How is it that we are saved? How is it that the sin which rules our flesh can be overcome? When I realized that without Jesus Christ in my life each and every day, I would naturally revert back to the creature I once was, my faith would begin to change at once within me. I came to understand that temptation and sin did not go away when I first believed, but instead had to be held at bay, and that I was allowed a moment by moment victory over it through Jesus Christ, my Savior.
Have you ever asked others for healing prayer and received relief from your illness as a result? When this happened did you elevate those who prayed in intercession for you to a lofty position of faith? Has someone sick ever come to you for prayer, and as a result of your praying for them they were healed? Did you have a feeling of accomplishment as if your praying had done this for them, or felt in some small part to be responsible for the miracle? If either of these is true, then you have misappropriated God’s glory.
What songs do we sing when we are with our friends outside of church and church gatherings? Do we sing popular songs of today, old favorites from the past, folk songs, holiday songs, campfire songs, or perhaps… drinking songs? Well, we are told in Ephesians that as believers we are to remain sober, greet one another spiritually in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs as we sing to the Lord, and to be filled with the Spirit. How should we interpret this? Is singing anything other than hymns a taboo?
My personal devotional reading this morning was about learning and unlearning from a Christian perspective, and it brought back memories of those things in my life that I had to let go of as I relearned them by replacing them with the truth that the Word of God shows us. Sometimes we advance in faith by being willing to let go of what the world has taught us; things we thought were true prior to the Holy Spirit leading us to a deeper understanding.
Do we find ourselves to be at war within? Are we in the midst of a battle between our mind and our body, between the weakness of our flesh that is so often reluctant to kneel before God, and our spirit which actually worships Him? We never have to look far as we seek to understand if there truly is both a physical and a spiritual world, because we live with one foot in each, and this tenuous stance threatens constantly to destroy us as our spirit works to tame the man of flesh who walks towards sin.
We can’t earn our salvation by doing good works, and yet when we believe and are saved we are meant to do good works. This sounds rather confusing doesn’t it? Well on the surface it may appear so, but it is really quite simple. Our admission to eternity is a gift, but once we receive it there will be good things we will want to do... not because we must, but as a result of our conversion, and the desire that the subsequent love of God instills in us.
We wait on God for those things we ask of Him in our prayers, the healing, the provision, the protection, and sundry other requests, but even more than those, are we waiting on Him to reveal and return His Son Jesus Christ to claim us? Do we pray every day, throughout the day, for the return of Christ, or are we perfectly satisfied in this earthly life? Certainly, we have daily needs in this world to pray for, but none greater than the homecoming of our Lord Jesus.
Are you in sync with God’s will? Do you ever hear His voice giving you something to do, and then ask Him if He is certain that you should be doing whatever it is? On occasion the Lord can ask us to do things that seem so bizarre, and as a matter of fact appear to defy logic. Why was Jesus asked to tarry until Lazarus had died before He went to Him? Wouldn’t it have been much easier and made more sense to heal Him before he died? God has a purpose and a plan for us, and although it might appear impossible to us, or even unwise, in the end it makes perfect sense.
We claim we are children of the one true God, and that we have accepted Jesus Christ as our savior, and we might even say that we have been born again in the Spirit, but are we living a spiritual life? Have we actually crucified our old selves, or does that old person of the past still linger on and continue to haunt and dominate who we are? We might pray every day, but are they sincere prayers; even heathens can string words together. It is only when we are living a truly spiritual life, and our old selves have been left behind us, that we can truly walk as we should, and pray with the power we have been promised!
Have you ever received divine healing, or perhaps known someone who did? When this occurred did you praise and glorify God? If not, why not? Have you heard tell of people who were miraculously healed, and yet even though you are a believer you were skeptical, or doubted they were ever sick in the first place? If so, then why? In our modern society, we are reluctant to acknowledge God when healing occurs... why is this so? It is because our faith is under attack by unbelievers and we have succumbed to their influence. It is Fear in some form.
Are we being a disappointment in our faith, and worrisome to God? This is one of those questions we should each ask ourselves from time to time. Ephesians 4:17-32 contains guidance for us pertaining to the new life we are living in Jesus Christ. The question then becomes, are we living it fully as the Holy Spirit reveals and teaches us, or are we causing our God to grieve over us instead?
When we sit at the feet of Jesus are we spiritually and intellectually malleable and teachable? Do we humble ourselves and listen intently to His every word, or do we think we know it all, as we keep interrupting Him with our own two cents? Jesus was gentle and humble when He taught, and we are meant to be this way too as His pupils. So, how do we approach our spiritual instruction? Let’s think about how we approach Him and our lessons and then ask ourselves “Am I teachable?”
How are we walking through this life? Are we doing so while loving our families, perhaps some folks at church, and a few friends, but simply tolerating everyone else, or maybe even disliking some people we encounter? We divide ourselves into groups... we belong to this church and not that one, we are from this town and not that one, we believe this and not that, we are of this race and not that one, and the list goes on, and on. We love some, tolerate others, and dislike or even hate the rest. Does this describe us? Let’s step back and take a good look in the mirror and be honest about what we see because our salvation depends on it.
What does it mean when scripture tells us to rest, be quiet, and trust the Lord? How does it sit with us when it says that this is our strength, and our salvation? To us this sounds so foreign because we feel like there must be something that God would have us do. We want to be actively involved like the young David who used his sling to slay Goliath. Yet in many scriptures we are told that by just sitting in the presence of God, and waiting on Him we will experience our greatest strength... and so often we resist this... we are unwilling.
Does waiting on God seem tedious to you? Perhaps it has become this way because you have the idea that He is doing nothing while you wait, and that He continues to do nothing until at long last, in a moment suited to His own good pleasure, He suddenly cares enough to act. Well, nothing could be further from the truth, and waiting should be an active effort on our part in which we patiently watch Him at work.