A few years ago, I listened as one of my Pastors delivered a sermon on the subject of interruptions, and during it he spoke about a passage of scripture that was comprised of a story within a story... one story that interrupted another. As he continued to preach, my mind began to wander down a different path, and the complexity of God’s word began to dominate my thoughts.
One of the most frequent responses I receive from those who read my morning devotionals is a request for prayer. More often than not it is to join them in a specific prayer that they have been praying for some time without receiving an answer. Do you experience this from time to time in your prayer life? Well, if so, don’t be discouraged because the disciples failed to receive immediate answers to their prayers too, and Jesus taught them a powerful lesson in it.
Are we really the free people that Christ redeemed? Did Jesus pay our ransom only to find that we could not separate ourselves from the sin He had saved us from? Or perhaps we are like the Galatians who found themselves tempted to leave the freedom Jesus had secured for them in order to chain themselves to the Law of an old faith once again. My word for us this morningis to claim and accept the freedom whose cost was so dearly paid for us.
This morning I am contemplating the body and blood of Jesus Christ that we take during Communion. This gift is more than a passing thought, but something which becomes part and parcel of us mentally, spiritually, and yes, physically. When we are at the Lord’s Table, do we realize how perfect the remembrance of Christ should be to us there? This is more than a bit of bread and a taste of wine, it is an act in which our being is being joined perfectly with His and through the consumption of not only His body and blood, but the receipt of the blessing He spoke over them. And all of this we are receiving by His hand.
Faith in Christ, do you desire it, do you seek it, do you accept it? Can you recognize faith in Jesus when you see it in others? From its inception faith is ethereal in nature so we can’t hold it in our hand, but when we have a touch of it within ourselves we suddenly begin to see evidence of it all around us. When we have accepted faith it can suddenly be measured. So, I ask... do you long to hold a mustard seed of faith in your hand? Or in your heart?
How do we smell today? Are we fragrant like a flower, sweet like honey, have the smell of sweat and toil, or are we rancid like death? The Bible speaks about smell in many ways, but none more powerful than when it speaks of the fragrance of life, and death on us. When we think of scent we most often think of the smells that surround us, but we are one of those odors... so how do we smell spiritually today?
Do we look to Jesus for healing? Do we depend upon Him to come to us in our times of illness and to lay His healing hand upon our head? Do we wait for Him to say rise and walk, to return our eyesight, or to restore our hearing with a bold touch? Well sometimes His healing comes when we go secretly to Him, because He is more than just a healer... even in His unawares He demonstrated that He is the essence of healing itself, and all that needs to happen for this to occur is for us to be near Him. And what’s more, it goes beyond healing… it’s the power of God in Him that allows Him to feed the many, raise the dead, and turn water into wine.
How do we come to understand the Word of God, and His will for us? Is it by our own intellect, and through diligent study that we are able to piece it together like a puzzle? Do we somehow find the hidden key within it that allows everything to fall into place so that we can stand back from it and marvel at our ingenuity? No, we understand with our hearts, and not our minds. Our minds barely scratch the surface, but our hearts use the keys of our spirits like a scalpel.
Do you bless your family as a parent? Are you more than a sire, or a dame who brought forth children from the womb? There is so much involved in raising a family, and each of our children is as different as Jacob’s; each needing special handling and a special blessing from us. Not all of them are born good or easily trained, but each one needs to know the Lord, and this requires our prayers, our attention, and a unique blessing as we wait upon God to call them and lead them towards salvation. This is our calling in parenthood, and the will of God for us, but in the end we can’t actually save them ourselves.
Do we forgive others so that God can forgive us? Do we believe in Him so that we open the way for his belief in us? Do we trust in God’s Word which allows Him to trust ours? So often we say, “God did not answer my prayer”, but I ask you... did you believe, forgive, and answer “yes” to His will, that He might respond in kind to you?
Are we enjoying being in the temple of God today? Are the floors sparkling clean, the windows washed, and is the altar shiny and bright? Are all the candles lit, and is the scent of incense fresh and pleasing? Can we hear chanting, and feel the presence of the Holy Spirit there with us? Well, it sounds like I am talking about a building, but in reality I am referring to our own bodies.
If we are Christians, and true believers, then those in the world will hate us. They will dislike us because we are different... because we are new creations, but most of all because we are like Jesus Christ, and by that I mean “not of this world.” We know this to be the case because we hear it in our daily lives and in the conversation (prayer) between Jesus and God Himself.
Have you ever been to heaven? Perhaps you don’t feel that you have walked its streets, but have you ever stood atop a mountain or hill and looked out over the surroundings below? Could you hear the wind and the sounds of life there? Right now, many of you are probably thinking that I have lost my mind, but others are envisioning this scene as they hear the sounds of life, and see the heavenly scene surrounding them. Can you step into heaven and capture this moment of realized faith and glory? The problem with most of us is that we don’t stop living our busy lives long enough to look around, hear the singing, smell the fragrance, and understand where we are… friends, we are in the presence of God and that is heaven!
Jesus said that whatever we ask for in His name He will do, so why is it that we can find ourselves praying and Him not immediately responding to what we are asking? This is a common question asked about prayer, and one that causes many pastors to begin making excuses for the inaction of Jesus or silence of God. The inability to understand prayer and the fulness of the Lord’s promise based on one verse of scripture, which we often take out of context, leads to the spiritual downfall of many.