Month: May 2023

The Conditional Promises of God

Matthew 6:33
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

We have been raised in a world where goals, objectives and top line results are everything. We feel measured by the things that we have and the things that we have accomplished and pressured by the things that we are trying to accomplish. We have been trained to be independent and self-reliant. This is absolutely upside down from the kingdom of God. Our all-sufficient Lord promises that He will meet our every need.

Although Our Lord promises us that He will provide all that we need and all the desires of our hearts, we must realize that these promises are conditional. We must first seek His kingdom and the righteousness that living in His kingdom requires. Then all of these things will be given to us. Food, drink, clothing or whatever other worldly sustenance that we need will be given to us freely and liberally. We are able to receive these gifts without having to think about how they will come, without having to concern ourselves about the timeliness of their arrival and, most importantly, without due consideration of our own merit or our own capability.

Let our great goals in life be set based on our relationship with Jesus Christ. Let all of our objectives be directed toward putting our relationship with God first. Let us set aside our need to worry over our results. Let us receive the truly abundant life that has been promised to us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the abundant life that awaits us when we seek You first. We bring You all the honor and glory for being Our Provider. We ask Your forgiveness for seeking the things of the world before You. Teach us, Lord, how to prioritize our lives according to the principles of Your kingdom. May the Holy Spirit enlighten us so that we may live in Christ and not in the world. We ask all these things in the name of Our Promised and Abundant Provision, Jesus Christ.

Taking on the Spirit of the One Dwelling Within Us

Luke 21:19
By your endurance you will gain your lives.

Jesus warned His apostles of the hard times to come. He foretold the trials and persecution that they would suffer after He left. He comforted them with His promise that if they persevered in the ways of God and in the truths that He had given them, they would possess peace and joy in their souls. He also told them that the world would not be able to take away their joy if they lived in the fullness of His presence.

So it is with us. We have our own trials to bear in our lives. The Lord teaches us to let nothing disturb or distress us. He instructs us not to submit to the moodiness that might come upon us due to our circumstances. We must take on the Spirit of the One who dwells within us. We must endure, knowing that we have already been given victory over our circumstances. We must allow Jesus to do His work in us, overcoming the moodiness that our flesh would like to lay on us, so that we can press on and do the work that He calls us to do in the world. May we learn to patiently bear all afflictions on our bodies, bear all attacks and indignities tossed our way by our critics and bear all difficulties dealt to us by the world.

Let us be determined to allow nothing to disturb us, distress us or steal our peace. Let us learn to live joyfully in the presence of Jesus Christ under all circumstances.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for granting us victory through Jesus over everything in the world that tries to take our joy away. We rejoice in knowing that we can have joy even when happiness eludes us. We pray that You will teach us how to seek the strength we need when our mood turns us toward our problems instead of our solution, Your Son, Jesus. May the world see our joy in all circumstances so that they may be drawn to the One who provides it. We ask all these things in the name of Our Stronghold, Jesus Christ.

Surrendering to the Yoke of Jesus

2 Corinthians 12:10
For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

When our family relationships are at the breaking point, when the bill collectors are knocking at our door or when serious afflictions are threatening us, we run to Jesus for a supernatural remedy to our maladies. When we are weak and near defeat, perhaps even near death, we run to Jesus for His grace to strengthen us and comfort us as we go through our trials.

He promises to be our strength in every one of our times of weakness or trial. He promises to lighten our burdens as we surrender to His yoke. It is during these times that we feel His presence so clearly. It is during these times of pain that we experience the fullness of His love. It becomes a blessing to have tribulation in our lives.

Unfortunately without trial, we tend to lean away from God. We tend to move out of His presence. We tend to let the joy of life overshadow the true and perfect joy that is available to us through an ongoing, intimate relationship with Our Savior.

Let us turn to Jesus for our strength in the good times and the bad times. Let us be mindful of the presence and power of Jesus Christ as we enjoy the blessings that we have been provided in our lives. Let us experience the peace and power of being yoked to Him in our times of trial. Let us allow Jesus to be our all-sufficient Lord.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your promise to perfect Your strength in our weakness. We thank You for the comfort of knowing that You are always there. We praise You for providing Your Son, Jesus, so that through Him and in Him we can experience the fullness of Your love. Help us, Father, to find contentment in all things as we seek to live in Your shadow and not under the influence of the world. We pray, Lord, that Your Holy Spirit will inspire us to develop an ongoing, intimate relationship with Your Son that is not affected by our circumstances. We ask all these things in the name of Our Rock and Our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

The Magnificence of Our Father in Heaven

Psalm 19:1
The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

It is undeniable. The heavens proclaim the glory of God. Every facet of God’s existence, power, wisdom and goodness are revealed in the starry canopy above us. Peering into the vast heavens gives us a sense of our infinite Lord, a sense of His control over all things and a sense of the magnitude of His power to hold it all together.

Our Creator provided the sun, the moon and the stars to provide light in our world. He provided His Son to be the Light of the World. Just as the Lord declares His glory through the display of His handiwork in the heavens, He also declares His glory through His Son. And the glory that He receives through His Son is multiplied over and over again through His children. He reveals His glorious Holy Spirit to the world through every single child that He has created.

The Lord uses powerful men of God to deliver His messages, but He does not use them alone. He chooses to use everyone of His children – of every age and every time – to declare His perfect love and forgiveness. He certainly does not need any of us to accomplish anything, but He loves to use all of us to reveal Himself to those who are in our everyday lives. We are the instruments of God’s perfect love.

Let us take time to consider how awesome our God is. Let us take time to marvel at all of His creation. Let us recognize we are intricate pieces in His divine handiwork. Let us insure that our lives reflect His glory.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You and praise You for the magnificent universe that You have created. We proclaim Your glory in all that we see before us. Father, we pray that You will use us as instruments of Your good work. May the world see the magnificence of who You are through our living testimony. May we be daily expressions of Your perfect love and forgiveness. We ask all these things in the name of Your Everlasting Light, Jesus Christ.

His Promises Are Graciously Bestowed and Powerfully Applied

2 Peter 1:4
Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

The great God of heaven and earth, the creator and ruler over all things, has made His divine nature available to us through His Son, Jesus. He confirms this endless gift of grace through His promises, His power and His faithfulness. Whether our faith be weak or strong right now, we can find hope in claiming what has already been granted to us.

Yes, the struggles can be overbearing, but we can be certain that God promises us that the tough times will end. Do we not know that the divine nature and power of Jesus Christ is sufficient to provide victory for us in all things? Once we have accepted Jesus as Our Savior, the victory is ours. All that we need has been provided to us free, without conditions and unchangeable. All of it is provided to serve the great ends and purposes of Almighty God. All of it is provided to proclaim His glory as He showers us with His everlasting good.

Through this divine intervention, we are able to escape the frailties of our own flesh and the corruption of the world. With the precious promises graciously bestowed and powerfully applied, we are able to live under the divine influence of Our Savior and avoid the ungodliness of our carnal nature.

Let us claim total victory over all the evil pleasures that our corrupt world offers us. Let us boldly claim what has been promised to us through the divine nature of Christ Jesus.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing Our Blessed Hope and Assurance, Jesus Christ. We praise You, worship You and exalt Your Name for all that You have set aside for us. We pray that You teach us how to submit to Our Lord, Our Master and Our King, Jesus so that we may be fully prepared to receive our eternal inheritance. May Your majesty, Your grace and Your power be manifested in us here on earth as it is in heaven. May it all be for Your glory and the gain of the kingdom as we reject the evil offerings of this corrupt world. We ask all these things in the name of Our Divine Mediator, Jesus Christ.

The Promises of Our Risen King

Luke 24:51
While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.

In the old testament, each person needed a priest to represent him or her before the throne of God. Through their high priest and the accompanying sacrifices, each person’s sins were atoned for. Without the intercession of the high priest, the individual person had no hope for salvation nor for their prayers to be answered.

Jesus changed it all when He ascended into heaven after His death on the Cross. He was welcomed by His Father, by all the glorified saints and holy angels. He was seated at the Father’s right hand. He remains there forever as Our Mediator in restitution for all of our sins.

He rules eternally from His seat next to the Father so that our fears may be silenced, our sorrows may be sweetened and our hopes may be kept up. He holds open the doors of heaven so that we can go directly to the throne of God with our praise, our worship, our prayers and our solicitations. More importantly, He holds a place for us because we are His redeemed lambs.

Let us go to the throne of grace. Let us call on the promises of Our Risen King. Let us set our affections on the high things above. Let us expect Our Savior to complete His good work in us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You that you allowed Your Son to ascend into heaven to sit at Your right side and stand in intercession for all of us that call Him Lord. We thank You that You allowed Your Son to return to earth after His resurrection to confirm to the world the victory over sin and death that we, who have received Him as Our Savior, partake in. We ask that we will receive the fullness of His blessings as Our High Priest. We pray that we may share those blessings with those people who You place around us. We ask all these things in the name of our Risen Savior and King, Jesus Christ.

Showered in His Everlasting Good

2 Peter 1:4
Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

The great God of heaven and earth, the creator and ruler over all things, has made His divine nature available to us through His Son, Jesus. He confirms this endless gift of grace through His promises, His power and His faithfulness. Whether our faith be weak or strong right now, we can find hope in claiming what has already been granted to us.

Yes, the struggles can be overbearing, but we can be certain that God promises us that the tough times will end. Do we not know that the divine nature and power of Jesus Christ is sufficient to provide victory for us in all things? Once we have accepted Jesus as Our Savior, the victory is ours. All that we need has been provided to us free, without conditions and unchangeable. All of it is provided to serve the great ends and purposes of Almighty God. All of it is provided to proclaim His glory as He showers us with His everlasting good.

Through this divine intervention, we are able to escape the frailties of our own flesh and the corruption of the world. With the precious promises graciously bestowed and powerfully applied, we are able to live under the divine influence of Our Savior and avoid the ungodliness of our carnal nature.

Let us claim total victory over all the evil pleasures that our corrupt world offers us. Let us boldly claim what has been promised to us through the divine nature of Christ Jesus.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing Our Blessed Hope and Assurance, Jesus Christ. We praise You, worship You and exalt Your Name for all that You have set aside for us. We pray that You teach us how to submit to Our Lord, Our Master and Our King, Jesus so that we may be fully prepared to receive our eternal inheritance. May Your majesty, Your grace and Your power be manifested in us here on earth as it is in heaven. May it all be for Your glory and the gain of the kingdom as we reject the evil offerings of this corrupt world. We ask all these things in the name of Our Divine Mediator, Jesus Christ.

Becoming Vessels of Light

2 Corinthians 4:6
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

One of the greatest beauties in all of nature is the full moon. Yet the moon does nothing by itself to generate light. It is an unproductive body of dirt on its own. It only reflects the light of the sun as it moves into its proper position in concert with the earth.

We share similarities with the moon. We are worthless collections of dirt without the light of the Son in our lives. There is absolutely nothing that we could do through our own efforts independent of God that would evoke a light of awareness in the hearts of others. Yet if we keep ourselves in proper position with the Son of God, the light of the Son will shine through us for the world to see.

Just as Almighty God created the moon to be an instrument to transfer light of the sun on the earth into the darkness of the evening, we were created to be instruments to transfer the light of the Son into the darkness of the hearts of those who do not know Jesus Christ as their Savior. May our light shine out in the darkness.

Let us become humble vessels of the Light of the World, Jesus Christ. Let us bring glory to God in much the same manner as the brilliance of a full moon on a clear evening.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing light at the beginning of creation so that we could see Your glory in the world that surrounds us. We thank You for providing the Light of the World, Your Son Jesus, so that we could see and accept the way to our eternal glory with You. We pray, Father God, that You will shield us from the enemy who tries to take the Light out of our lives. We ask, Lord, that You cleanse us and purify us so that we may be lampposts of Christ for all to see. We ask all these things in the name of the True Light, Jesus Christ.

There Is No One Like the Man at the Door

2 Samuel 7:22
Therefore you are great, O LORD God. For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.

What if a man appeared at your door, a man of immense power and wealth, a man who everyone around the world recognized and praised, how would you greet him? Would you welcome him in? What if he said, “I know you. I have been watching you. I have a plan for you. I want to make you the inheritor of all the riches of my estate.” How would you respond?

This man has knocked on all of our doors. His name is Jesus. He exceeds beyond our imagination any man that walks on this earth. There is no one like Him. He is the way, the truth and the life. There is no other way to the riches of our eternal inheritance except through Him.

He is the Lord, Our God. His name, His nature, His purposes, His promises and His works are all the essence of everything good. He is the one true God, the creator of all things. There is no one like Him. There is no one that even approaches His name. How could anyone not answer when He knocks?

Let us welcome this humble, loving King that knocks on the door to our hearts. Let us receive in faith all that He has prepared for us. Let us be beacons of light to the world around us as we host our Heavenly King in our hearts.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we praise You and exalt You. We thank You for providing Your Son as Our Redeemer. We humbly receive the riches that He has set aside for us through His sacrifice. May we fully submit to Jesus as Our Savior and Lord over our lives as He knocks on our doors and asks us to follow Him. May we become living testimony to His presence in our lives so that others may know Him when He knocks on their doors. We ask all these things in the name of the Lord over all the earth, Jesus Christ.

What We Stand for Makes a Difference

Acts 24:16
So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man.

Paul spoke these words when he was giving an account of himself to his followers. He was under attack from his enemies at the time. He wanted his followers to know that he was under attack because he was leading a life that conflicted with how his attackers wanted to live their lives. Paul may have been the first to warn us about living our lives according to political correctness and not according to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

How many of us take the comfortable silent path of “tolerance” in order to avoid being accused of being a fervent believer and devoted servant of Jesus Christ? Unfortunately, this is exactly where the world wants us. Much of what we see, hear and read that comes from the world is designed to desensitize us to evil and to move us away from the holy life style to which Jesus Christ calls us. When we give in to what the world wants to hear, we give in to Satan. We diminish our testimony that goes out to those who need to hear the truth.

It has become all too common to hear of the slaughter of Christians around the world. In most of these heinous cases, the martyrs are asked to deny Christ. Those who proclaim their loyalty to their Savior are subsequently beheaded or otherwise mercilessly killed. What is remarkable is how many continue to proclaim their faith in the face of the slaughter. Be certain that the faith of the first victim works to strengthen all the way to the last victim. One after another they lift and strengthen each other.

We will be held accountable for our testimony. What we stand for does make a difference.

Let us stand on the infallible Word of Almighty God. Let us strengthen one another through the bold expression of our faith.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing the Holy Spirit to keep us mindful of the truths that You have revealed to us through the life of Your Son, Jesus, and through the writings in Your Holy Word. We pray that You enlighten us so that we may avoid the tricks of the wicked designed to get us to accept the self-serving ways of the flesh. As we live by your Word, Lord, we ask that You strengthen us to stand up to the ridicule and hatred of the world. Teach us, Lord, to rely on the Holy Spirit to help us to become bold ambassadors for Our Savior. May those around us be strengthened by our faith. We ask all these things in the name of the way, the truth and the life, Jesus Christ.