Month: August 2016

The Passion of the Treasure Hunter

Matthew 13:44

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Every period in history has been marked by people who set out in expectation of finding hidden treasures.  All of these treasure hunters have had the same goal.  They sought to become suddenly rich.  They also shared something else.  Their passion to become rich drove them to give up all that they had in order to pursue their treasure.

Like these treasure hunters of times gone by, we would do well to find a passion for seeking the treasure that is the kingdom of heaven.  We should be willing to give up all that we have in order to pursue this treasure of unmeasurable worth.  Our efforts to attain this treasure must be the most important thing in our lives.  We cannot be undecided or unsure about what we are seeking.  We will only find the kingdom of heaven if we are desperate and passionate to receive it.

When we recognize Jesus Christ as the pearl of great price, all other things should become worthless to us.  As we recognize what Jesus Christ gave up for us, should we not be willing to give up everything for Him?  In truth, there is no valuable consideration that can be given up for Him.  It is our willingness to part with our sinful nature that provides all the honors, riches and profits of the kingdom of heaven.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the great treasure that You have set aside for us in heaven.  We exalt the name of Jesus Christ, the Pearl of Great Price, who has made it possible for us to live for all eternity in Your kingdom.  We pray that Your Holy Spirit will guide us to experience the fullness of Your kingdom here on earth.  May the blessings and the lessons that Your Holy Spirit brings to us for our joy and our enlightenment help us to find our passion for Jesus Christ.  May we live our lives entirely for the honor and glory of You, Father, Your Son and Your Holy Spirit.  We ask all these things in the name of the Treasure of all treasures, Jesus Christ. 
  

We Shall Not Be Consumed by Any Trouble or Peril

Isaiah 43:2
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

The trials of fire and water can be in the context of natural disasters or they can be in the context of figurative calamities which come upon us rapidly and are immediately overwhelming to us personally.  In either case, God promises that we shall not be consumed by any trouble or peril that threatens to distress us greatly.  In fact, God assures us that He plans to turn our trials to our advantage.  He intends to teach and instruct us through our afflictions as He delivers us out of them.

Suffering will come in our lives.  It is not a matter of if, it is only a matter of when.  We can be comforted in knowing that through all these trying times that God will be with us.  He will never leave us or forsake us.  He promises to not only guide us and strengthen us through these things that are so troublesome to our flesh, but to use each of these times to nurture us and draw us closer to Himself.

When all is said and done, we will find that it is during the times of suffering that we see the greatest transformation in our lives.  With our eyes focused on Our Savior and not our problems, we will see layers of self peeled away and the likeness of Christ rising up in us.  Through His grace, we will see the fires of chaos burn away our uneven edges and the overflowing waters carry away our dross.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the comfort of knowing that You are always with us.  We bless Your name for the strength that You provide for us to wade safely through the storm waters of life.  We pray that Your Holy Spirit will teach us how to focus on Our Savior Jesus Christ and not on the trials that are trying to overwhelm us.  We pray that You will provide refreshing when we are so weary in the battle.  We ask all these things in the name of Our Fortress and Our Protector, Jesus Christ.

Our Refuge From the Storm

1 Peter 4:12
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
Jesus makes it completely clear in His teaching that we should expect trials if we follow Him.  We should not be surprised by any painful trial that we may be going through.  Trials are part of the necessary process of growing our faith and our intimacy with Our Lord.
Our faith must be tested.  Without trials, we would soon believe that all of our good fortune was of our own making.  Through the trials, we build our confidence in Our Savior who faithfully delivers us from each and every challenging period in our lives.  His grace is always sufficient if we trust in Him.
Lifelong friendships and close personal relationships are usually the hallmarks of great sports teams.  The time that the players spend together in battle on the athletic playing fields relying on one another result in bonds that are unbreakable.  So it will be with us in our relationship with Jesus Christ.  When we learn to rely on Him to take us through our battles in life, He will become our anchor during the mightiest of storms.  He will become our inseparable partner in victory.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for being our rock and our foundation.  We thank You for Your faithfulness in delivering us from the fiery trials in our lives.  We pray that we will come to a place where we trust in Our Savior, Jesus Christ, in all things.   May our trust become so complete that we actually learn to rejoice in the face of our trials, knowing the victory is ours in all matters even unto death.  We ask all these things in the name of Our Refuge from the Storm, Jesus Christ.

The Perfect Peace That Only Jesus Provides

Isaiah 26:3
You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you.

Just before Jesus entered His final days on earth, He told His disciples He would be leaving them His peace after He was gone.  He instructed them that His peace was different from the world’s peace.  He assured them that His peace was sufficient to carry them through anything that the world brought against them.

Earlier Jesus had told the apostles, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come and make Our home with him.”  The presence of the Father and the Son (our peace) is thus based on our relationship with Jesus.  So it is easy to see that if we are not in good relationship with Our Savior, we will be left with the peace of the world and not His peace.
Why would we settle for anything less than the perfect peace that only Jesus can provide us?  Trusting in ourselves or in the world will lead us down a very bumpy path at best.  Let us set ourselves straight with Our Savior so that we may receive the peace in our lives that He promises – His peace.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for supernatural peace that we have through Your Son, Jesus.  We rejoice in knowing that we can have peace even when everything in the world is coming against us.  We bless the name of Jesus because His peace is sufficient to carry us through all of our trials.  We ask the Holy Spirit to keep us mindful to always seek the peace of Jesus first and not the peace of the world.  We pray for the grace to keep us in an intimate relationship with Our Savior and the wisdom and the strength to work on making that relationship closer each day.  We ask all these things in the name of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.

Finding a Passion for Living in the Will of God

Psalm 40:8
I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.
When David spoke of his desire to follow God’s will for his life, he was patterning himself after Jesus.  Jesus did nothing without giving full consideration to the will of the Father.  Both Jesus’ and David’s hearts were set on pleasing the Father.  Each complied cheerfully.
When we start a new exercise program because we have seen our friends have success with it, we are likely to struggle from the onset.  When we start a new exercise program because we have a passion for a happier, extended life to enjoy with our loved ones, we are more likely to get off of the sofa eagerly and consistently because of the higher purpose that drives our success.
When we seek to be faithful in following all of the commandments with the single purpose of avoiding sin, we are certain to struggle because our purpose is not high enough.  We must find our passion in our covenant with Jesus not in the law.  We must seek to know Jesus so intimately that we can enjoy His peace, His beauty, His mercy, His loving kindness and most of all His forgiveness.  When we have reached this place of passion for Jesus Christ, then we will delight in doing the will of The Father, just as Jesus delighted in doing His Father’s will.  We will count it as joy to give up the things of the world for the glory of Our Heavenly Father.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for loving us so much that You gave us Your Son to come down from heaven to fulfill the law.  We bless the name of Jesus for His perfect obedience in doing Your will.  We ask that the Holy Spirit will help us to set our hearts upon Your law with cheerful compliance.  Oh Lord, we pray that we may take up our crosses daily with the same delight and pleasure that Jesus did when He fulfilled Your will for His life.  We ask all these things in the name of the One who is faithful and true, Jesus Christ.

When "No" or "Not Now" Are the Perfect Answers

Matthew 7:9
Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?
Prayer is an appointed means for obtaining what we need.  We are commanded in the Holy Word to pray often and to be persistent in praying for our needs.  Almighty God promises to hear our prayers in order to fulfill our needs in accordance with His will for our lives.  If this were not so, then we would not be instructed to make praying a daily habit.
We may be confused when it seems that our prayers are not answered.  On the other hand, we should have many examples in our carnal lives in how needs are properly met.  As parents, one of our strongest desires is to feed our children when they are hungry.  It is also one of our greatest responsibilities.  Yet, if our children ask for ice cream when it is dinner time, our answer is usually “no” or “not now”.   While our commitment to them is to feed them, our larger commitment is to see them grow up and become healthy adults.
While the Lord promises to hear and answer all of our prayers of need, His promises are bound by the higher covenant of preparing us for our eternal life in heaven with Him.  So while He always hears our prayers, sometimes His answers will be “no” or “not now.”  Each case will be determined by Him based on where we are or where those that we are praying for are in the path of sanctification.  He will answer in perfect timing in accordance with His will for the lives of all involved.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for hearing and answering all of our prayers.  We thank You that You often protect us by not giving us what we ask for when it will take us off the path that You have set aside for our lives.  We pray for the strength to endure when the “nos” and the “not nows” seem so painful.  We ask, Lord, that You help us to keep seeking You so that our prayers will come into alignment with Your will for our lives.  We ask all these things in the name of El Shaddai, our mighty and all sufficient provider, Jesus Christ.

Shutting the Door on Our Burdens

Matthew 6:6
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Without question, one of Satan’s greatest skills is his ability to keep us distracted from building our relationship with God by keeping us focused on the business of life.  One of his greatest lies is planting the seed in our minds that God does not want to hear about everything in our lives.  Through the perfect work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we can turn both of Satan’s tactics against him.
The first thing that we should do each day in the privacy of the morning is to invite the Holy Spirit to join us throughout the day.  Then everything public in our busy lives will be marked by His presence.  Everything that comes our way as a challenge or a trial can be handed to Him immediately through brief and constant prayer.
Because through the Holy Spirit, we have already given Jesus the burdens of life throughout the day, we can shut the door on all the cares of the day.  Those cares are no longer there to distract us as we try to pray at night because they are in Jesus’ hands, not ours.  Instead of focusing on our cares, we are free to focus on Our God.  We can worship Him, we can praise Him and we can soak in His love.  We can grow in our relationship with Him according to His good and perfect plan for our lives.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing Your Holy Spirit to be the helper that we can call on to make our burdens light.  We rejoice in His presence with us throughout the day and night.  We pray for the wisdom and the grace to release our cares and concerns to Our Savior throughout the day.  With our burdens in Jesus mighty hands, we ask, Lord, that You teach us how to come to You without distraction in the evening.  May we learn to spend our private prayer time in the evening growing in our relationship with You and refreshing ourselves for the next day to be spent in the yoke of Our Savior.  We ask all these things in the name of the One who lightens our burdens, Jesus Christ.

So That We May Live in the Light

Genesis 1:3
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
As light was the first work in the creation of the earth, so has light been the first work in the creation of new men or women in Christ.  In both cases the light was brought forth to overcome the pre-existing chaotic darkness that existed. 
Jesus is the light, the truth and the way.  No darkness can exist in His presence.  When we accept Him as Our Savior, He comes to dwell within us and the process of removing all the darkness from our lives begins.  All of our sins are brought into the light by the Holy Spirit.  Repentance is required.  To do otherwise is to suggest that we are sufficient in our own ways.  It is not enough to be sorry for our sins.  We must recognize our unworthiness.  We must recognize our need to be cleansed by the Blood of the Lamb.  We must fully submit to Jesus so that we will have the strength to turn away from the darkness, so that we may live in the light.  This process will continue as long as we are in our corrupted bodies.  It will not be completed until we stand before Our Father in heaven at His Throne. 
From the beginning of time, darkness has been allowed to exist with light.  When the new earth is perfected for all eternity and comes into place with the new heaven, the darkness will be put aside forever.  When we take our place in God’s kingdom, the darkness in our lives will also be set aside forever.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for exposing all the darkness in our lives.  We pray that we will fully submit to the cleansing process.  May Your Light extend to the outer margins of our lives.  May no element of our lives be untouched.  We pray that the complete work of the Blood of the Lamb will prepare us to take our place in heaven for all eternity.  We ask all these things in the name of the Great Eternal Light, Jesus Christ.

Certain Peace in the Midst of Turmoil

John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
When Israel had been under the hand of the Midianites for seven years, the Lord came to Gideon.  He promised to bring Israel peace and victory over the Midianites.  He asked Gideon to lead the way.  Gideon questioned the strength of his people and he questioned his own ability to lead the people against the Midianites.  After the Lord provided Gideon with a sign confirming His promise, Gideon led the Israelites in battle.
After the Lord provided the victory, Gideon built an altar to celebrate the victory and to praise God for His fulfilled promise of victory and peace.  Gideon named the altar Jehovah Shalom to honor the one who brought the victory.  Jehovah Shalom means the Lord is peace.
Jehovah Shalom is the name that we can call on when our faith is weak because our world is out of sorts or all odds seem stacked against us.  What a magnificent gift we have in the promise of victory and peace offered by Our Savior.   Jesus promises not any peace, but His peace.  He promises us the same peace that allowed Him to face and overcome the tremendous unsettling in His spirit when He knew the certainty of His upcoming death and agony.   Every unsettling event in our lives can be calmed simply by calling on the name of Jehovah Shalom for He promises us His peace.
 
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You that we can be certain of peace in our lives even when turmoil surrounds us.  We rejoice in knowing that the Prince of Peace is with us always.  We pray, Father, that our faith will be strong in the face of all adversity.  May we be steadfast in all that You call us to do.  May we be certain to look to Your Son, Jesus, to be our rock and our foundation when we need to overcome our fear.  We ask all these things in the name of Jehovah Shalom, Jesus Christ.

Letting Good Things Keep Us From God Things

Luke 7:30
But the Pharisees and experts in religious law rejected God’s plan for them, for they had refused John’s baptism.
God’s plan for our lives calls for total surrender to Him.  The enemy has a different plan.  The Pharisees suffered under the hand of Satan as they rejected God’s plans in order to follow their own plans which they were deceived into believing were built upon many good things.

The enemy uses all the facets of our lives on earth as areas of distraction in order to keep us from full surrender to Our Lord.  Our work, recreation, hobbies and even family activities can all be big areas of distraction for us.  Ironically, the work that we do as a ministry to support the Body of Christ may also become a distraction that keeps us from digging deep into our relationship with Jesus Christ.  All of these activities can certainly be deemed good in their own right and are likely extremely productive.  That is why Satan is so successful in distracting us from God.  Satan entices us to replace God with good things.
Like the Pharisees, as we pursue all these good things in our lives,  we miss out on the things that God has set aside for us.  Oneness with Jesus Christ is the only way for us to successfully balance all that we deal with in life.  Jesus is the fulcrum.  He balances our load by providing the right foundation for all that we do.  When we stay in balance by following the urgings of the Holy Spirit, we can reside in a place of rest and satisfaction unlike anything that we can derive from our own plans.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for being our refuge.  We bless the name of Jesus for being our port in the storm, our deliverer from our sins, our shield against the enemy and our comforter for all of our cares, fears and sorrows.  We pray, Lord, that You will draw us into full surrender to Your Son, not only in the words of our lips, but in the actions that come from our hearts.  We seek to find the rest for our souls that is only available through Our Savior.  We ask all these things in the name of the One from whom all good things come, Jesus Christ.