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Dr. David Jeremiah

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Articles by Dr. David Jeremiah

Each year, the president releases his proposed federal budget for the next fiscal year. Usually the proposed budget exceeds the spending cap that has been approved by Congress. We all know what happens in such a case—the two houses of Congress begin long and often acrimonious debates. When they can’t agree on how much the government should spend, we see shutdowns, sequesters, and shenanigans.             All because of a “budget cap.” Caps, or limits on spending, are familiar to every person and household. Even the richest people in the world have a finite number of dollars. You and I are faced with spending caps—let’s call them “Christmas Caps”—every year at this time. We would love to have unlimited budgets for our Christmas celebrating and gift-giving, but there are limits. 
If someone wanted to create an appeal for a product that would suceed in today’s culture, I would suggest it contain the word “hope” in its title. I have never seen so many people who are unhappy and worried about the future as they are today. Perhaps the source of despair and hopelessness among many people is simply the recognition that life isn’t what they thought or hoped it would be. They are discovering that things that promised satisfaction and joy have not delivered on their promise. Placing our hope in the things the world offers is a prescription for failure—for they are temporal and everchanging. We only need to watch the news to have that confirmed to us. One thing you cannot buy, which is an essential ingredient for a happy life, is hope. It effects your attitude, your beliefs, your decisions, and your future.  
It was God who told Adam and Eve, and later Noah, to “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28; 9:1). We are well on our way to filling the earth, for sure.             But fulfilling that command has come more as a by-product of something else: trade and exploration.  Trade began on land, of course, with famous trade routes like the Silk Road, the Grand Trunk Road, the Amber Road, the Via Maris, and the Trans-Saharan routes linking the continents. But eventually, the spiderwebs of roads found their way to port cities—it was trade by sea that catapulted human development to a new strata.             Prior to the fifteenth century, sea trade was focused on the coasts of Europe, the Mediterranean world, and the coasts of Africa, India, and Asia. But when people realized the world was round, it made perfect sense to try to leave the coast of Europe sailing west and eventually arrive at the shores of Asia. A Portuguese explorer named Ferdinand Magellan set out with four ships to sail around the world (1519). Four years later, his last vessel limped into Portugal, minus Magellan (killed in the Philippines), proving that it was possible to sail anywhere in the world. 
Have every considered, when we’re involved in sharing the Gospel, we’re part of the greatest international enterprise on earth. We are like crewmen on a ship and each of us has our own gifts, talents, opportunities, and positions. When it comes to evanglism, nothing beats the spirit and determination of a crew committed to the Captain and determined to complete the voyage. The crew is the “ye” in the Great Commission. Jesus said, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15, KJV). The “ye” is ye and me—it’s us! You and I are called by God to take His cargo—the message of the Cross—to the ends of the earth.   The Personal Responsibility of the Great Commission The Great Commission applies to each of us, to all God’s children. This is the way Christianity spread in the book of Acts and in the days of the Early Church. The church historian Philip Schaff wrote about the growth of the Church in Roman times: “Christianity once established was its own best missionary… It was a light shining in darkness and illuminating the darkness. And while there were no professional missionaries devoting their whole life to this specific work, every congregation was a missionary society, and every Christian believer a missionary, inflamed by the love of Christ to convert his fellow men…. Every Christian told his neighbor, the laborer to his fellow laborer, the slave to his fellow slave, the servant to his master and mistress, the story of his conversion, as a mariner tells the story of the rescue from shipwreck.”[1] [1] Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2: Ante-Nicene Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1910), 20-21.
The New Testament says clearly that we are “sons of God” (Romans 8:14; Galatians 3:26). So as sons and daughters of God, how should we live in relation to our Heavenly Father? The relationship of God the Father and the Son of God provides clues.               • Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His Work.” (John 4:34)             • “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 6:38)             • So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” (John 20:21)                        • Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.” (John 5:19)             • “For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.” (John 12:49)               As the Father’s attention was on the Son, so the Son’s attention was on the Father.
Each and every day, you and I will find ourselves sitting, standing, conversing or working with someone. But how often do we find ourselves actually sitting with another person long enough to make spiritual contact? When we do take the time, do we make ourselves available to God for His purposes? A friend of mine was required, for a pastoral care class, to spend a night as a chaplain’s assistant in the emergency room of a hospital.             Early one morning, a woman was brought into the ER who had tried to take her own life—or at least that’s what her wounds suggested. After the doctors bandaged up her wrists and got her stabilized, they left her alone in an exam room. My friend ventured into the room to see if he might minister to her in some way. He did the best he could to comfort her and share God’s love with her, when all of a sudden, she blurted out, “Who are you—Jesus?!”             No, my friend wasn’t Jesus. But I have no doubt that Jesus was there in that emergency room, using my friend to bring hope and heart-healing to a woman who needed both. When we, as Christians, sit down next to someone who needs God’s truth and love, we are simply doing what Jesus would do if He were here in the flesh.
Each and every day, you and I will find ourselves sitting, standing, conversing or working with someone. But how often do we find ourselves actually sitting with another person long enough to make spiritual contact? When we do take the time, do we make ourselves available to God for His purposes? A friend of mine was required, for a pastoral care class, to spend a night as a chaplain’s assistant in the emergency room of a hospital.             Early one morning, a woman was brought into the ER who had tried to take her own life—or at least that’s what her wounds suggested. After the doctors bandaged up her wrists and got her stabilized, they left her alone in an exam room. My friend ventured into the room to see if he might minister to her in some way. He did the best he could to comfort her and share God’s love with her, when all of a sudden, she blurted out, “Who are you—Jesus?!”             No, my friend wasn’t Jesus. But I have no doubt that Jesus was there in that emergency room, using my friend to bring hope and heart-healing to a woman who needed both. When we, as Christians, sit down next to someone who needs God’s truth and love, we are simply doing what Jesus would do if He were here in the flesh.
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Turning Point's Mission: Delivering the Unchanging Word of God to an Ever-Changing World

About Dr. David Jeremiah

Dr. David Jeremiah is the founder of Turning Point for God, an international broadcast ministry committed to providing Christians with sound Bible teaching through radio and television, the Internet, live events, and resource materials and books. He is the author of more than fifty books including The Book of Signs, Forward, and Where Do We Go From Here?  David serves as senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in San Diego, California, where he resides with his wife, Donna. They have four grown children and twelve grandchildren.


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