haven’t claimed. There are levels of peace we’ve not experienced. There are joys we’ve underappreciated. There are answers to prayer awaiting us. Scripture is filled with affirmations about all God has given us. For an interesting Bible study, read the first half of Ephesians and notice how the words inheritance and riches and wealth and blessing fill the first three chapters of this book: [He] has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ … the riches of His grace … we have obtained an inheritance … the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints … rich in mercy … the exceeding riches of His grace … the gift of God … the unsearchable riches of Christ … the riches of His glory (Ephesians 1:3, 7, 11, 18; 2:4, 7, 8; 3:8, 16). In Christ we’ve inherited a fortune beyond anything this world can imagine, but perhaps we’re largely unaware of it.
At the beginning of the multiple-Oscar-winning movie Gladiator, the Roman general Maximus is readying his cavalry to ride against a Germanic horde in a forest in Europe. He shouts to them, “Hold the line! Stay with me! If you find yourself alone, riding in the green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled. For you are in Elysium, and you’re already dead!” Elysium was a version of heaven that arose among the Greek poets and philosophers and remained popular in Roman times—a place where the righteous and heroic, and those chosen by the gods, would spend a blessed afterlife. If anyone would qualify for entrance into Elysium, Maximus’ brave cavalry would—so they had no fear in the face of possible death. As mythical as Elysium was, its promise was enough to take the fear and sting out of death. When you can laugh at death, nothing else in life deserves to be feared. Hebrews 2:15 tells us that one thing is powerful enough to hold people in bondage all their lives—the fear of death. But the apostle Paul spent an entire chapter of 1 Corinthians explaining how Christ, by His resurrection, defeated death: “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55) If Roman soldiers had no fear of death by hoping in a make-believe place called Elysium, how much more should we Christians not fear death based on the documented reality of the resurrection of Jesus? And if we don’t fear death, why should we fear anything else?
I’ve had many mentors in life, but most of them had departed this life when they taught me their greatest lessons. They’ve lined the walls of my study and filled my bookcases with their words of wisdom. I enjoy good books and have profited immeasurably from reading biographies. As you may have noticed, lots of these timeless antidotes show up in my sermons and writings. To me, reading a good biography is like entertaining a great soul in my home. He or she may live in a different age, speak a different language, and face a different set of challenges; but when I open their stories, I’m sitting down with them for a pleasant visit. In the process, I learn about a world not my own, and I live in times that expand my experiences. A truly well-written biography is a rare treat; but the best biographies are found in God’s Book. The Bible is filled with great and unvarnished stories of individual history. Think of the men and women we encounter between Genesis and Revelation. When we get to heaven, we’ll already know Abraham, David, Peter, and Paul. Some of us have studied their lives for years, and meeting them will be like greeting an old friend. Think of the Heroes of the Faith described in Hebrews 11—men and women “of whom the world was not worthy” (Hebrews 11:38). Their lives should inspire us to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and … run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1-2).
If you are a parent with children who’ve attended college, then you have likely sent “care” packages—a box full of toiletries, socks, cookies, new (clean) underwear, and a bit of extra money, too. Or if you support missionaries overseas, you’ve probably mailed care packages to them as well with goodies from home that they can’t find on the mission field. When disaster strikes, Aid organizations rush in to meet the need for people who are hurting, lost, and in need of rescue. Aid organizations have been around for centuries, but the last several decades have seen an explosion of aid movements around the world. Regardless of an aid organization’s purpose, founder, focus, and constituents, they all begin with two things in common: a need and an idea. Somebody, in the face of a crisis or just lying in bed and thinking late at night, had an “Aha!” moment: “I can do something about that!” They shared the need and the idea, got others involved and excited, and a campaign was born.
