Month: November 2014

We Are All Intercessors

1 Thessalonians 5:24
He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

New government authority, new boss, new co-worker, new neighbor, new acquaintance, new friend – not a single one is new by chance.  God has placed each of those that are around us to teach us new things about ourselves.  It seems impossible that such a plan could be put in place for each of us.  But our God is a God of the impossible.  He has no limits to His power and His authority.  He loves us so much that He goes to an extraordinary, nearly unimaginable, level to insure that we are surrounded by a host of intercessors.  These intercessors in our lives are placed there for one reason.  God in His mercy and His grace wants to insure that we are properly prepared to spend eternity with Him.

In the life of the believer, there is no such thing as chance.  Our sovereign God is always in total control of everything.  Do not miss the flip side of our relationships with our surrounding intercessors.  We are simultaneously the other half of all of these relationships in our lives – the new boss, new co-worker, new neighbor, new acquaintance, new friend – and again, not a single one is new by chance.  God has purposely placed us in each relationship to be a giver as well as a receiver of His intercessory work in our lives.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your providence in our lives.  We rejoice in knowing that You understand our weaknesses and provide intercessory support through those that You place around us.  We pray, Father, that Your Holy Spirit will alert us to the intercession that You have planned for us.  May we learn to grow through the circumstances that engulf us from time to time.  We pray that You will provide the wisdom that we need to be fruitful intercessors for others as we engage them in the journey that is life.









It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than That

Romans 8:28
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

It is likely that at one time or another that you have heard someone say, “I am not worried.  Everything always works out for the best.”  Of course, what you probably did not know when the person made the statement was whether that person had made the statement from a spiritual or worldly perspective.  Were they counting on continued good fortune because they trusted in the God that they loved to stand up to His promises or were they just feeling lucky? 

Through the grace of God, the followers of Jesus Christ do not have to wonder or worry about whether good things are coming their way.  We have been promised by Almighty God that if we love Him and follow the calling that He has placed on our lives that all things will work for together for good in our lives.   

Does this mean that we will always live in riches?  Does this mean that we will always live without illness?  Does this mean that we will live trouble free lives?  No it does not.  What it does mean is that we will be broken from sin, we will be drawn closer and closer to Our Savior and in the end we will be made fit for our eternal place in heaven.  Now it just doesn’t get any better than that.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for drawing us unto Yourself.  We exalt Your name for the perfect love and forgiveness that we receive through Your grace and Your mercy.  We thank You for the eternal blessings that are ours through the redemptive work of Your Son, Our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We pray that the world may know Your Son because we boldly proclaim the name of the One who brings us our eternal riches.

Transformation Through Trial

1 Peter 4:13
But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

If we are to be used by God, He will allow us to go through a multitude of experiences that are meant to transform us into instruments of His good work.  Some of the experiences will be easy, but some of the experiences will certainly be difficult.  All will be meticulously worked into the fabric of our lives with the final product in mind.

We need to understand that the sufferings that we go through are not those of ordinary men and women.  We are being prepared for greater things to come.  While we view our lives in the fabric of time, God views our lives in the fabric of eternity.  While all we see is the weaving of one single thread at a time, God sees the final finished product all woven together in accordance with His will and plan for our lives.

Because God is who He is, the final product will be much more beautiful and useful than anything that we could ever even imagine or hope for.  We will realize it when the whole is complete and we stand before the Father in glory.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for allowing us to experience life through many different trials.  We rejoice in knowing that when we are struggling in the tribulations that the world brings to our door that Your Holy Spirit is always there strengthening us and guiding us to the next experience that You have set aside for us.  Father, we pray for the patient perseverance to endure through all that You have prepared for us.  May we be transformed according to Your will and plan for our lives.

Dwelling in the Shadow of Almighty God

James 4:7
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Man without Jesus Christ is not capable of standing against the powers that seek to devour and destroy him.  In the darkness of the flesh, we are unable to see that we are being lead into lives that will never be totally satisfying.  We cannot see that our lives are much less than they could be, much less than they should be.

But when the light of Jesus Christ comes into our lives, we see how life can be, how life should be, how our lives are renewed in the spirit of Our Savior.  We come to recognize that the renewal of our minds and our spirits is only available to us through our submission to Our Savior.  We come to discover that the dominating power of the world, our flesh and Satan himself are defeated through the victory that Jesus Christ won for us on the Cross. 

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for allowing us to come to You to gain the armor that we need to defend ourselves from the enemy who comes to defeat us.  We thank You for the weapon of prayer, the sword of Your Holy Word and the shield of faith.  We rejoice in knowing that the victory is ours because Your Son, Jesus, claimed it for us forever when He died on the Cross for our sins.  We humbly come before You, Lord, to proclaim that we are laying aside our own strength so that we may dwell in the protection of Your shadow.

Bond-Slaves of Jesus Christ

Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

In the days of slavery, the slaves were keenly aware of who their slave owner was and what their slave owner expected of them.  When the slaves had a good master, they understood the value of the  provisions that they were given.  They would delight in pleasing their good master.

As Christians, we not only have a good master, we have a good and perfect master.  We have Our Lord, Jesus, as our Master.  We should be in constant praise and worship for the provisions that we receive.  We should delight in meeting every calling that Our Master places on our lives.  We should purposefully sign away our own rights in order to be bond-slaves of Jesus Christ.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for legally binding us to Your service for all eternity.  We rejoice in knowing that we will praise and worship You forever as our needs are met and satisfied beyond our imaginations.  We pray, Lord, for the wisdom and the strength to renounce any ownership that we seek to claim from this earth.  May we live in the comfort and triumph of Your grace.  May we live every day in surrender to Your Son, Jesus.

Living Daily For The Love of God

John 14:15
If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Most diets that we follow are built around a list of “do’s” and “don’t’s”.   Here are a few “don’t’s”. 
  • Don’t eat this type of food.
  • Don’t eat more than this much.
  • Don’t eat at this time of day.
Of course, there is always a corresponding list of “do’s” to guide us through our diets as well.

For many of us, sadly, the diet process will ultimately end in failure.  We may find short term results, but we will revert to our old ways over time.  The cold hard fact is that the flesh is not capable of satisfying itself.  Those of us who are successful at diets are those who dieted for a specific purpose beyond losing weight – be healthy for my family, live longer for my family, etc.

Similarly, obedience to God’s commandments for the sake of obedience is doomed for failure.  Obedience based on our love for the Lord and our desire to please Him is the only way to find victory against the desires of the flesh.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for loving us first, so that we have Your love to return to You in an expression of praise and worship. We thank You for loving us so much that You gave us Your Son to give us victory over our sins.  Through the strength of our victory in Christ, we ask forgiveness and repent of our sins.  We pray for the grace to walk in oneness with You in all that we do.  May You know that we love You by the way we live each day. 

Vessels of God’s Redemptive Work

1 Corinthians6:19
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

Once we accept Jesus Christ as Our Savior, the Holy Spirit comes and dwells within us.  The Lord begins using us as vessels that carry the Living Water.

Before the Living Water can flow, we must be free of those things in our lives which would hinder the flow.  We must get into fellowship with Jesus Himself.  Without His fellowship, we are of no use to God as vessels of salvation.

As we submit to the Lord, we can anticipate that there will be trials in our lives.  Jesus Himself told us that it would be so as we followed Him.  These trials that create brokenness in our lives will also create the cracks in the living vessel so that the Living Water can flow through unhindered.  If but one heart can be saved because of our brokenness, let us thank God for allowing our trials to occur.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for using us as Your vessels of Living Water.  We rejoice in knowing that through shed blood of Your Son, Jesus, and through the indwelling of Your Holy Spirit in our lives that You can use us, the sons of inequity, to be instruments of Your good work.  We pray for the aid of the Holy Spirit to build us up in Christ so that we can endure in faith all of our trials.  We ask, Father, that we may become free flowing vessels of Your redemptive work in those around us.