VIDEO You Steady My Heart

Jan 24, 2012

“Steady My Heart” from Kari’s NEW album Where I Find You

If My People: Pray for Consecration

Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 20:7

If you set aside a certain amount of your paycheck to fund an emergency account—not to be used for anything else—you have consecrated that money. Are those dollars more crisp, more pristine, more valuable than the other dollars in your bank account? No. What makes them special is that they have been identified and set aside for a specific purpose.

That is essentially what it means to be holy, or to be consecrated before the Lord. It means an otherwise normal human being steps out of one circle and into another circle. He steps out of the circle of worldliness and into the circle of holiness. Does that person look any different on the outside? Probably not, just as Jesus didn’t (Isaiah 53:2). But on the inside, the person is very different. He has committed himself to Jesus Christ and His kingdom. When the pressures come to be conformed to this world, he does not yield because he has set himself aside as “holy to the Lord.”

If you are a Christian, you have set yourself apart for Christ. Pray today that, come what may in the future, you will remain consecrated unto Him.

The root of all steadfastness is in consecration to God. Alexander MacLaren

A Godly Heart

Psalms 37:1-8

The Lord promises to give us the desires of our hearts. But many people take this passage out of context, forgetting that their own mindset plays a vital part in bringing it to fruition. As my mother once said, “Where your mind goes, your feet go, so be careful what you think about.”

What is your responsibility when it comes to claiming promises from God?

Delight Yourself in the Lord (Ps. 37:4). Christians should rejoice in God and desire to walk in obedience. The Lord must have first place in your life before you can claim the promise in this verse.

Commit your way to the Lord (Ps. 37:5). Allow God to change any aspect of your ambition that is not His will. Remember that when He doesn’t answer a prayer as you wished, it is for a reason.

Trust in Him (Ps. 37:5). God is merciful, all-knowing, kind, and generous. You can trust Him with your hopes and dreams.

Rest in Him (Ps. 37:7). Resting in the Lord means trusting Him to answer prayers in His timing or transform your aspirations so they conform to His will.

Wait upon the Lord patiently (Ps. 37:7). Jesus waited three decades before beginning His three-year ministry on earth. According to His example, waiting is one of the key principles of Christian living.

Do your desires align with God’s purpose and plan for your life? He longs to give His followers abundant blessings and fullness of joy. So allow your dreams to be conformed to the Lord’s will, and follow His guidance faithfully. Only when you surrender to Him will you experience God’s best for your life.

The Pleasure of the Lord

“Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.” (Isaiah 53:10)

The very concept of God having pleasure in things that take place on Earth staggers the imagination. Most amazing of all is the revelation that it pleased Him to put His own Son through a terrible, bruising death, as the tremendous Messianic prophecy of our text reveals.

Nevertheless, this was the only possible way whereby “the pleasure of the LORD” could be accomplished in the redeemed lives of lost men and women, whom He had created for eternal fellowship with the triune God. “For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation” (Psalm 149:4).

Five times we read in the New Testament that God the Father spoke from heaven assuring us that He was “well pleased” with His “beloved Son” (Matthew 3:17; 17:5; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22; 2 Peter 1:17). “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him!” This is almost impossible to understand, but had it not been so, none of us ever could have been saved. The Lord Jesus Himself has confirmed to His own “little flock” that “it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

Thus, not only have we been created “for thy pleasure” (Revelation 4:11), but also we have been “predestinated . . . unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will” (Ephesians 1:5). This is far beyond our comprehension, so we merely rest in the great truth that “it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). We know that “the LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him” (Psalm 147:11), and we rejoice with thanksgiving! HMM

Little Need for God

And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. —Luke 12:19

It does not take great wisdom to perceive that we live in a generation of completely self confident men and women. We are doing so well and flourishing in so many ways that we feel little need for God….

It is my judgment that every one of us should be sure we have had that all-important encounter with God. It is an experience that leaves us delighted in our love for Him. Like Abraham, we become satisfied with the revelation that only God matters.

If you are living only to buy and sell and get gain, that is not enough. If you are living only to sleep and work, that is not enough. If you are living only to prosper and marry and raise a family, that is not enough.

If you live only to get old and die, and never find forgiveness and the daily sense of God’s presence in your life, you have missed God’s great purpose for you.

Oh, Lord, give me a sense not only of my own mortality, but of the importance of an eternal perspective. Give me a keen sense of forgiveness and of Your presence in my life today. Amen.

Problems and Pressures, Life

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (Romans 8:35)

Jesus did not promise any of us that consistent Christian living would be easy!

He did not promise a release from daily problems and pressures. He did not promise to take us to our heavenly home on a fluffy pink cloud!

We live our lives in the knowledge of the grace of God, but we dare not forget that our Lord came to die for us and to express the never-changing moral and redemptive will of God for His people.

Before we condemn the Jews of Bible history for their failures, we must be sure that we are not overlooking spiritual and moral shortcomings of our own!

As Christian believers, you and I must be careful about the reasons we give for not heeding God’s Word and God’s warning from heaven.

Have we taken His grace seriously enough that we have sought forgiveness for spiritual carelessness, indifference and apathy?

Canst thou answer this, believer?

Why go I mourning?”—Psalm 42:9.

Canst thou answer this, believer? Can’t thou find any reason why thou art so often mourning instead of rejoicing? Why yield to gloomy anticipations? Who told thee that the night would never end in day? Who told thee that the winter of thy discontent would proceed from frost to frost, from snow and ice, and hail, to deeper snow, and yet more heavy tempest of despair? Knowest thou not that day follows night, that flood comes after ebb, that spring and summer succeed to winter? Hope thou then! Hope thou ever! for God fails thee not.