VIDEO The Spiritually Lazy Saint – How to Fight Laziness

The Spiritually Lazy Saint

Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together… —Hebrews 10:24-25

We are all capable of being spiritually lazy saints. We want to stay off the rough roads of life, and our primary objective is to secure a peaceful retreat from the world. The ideas put forth in these verses from Hebrews 10 are those of stirring up one another and of keeping ourselves together. Both of these require initiative— our willingness to take the first step toward Christ-realization, not the initiative toward self-realization. To live a distant, withdrawn, and secluded life is diametrically opposed to spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it.

The true test of our spirituality occurs when we come up against injustice, degradation, ingratitude, and turmoil, all of which have the tendency to make us spiritually lazy. While being tested, we want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of finding a quiet retreat. We use God only for the sake of getting peace and joy. We seek only our enjoyment of Jesus Christ, not a true realization of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things we are seeking are simply effects, and yet we try to make them causes.

“Yes, I think it is right,” Peter said, “…to stir you up by reminding you…” (2 Peter 1:13). It is a most disturbing thing to be hit squarely in the stomach by someone being used of God to stir us up— someone who is full of spiritual activity. Simple active work and spiritual activity are not the same thing. Active work can actually be the counterfeit of spiritual activity. The real danger in spiritual laziness is that we do not want to be stirred up— all we want to hear about is a spiritual retirement from the world. Yet Jesus Christ never encourages the idea of retirement— He says, “Go and tell My brethren…” (Matthew 28:10)

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

It is impossible to read too much, but always keep before you why you read. Remember that “the need to receive, recognize, and rely on the Holy Spirit” is before all else. Approved Unto God, 11 L

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How to Fight Laziness // Ask Pastor John

What is in a Name?

[Jesus] was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph.   Luke 3:23

In God’s timing, our son Kofi was born on a Friday, which is exactly what his name means—boy born on Friday. We named him after a Ghanaian friend of ours, a pastor whose only son died. He prays for our Kofi constantly. We’re deeply honored.

It’s easy to miss the significance in a name if you don’t know the story behind it. In Luke 3, we find a fascinating detail about a name in the ancestry of Joseph. The genealogy traces Joseph’s line backward all the way to Adam and even to God (v. 38). In verse 31 we read: “the son of Nathan, the son of David.” Nathan? That’s interesting. In 1 Chronicles 3:5 we learn that Nathan was born to Bathsheba.

Is it coincidence that David named Bathsheba’s child Nathan? Recall the backstory. Bathsheba was never supposed to be David’s wife. Another Nathan—the prophet—bravely confronted the king for abusing his authority to exploit Bathsheba and murder her husband (see 2 Samuel 12).

David accepted the prophet’s point-blank rebuke and repented of his horrific offenses. With the healing passage of time, he would name his son Nathan. How appropriate that this was Bathsheba’s son, and that he would be one of the ancestors of Joseph, Jesus’ earthly dad (Luke 3:23).

In the Bible, we keep finding God’s grace woven into everything—even into an obscure name in a seldom-read genealogy. God’s grace is everywhere.

By:  Tim Gustafson

What unlikely places have you seen God’s grace showing up in your life? How can focusing on God’s big story help you find the grace in your part of that story?

Dear God, help us to find Your grace everywhere we look.

Sunday Reflection: Our Longing for Eternity

Think of a time when you’ve deeply longed for something. Maybe you wished to live somewhere else or felt restless in your job or schoolwork. Or perhaps you were deeply anxious to grow your family, as so many in the Bible were. (See Gen. 11:30; Gen. 25:21.) How did you respond? Did you pray for change, escape through temporary satisfaction, or seek support from your friends and loved ones?

As you contemplate your deep yearnings, remember that one longing God has put on your heart transcends all earthly desires: the longing for eternity.  Keep in mind His words to the prophet Isaiah: “Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you” (Isa. 55:3). The Lord calls each of us to everlasting life in Him.

Think about it
• Looking ahead to that eternal promise of redemption, what can you do today—in addition to deepening your prayer life—in order to draw closer to God? Consider things you could start doing as well as things you could give up.

• What would it take to have all your longing and restlessness satisfied?

Witness of Creation

“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.” (Revelation 3:14)

This salutation in the last of the seven church epistles in Revelation contains the last of four occurrences of the distinctive phrase “the beginning of the creation.” The glorified Christ here assumes this as one of His divine names. Even God’s work of creation, long since completed (Genesis 2:1-3), had a beginning, and that beginning was Christ. “In the beginning was the Word…and…all things were made by him” (John 1:1-3).

The first two occurrences of this phrase also come from the lips of Christ. “From the beginning of the creation God made them male and female” (Mark 10:6). This assertion by the Creator, Jesus Christ, quoting Genesis 1:27, makes it unambiguously certain that Adam and Eve were created at the beginning of creation, not after the earth had already existed for 4.6 billion years. God also wrote this plainly on the tables of the law (Exodus 20:8-11). Those evangelicals who accept the geological ages evidently reject this clear statement of the creation’s Creator!

Then Christ also referred to the end-times in the context of the beginning-times. “In those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be” (Mark 13:19).

The phrase is also used in Peter’s very important prophecy concerning the scoffers of the end-times, who will argue (in willful ignorance) that “all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Peter 3:3-4), thereby denying that there ever was a real creation or real Creator and thus rejecting Christ Himself. But He is also the “true witness” and the “Amen,” and such denials will only be “unto their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16). HMM

Oh, That Cross!

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

—Matthew 11:28-29

 

 

Saint Theresa, that dear woman of God, said that the closer we are to God, the more conscious we are of how bad we are. Oh, the paradox, the mystery, the wonder of knowing that God, that transcendent One who is so high above all others that there is a gulf fixed that no one can cross, condescends to come and dwell among us. The God who is on the other side of that vast gap one day came and condensed Himself into the womb of the virgin, was born and walked among us. The baby that tramped around on the floor of Joseph’s carpenter shop, that got in the way and played with the shavings, was the great God so infinitely lifted up and so transcendent that the archangels gazed upon Him. There He was!…

A great gulf lies between me and the transcendent God, who is so high I cannot think of Him, so lofty that I cannot speak of Him, before whom I must fall down in trembling fear and adoration. I can’t climb up to Him; I can’t soar in any man-made vehicle to Him. I can’t pray my way up to Him. There is only one way: “Near, near thee, my son, is that old wayside cross.” And the cross bridges the gulf that separates God from man. That cross! AOGII048-049

Thank You, Father, for the miracle of the cross, the marvelous bridge that allows me to have fellowship with You. Amen.

 

A Habitation of the Spirit

That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

—Romans 8:4

 

The true Christian fears God with a trembling reverence and yet he is not afraid of God at all. He draws nigh to God with full assurance of faith and victory and yet at the same time is trembling with holy awe and fear.

To fear and yet draw near—this is the attitude of faith and love and yet the holy contradiction classifies him as a fanatic, too!

Today, as in all the centuries, true Christians are an enigma to the world, a thorn in the flesh of Adam, a puzzle to angels, the delight of God and a habitation of the Holy Spirit.

Our fellowship ought to take in all of the true children of God, regardless of who and where and what, if they are washed in the blood, born of the Spirit, walking with God the Father, begotten unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and rejoicing in the salvation to be revealed! ICH164-165

As we become occupied with Christ and abide in His fellowship, His glorious likeness is reproduced in us, and we stand before the world, not only living epistles but living likenesses, of our blessed Lord. HS432

 

Moments of Spiritual Breakthrough

Romans 5:5

A spiritual experience is something that is felt. “God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom He has given us” (Romans 5:5), exclaims Paul.

Even the cerebral Pascal had to exclaim with astonishment, “Feeling! Joy! Peace!” Anyone who insists on not mixing emotion with his religion diminishes greatly the possibility of personal experience of the divine. It is like trying to fall in love without becoming emotionally involved.

In his autobiography Dwight L. Moody recalls: “Right there on the street the power of God seemed to come upon me so wonderfully I had to ask God to stay His hand.”

Charles Finney, whose writings greatly influenced William and Catherine Booth, in his memoirs describes in vivid terms his experience: “The Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul. I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity, going through me. It seemed to come in waves of liquid love. I wept aloud with joy and love.”

Stanley Jones describes the infilling which transformed his ministry: “The divine waves could be felt from the inmost center of my being to my fingertips. My whole being was being fused into one, and through the whole there was a sense of sacredness and awe—and the most exquisite joy.”

But moments of spiritual encounter are not only felt, they are moments of insight. The mind perceives truth in a supernatural way, it is illumined in a way which defies description but which is real beyond doubt.

Illumination came to Martin Luther through a sentence of the Creed: “I saw the Scriptures in an entirely new light; and straightway I felt as if I were born anew. It was if I had found the door of paradise thrown wide open.”

A further aspect of that which is perceived in spiritual experience is the sense of affinity, harmony or even unity which emerges between the experiencer and the created world. The created world often seems suffused with a new glory as a result of a divine revelation.

The actual moments of revelation are usually brief. Having entered into a new dimension, the presence of the Lord is sensed in a new way, not perhaps with the intensity of the original moment of glory, but nevertheless quite differently from anything known prior to that experience.

John Larsson, Spiritual Breakthrough