Month: April 2013

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Secondhand Spirituality

Come near to God, and God will come near to you. JAMES 4:8

Some of us have tried to have a daily quiet time and have not been successful. Others of us have a hard time concentrating. And all of us are busy. So rather than spend time with God, listening for his voice, we’ll let others spend time with him and then benefit from their experience. Let them tell us what God is saying. After all, isn’t that why we pay preachers? …

If that is your approach, if your spiritual experiences are secondhand and not firsthand, I’d like to challenge you with this thought: Do you do that with others parts of your life? …

You don’t do that with vacations.… You don’t do that with romance.… You don’t let someone eat on your behalf, do you? [There are] certain things no one can do for you.

And one of those is spending time with God.

Just Like Jesus

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GOD SENT HIMSELF

“I will send my son whom I love.” LUKE 20:13

Don’t we love the word “with”? “Will you go with me?” we ask. “To the store, to the hospital, through my life?” God says he will. “I will be with you always,” Jesus said before he ascended to heaven, “even until the end of this age” (Matthew 28:20). Search for restrictions on the promise; you’ll find none. You won’t find “I’ll be with you if you behave … when you believe. I’ll be with you on Sundays in worship … at mass.” No, none of that. There’s no withholding tax on God’s “with” promise. He is with us.

God is with us.

Prophets weren’t enough. Apostles wouldn’t do. Angels won’t suffice. God sent more than miracles and messages. He sent himself; he sent his Son. “The Word became a human and lived among us” (John 1:14).

from CURE FOR THE COMMON LIFE

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The Christian’s Lifestyle: Our Control

“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.” (Ephesians 5:18)

Two factors need to be identified with this verse: First, the immediately preceding context confines the primary application to behavior, just as the immediately following context relates the “filled” behavior to the fellowship of believers. Secondly, the imagery stresses control of the behavior by the Holy Spirit (contrasting filled with drunken behavior).

The filling is not synonymous with the baptism of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:12-14), since all are so baptized but not all are filled. Nor is it equal with or subsequent to speaking in tongues, since some specifically identified as being filled with the Holy Spirit (John the Baptist, Elizabeth, Jesus) never spoke in tongues. Some individuals (Paul, Peter, Stephen) were filled on different occasions. Apparently, the filling produces a temporary effect like alcohol does. The effect of the filling of the Holy Spirit enhances or encourages a God-like behavior in contrast to the Satan-like behavior stimulated by alcohol.

Some passages equate power with this filling (Acts 1:8; Romans 15:13; 1 Thessalonians 1:5), and others equate it to wisdom (Colossians 1:9-11; Philippians 1:9; Colossians 3:15- 17). The immediate context, however, lists four evidences of the Holy Spirit’s control (Ephesians 5:19-21): songs of praise together; personal singing and private melody to God in our hearts; thanksgiving; and voluntary submission to one another in the Lord. Since the Holy Spirit distributes gifts to the saints (Ephesians 4:7-11) for the purpose of building the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:12-16), it stands to basic reason that the Holy Spirit’s control is designed to enhance and stimulate the ministry of believers to each other and the personal joy and awareness of the goodness of God. HMM III

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Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are

“Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are.” (James 5:17.)

THANK God for that! He got under a juniper tree, as you and I have often done; he complained and murmured, as we have often done; was unbelieving, as we have often been. But that was not the case when he really got into touch with God. Though “a man subject to like passions as we are,” “he prayed praying.” It is sublime in the original—not “earnestly,” but “he prayed in prayer.” He kept on praying. What is the lesson here? You must keep praying.

Come up on the top of Carmel, and see that remarkable parable of Faith and Sight. It was not the descent of the fire that now was necessary, but the descent of the flood; and the man that can command the fire can command the flood by the same means and methods. We are told that he bowed himself to the ground with his face between his knees; that is, shutting out all sights and sounds. He was putting himself in a position where, beneath his mantle, he could neither see nor hear what was going forward.

He said to his servant, “Go and take an observation.” He went and came back, and said—how sublimely brief! one word—”Nothing!”

What do we do under such circumstances?

We say, “It is just as I expected!” and we give up praying. Did Elijah? No, he said, “Go again.” His servant again came back and said, “Nothing!” “Go again.” “Nothing!”

By and by he came back, and said, “There is a little cloud like a man’s hand.” A man’s hand had been raised in supplication, and presently down came the rain; and Ahab had not time to get back to the gate of Samaria with all his fast steeds. This is a parable of Faith and Sight—faith shutting itself up with God; sight taking observations and seeing nothing; faith going right on, and “praying in prayer,” with utterly hopeless reports from sight.

Do you know how to pray that way, how to pray prevailingly? Let sight give as discouraging reports as it may, but pay no attention to these. The living God is still in the heavens and even to delay is part of His goodness.—Arthur T. Pierson. Each of three boys gave a definition of faith which is an illustration of the tenacity of faith. The first boy said, “It is taking hold of Christ”; the second, “Keeping hold”; and the third, “Not letting go.”

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The Lord taketh pleasure in His people

“The Lord taketh pleasure in His people.” Psalm 149:4

How comprehensive is the love of Jesus! There is no part of His people’s interests which He does not consider, and there is nothing which concerns their welfare which is not important to Him. Not merely does He think of you, believer, as an immortal being, but as a mortal being too.

Do not deny it or doubt it: “The very hairs of your head are all numbered.” “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in His way” It were a sad thing for us if this mantle of love did not cover all our concerns, for what mischief might be wrought to us in that part of our business which did not come under our gracious Lord’s inspection!

Believer, rest assured that the heart of Jesus cares about your meaner affairs. The breadth of His tender love is such that you may resort to Him in all matters; for in all your afflictions He is afflicted, and like as a father pitieth his children, so doth He pity you. The meanest interests of all His saints are all borne upon the broad bosom of the Son of God. Oh, what a heart is His, that doth not merely comprehend the persons of His people, but comprehends also the diverse and innumerable concerns of all those persons! Dost thou think, O Christian, that thou canst measure the love of Christ?

Think of what His love has brought thee—justification, adoption, sanctification, eternal life! The riches of His goodness are unsearchable; thou shalt never be able to tell them out or even conceive them. Oh, the breadth of the love of Christ! Shall such a love as this have half our hearts? Shall it have a cold love in return? Shall Jesus’ marvellous lovingkindness and tender care meet with but faint response and tardy acknowledgment? O my soul, tune thy harp to a glad song of thanksgiving! Go to thy rest rejoicing, for thou art no desolate wanderer, but a beloved child, watched over, cared for, supplied, and defended by thy Lord.

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My hope in the day of evil

“Thou art my hope in the day of evil.” Jeremiah 17:17

The path of the Christian is not always bright with sunshine; he has his seasons of darkness and of storm. True, it is written in God’s Word, “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace;” and it is a great truth, that religion is calculated to give a man happiness below as well as bliss above; but experience tells us that if the course of the just be “As the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day,” yet sometimes that light is eclipsed. At certain periods clouds cover the believer’s sun, and he walks in darkness and sees no light.

There are many who have rejoiced in the presence of God for a season; they have basked in the sunshine in the earlier stages of their Christian career; they have walked along the “green pastures” by the side of the “still waters,” but suddenly they find the glorious sky is clouded; instead of the Land of Goshen they have to tread the sandy desert; in the place of sweet waters, they find troubled streams, bitter to their taste, and they say, “Surely, if I were a child of God, this would not happen.” Oh! say not so, thou who art walking in darkness.

The best of God’s saints must drink the wormwood; the dearest of His children must bear the cross. No Christian has enjoyed perpetual prosperity; no believer can always keep his harp from the willows. Perhaps the Lord allotted you at first a smooth and unclouded path, because you were weak and timid. He tempered the wind to the shorn lamb, but now that you are stronger in the spiritual life, you must enter upon the riper and rougher experience of God’s full-grown children. We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith, to tear off the rotten bough of self-dependence, and to root us more firmly in Christ. The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope.

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VIDEO “Wings As Eagles” ❖ Phil Driscoll

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they will mount up with wings as eagles.

Amazing that our Powerful Mighty God has used this very song from the 1980’s (Phil Driscoll), to bring many to Christ. Victor D. Easley did a wonderful job in putting this together.

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WORDS OF HOPE

As a tree gives fruit, healing words give life. PROVERBS 15:4

Encourage those who are struggling. Don’t know what to say? Then open your Bible … To the grief stricken: “God has said, ‘I will never leave you; I will never abandon you’ ” (Hebrews 13:5).

To the guilt ridden: “Those who are in Christ Jesus are not judged guilty” (Romans 8:1).

To the jobless: “We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28).

To those who feel beyond God’s grace: “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Your Bible is a basket of blessings. Won’t you share one?


from A LOVE WORTH GIVING

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Voice of Grace

I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise. LUKE 23:43

Tell me, what has [the thief on the cross] done to warrant help? He has wasted his life. Who is he to beg for forgiveness? He publicly scoffed at Jesus. What right does he have to pray… , “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom”?

Do you really want to know? The same right you have to pray.…

You see, that is you and me on the cross. Naked, desolate, hopeless, and estranged. That is us. That is us asking.…

We don’t boast. We don’t produce our list. Any sacrifice appears silly when placed before God on a cross. …

We, like the thief, have one more prayer. And we, like the thief, pray.

And we, like the thief, hear the voice of grace.

He Still Moves Stones