How is your life in Christ? Before you answer this question I would like you to answer another... "How often do I pray?" If we think that our life with Christ is robust because of the things we do, and yet we have not humbled ourselves before Him in prayer; then our relationship with the Lord isn’t robust at all… it is starving.
In Nashville we had a total eclipse of the sun in the year 2017, and although it took a while to reach its totality, or the period of time in which the moon totally covers the sun, the totality itself lasted for two minutes or less. Quite often the period of time in which God shines His light of opportunity on us is short as well. If we miss the chance to see or to act upon the calling God presents us, we may never experience that particular opportunity again.
Have you experienced the peace of Jesus Christ? When your life is being torn apart by calamity do you find rest and peace in Him? In Jesus we find a peace like none other; I am not talking about the carefree blue sky feeling of someone who is trouble free and having a good day, but the deep and abiding peace that can exist and comfort us in the midst of calamity and chaos. A sense of peace that defies all understanding.
Today I will celebrate my wife's birthday. I have lived with her longer than I have with any other human being on earth, and in that time I have loved her without reservation. My love for her forms one of the foundation stones of my life, and like my love for Jesus Christ, it rests firmly upon a covenant I made with God himself.
Are you prepared to pray? By this I mean, are you prepared to pray and receive the blessing for which you spoke with God? So often we come to the Lord unprepared; living one life and praying as if we were living another. I was reading a devotional writing by Pastor Oswald Chambers, and as I did so he wrote of a truth regarding this topic that might cut deep; it answered in part the question of why our prayers are not always answered.
Do you have a secret garden? You know, a secret place that you retreat to when you need to do some serious thinking? How about a quiet place where you can go to be alone with God? Is it a place that you can get to quickly and often? Is it away from all the hustle bustle and the noise of the world around you? Do you begin all your days there? Perhaps it is a closet, a quiet room you go to in the wee hours of morning, or maybe a secret garden that smells of fresh-turned earth and the scent of morning glories. Where is your refuge from the world where you can sit with God?
When we look at the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and all it means to us, do we feel that we are worthy of it? Do we feel that we are owed the forgiveness we were given or that in some small way we deserved the love of God that sent His Son into this world? If so then we are not prepared for His second coming nor the filling of the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist knew what it felt like to be unworthy, even as he served and baptized the masses. He spoke of this in Matthew 3 verse 11. My friends, it is only by the grace of God and the blood of Christ that we are redeemed.
The strongest people of faith that I know are those who are poor in spirit. This life was not chosen for them, but they chose it for themselves. Do you know such people? Are you one of them? Perhaps you are wondering what it actually means to be poor in spirit. Well, the very first blessing that Jesus taught us in the Beatitudes was about those who are "poor in spirit" and He does this for a reason. These are the people who yield all they are to the Spirit of God. They have laid down their own strength for the strength of God Himself. Is this who we believe ourselves to be? Are we poor in spirit?
We say we are Christians but continue to live our lives of faith like suits of clothes; we treat our belief in Jesus Christ lightly by wearing them superficially and only letting Him brush lightly against our skin when we should actually be taking Jesus into our very being, our hearts, and consuming our faith in Him like the communion meal demonstrates. We should be making Him the ingredient that every other part of us feeds on, is nourished by, and is completed by. When we take the body and blood of Jesus into us, we become as one, and our faith is made whole in Him. In this way we have without a doubt become believers… and Christian. Do we do this?
Are there things in our lives that distract us from focusing on Jesus Christ? You know the ones... an unresolved argument that worries and distracts us during prayer, a problem with our home or automobile that nags at us when we sit to read and study scripture, or perhaps too many planned activities in our day that tempt us to place them before the important things of life… like worship. Do these symptoms of an overly busy life sound familiar? Well, this problem is quite common in most people’s everyday life but today let’s look at this phenomenon with our focus specifically on our spiritual lives.
Are any of us sad today? I am referring to the sadness that occurs when we realize that Jesus is asking us to let go of something that we believe we are unable to abandon, something that seems impossible for us to live without. Perhaps it is our monetary wealth, but maybe it is a form of poverty that we are being asked to let go of. Wealth can be something different for each of us. Let’s look at this today.
Has Jesus ever asked something of us that we have resisted? Has he asked us to do something that shook us or that we convinced ourselves couldn't have possibly come from Him because it was just too hard or impossible for us to accomplish? Let’s think about this for a moment and then study on it this morning and as we go through our day in prayer.
Would you recognize the voice of Jesus if you heard it? If He called your name, would you know from the sound of His voice that it was Him who was calling you? Probably not, but if, in an instant He were to reveal every moment in which He had spoken to you and come to you in your life, perhaps then you would know His voice… don’t you think? Wouldn’t you? Maybe?
We all need to have a deep and personal relationship with God, not just a casual friendship with Him but to know Him intimately. Is our faith the product of going to church once a week and listening to stories about the amazing relationships that others have with the Lord and Jesus or do we have such a personal experience with them ourselves? Let’s pray and think about the depth of our relationship with the Lord today.
Have you ever stopped to consider that not every misfortune that you face in life is put upon you by Satan? Some are just natural occurrences of living, through which we exercise the lessons of faith we have been taught, but others are the corrections of our Heavenly Father as he chastises us. In this modern era, we have been conditioned to believe that we should reason with our children and are never meant to discipline them beyond that, but is this biblical?