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Running After God

Psalm 101:2
I will be careful to lead a blameless life– when will you come to me? I will conduct the affairs of my house with a blameless heart.
In Psalm 101, David is proclaiming his desire to lead a blameless life and to lead his family in a blameless lifestyle.  As Christians, we all try to do what David proclaimed.  We plan to be in church whenever the doors are open, we plan to study the Bible daily, we plan to pray more often and we plan to love our neighbors, co-workers, strangers and even our enemies.  We plan to have our families follow our good example.  Yet we fail just as David failed.  At best, we can usually claim limited success.
David’s story should give us great hope in our failure.  David sinned.  Yes he did.  But David was quick to confess his sins and to continue running after God.  A summary of David’s writings in the Psalms could be stated as, “I am running after you, you’ve become my soul’s delight! I am running after you, here with you I find my life!”  Because of David’s desire for God, God loved David greatly.
Because of His love for David, God stood by David and saw to it that His perfect will and plan for David’s life was fulfilled.  He will do the same for us if we run after Him.  He has a plan that allows us to overcome the frailty and sinfulness of our flesh.  “My grace is sufficient.  My strength is perfected in your weakness.”  This is God’s promise to us as written in 2 Corinthians 12.  When we accept Jesus as Our Savior, the promises of the Father are assured.
Nonetheless, our challenges will continue.  Moment by moment, we can choose to submit to the will of Jesus in our lives or we can choose to submit to the desires of our flesh.  The perfect choice is always there for us.  We simply have to receive the perfect gift of grace that has been promised to us.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the gift of grace that allows us to overcome the torments of our flesh.  We rejoice in knowing that the Holy Spirit remains with us always to provide the strength we need to overcome the attacks of the enemy.  As we make our choices in life, Father, we pray that our allegiance is always to You.  We pray that we do not waver a moment as we choose to serve You in accordance with Your will and purpose for our lives.  We ask all these things in the name of the Great Rock in a Weary Land, Jesus Christ.

There is a Way of Escape

Isaiah 35:8
And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it.
From a spiritual perspective, the earth is a total desert.  There is no place of holiness to be found.  This, of course, is bad news for all that live in the flesh.  But it gets worse and more hopeless, because there is no program offered by man that will change things.  In fact, it will only get worse as the desert converts to a total wasteland through the ongoing deterioration of the morals of mankind.  

There is a way of escape, however, for anyone who looks in the right place.  The way out is through Jesus Christ, Our Redeemer.  He is the way, the truth and the life.

As children of God, we are all called to stand up in His will against difficult circumstances, just as Jesus was called to die on the Cross as part of His Father’s purpose for His life.  Jesus was able to meet the final test because He filled His life with continuous abiding in His Father’s will.
Although our flesh will fight us, by the Word and Spirit of Christ, we that are spiritually blind can be enlightened.  We that are spiritually deaf to the calls of God can be made to hear them readily.  For those of us who are struggling in service, we can be made active and joyfully productive.  For those of us who find it difficult to speak of God or to God, we can have our lips opened to bring forth His praise.   We will find victory in all things if we make it a life practice to abide in the will of the Father in all matters.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing the way, the truth and the life that is in Jesus Christ.  We thank You for loving us first, so that we may love You and abide in Your will for our lives.  We pray that You enlighten us and strengthen us so that we may see and follow the way that You have set aside for us.  May Your grace be upon us so that we may be living founts of Your love and holiness to be shared with the world around us.  We ask all these things in the name of Our Refuge from the Storm, Jesus Christ.

Created and Perfected in His Image

Isaiah 35:7
The parched ground will become a pool, and springs of water will satisfy the thirsty land.  Marsh grass and reeds and rushes will flourish where desert jackals once lived.
To have a vision is to see the completed work before it is even started.  Visionaries are able to see the completed work and to devise a plan to reach the desired end.  Almighty God is the essence of what any visionary would hope to be.  He knows the beginning and the end of all things on this earth.  He has every single element of the time line of earth and the people on it planned out to the smallest degree – in far greater detail than we could ever even imagine.

Once we receive Jesus Christ as Our Savior, Our Heavenly Father refuses to see us in any other light except in the image of His Son.  He had a vision for each of our lives before we were even born.  Being the perfect visionary that He is, He never fails in completing His work.  He always has the perfect plans that come to perfect completion.  He is never in a rush to complete His work – only to perfect His work.  We are His work.  We are His vision.  We were created in His image.  There is no other outcome that He would allow other than the perfect outcome that He has planned for us through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for creating us with perfect plans for our lives.  We thank You for Your patience as You take us through life’s struggles in order to shape us according to Your perfect plans.  We thank You that Your hand never leaves us as we stray away from Your plans for our lives.  We pray, Father, that You will teach us to humbly accept the trials of our lives which are shaping us for our roles in Your kingdom.  We beseech You for the grace that we will need to have the patience and persistence required to allow us to be molded by your plans.  May we bring honor and glory to You, Father, by abandoning the folly of our own plans and choosing Your ways instead of our own.  We ask all these things in the name of the Refiner and Purifier, Jesus Christ.

The Desires of a New Man in Christ

Psalm 37:5
Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.
Jesus tells us to give Him our burdens and He will give us rest.  God promises to give us the desires of our hearts if we delight in Him.  The peace and joy of our Christian life will be determined by the constant application of our belief and faith in God’s Holy Word.
If we choose to involve God selectively in our lives, we can expect that the fulfillment of His promises will only be partial.  It is in the full submission to Jesus Christ’s lordship in our lives that we experience the fullness of God’s grace.  It is by putting God first in all things that we experience the joy that the world cannot provide.

To delight in God is as much a privilege as a duty.  He has not promised to gratify the appetites of our flesh, but the desires of our new spirit in Christ.  What are the desires of a new man in Christ?  They are to know, love and serve the Lord, to cast our burdens upon Him and to leave everything else to Him.  He will bring to pass all that He has in His will for us that we have committed to.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your loving kindness, Your mercy and Your grace in our lives.  We praise You with every breath because each breath is a gift from You.  We seek to turn over every decision in our lives to You.  We seek to leave every trial and concern at Your throne.  We pray that the Holy Spirit will instruct us in the ways of complete surrender to Our Savior, Jesus.  May the world around us be drawn to You by witnessing the joy in our lives as we place all of our trust in You.  We ask all these things in the name of Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord Our Provider, Jesus Christ. 

Until We Are Lacking in Nothing

James 1:4
And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
As parents, we stood by the side of our children as they learned to ride a bike.  We picked them up and consoled them each time they fell.  We brought attention to the errors of their ways and reminded them of the the right ways to ride.  We went out with them time and again, rejoicing in each moment of progress, until they had mastered the skill of riding.  The process required the patience of the parent and the child.  The reward certainly made the trials worth the effort.
Thank the Lord for His salvation promise to complete every good work that He starts in us.  He will let nothing in our lives escape His attention.  He will steadfastly stand by us even as we stumble over and over.  He will pick us up as many times as we fall, even though He knows that we will never get it completely right on this earth.  He will continue to show us the error in our ways and point out the path that He has set aside for us.  He will continue to pick us up until that glorious day when we stand before Him in the image of His Son and He welcomes us into heaven as good and faithful servants.

May we learn to be patient with the process of sanctification.  May we find joy in the constant grace that Our Father extends to us.  May we prepare ourselves for the perfection in glory that is coming.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, blessed be the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior.  Thank You for His steadfast work in our lives.  We pray that we will be quick to see the error in our ways and be even quicker to respond to Your correction.  May we completely surrender our lives to the perfect ways of Your Son.  As we rise and fall in our frailty, may we rejoice in knowing that Your presence is always with us and You will not leave us before Your perfecting work is done.  We ask all these things in the name of our Sure Foundation, Jesus Christ.

The Freedoms That We Celebrate

John 8:36
So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

We gather on Independence Day to celebrate with fervor and joy our freedom from Great Britain and our establishment as a sovereign nation.  We celebrate to recognize Our Creator who endowed us with the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  We celebrate with gratitude what America has become – a shining light on the hill – the most creative, productive and richest nation in the history of mankind.  And finally, we celebrate to let every other nation in the world (and every internal ideological group) know that we are not interested in and will not tolerate any other system of belief that they might wish to impose upon us.  
We can draw parallels in our own personal freedom in Christ.  When we accepted Jesus as Our Savior, we were overcome by joy as we declared our separation from a sin nature that condemned us.  With great fervor, we celebrated our rights as heirs to the kingdom of heaven.  We took our places as lamp stands on the hill, providing light to the world around us.  And finally, we proclaimed victory over Satan and every evil that he tries to impose upon us.

Even though the United States of America has been the standard for freedom around the world for over 200 years, as citizens of the United States, we are only partially free.  We only have the freedom extended to us in the land in which we live today.   But as those who are made free by Christ the Son of God, we are not free in part only, but are wholly free and have a right to all the privileges of the kingdom of God here on earth and in heaven.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for endowing us with the unalienable freedoms of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  We thank You for providing Your Son, Jesus, so that we may be endowed with eternal rights to the fullness of life in Your kingdom.  On this Independence Day, Father, we pray for our nation.  We ask, Father, for You to bring us leaders who will stand for our beliefs.  We pray that You bring us leaders who will uphold Our Constitution – the ingenious plan that was designed to make it impossible for any person or group to establish a despotic rule over our people or our nation.  Lord, we pray that the United States of America will remain for all future generations a beacon of liberty, an upholder of our God-given unalienable rights and a guardian of our independence.  May we personally proclaim freedom from life in the flesh as we live in the fullness of our lives in Christ.  We ask all these things in the name of the King of Kings, Jesus Christ, in whose kingdom we reside.

A Vague Sense of Our Sin is not Enough

Isaiah 6:5
And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
When we go into the presence of God, anything that is not pleasing to Him will come to mind.  We cannot get by with a general sense of sinfulness.  The Holy Spirit will not rest until we have been convicted of our particular sin.
When Isaiah came upon the vision of the Lord and saw His holiness, Isaiah immediately proclaimed that he was a man of unclean lips.  Isaiah knew that he would not be able to serve the Lord without cleansing himself from the sin that he had been shown.
God will work the same way with each of us.  Through His Holy Spirit, He will convict us of a single point of iniquity.  Then He will lead us to deeper revelation of the things in our lives that are displeasing to Him until we are properly prepared to serve Him.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the restlessness that the Holy Spirit brings upon us when we are walking in darkness.  We thank You for the absolute focus that You put on our sins, making it impossible for us to take on a vague sense of the sinfulness in our lives.  We pray the Holy Spirit will bring our every iniquity into the light so that we may repent and move forward in obedience to Your calling on our lives.  We ask all these things in the name of the Perfecter of Our Faith, Jesus Christ.

Imitating Jesus Christ

1 Corinthians 11:1
Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.
In Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, he exhorted them to pattern their lives after Jesus Christ.  Paul understood that obedience to a creed simply takes us to a proper and higher level of lifestyle.  Accepting Jesus Christ as Our Savior and patterning our lives after Him will move us toward a level of perfection, holiness and purity that only He could attain and we can begin to approach through Him.
In truth, it is not good enough to be good.  It is not good enough to do great works.  The only thing that we can do that is of any eternal value is to submit our lives to Jesus Christ as Our Savior, to die of self and to take on the spirit of the One who dwells within us.  Anything less than full submission to Our Lord and Master and anything less than becoming imitators of Jesus Christ as His disciples leaves us short of being true Christians.

What is the goal then?  The goal is to imitate Jesus Christ in our daily lives.  What is the challenge?  The challenge is that we are incapable of achieving our goal without the presence of Jesus Christ in our lives.  What is the answer then?  The answer is to surrender all that we are and all that we have and all that we will ever be and all that we will ever have to Our Lord and Savior.  Then we must turn to the Holy Spirit daily to guide us and strengthen us as the natural man within us refuses to surrender.  Finally, we should rejoice and praise God for He has provided the unchanging, unfailing way, the truth and the life that will allow us to fulfill our stated goal.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for allowing the Word to become flesh so that we could see the standard to which we are all called.  May we stand before You one day in the image of Your Son, washed clean by His blood and perfected by His presence within us.  Father God, we pray that the Holy Spirit will teach us how to become true disciples of Jesus as we spend our time on earth preparing for the glorious day of coming into Your presence.  We ask all these things in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Most High God.  

Until You Have Paid the Last Penny

Matthew 5:25-26
Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison.  Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
In Matthew, we are taught that when we have a debt that needs to be paid that we should try to reconcile with the one to whom we owe the debt.  We will always end up suffering the consequences of the unresolved debt if we do not try to come to terms with our accuser.  We should try to come to terms with the accuser prior to going before the judge.  This passage is generally regarded as a teaching about how to handle conflict concerning civil matters. 
The same perspective can very easily be applied to sin in our lives.  It was necessary for Jesus to redeem us from our sin debt for there is not a space in heaven where the slightest sin is allowed.  It is our responsibility to come to terms quickly with the sin in our lives.  We must confess and ask forgiveness for every act for which we deserve to be accused and judged before the Throne of God.
Once we received Jesus as Our Savior, we found it generally easy to turn away from obvious and grievous sin.  It is probable, however, that as we matured in Christ that we found out that there were areas of sin in our lives that had been hardened prior to our renewal in Christ.  It is even more likely that we found and continue to find areas in our lives that are not necessarily sinful, but are separating us from the perfection that we will reach in heaven.   Be certain that this revealing process will continue with us until we breath our last breath.  Thank God that He is so merciful for it is through these struggles the He reinforces our dependence on Our Savior and He draws us closer to Himself and to the time that we will spend eternity with Him.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for sending Your Son to spare us from our sin debt.  We thank You for Your mercy as You see us struggle against sin in our lives.  We thank You for Your grace as You provide Your Holy Spirit to aid us in departing from our errant ways.  May Your countenance shine upon as we turn away from our old lives and learn to live according to Your kingdom principles here on earth.  We ask all these things in the name of Our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

The Second Coming Of Jesus

Luke 21: 25-28
“And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Jesus told His disciples what to look for when the He was ready to return to set up His kingdom on earth.  One of the things that He spoke of was the signs in the moons and stars.  The following news release caught my attention.

There is a rare and special celestial occurrence that will be happening just after sunset on June 30, 2015.  On June 30th, 2015, the same conjunction that happened when Jesus was born, known as the “star of Bethlehem” will happen AGAIN in the night sky. The two planets, Venus and Jupiter will spend eight evenings within 2° of each other from June 27th through July 4th.  Astronomers refer to a close celestial pair-up like this as a conjunction.  This rare conjunction/pairing of Jupiter and Venus coming this close to each other so that they appear to be on top of one another has not happened like this since the birth of Jesus.

This is an extremely rare occurrence that should not be overlooked.  This event alone surely does not mean that the return of Jesus is imminent, but it certainly does come in line with the many other prophetic signs that are falling into place.

Here are six areas of activity that are considered to be signs of the coming of the end of the age of the church and the beginning of the reign of Jesus Christ on earth.

The Signs of Nature
Jesus spoke of the birth pangs in the earth that will increase in frequency and intensity as His return approaches.  A quick study of the historic records and a little attention to the evening news will reveal the increase in frequency and intensity of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions across the globe.  In fact, there has been an increasing intensity in all of our natural calamities.  Not to be overlooked is the return of diseases thought to be eradicated and the widespread evidence of growing famine across the globe.  Its as if God is shaking the earth to alert us to the coming of His Son.

The Signs of Society
Jesus said that when He returned the nature of society would be like the times of Noah.  We do not know a great deal about the times of Noah, but what we do know is that it was a time of such great immorality and violence that God sent a flood to cover the earth.  All it takes to confirm how far our society has fallen is to watch some of the old TV shows and then compare them to the immorality and violence passed off in every episode of today’s television programming.

The Spiritual Signs
Jesus taught of the falling away of the church and rise of false teachers in the end times.  It is sad to watch mainstream religious denominations abandon biblical principles and the salvation message in order to proclaim what tickles the ears of their audience.  All kinds of myths, heresies and gross apostasy are running rampant.  On top of this, we see the dramatic rise in Satanism and a fascination with the occult. 

On the other hand, there are positive spiritual signs.  The Gospel is being brought to all corners of the world in thousands of languages.  The number of new Christians in the Middle East, India and China is staggering.  Evidence of a global outpouring of the Spirit that Jesus foretold about the end of the church age is reaching across the world.

The Signs of Technology
In Daniel chapter 12, we are taught that the end times will be marked by an explosion in knowledge and transportation.  Both have increased exponentially this century.  According to several sources, human knowledge is currently doubling every 12 months, but that will accelerate to every 12 hours once the full potential of the internet is built out.  We entered this century on horse back.  Today you can buy yourself a ride on a spaceship. 

The Signs of World Politics
End time prophecy foretells the coming of a one world government and a one world currency.  It is easy to see that we are only a couple of world-wide calamities from that scenario unfolding.

The Signs of Israel
The final category for signs of the return of Jesus concerns Israel.  The signs concerning Israel are more important than all the rest.  While the other categories provide strong indications of the second coming of Jesus Christ, there is ample room for speculation.  When it comes to Israel there is no room for speculation.  What is prophesied has come to fruition in our lifetime.  Here are seven key fulfillments of prophesy:
  1. The regathering of the Jews in their land – began in the early 1900’s.
  2. The re-establishment of the state of Israel – May 14, 1948.
  3. The reclamation of the land – a wasteland has become land of milk and honey once again.
  4. The revival of the Hebrew language – abandoned through ages, Hebrew is now the official language of Israel.
  5. The resurgence of the military – Israel’s military force dominates the Middle East.  Israel is one of the top military forces in the world.
  6. The world comes together against Israel – with the U.S. moving away from Israel, Israel stands alone.
  7. The re-occupation of Jerusalem – June 7, 1967

The signs of nature, the signs of society, the spiritual signs, the signs of technology, the signs of world politics and the signs of Israel all point to the soon return of Jesus Christ.   God is shouting, “My Son is coming soon.”  Are you ready?

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your mercy.  We thank You for providing the way, the truth and the life that is Your Son, Jesus.  We thank You for preparing our hearts to receive the Blessed Hope that is Your Son.  We thank You for providing the signs of the return of Your Son to rule and reign on this earth.  We pray that Your Holy Spirit leads us into surrender to our coming King.  We ask all these things in the name of the Great King Over All the Earth, Jesus Christ.