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.
Do we really live our lives for God? Do we order our days to please Him, and follow Jesus with everything that is within us? Or do we live our lives from one act of repentance to the next asking for forgiveness over and over again for sins that we believe are unavoidable wounds that we receive each day as we live our lives in the world? Friends, a price has been paid for us, and this wasn’t done so that we should almost accept the transaction; nor was it paid so that we would remain the property of the world.
How do we pray for one another each day? I am not asking about those who come to us with a specific need, and for whom we make intercession, but for our families, friends, those we don’t know yet, and even our enemies. Do we even think of praying for some of these each day? Are other believers around the world praying for us in like manner?
Have you given up on certain desires because you prayed for them once, twice, three times, and they were not given to you? Have you resolved yourself to the fact that God just doesn’t want you to have this thing, or that He might not hear you? Well, if you are praying rightly in the will of God and not asking Him to go against His character, promises, and Word, then neither of these assumptions are correct. Persistent prayer leads us into the very crux of faith and answers a question posed to us in the book of Luke… “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
Do you suffer, or cry in this life? Are you hungry or thirsty in your days here in this world? Do you long spiritually for fulfillment, and yearn to see the face of God? Well, take heart, for those who are washed in the blood of Jesus Christ have a heavenly existence awaiting them in which there will be no suffering, hunger, thirst, tears, nor longing to see the face of God. The blood of Jesus is preparing us for the glorious eternity of heaven, and to be encamped with God.
Has God placed something on your heart, or called you to do a work for Him that you are not doing? Have you listened to his voice speaking within you and made excuses to avoid performing what He has asked? Well, we make lots of excuses when God speaks, sometimes because what He asks sounds hard, sometimes because it requires sacrifice, and sometimes because we doubt our ability. Are you in the midst of making excuses right now?
Do you seek the will of God in everything that you do? No? Then how often do you ask the Lord what He would have you do? We are inclined to wake up in the morning, get dressed, and go about our daily duties as we see fit while either assuming we are already within God’s will, or not giving it a second thought. However, this is not what He would have us do.
Jesus loves us, this sounds like such a simple statement, and is indeed the repeating theme of a childish worship song whose lyrics begin “Jesus loves me this I know”, but do we really know this? Do we understand the depth and complexity of His love for us? A bigger question is, how do we experience this love?
What are we doing as we wait on God? Do we even know what we are waiting for? We have all been through times when we weren’t certain what we would like the Lord to actually do for us, or what His will was in our lives and faith, but we do know that being adrift on a sea of uncertainty is not good. So, when we find ourselves becalmed on a motionless sea, let’s not ask the Lord that we will reach our ultimate destination but simply pray for a breeze to fill our sails and how we should set our rudder, as we wait on Him. Then, as we wait for the breeze to pick up let’s go about the various tasks of living in the faith that Jesus, and God’s Word, have taught us.
There are those today that are filled with the Holy Spirit and don’t realize it because they don’t know the Holy Spirit from any other part of their faith. If he had come to them with a jolt like he did to the apostles, and licked above them with fingers of flame, and filled them with tongues, then there would be no doubt, but for many he comes gently with joy and comfort. To those who receive him in this way, it is so subtle that they have a hard time realizing he is with them because they can’t separate him from the basic movements of their faith until one day they are awakened joyfully to the reality of his presence within them.