How do you face the trials and hardships that we are in the midst of, or that we see coming? How do we pray each day when we enter our secret place? When we pray with our family do our words encourage them to let God take control of that one day, and not to fret over God’s provision for tomorrow? Trust is our strength in Him. Having faith that He is sufficient for today is enough.
It is Resurrection Sunday, and JESUS LIVES! He made a statement to Martha, the sister of Lazarus, about the transience of death as it pertained to those who believed in Him, and on this day He made good His Word! Today sin and death were defeated, and all hope and faith became reality.
It is Holy Saturday, and on this day Jesus lay in His tomb, but for us it is a time of waiting, of anticipation. Are we one of those who is comfortable waiting, or does it cause us to toss and turn anxiously in the night? In our relationship with God, we often find ourselves waiting for Him but how do we go about it... do we settle into a soft chair, or pace the floor? Let’s ask the Lord to give us peace and patience as we wait, because there are untold blessings in our waiting.
Do we seek out the will of the Father and obey it as we go about living each and every day of our lives? Do we say that we do the things which Jesus taught, and yet neglect to ask, seek, and knock on the door of God in search of His Holy will? If this is true then we are in dire straits, and Jesus will know us not when we stand in judgement. Nothing is more important to Him than to know and obey His Father’s will.
Each day I begin my prayers with an expression of love for God, then a plea for His forgiveness of my sins, followed by my thanks for His many blessings, and next I ask for three things I would like to talk about today... wisdom, knowledge, and intelligence. Do you ask the Lord for these things? Not that you should receive them in a worldly way, but more-so in a spiritual sense... Do you desire supernatural enlightenment in understanding God’s will for you this day?
Have you been purified? Do you acknowledge in communion that the blood of Jesus Christ has not only cleansed you of sin, but that it also purified you in preparation for an eternal heavenly existence? How often do we take communion and casually remember Jesus? Even worse, how many times do we take communion without thinking of Him at all? This is the danger of repetition, but if our repeated communion is performed with the proper spiritual preparation, it strengthens our memory and makes an act of faith, like that of communion, a holy and powerful one that enables us to perform it and believe in it perfectly each time.
Is God’s Word at work in us? This is a question that challenges us because inevitably we ask ourselves, “what does that actually mean?” Does it mean that we ask, and the work is His to assign? Does it mean that His Word is an expression of His will, and that the work is our striving to complete it? Is His Word a promise to us, and the work how that promise comes alive? Or perhaps His Word is a lesson in life, and the work is how it is being taught to us. Each of these are examples of how God gives His Word and how it works within us. Do you believe His Word is His Bond? Or perhaps the first question we should ask ourselves is “do I believe that the Word and God are one and the same?”
We hear the story of Peter denying Jesus three times before the cock crowed, and we think to ourselves that this man was weak of character, but do we ever look at our own lives and count our own denials? Denying can be blatant like in the case of Peter, or it can be subtle. Do you speak out when the subject of faith comes up in a group, or do you deny Jesus with your silence? When you are at a social event and someone belittles Christ do you defend Him or walk away... thus denying who He is? How about the witness you didn’t give someone when the opportunity arose, and you were afraid? Denial comes in many forms… can we overcome it by humbling ourselves and becoming strong like Jesus?
What does the Sabbath mean to you, is it simply a day of rest, a day off from work, or is there much more to this day than sleeping a little longer than usual, and going to church for a couple of hours? The Sabbath is the only day of the week that is called holy. God blessed it, and set it apart from all the rest, but did you know that there were three Sabbaths celebrated during the first Holy Week of Passover?
Do you read the Bible each day, diligently adhere to the commandments, and perform acts of mercy as a matter of daily routine? Do you pray that God will forgive you of your sins as you prepare to walk out the door in the morning, and place a checkmark beside that on your list of righteous things to do? Well, all these things are good, even great, but God doesn’t want to be reduced to a checklist; he wants to be your closest friend, your most trusted confidant, the one you come to with everything that excites or upsets you in life... he wants a relationship that places Him at the true center of who you are... He wants to be your BFF (Best Friend Forever), and we can’t do this without constant prayer.
When we are serving God do we seek to further perfect what He has given us to do? If He tells us to build a neighborhood church do we go a step further and build a parsonage as well? We hear the voice of God, we hear what He would have us do and then presume we know what comes next. Have we been guilty of this? Did it seem innocent as we placed words in the mouth of the Lord?
What do we think of during communion? The Meaning Hidden Within Communion for each of UsWhat was happening on that day of the first communion in which Jesus offered the bread of His body and the cup of His blood to the disciples? On that day they were celebrating the Passover feast, eating the Seder meal, and it has a certain order and meaning to all of its parts. Every movement, every food, each cup of wine has meaning and timing. When did Jesus offer Himself to His disciples? What did it bring to their minds? What did He ask them to remember?
Do you win souls to Jesus Christ, and by doing so fill the nets of heaven for God Himself? How long did it take for you to follow Jesus once you heard His voice calling you? Did you drop whatever you were doing and follow Him, or did you look away and think about it for a while? When Jesus calls us, His presence can be so overpowering that we immediately abandon our old life and begin a new and righteous journey with Him at once, but at that moment... do we really understand the entirety of who He is?
How do you view holiness? Are you a humble and holy person? Are you humble simply because you say you are, or is it because others see this in you and say “this person is humble, and holy indeed”? If you think you have achieved a certain degree of humility and holiness before God do you use it to separate yourself from those who you believe are not? In Isaiah 65 we hear God speaking of such actions and He calls them rebellious.