On This Day: When Grief and Longing Meet Predestination

   Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:26-29)

   Yesterday, amidst all the smoke and mirrors of this wildfire season, my daughter reminded me of how we love to explore outdoor places with cameras in hand, seeing things that would be unnoticed to us if we were on a determined hike to a chosen destination. At such times, the aim is not to arrive somewhere on a route, but to make the route itself the world we want to explore.

   And so it is that the “golden chain of salvation” demands a keep-stopping-and-looking mindset, not to arrive at a theological conclusion that trumps all others, but to focus on the beauty of words that stand out in such glorious colors, and lighting, and richness, and… LIFE!

   One of the most difficult things for me in meditating on God’s word is keeping in mind what I have already learned as necessary to understanding what I am learning now. This difficulty is heightened by the fact that I am now looking at words that people love to fight over (one side more than the other, as I see it).

   With that in mind, God presenting my heart with “those whom he foreknew” (talking about the saints, believers, God-lovers, God-called) tells me that the children he has been talking about who join with creation and the Spirit in groaning out our griefs about present sufferings, and our longing for future glory, need to know our Father in heaven as not only sovereign over the moment, but sovereign from eternity to eternity.

   What I mean is that our grief in suffering during this life of conflict in the world is fully taken into consideration by God, not as an afterthought he is struggling to deal with, but as a part of the whole plan of God to have a people of his very own.

   And I mean that the longing we have for the glory to be revealed is not something God has promised now that his Plan A got messed up, but something he “predestined” for “those whom he foreknew”.

   The point being that, as we face the sufferings of this present time, and we join with creation in feeling like we are in the pains of labor with the hope of eternal life coming to fruition, it isn’t only that God foreknew his children and we are to just keep that in mind as he helplessly leads us through trials and tribulations that have surprised him.

   No, it is that the foreknowing of his children led to “he also predestined” them. He gave them a destiny. He gave a destiny that cannot be shaken by all the present trials and tribulations that cause such unjust suffering in his foreknown ones.

   And, the destination is not only about a place, as wonderful as that will be, but about a personal attachment to God in which we are restored to the image and likeness of Jesus Christ so that Jesus will be our firstborn brother over his brotherhood of siblings.

   Can you see through this camera lens of meditating on God’s words how comforting it is to know that, in any suffering we experience in Christ, and all the unfulfilled longings we have for the glory that will be ours when Jesus returns, knowing our Father in heaven is working “all things together for good” in the present time, while leading us to the fulfillment of his purposes settled in eternity, is exactly the comfort and encouragement we need to keep setting our minds on the Spirit instead of the flesh?

   Even though I had imagined I would complete this section of the trail called “predestined” in one go, I am so thankful that God put his hand on my shoulder and made me turn around to look at a few things I had already passed so I could see the golden chain of salvation in a clearer way. That will now be on my mind all day as I endure the smoke of this wildfire season, the threats against Jesus’ people, and the longing for when I will be like Jesus when I see him as he is.

 

© 2026 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 

On This Day: Foreknown as Fully as it Means

   And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:28-30)

   From a young age, conflict shaped how I listened to people tell me what they believed. I wanted to know why they were sure what they believed was better than what another person thought was true. After all, relationships would be affected, and the truth mattered more than picking sides.

   Beginning at the age of 7, I had already settled that believing in God had more going for it than not believing in him. Sixty years later, this same way of thinking has convinced me more than ever that the Bible is the word of God, that the Holy Spirit helps us understand it, and, when we quit imposing our own preferences onto the sacred words, we discover that God delights to share his thoughts with those “who tremble at my word”.

   So it is that my travels through Romans 8 have helped me appreciate more than ever the contrast between life in the Spirit vs life in the flesh, and that the Spirit’s work in God’s children is what enables us to truly understand “the mind of Christ”.

   When this brought me to what it means that the Holy Spirit’s intercession for God’s people “according to the will of God” results in the “all things work together for good” for God’s beloved children, and how that connects with Paul’s “for” that segues into the “golden chain” of redemption, my chief interest was to understand God’s choice of words by what HE means by them.

   What I already shared in the box is the essence of what the words mean. But this is where hearts get exposed. When God shows us the words he breathed-out as Scripture, do we see a humble child within us seeking to “live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”, or do we see a self-willed toddler stamping its feet because it doesn’t like being told what to think on the matter?

   On one side, this is specifically addressing whether we will let God be God and say that he “knew” his people “beforehand”. Will we let ourselves rest there, no matter how mindboggling it sounds to us. Or do we need to hold off on our submission to God until we feel good about it? You know, like it’s still really all about us.

   On the other side, this addresses the growing trend to make the Bible mean what we read in, not what we read out. So many people say God says something when it isn’t even stated. It’s what they say the culture of the time meant, or what they say a word could mean, or what they impose from today onto back then. Or the classic “bait and switch” where they claim that if it says “this” it must mean “that”. And, with a mind trained to listen to why people believe what they claim, I can tell that the “that” is not the “this”!

   All that to say that the word “foreknew” was written to “the saints”, the born again, believers in Jesus Christ, disciples, the beloved children of God. It is a word breathed out by God into Scripture to feed the souls of his children. And receiving what God means by it affects everything.

   Anyone who would say that, if grace abounds where sin abounds shouldn’t we sin more to get more grace, needs a good visit with the one who foreknew us.

   Anyone who says that a born-again child of God can lose their born-againness needs to stop and meditate on what “foreknew” means from God’s perspective.

   Anyone who knows they have repented and trusted in Jesus for salvation but lives in constant fear that they aren’t really loved because they’re not very good needs to stop and listen to this breathed-out word of God: “foreknew”.

   And anyone like me who, as a young teenager was traumatized out of getting baptized because I wasn’t a “good enough” Christian, and was constantly told what a “gutless wonder” I was for believing in Jesus, and who has lost some of the most precious people in the world to me because of trauma bonding to people who don’t know how to love, we can bring all that brokenness, all the wounding, all the trauma, all the attachment-pain, and sit at the feet of Scripture where “foreknew” “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

   Yes, this was never intended to be a theological debate. In one word it tells us that God knew his children as beloved children before creation. That takes in the real history of what kind of lives we have lived and what kind of people we have been because God not only knew, but he knew US!

   And it takes in the real history of the world from creation, to now, to Jesus’ return, and the eternity beyond, with this unchanging reality that, before it all began, God “foreknew” his children. Period. Forever. Settled.

   Now, can we put aside all our arguments, all our traumas, all our insecurities about church fights over words, and talk to our Father in heaven about how we are opening our hearts and minds to receive this word as breathed out by God, and accept that we are known now and forever because we were known as God’s beloved children beforehand?

   Whatever we need to lay at the foot of the throne of grace, the help we will receive to receive God’s word is worth whatever inner turmoil we must face to find our rest in Jesus, and to let his word “dwell in you richly”.

   

© 2026 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: When Paul Sings Harmony to Paul

   For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18)

   But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. (II Corinthians 4:7-12)

   As I read the passage from Romans 8, I immediately heard Paul’s words from II Corinthians 4 describing the kinds of sufferings he experienced because of his preaching of the good news. I could picture one of those videos where one person records themselves singing the 4 parts of harmony and then syncs the videos so we can hear what they sound like together. And, since I have trouble carrying the melody, I find well-done harmonies amazing!

   Anyway, I’m not sure whether Paul felt he could carry a tune at all, but it is interesting what happens when we let what he wrote in one letter harmonize with what he wrote in other places.

   Now, how did meditating on this, praying about it, looking up words and meanings, and letting things flow out of my heart as I prayer-journaled about them, turn into God’s ministry to me today?

   First, it was the discovery that “sufferings” refers to our inner heartaches, griefs, and sorrows as a result of external trials and tribulations.

   In other words, this is not only saying that the external sufferings we go through are nothing. Rather, it is putting the focus on the internal sufferings we truly do experience because of those external tribulations. Even with the realness of the pain we have felt, it is still not even worth putting that in the same category as the glory that will be revealed at the coming of Christ and the “glorification” of the children of God.

   What that did for me was put Paul’s arm around my shoulder (metaphorically speaking) and assure me that the personal, inner, painful struggles that have come from things I have experienced because of my faith in Christ are real. He wasn’t minimizing them. In real life, they are huge, like me in relation to the planet. But in eternity, they are tiny, like this planet in relation to the Milky Way. In this life they are struggles for real; in the life to come they are quickly forgotten “like a dream when one awakes”.

   Second, harmonizing II Corinthians 4 to Romans 8:18 stirred my heart to really feel the wonders of what we have in Christ to such an extent that I began feeling what matched the revelation of God’s word. While doing things “by the Spirit” gives us an advantage over those who only live by GIGO[1] as an act of the will, there is a spiritual reality that where we set our minds affects how we feel. If we set our minds on the flesh, we reap the fruit of the flesh. If we set our minds on the Spirit, we reap the fruit of the Spirit.

   Between my own time in the word this morning, sharing what I did in the box version (above), and sharing with my family for their encouragement, it all was very personal for me. If Paul were here mentoring me, he would (in essence) be saying,

   "Monte, the 'sufferings' you feel within you, the afflictions, the sorrows, the griefs you carry for people's souls that they don't even care to think about for themselves, the attachment pain you experience because of what Satan has done to the best of relationships, as bad and painful as these are, they are not even worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed when our Savior returns and gathers us to be with him forever.

   “He will wipe away every tear from every broken relationship. He will wash away all the pain of loss and replace it with the treasures of your eternal home. And when he personally wipes the final tears from your face, and your heart, you will no longer think on such things in the wonders of the surpassing glory of seeing Jesus’ eyes with your own, and feeling his joy in you to the full, and your joy overflowing into my joy, and mine to yours, so that the glory of that foreverness where God ‘will dwell with us, and we will be his people, and God himself will be with us as our God’ will saturate our immortal beings with the satisfactions that, in the trials and tribulations of this life, we cannot even imagine!”

   Anyway, that’s a bit of what it was like to “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” this morning. And, even as I write that now, I recall that this is the very thing I asked God to do for me before I opened his word to see what he had for me today! Praise the Lord!

 

© 2026 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

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[1] GIGO = garbage in; garbage out

On This Day: The Defeat of Death and the Reign in Christ

   And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:16-17)

   Halfway through Romans 5 we come to Paul’s elaborate contrast between the “first Adam” Jesus created and Jesus the “second Adam”. These two men have had the most profound effect on the world of anyone else, and understanding what Jesus did to redeem what Adam did is indispensable to the justification that is by faith.

   The part of this that stood out the most to me this morning was the contrast between how “death reigned” through the first Adam, but believers “reign in life” through the second Adam.

   My first thought was one of fascination. It was like my mind expected “death reigned” to be matched by the rhyming thought of “life reigned”. But the contrast is that “death reigned” on Adam’s side, but on Jesus’ side it is “those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness” who “reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” Yes, very fascinating!

   The next thing I wanted to know is, which kind of life is Paul talking about. The Greek of the New Testament has three words for life. One is our physical/biological life; one is our soul-life, and one is eternal life, or the life that is in God. Obviously reigning in “life” would have different connotations depending which of the three words is used!

   Because Paul is using the word that speaks of the life that is in God, or eternal life (zoe), we get the distinct picture of how all believers in Jesus Christ are alive in Christ in a world where everyone else is dead (in relation to eternal/God life). In that sense, we can already see the amazing contrast. A world full of dead people; a kingdom full of alive people, and the alive people in Christ reign over the dead world through Jesus Christ.

   I think the biggest part of this for me is that we are living in a world that is constantly trying to demoralize God’s children with dire warnings. Evil worldlings are inventing ways to kill people. The dead people of the world are making laws to punish living people from talking about the good news of eternal life. Churches are being infiltrated with the weeds of false teachers, false prophets, false worship leaders, all adding enough poison to the mix that you can’t be sure people could actually be made alive through the “gospel” they preach.

   And then there’s us little guys. The everyday kind of church member. The God-lover with a small voice. One of the “few” who tremble at the word of God while the “many” trample it underfoot or tamper with its glorious message.

   And what God ministered to me is to let myself feel the wonder of being one of the people who received the good news of grace, who received the free gift of righteousness, and now “reign in life” through Jesus Christ our Lord.

   What I mean is that I don’t need a left-brain explanation as much as a right-brain attachment. I don’t need to stop and study everything the Bible says about believers ruling and reigning with Christ.

   What I need is to stop myself on the path of worry and despair about our time in the world, throw off the baggage of self-deprecating messages, and stand up, do my part to put the full armor of God on the one new man, and live with other believers as the “more than conquerors” we are in Jesus Christ our Lord.

   Today, simply knowing that all Jesus’ true disciples have been born again into eternal life so that we reign in THAT life over the cemetery of the world encourages me to act like I am a priest in Jesus’ kingdom where Jesus is opening the seven seals to fulfill God’s eternal will over this sin-ravaged planet.

   And, because Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords, we who are priests in his kingdom (meaning, all true believers) ought to be all the more energized to stand before God with the needs of this dead world on our hearts, and stand before the world with a message of good news of great joy from the one who sits on the throne, always watching for the sheep who will hear Jesus’ voice and follow him straight into this kingdom.  

 

© 2026 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 

On This Day: When the "Since" of Justification is Ours

   But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 4:23-5:1)

 

   I was surprised to discover that “since we have been justified” is ONE WORD in the Greek! All the grammar is in the form of the word. That means that the word “since” isn’t stated, but is necessitated by the grammar. The NASB translates it, “having been justified by faith”. The sense is clear, that justification is something that has happened and is now in effect.

   The Bible Sense Lexicon definition of justified is, “to be or become judicially vindicated as having complied with the requirements of the law (of God).” This is the wonder of the gift of salvation, that sinners are no longer viewed as sinners, but as “the righteousness of God”. The verse I shared in the box is from II Corinthians 5:21, and it makes clear what Jesus became for us (sin), and what we become in him (the righteousness of God).

   But what this brought up for me is my aged-view of life in the church where so many people have professed to have faith in Jesus Christ but have no experiential peace with God.

   This has been a mystery to me, how people can say they believe in Jesus but are constantly challenging whether God loves them, or their sins are forgiven, or they are accepted in the beloved, or so many other ways of saying, “We don’t believe we are justified by faith”!

   The sad thing in my mind is that anyone who genuinely has faith in Jesus Christ is in a state of peace with God because of this justification by faith, and yet so many do not let themselves rest in that peace. Some won’t even entertain the thought that this is their right in Jesus Christ our Lord. They are too busy trying to measure up in church activities to feel accepted and loved. Or trying to suppress childhood trauma or other painful life experiences as if having “a broken and contrite heart” somehow nullifies the work of Christ to give them peace with God!

   Or (the one that took me a very long time to admit), that some people in the church actually do not want to live publicly as a justified believer in Jesus Christ and so the “God doesn’t love me” stuff is just a diversion, blaming God for the fact that they actually love the world more than him. 

   I can’t describe all the possible scenarios of why someone would profess faith in Jesus Christ and yet not live in experiential peace with God through the objective reality of peace with God through Jesus’ redemptive work.

   However, each of us can assess whether we have embraced this reality Paul describes in genuine faith, or whether we are arguing against it, resisting it, avoiding it, or struggling with hopelessness about how we could ever feel it as true.    

   My testimony is that God has spent decades showing me that he will resolve whatever we need as we seek him in his word and prayer about everything. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17), so building up our faith in what God has accomplished through Jesus’ salvation work comes by meditating on what is written in the Scriptures and applying it to everything going on in us and around us.

   And yes, sitting down for half an hour to read from Romans 1:1 up to Romans 5:1 (and keep going) so we can see for ourselves how certain it is that sinners of every kind can be justified by grace through faith is certainly a good thing to do. It’s not that reading Romans 5:1 repeatedly will build up our faith, but that reading the context, and reading other Scriptures that speak of the same things, and telling God we believe him even where we don’t understand, will keep building up our faith as we take these things to heart.

   Do you know peace with God in the way Paul describes? Praise him that he alone could accomplish and apply such a wonder. Do you feel like a stranger to this teaching that you become “the righteousness of God” by faith because Jesus became sin for us? Praise God that it is true anyway, and tell God how much you are hungering and thirsting to know this righteousness. He promises to satisfy that hunger and thirst, and a big part of doing so is simply convincing us of what he has already done. 

 

© 2026 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: The Only Way to be Justifiably Righteous

   But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (Romans 3:21-25)

   With the proliferation of influencers trying to tell us what the Bible does and does not mean, and the ongoing controversies over every topic of the Bible, one thing is standing out very clearly: some people show what the Bible says and means and use Scripture to interpret Scripture, while others show what they believe the Bible means and then treat their opinions like that’s what the Bible says.

   Sometimes these contrasts are evident simply because a topic is popular and we can tell which sides use “the whole counsel of God”, and which sides add and remove without regard for what God breathed out in his own words.

   And no one seems to spend more time at center stage than Paul. And Romans? Well, let’s just say that the government’s hatred of Romans speaks for itself!

   All that to say that, as I journey through Romans 3 and consider what Paul teaches about justification by grace through faith, I have this very sad marveling feeling that people can “tamper” with God’s word so freely as they do. Yes, Paul’s teachings in Romans can feel like trying to hold a fist full of sand without anything falling out. No sooner do we think we got the last thought straight when the next one sends sand flying everywhere!

   Okay, long introduction, sorry (kinda), but I think that happens when we hang around Paul. Some thoughts are just not ready for a period, if you know what I mean. Anyway…

   What stands out is how clear God’s word is when we let it speak for itself. And when we pay attention to the relational dynamic of what stands out any given time we are in the word, we discover that the Holy Spirit is teaching us the very things God has in mind for us in our walk with him.

   Which brings us to this focus on “the righteousness of God”. It has helped me for a long time to consider that holiness relates to nature and righteousness to character. Holiness is God’s nature, who he is, while righteousness is about his character, how he expresses himself. The two cannot be separated, but keep that in mind as we go through this. God is holy. He expresses his holiness in righteousness. And apart from redemption in Jesus Christ, that would be a terrifying reality!

   However, the main point has to do with our experience of the righteousness of God. It shines out from God whether we see it or not. It “has been manifested apart from the law” in the work of Christ and the preaching of the gospel. The Law and the Prophets bore witness to the righteousness of God, including its distinction in the new covenant in Jesus’ blood. And it is experienced by sinners “through faith in Jesus Christ”.

   The addition of “for all who believe” is a huge theme in Romans. There is no distinction in how sinful we are, both Jews and Gentiles, and there is no distinction in how people are saved. This is why Paul already said,

   For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:16-17)

   Do you see that? Paul says that in the gospel “the righteousness of God is revealed”. In Romans 3 he is getting back to this, that it is about the righteousness of God, how it is revealed, how it is manifested, how it is experienced. And our starting point is that it must deal with the fact that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.

   We will get to this explanation shortly, and all through Romans, but this is the wonder we should consider, that Paul is talking about a gospel he is not ashamed of because it is all about how the holy God has acted in righteousness to make it real that his righteousness can become ours.

   To the Ephesians he would write, 

   For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9). 

   To the Corinthians he would write, 

   For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (II Corinthians 5:21).

   But this isn’t just theology, or doctrine, or correcting all those tamperers who mess with God’s words. It’s about whether you and I know that we have become the righteousness of God through faith in the good news that God has given us a Savior who is Christ the Lord.

   Because, with all God did to provide redemption in Jesus’ blood, and communicate all about the new covenant in his word, it would be awful if we missed the wonders of the gift because the haters and hecklers don’t have it.

   So, how’s your faith-attachment to Jesus doing?

 

© 2026 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

On This Day: The Obedience of Faith is Faith that Obeys

   ...and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, (Romans 1:4-5)

   I can still remember the delight I felt when “the obedience of faith” first stood out to me. It was both a sense of surprise (like why people would teach a lesser view of faith when God’s word is that clear!) and of joyful clarity. It was like my mind understood more than my brain could explain, and I love when that happens!

   Because the partnership between faith and obedience is a favorite target of the evil one, let me just emphasize that there is only one view even though churches teach three.

   The churches that teach a legalistic view of religion emphasize obedience without faith. The churches that teach a cheap grace view of churchianity emphasize faith without obedience. Both are equally poisonous!

   How can we tell if we are in a church, a family, or a friend group, that promotes one of the pendulum extremes rather than the plumbline of obedient faith? We simply watch what happens when we come across a Scripture that requires something of us our churches or groups don’t teach and ask them to include it.

   Legalistic churches have no interest in speaking truth in love or expressing faith through love. Their interest is the rules. And, just like the religious elite of Jesus’ day, they turn God’s word into an expanded list of rules that must be obeyed to fit in.

   Cheap grace churches, on the other hand, are all about faith without obedience and love without truth. Everything is a poisonous view of grace that tolerates sin as a no-big-deal issue because God is so amazingly (and unbiblically) gracious.

   Once we see that the apostles were teaching what Jesus himself commanded, a faith that obeys our Savior, we learn to “trust and obey”, as the old hymn has stated for decades. We do not accommodate legalism because it is a denial of the gospel. We do not accommodate cheap grace because it is a denial of the gospel.

   To be clear, the gospel has NEVER been about a faith that doesn’t obey. There is no such thing. It is impossible to trust the head of the church without doing what he says. It is impossible to have faith in “our Father in heaven” and not do what he says.

   Jesus said, that “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21), and, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46). The three parts of the Great Commission are to make disciples, baptize disciples, and teach disciples to “observe (obey) all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20).

   I have heard too many well-meaning young bucks out there trying so hard to clarify that we are saved by grace through faith “not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9) that they teach their own version of faith instead of “the obedience of faith” the apostles taught. Too many people who know what it feels like to be burdened by legalistic churches think the only alternative is the cheap grace Kool-Aid that saves from legalism but kills with kindness.

   My encouragement to anyone who reads this is “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith” (II Corinthians 13:5). And the “faith” Paul is talking about there is the same one he spoke of to introduce and conclude Romans, “the obedience of faith”.

   It would be far better to recognize today that we have been taught one of the pendulum extremes instead of the plumbline view of the apostles so we can repent (change our minds to line up with the truth) and begin talking with God about how to walk in this “obedience of faith” rather than a deficient teaching that requires ignoring certain scriptures.

   The apostle Paul reached the end of his race declaring “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:26-27), and then warned them about the false teachers who were just waiting for his departure.

   I have met legalistic power-brokers who were very nice church folk until you broke one of their rules. I have met very nice cheap grace folk until you asked them to talk with you about an obedient-faith Scripture and suddenly saw their angry narcissistic side.

   Everything that covers living by “the whole counsel of God” and living “by every word that comes from the mouth of God” can be summarized as “the obedience of faith”. If we will pursue that kind of faith, God will keep us in step with his Spirit in both knowing and doing the will of God in love.

  

© 2026 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

On This Day: The Great Kings of Little Old Bethlehem

   Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh. (Romans 1:1-3)

   I learned from John Piper that our delight in God is worship. It communicates to God and others that God is our supreme source of joy. This means that sometimes the main focus of my sharing is the delight I get from meditating on the words of God and feeling the weight of their glory minister to my soul.

   And so it is today that all the prophecies revolving around Bethlehem have magnified the creative genius of God in weaving promises, prophecies, and fulfillments into his word so the divine tapestry is guaranteed to delight the minds of the child-hearted.

   The reason I ended up traveling down the road to Bethlehem was because of Paul’s introductory statement in Romans that Jesus “was descended from David according to the flesh”. This connected to John’s introduction that told us how Jesus was “the Word” who was “with God” and who “was God” and who “became flesh and dwelt among us.” Jesus “come in the flesh” is a big deal, and it must mesh 100% with everything else said about him.

   Jesus’ connection to David is introduced to us when we first learn of David and his family. After king Saul had been rejected by God,

   The LORD said to Samuel, "How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons." (I Samuel 16:1)

Simply because the Messiah must be a descendant of David, it is so significant that Jesse was a “Bethlehemite”. That means, “Now David was the son of an Ephrathite of Bethlehem in Judah, named Jesse, who had eight sons” (I Samuel 17:12).

   As I did a big of research on this, I was reminded that two well-known figures from the Old Testament, Boaz and Ruth, give us David’s connection to Bethlehem. Boas was from Bethlehem (Ruth 2:4). Boas and Ruth were married in Bethlehem. (Ruth 4:13). Boaz and Ruth’s son, Obed, was the father of Jesse and the grandfather of David. (Ruth 4:17). So, the book of Ruth may not make any huge theological statements about God, but the events described therein lay the foundation for both David and Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, so fulfilling Scripture, and tightly weaving together the tapestry of salvation.

   Micah’s prophecy regarding Bethlehem was,

   But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. (Micah 5:2)

And when the religious elite told Herod that the Christ would be born "In Bethlehem of Judea,” it was,

   “for so it is written by the prophet: ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel’" (Matthew 2:4-6).

   When we add to this that it was a Roman census that brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem in time for Jesus’ birth to fulfill prophecy, and it was an evil Roman ruler who sent them fleeing to Egypt to fulfill the prophecy that “Out of Egypt I called my son” (Matthew 2:15), the children of God have so much reason to delight in the evidence of God’s word that Jesus “was descended from David according to the flesh” just as promised and prophesied.

   For anyone who has never trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the evidence for his life, death, and resurrection, all in fulfillment of prophecy, gives us the most eyes-wide-open faith in the whole wide world. In repentance and faith we can receive Christ and everything God has given us in his Son.

   For those of us who are already children of God by faith in Jesus Christ, the magnificently woven tapestry of salvation as pictured in the word of God gives us every reason to “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).

 

© 2026 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 

On This Day: Attaching to the Apostle Paul

   Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, (Romans 1:1)

   I need to “think outside the box” about this apostle Paul stuff (the box to the left, not the box of Scripture!). There were just too many things to think about in reference to Paul’s calling to “be an apostle” and I don’t want to miss any of them!

   On one side, it’s because I have this new urge to feel relational with Paul on this present journey through Romans.

   On the other side, there’s such a growing trend to criticize Paul, to claim authority to challenge his authority, and to change his God-breathed teachings, that rebuking error and falsehood is a never-ending part of “fight the good fight of the faith”, as Paul described it.

   I think the biggest thing in this, perhaps the most “foundational” thing, is that Paul was called to be “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God” (Ephesians 1:1). That’s what a call is in the Bible, a calling by God to fulfill some God-designed place in Jesus’ kingdom. Paul was called as “a servant of Christ Jesus” to be “an apostle” by the will of God.

   I am finding that parallels from Ephesians are happily joining me on this journey through Romans. Ephesians 2 contains an architectural diagram of the church Jesus said he would build. So many people seem to know the teaching that, 

   “by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9),

but not the teaching that follows describing what we have been saved by grace through faith INTO!

   In short, Paul is telling both Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus Christ that Jesus’ work was to “create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace” (Ephesians 2:15-16). It was never his design to make Jewish churches for Jewish believers and Gentile churches for Gentile believers. Neither did he ever intend that Gentiles would become Jewish or Jews would become Gentilish. This “one new man” is “in place of the two”.

   That’s why Paul, being as Jewish as they come, was appointed as “an apostle to the Gentiles” (Romans 11:13). Jesus was showing that “There is neither Jew nor Greek” in his church (Galatians 3:28) even though there are still Jews and Greeks among the believers. The “one new man” gives us a new identity that supersedes any earthly identities.

   The thing that most relates to us today about Paul and the other 11 apostles is that Jesus’ church is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets”. That means that what we have in the apostles’ letters to the churches has foundational authority. Whatever is built on that foundation is to express what is in the “rock” of that foundation.

   What this means is that anyone who tampers with what Paul has written in his letters as Scripture (Peter said so in II Peter 3:16) is one of those Paul warned about who “practice cunning or to tamper with God's word” (II Corinthians 4:2). For Paul to be in our lives as “a servant of Christ Jesus”, and writing to us as “called to be an apostle” by God’s will, means what Jesus told the apostles, 

   “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me” (John 13:20).

   Do you feel the “serious business” of reading Paul’s letter to the Romans? And not just reading it, but receiving it, meditating on it, believing it, applying it, and living in “the obedience of faith” it talks about. How we respond to Paul and his letters is how we are responding to Jesus and the Father.

   It is a huge comfort to me that there are no apostles today. Why? Because God’s “breathed-out” words are already in the Scriptures. No one today has apostolic authority to continue adding to the foundation that Jesus, the Cornerstone, already built through the 12 apostles. We already have “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). The apostles’ teaching through the whole book of Acts is referred to as “the word of God,”¹ and since it is God’s word, it has authority over Jesus’ whole church all through these end times.

   Considering how necessary Paul’s letters are to us understanding who we are in Christ, and who we are in Jesus’ church, it is no wonder that Satan is stirring up church folk to denigrate his writings. Popular speakers are claiming they have a new story about Paul because the one Jesus gave us isn’t good enough.

   Paul himself warned about this when he told the Ephesian elders, 

   “I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:29-30).

If he knew it would happen in the years immediately following his departure, how much more now that we have had a couple of millennia of battles over the authority of God’s word, the Bible.

   And the whole while we have an apostle Jesus himself chose to go to us Gentiles with the message of the gospel, the message of Jesus’ kingdom, and the message of how to be the church, the one body of Christ, so that we could live “by every word that comes from the mouth of God” today, just as Paul and the other apostles were leading the church to live by God’s word in the beginning.

   Folks, whatever you’re reading in the Bible is Scripture. All Scripture is breathed-out by God. Its authority is in God our Creator, Savior, and Lord. So, even if you are not presently meditating your way through one of Paul’s letters, let the apostolic authority of those letters remind you how to apply anything else you are hearing from God’s word so that your “obedience of faith” is all to the glory of God.

 

© 2026 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

Note 1: references in Acts to the preaching of the gospel as the word of God:

Summary: 

·         Acts 2:22 - “these words” (5:24)

·         Acts 2:40 – “with many other words”

·         Acts 2:41 - “So those who received his word” (Peter’s word)

·         Acts 4:4 - “the word” (6:4; 8:4; 10:44; 11:19; 14:25; 16:6; 17:11; 18:5)

·         Acts 4:29 - “your word”

·         Acts 4:31 - “the word of God” (6:2,7; 8:14; 11:1; 12:24; 13:5; 13:7; 13:46; 17:13; 18:11)

·         Acts 5:20 - “all the words of this Life”

·         Acts 8:25 - “the word of the Lord” (13:44,48,49; 15:35,36; 16:32; 19:10,20)

·         Acts 9:25 – “preaching the gospel” (15:7)

·         Acts 14:3 - “the word of his grace” (20:32)