Month: January 2016

Profiting From the Awesome Gift of the Holy Spirit

John 16:13
But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come.
Our Heavenly Father has given all of us Christians the Holy Spirit to teach us the Truth.  The Holy Spirit takes us beyond head knowledge of God into a personal relationship with Our Creator.  If we submit to the urgings of the Holy Spirit, we will not only learn about Our Savior, but we will learn to relish and savor all things that glorify Jesus Christ.

Additionally, we will find that the Holy Spirit goes before us as a guide.  He clears our path of obstacles as He opens our understanding.  He leads us on the path that we should follow.  He makes things plain and clear for us as never before.
In order to profit from this awesome gift of the Holy Spirit, we must train ourselves to listen for God’s voice in our lives.  Listening to God is an acquired gift.  It is a byproduct of discipline and obedience.  We must set aside time to tune into God’s voice.  The tuning comes from setting aside time for reading the Word, prayer and meditation on the Word, as well as, personal praise and worship.  When we are obedient in all these things, God will reveal Himself to us in all aspects of our lives.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us the Holy Spirit to guide us in all truth.  We rejoice in knowing that the Holy Spirit will speak to us if we learn to listen for His voice.  Help us, Lord, to overcome the voice of our flesh.  We pray, Father, that You open our ears so that we can hear You at all times.  We ask that Your Holy Spirit help us to overcome the distractions of the world so that Your voice is not drowned out.  We beseech You, Father God, that You would strengthen us so that we can be diligent in the small things that we need to do to prepare ourselves to hear Your voice.  We ask all these things in the name of the way, the truth and the life, Jesus Christ. 

Our Ever Present Savior

Acts 26:15
Then I asked, “Who are you, Lord?”
God has placed this question in all of our hearts.  When we come to a time in our lives when we are challenged to ask the question, He responds with an answer that convicts us of our ignorance and our weakness.  He shows us the way, the truth and the life that is in His Son, Jesus.  He shows us a void in our hearts that can only be filled by accepting His Son as Our Savior.
To get to this place and through this place of self-discovery and redemption, we must rely on the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is a divine gift.  The Holy Spirit is the presence of the Lord with us continuously.  The Holy Spirit never leaves us.  It is only us who choose to live in the flesh instead of living a renewed and enlightened life in the Spirit.
Let us make a commitment today to let go of our lives in the flesh.  Let us become humbled, broken and repentant.  Let us allow the Holy Spirit to show us who we really are.  May the new condition of our hearts lead us to and keep us in the presence of Our Lord.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us Your Son, Jesus.  We praise You for revealing to us that Our Lord is always present with us.  We bless the name of Jesus who brings us peace to fill our minds and His love to be our daily portion.  We pray, Father, that you will open our eyes to the way, the truth and the life that is in Your Son, Jesus.  We ask that the Holy Spirit reveal to us the depths of our ignorance and our iniquity.  We cry out, Lord, for the strength and the wisdom to give up our own convictions and delight in doing Your will in our lives.  We humbly plead that we will abandon our flesh and live our lives in Your presence.  We ask all these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our ever present Savior.

Are Our Efforts and Our Direction in Alignment?

Acts 9:4
He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?”

Saul thought he was doing everything right.  He was on fire for his spiritual cause.  Unfortunately for Saul, his cause was grounded in his own reasoning without a foundation of faith in Jesus and without the direction of the Holy Spirit.  Saul rightfully could claim an A for effort.  But he was being measured by Jesus Christ, not by his effort, but by the misdirection of his efforts.

Just like Saul, as Christians we have all faced the day when the Lord challenged us.  Just like Saul, Our Lord had grounds to accuse us.  Perhaps not of persecuting His church, but He certainly had grounds to rebuke us for the obstinacy and self-will of our sinful nature. 

Like Saul, we decided to denounce our old lives and accept our calling as disciples of Jesus Christ.  Unfortunately, unlike Saul, most of us have not taken our calling with the same fervency that Saul did.  While Saul surrendered his old life and became Paul, the apostle.  We have hung closer to our old nature than the new one that Jesus has for us.

Let us set aside our own plans.  Let us seek God’s plan for our lives.  Let us submit to God’s plans for our lives with the same fervor that Paul did. 

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for drawing us to Your Son.  We praise You for setting aside a perfect plan for our lives in Your kingdom here on earth and in heaven.  We rejoice in knowing that we will serve You for all eternity.  We pray, Lord, that we will not be directed by our own ambitions, but be led by Your Holy Spirit.  We claim Your promise that through Your Holy Spirit, Your strength will be perfected in our weakness.  We beseech You, Father, that You grant us a double portion of Paul’s fervor for proclaiming Your Good News to the world.  We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our Blessed Hope and Assurance.

Having Faith in Our Promised Provision

Matthew 6:30
If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you–you of little faith?
Gorgeous are the wild flowers that fill our fields in the spring and the summer.  They pop up everywhere without a hint of human intervention.  They are here with us for only a brief time before succumbing to the seasons.  Yet year after year, God raises them up and displays them spectacularly as just one tiny example of His loving providence.  How is it possible that we doubt the provision and protection of Our Father in heaven when He is so loyal to even the small plants with their limited life cycles?  Do we not have enough faith to see how much more He would provide for His children who He holds so dear as to grant them eternal life?
We have allowed the cares of the world to come in and diminish our faith in the promises of Almighty God.  We have followed the world’s lead and put our faith in our own independence instead of in the hands of Our Creator.  We have tried to satisfy ourselves in all the things of the world instead of the perfect provision of Our Loving Father in heaven.  In the process, we have complicated our lives to the point that we cannot be satisfied.  

Let us seek the simplicity and satisfaction of the promised provision that is ours to claim from the One who never breaks His promises.  Let us trust that His planned provision for us is more than sufficient and is far more satisfying than anything that the world has to offer.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing for our every need.  We rejoice in knowing that all the treasures of Your kingdom are ours through the eternal inheritance secured for us by Your Son, Jesus.  We pray, Father, that you will help us break our worldly appetites that are impossible to satisfy.  Strengthen us, O Lord, that we may bear up to our daily troubles, stand up against our temptations and allow none of these things to move us away from You.  Help us to seek You, Father God.  We pray all these things in the name of Jesus, our endless fount of provision.

Called by His Grace When It Was Pleasing to Him

Galatians 1:15
But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace,
When it pleased God, He called us from darkness, blindness and ignorance into the light and knowledge of the Gospel.  When it pleased God, He called us out of bondage to sin into the liberty of Christ.  When it pleased God, He called us from the fellowship of men into fellowship of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  When it pleased God, He set us apart to have our names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  It was all through His grace.  It was all in His timing. 
In our arrogance and our ignorance, we often expect God to show up exactly when we want Him to and in what manner we want Him to.  In doing so, we often miss Him when He shows up in the birds, in the trees and in the smiles and words of those around us.  The facets of Our Almighty God are beyond our understanding.  Most of His good work goes unseen and unappreciated by us.  It is the shallowness of our relationship that creates this phenomenon.  

When it pleased God, He called us from dependence on our own righteousness to trusting in His Son, Jesus Christ.  As we begin to focus entirely on Jesus and less on ourselves, our eyes are opened to see how everything God does is done in perfect timing when it is pleasing to Him.  
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the never ending flow of Your grace in our lives.  We rejoice in knowing that You have a perfect plan for our lives and that You will release it according to Your perfect timing.  We pray, Father, that you will help us to turn our focus away from ourselves and turn our attention to Your Son, Jesus.  We pray that the Holy Spirit will open our eyes so that the fullness of Your grace is revealed to us in every aspect of our lives.  We ask these things in the name of the Resurrection and the Life, Jesus Christ.

Full Surrender to the Transformation Process

2 Corinthians 3:18
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Is it not unimaginable that one day we will stand before Our Father in heaven in the image of His Son?  Is it not incomprehensible that one day we will be completely free of sin, holy and pure just as Jesus is holy and pure?  Is it not the most wonderful thought to know that one day we will stand before Jesus in honor and glory and we will see His glorious body with our own eyes and we will be like Him?  Such are the immutable promises of Our Heavenly Father to us through His Son, Jesus.
We were all created in the image of Our Heavenly Father.  We were created to be with Him and be one with Him, one with Jesus Christ and one with the Holy Spirit.  Even though we are now burdened by our sins which God cannot accept in His presence, we can still look forward to the day that we will stand in glory in His presence because of the atoning work of His Son, Jesus.  As Christians, we can live confidently knowing that the stench of our sin is removed by the blood of Our Savior for all eternity.  We can rejoice in knowing that our transformation is ongoing now and will continue until it is completed when we stand before the Lord.
Yet, day to day, as we seek our transformation, we remain in a battle with our flesh that seeks to remain in sin.  We must rely on the strength promised to us by Our Savior.  We must claim His promise to perfect His strength in our weakness. We must seek the aid of His Holy Spirit to help us overcome the daily torments of our flesh and the regular attacks of the enemy.  We must submit and fully surrender to the ongoing, sanctifying process of being transformed into the image of Our Lord.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for creating us in Your image.  We come before You to confess our sins to You, to repent of our sins and to thank You for providing Your Son, Jesus, to redeem us from our sins.  We pray, Lord, that You will provide the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that we may turn away from everything that displeases you and turn toward everything that is pleasing to you.  May we stand before You one day in the image of Your Son and hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  We ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. 

Rekindling Our Love for Jesus Christ

Jeremiah 2:2
Go and shout this message to Jerusalem. This is what the LORD says: “I remember how eager you were to please me as a young bride long ago, how you loved me and followed me even through the barren wilderness.
First, Our Heavenly Father extended His perfect love, forgiveness and pardoning grace to us through His Son, Jesus.  Then, as we accepted Our Savior, we were welcomed into an intimate relationship with the Father and the Son.  Their love was implanted in us.  We returned that love in a very ardent manner of worship.  We constantly built on that relationship by fervently following the ordinances given to us.  Even through difficulties and discouragements, we clung passionately to our new life in Christ.  Then something happened.  Somehow our love and our passion waned.  But He remembered how we first loved Him.  His love for us never changed. 

Any parent who has grown kids has fond memories of how their young children delighted in being in their presence.  They also remember how the zeal of the children being with them diminished as the children grew older and formed their network of friends.  What parent at some point doesn’t say, “how I miss those early years.”
So it is with Our Heavenly Father.  He remembers how hungry we were to know Him when we first received His Son as Our Savior.  He feels sorrow when He sees our knowledge of Him increasing while our zeal for Him is becoming stale.  He is sad when He sees us spending so much time in the world and so little time with Him.  He longs for us to return to the energy and enthusiasm that we showed Him when we were first born again in Christ.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for pouring out Your perfect love to us so that we are able to return that love to You.  We rejoice in knowing that Your throne is always open to us and You eagerly wait for us to come to be in Your presence.  We pray, Father, that you will fill us with the zeal of young children who run to their earthly parents to express their love and their joy in being in their presence.  May the fire of Your Holy Spirit rekindle our devotion and fervency for You.  We pray these things in the name of the One who loved us so much that He died for us, Jesus Christ. 

The New Spirit Within Us

Ezekiel 36:26
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
When we accept Jesus Christ as Our Lord and Savior, we are given a new heart.  We are given a heart that senses sin and danger.  We are given a penitent heart, keenly aware of the things that offend our Lord.  We are given a sanctified heart, submissive to the will of God.  We are born again into a renewed life.

We are renewed by the Spirit and the grace of God.  New light is given to us.  A new will filled with new purposes and resolutions is provided to us.  In our renewed spirit, we find new affections and desires for God and all things holy.  As new men and women in Christ, we find new delights and joys in the Lord every day.
Being born again is the unmistakeable work of the Holy Spirit. We are given a new vision of life – kingdom vs. carnal.  We are taught, directed and sanctified by the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  We are equipped to walk in the ways of Our Savior.  We are given ongoing access to the One who replaced our heart of stone with a heart of flesh. 

Let us refresh ourselves regularly in the Lord.  His presence in our lives is infinitely superior to anything that the world has to offer. 

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the new hearts that You have given us through the redeeming work of Your Son, Jesus.  We praise the name of Jesus for the renewed lives we are given through His sacrifice.  We pray, Lord, that You will keep our hearts soft.  We beseech you to protect us against the world that tries to harden our hearts.  We humbly ask that You give us the grace that we need that we may stay refreshed in Christ and be vessels of refreshing to those around us.  We pray these things in the name of Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.

When We Lose Sight of Our Treasure

Luke 15:8
Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it?
Where will the woman look first for her lost coin?  She will go back to the place where she thinks that she lost the coin.  If the coin is not there, she will go back to all the other familiar places that she can think of until she finds the coin.  Even if her search takes her into darkness, she will find the light she needs to guide her to the object of her longing.

Aren’t we all just as diligent as this woman whenever we lose something that is of value to us?  Do we not employ an exhaustive effort to find anything lost that we consider a personal treasure?  Of course, we do.  
So why do we delay even a second when we recognize that we have lost even a fraction of our zeal for Christ?  We should go back immediately to the place where we lost it.  Did we lose it because we cut back on our prayer time?  We need to return to our most robust prayer habits.  Did we lose it because we stopped studying the Word of God?  We should return to our diligent studies.  Did we lose it because of our habitual sin?  We need to repent and surrender to Christ.

Jesus Christ is our greatest treasure.  When the world works overtime to distract us from Our Treasure and our awareness of the presence of Our Treasure dims one iota, let us run quickly to return to the fullness of His Light.  If we practice to stay in the fullness of His light, we guard against losing even a portion of Our Treasure.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us the most awesome treasure known to mankind, Your Son, Jesus Christ.  In our weakness, Father, we find that we have drifted away from our zeal for Your Son.  We pray that You will help us return to the place where we lost Him.  We ask that You show us how to invigorate the good discipline in our lives that we once had.  We beseech You to give us the strength we need to walk away from the torments of our flesh.  Lord, bring us back to the fullness of the Light of Our World, Jesus Christ.  We pray these things in His precious, precious name.

Overpowered by His Presence

John 20:28
Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”
The unbelief of Thomas is well documented in the Bible.  He was a skeptic, a true doubter, looking for proof that the Lord was who He said He was.  

Thomas’ story is the perfect illustration of the struggle of every believer who is wavering in deciding his or her relationship with Jesus Christ.  What sets Thomas apart from those that never fully surrender their lives to Jesus was his sincerity in seeking the Lord.  While Thomas was weak in his convictions, he was sincere in seeking the truth.  Jesus was gracious in His response to Thomas just as He will be for all that are sincere in seeking Him.

Like Thomas, we are all called to come to the the place where we finally see and believe the total redemptive work of Jesus and fully submit to Him as Our Lord and Savior. Thomas, once seeing the wounds of Jesus, proclaimed both his complete belief and complete submission to his Master when he spoke the words, “My Lord and My God.”  All in one burst, Thomas asserts his interest in Jesus as his Lord, espouses his affection for Him and denotes his submission to Him.  This is exactly what Jesus Christ is looking for from each of us.

Even though we may have been slow and weak in our commitment to Christ, Our Lord waits on our sincere entreaty.  He will respond to each of us just as He responded to Thomas.  He will overpower us with His presence so that we may with the same exuberance as Thomas proclaim, “My Lord and my God.”

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the loving kindness, the mercy and the grace that You extend to us in our slowness and our weakness in surrendering everything to Your Son, Jesus.  We pray, Lord, that You will open our eyes so that we can see, fully believe in and seek the precious gift that is available to us in a relationship with Your Son.  Father, we ask that You take us to a place where we are overpowered by the presence of Jesus just like Thomas was.  May Your Holy Spirit guide us and strengthen us so that there will be nothing left in us that doubts the fullness of the new life in Christ that awaits us.  We ask all these things in the name of Our Lord and Our God, Jesus Christ.