We ask and continue to ask even when there is no answer. We seek and continue to seek even when we do not find. We knock and continue to knock even when the door remains shut. We pray, we listen, and we worship.
Who got the last word, oh, Death? Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now? It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three-sin, guilt, death-are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God! With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.
— 1 Corinthians 15:55-58 MSG)
Obedience & Surrender …
· God doesn’t speak to be heard, He speaks to be obeyed. He wants to speak specifics to you.
· Romans 8:16- The Spirit Himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children.
· John 8:47- The one who is from God hears Gods words.
· Do you anticipate that God will speak to you?
· The reason you’ll understand God, is because you know Him.
· Intimacy is the foundation for getting to know God.
· “God will speak to the hearts of those who prepare themselves to hear; and conversely, those who do not so prepare themselves will hear nothing even though the Word of God is falling upon their outer ears every Sunday.” A.W. Tozer
· Instead of asking, “God, what is your will for my life?” Ask, “God, where are you at work, and what is your will?” –Shift the focus from yourself.
· If you chose not to obey, His will won’t come to fruition.
· The God of the universe chose to limit Himself; in giving us a responsibility to chose Him.
· Obedience increases joy.
· The more you humble yourself, the more you see God’s love, and realize/understand how much He loves you.
· We want God to reveal His plans to us, but we won’t ever see it until we obey.
· Lesson: You never find God asking people to dream up what they want to do for Him (example: Noah). The pattern in Scripture is that we submit and wait, or we watch to see what God is doing, and then we join.
· “Not my will, but yours be done.”
· Do you believe that God is a giver, or do you believe that He is a taker?
· Do you trust Him?
· You need to know this because in the middle of uncertainty you need to be able to trust Him.
· Deciding to adjust our lives in obedience to God requires us to surrender. Proverbs 19:21 reveals that only God’s purposes will prevail. Any plan that we devise on our own will not reap any dividends. If we want to see God operating in our lives, we must adopt His plans and accept His invitation to be part of them.
· When God speaks, its THEN that He wants you to do something.
· He has perfect timing.
· He is gentle to us though, and will give us reminders.
· God knows your life from beginning to end. He knows all the necessary details to take you from where you are, to where He wants you to be, and to keep you in His perfect will.
· Jeremiah 7:23, “… but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you.”
· Committed obedience can be frightening unless we know that God is good and kind.
· His purposes are not for our comfort, or for His comfort. They are always kingdom based, with the intention of bringing Him glory and honor.
Posted March 16, 2012 at 1:17am
“How are you?”
“Good. I’m good. How are you?”
Freeze.
How many times a day do we have these exchanges? How many times a day do you lie, or perhaps just gloss over the truth?
But, you might be thinking, no one really wants to hear about financial struggles, or the fight I had with my mum, or about how I feel like crap today because my pants fit too tight, or because I’m just struggling and I don’t even know why…That would be too much information… Right?
But what about with God? At times I wonder if society’s drive-by question and answer routine has crept into our prayer lives and into our attitudes concerning God.
God desires to know what’s going on in your life. How you’re feeling, how you’re coping, where you’re stuggling, what you’re happy about, what you feel guilty about, what you’re thankful for. It’s never too much information for Him.
I know right now you’re probably thinking, Doesn’t God already know all that stuff anyway? Why do I have to tell Him?
Because it promotes intimacy. God doesn’t want your glossed-over, ready-for-the-public answers. He doesn’t desire a relationship with your “Brave Face”.
An earthly parent may know that something is bothering their child, they may even know what that particular problem is, but it doesn’t further the relationship or put the parent in a position to offer wisdom if all the child says is “I’m good” or “It’s whatever.”
In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus tells us, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
He wants you to come to Him with everything. He wants all of your burdens, whether you think they are logical, or important, or not. He’s waiting for you to unload your burdens upon Him so that THEN He can teach you about them.
Every emotion and feeling has a root and a cause. When we open ourselves up to the God who knows our hearts intimately and created emotions, we give Him room and permission to reveal His wisdom in each and every season we are in. In each and every emotional upheaval. In each and every bad day or good day.
Wrestle it, pray it, write it, sing it, scream it, think it out with Him. He longs for you to bring your burdens to Him so you can go through and sort it out together.
Let Him replace your burdens with His wisdom, knowledge and insight. His yoke is easy, His burden is light.
Posted March 7, 2012 at 11:43pm
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
— Philippians 4:4-7 NIV
Familiarity …
Familiarity.
The known. The comfortable. The safe.
It’s easy to read all those words with a lilt of judgmental disdain. After all, as Christ-followers we are not called to be comfortable.
The problem is, if most of us are honest with ourselves, we’re all pretty comfortable. I know I am. The truth is, I really like to think that I’m adventurous and daring; that I would be the first person to volunteer to go to a third-world country, give up my jacket, or volunteer at a homeless shelter day after day… But history has shown that I cling to my schedule like a familiar safety blanket.
It’s safe. It’s familiar. It’s mine.
Unfortunately (or rather fortunately), our lives are not in any way, shape, or form our own once we decide to follow Christ.
Unfortunately, for your schedule and your routine, this means in order to truly follow Christ you have to be willing to be inconvenienced.
God isn’t up in heaven trying to figure out how He can disrupt whatever it is we have going on. God simply wants us to have a close enough walk with Him that when He directs us down a different path, we can actually hear when we are supposed to turn, stop, stay, or run ahead.
There are countless examples in the Bible of God’s will being carried out through ordinary people, with their ordinary schedules, who simply allowed their ordinary lives to be inconvenienced and disrupted when God called.
Are you ready to allow yourself to be “inconvenienced” for the sake of Christ?
It’s not about us anymore.
Philippians 3:8-9- Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with Him.
Posted March 5, 2012 at 1:58am
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We do it all the time.
Comparing.
She has what I want. He looks how I want to look. They’re doing what I want to be doing. I need their job, their title, their position. Why can’t my life just look like theirs?
And though I have written before about the pitfalls of comparing, unfortunately our comparison game does not end with the seemingly superficial and material things in life. It flows right into our spiritual lives.
Before we even realize, we begin keeping tally on our spiritual score cards.
I went to church and they didn’t. They’re on leadership and I’m not. I read my Bible more than they do. Her spiritual gifts seem more prominent than mine. Everything he says seems so wise, why aren’t I that way? Is there something wrong with my relationship with God?
I’m all about surrounding ourselves with people who challenge us to be better. It’s fellowship. It’s accountability (iron sharpens iron…).However, I am NOT all about measuring our personal walks with God against another’s. It’s dangerous, it’s inaccurate, and it is not God’s intended result from fellowship.
When comparing, you will always discover an area where you seem to fall short. It isn’t encouraging and it isn’t helpful. Instead of encouraging, it DISCOURAGES.
We get but a brief glimpse into the lives of others. Don’t look at someone’s highlight reel and see only where you lack. Youare evaluating them through a very small window and judging yourself based on limited findings and a skewed perception.
We each have our own set of challenges, struggles, experiences, gifts, and strengths. God loves you just as much as He loves her. He is with you just as much as He is with him. He has given you specific gifts and placed a specific calling on your life just as He has on theirs.
But you’ll miss it if you’re too busy trying to emulate another person’s walk, instead of trying to illuminate Jesus who lives inside of YOU.
The more time you spend with HIM, the more you will be refined to His likeness…which is better than looking like THEM any day…
The only person we should be comparing ourselves to is Jesus. The only way we truly become who we were called to be is through His love.
Ephesians 2:10- For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care - then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death-and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.
— Philippians 2:1-8 MSG
Today the heart of God is an open wound of love. He aches over our distance and preoccupation. He mourns that we do not draw near to him. He grieves that we have forgotten him. He weeps over our obsession with muchness and manyness. He longs for our presence.
And he is inviting you- and me- to come home, to come home to where we belong, to come home to that for which we were created. His arms are stretched out wide to receive us. His heart is enlarged to take us in.
— Richard J. Foster, Prayer
Posted January 24, 2012 at 8:02pm
Be Brave and Stand.
“There is going to be a moment where it all seems to much.
It is.
There is going to be a moment where you want to throw your hands up and walk away.
You can.
There is going to be a moment where you want to spit in the face of love.
You might.
There is going to come a moment where you want to cower in the face of fear.
You may.
There is going to come a moment where it will seemingly crush every ounce of your spirit.
It will.
There is going to come a moment when you realize you have been completely fooled.
You were.
And let me tell you something.
No one can get up from being hit, until they have been hit.
Resolve doesn’t come from an easy life.
It comes from those moments above.
And I’m here to tell you, those moments I listed above…
As true as they will be in the moment…
They will pale to the moment you realize that you did not cower, run, or hide.
They will pale to the moment you realize that there is more inside of you than you ever dreamed.
They will pale to the moment, you stand.
So bring on those truths.
They will be true in their moment.
But they will not be true for a lifetime.”
Carlos Whittaker
