VIDEO God is Always Listening

Mar 16, 2015

The Bible tells us to pray “all the time”, “without ceasing”, “continually.” It doesn’t matter who you are, what you are doing, where you are, when it is . . . God is always listening.

Pain With A Purpose

[Jesus said,] “I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.” —John 16:22

I asked several friends what their most difficult, painful experience in life had been. Their answers included war, divorce, surgery, and the loss of a loved one. My wife’s reply was, “The birth of our first child.” It was a long and difficult labor in a lonely army hospital. But looking back, she said she considers it joyful “because the pain had a big purpose.”

Just before Jesus went to the cross, He told His followers they were about to go through a time of great pain and sorrow. The Lord compared their coming experience to that of a woman during childbirth when her anguish turns to joy after her child is born (John 16:20-21). “Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you” (v.22).

Sorrow comes to us all along the road of life. But Jesus, “who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2), purchased forgiveness and freedom for all who open their hearts to Him. His painful sacrifice accomplished God’s eternal purpose of opening the way to friendship and fellowship with Him.

John 16 concludes Jesus’ most extended teaching session recorded in the gospel of John (Chs. 13–16). Jesus had begun the evening by washing the disciples’ feet in a remarkable act of servitude (13:1-17). After this He would go to Gethsemane and, ultimately, to Calvary. There He would make the ultimate sacrifice as He died on the cross for the sins of humanity.

The joy of our Savior outweighed His suffering, just as the joy He gives us overshadows all our pain.

Dear Father, Your precious Son Jesus chose suffering for me. Thank You for His sacrifice on my behalf. Thank You that even my pain can be a tool in Your hands to make me more like Your Son.

Suffering can be like a magnet that draws the Christian close to Christ.

By David C. McCasland

Preparing for the Valley

1 Peter 4:12-19

The primary purpose of a mountaintop experience is to prepare us for the valley. That’s why we can’t stay up there. When Peter, James, and John came down from the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9), they encountered many difficulties that eventually led to their witnessing Jesus on the cruel Roman cross.

As much as we might long to remain on the summit, God doesn’t keep us floating around in some ethereal counterfeit spiritual experience; eventually we must return to the dusty, empty plains of life. His intention is that we be strengthened by worship and His Word—and then go about our Monday routine, prepared to make an impression upon others. If Jesus walked among us today, He’d spend His time in alleyways, on street corners, and in places where few of us in our dignity would want to be caught.

The three disciples no doubt would have wanted to stay with the Lord on the mountain, but that’s not the purpose of a spiritual high. The point is that God may reveal Himself to us in a fresh way. Then He readies us through that inspiration to go back to the common places where we have to face tasks we might prefer to avoid. Life’s realities aren’t to be escaped. God wants believers to learn to live every day in reliance on His indwelling Spirit.

The Lord was using the time on the summit to prepare Peter, James, and John for their true purpose. When God lifts us up, He doesn’t intend for us to stay there. He gives exceptional spiritual experiences to strengthen us and make us more effective when we engage in everyday life.

The Old Rugged Cross

“God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” (Galatians 6:14)

As we ponder the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ, a fuller understanding should bring us to an ever-deeper reliance on and identification with Him. To assist us in examining the work of Christ on the cross, let us use the beloved hymn “The Old Rugged Cross.” Here we will find its words reflecting a deep and abiding love for Christ and His cross. The next four days we will, in turn, study each of its four verses, but today, note its chorus:

So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it some day for a crown.

Our text reminds us that there is no worth in any deed of our own, including even a full adherence to the law of Moses (Galatians 6:12-13). Only through the cross and the salvation by grace made possible by the cross do we have any standing before God. We must cherish the cross, and cling to it! Thus, we can say with Paul that this “world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world”—its sinful allurements and the recognition of men of no value.

“Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8). All our legitimate accomplishments: those true trophies or “[crowns] of rejoicing” (1 Thessalonians 2:19) done in His power and for His glory will be cast before His throne (Revelation 4:10) in recognition of His worth and kingship. His cross made it all possible. So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross. JDM

The First Lesson to Learn

Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. —Matthew 26:41

Almost anything associated with the ministry may be learned with an average amount of intelligent application. It is not hard to preach or manage church affairs or pay a social call; weddings and funerals may be conducted smoothly with a little help from Emily Post and the Minister’s Manual. Sermon making can be learned as easily as shoemaking—introduction, conclusion and all. And so with the whole work of the ministry as it is carried on in the average church today.

But prayer—that is another matter. There Mrs. Post is helpless and the Minister’s Manual can offer no assistance. There the lonely man of God must wrestle it out alone, sometimes in fastings and tears and weariness untold. There every man must be an original, for true prayer cannot be imitated nor can it be learned from someone else.

Lord, I don’t want just to learn more about the importance of prayer. I pray that Your Spirit might change me, that I might become more and more genuinely a man of prayer. Amen.

No Burial in Sight for the Faith of Our Fathers

To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. Hebrews 12:23

There is a notion abroad that Christianity is on its last legs, or possibly already dead and just too weak to lie down. In the minds of many who do not understand Christianity, the chief proof of her death is said to be her failure to provide leadership for the world just when she needs it most.

Let me say that those who would come forward to bury the faith of our fathers have reckoned without the host. Just as Jesus Christ was once buried away with the full expectation that He had been gotten rid of, so His church has been laid to rest times without number; and as He disconcerted His enemies by rising from the dead so the church has confounded hers by springing again to vigorous life after all the obsequies had been performed over her coffin and the crocodile tears had been shed at her grave!

Christianity is going the way her Founder and His apostles said it would go. Its development and direction were predicted almost two thousand years ago, and this itself is a miracle!

Had Christ been less than God and His apostles less than inspired they could not have foretold with such precision the state of the church so far removed from them in time and circumstance. The true church is the repository of the life of God among men, and if in one place the frail vessels fail, that life will break out somewhere else! Of this we may be sure.

The Presence of God

The righteous shall give thanks… the upright shall dwell in thy presence. PSALM 140:13

The spiritual giants of old were those who at some time became acutely conscious of the presence of God. They maintained that consciousness for the rest of their lives.

How otherwise can the saints and prophets be explained? How otherwise can we account for the amazing power for good they have exercised over countless generations?

Is it not that indeed they had become friends of God? Is it not that they walked in conscious communion with the real Presence and addressed their prayers to God with the artless conviction that they were truly addressing Someone actually there?

Let me say it again, for certainly it is no secret: We do God more honor in believing what He has said about Himself and coming boldly to His throne of grace than by hiding in a self-conscious humility!

Those unlikely men chosen by our Lord as His closest disciples might well have hesitated to claim friendship with Christ. But Jesus said to them, “You are my friends!”

Lord, my prayer this morning is that I will become “acutely conscious of the presence of You.”