All in Daily Devotional
Faith, prayer, and the promise... Often we are busy doing so many other things around the church, or exercising our various gifts in our everyday lives, that we neglect what is central to the mission of our faith. E.M. Bounds reminded me in my morning devotional reading that "Today, as much as at any time, we need followers of God to have great faith and powerful prayer." He went on to say "These are the two most important virtues that make men great in the eyes of God."
As I read my devotional today, the words of the author, E.M. Bounds, described faith as that which "determines our relationship with God - how we deal with Him and how we see Him as the savior." I latched onto his phrase "Faith is not believing just anything. It is believing God, resting in Him and trusting His word.", but so many people have faith and hope in other things that don’t warrant their faithfulness at all. We hear this all the time. We hear people say that they have faith in this or that, a sports team, a political party, even a pastor or priest, and there doesn’t seem to be any limit as to what they will place their faith in. Do you see this too?
2/01/2024
Prayer, and an unwavering faith; what a great message for today, and applying our faith to our prayers brings amazing power to bear. I must admit that there have been times when I have prayed and even before the words have left my mouth... I have encountered doubt. Satan might whisper to me that the situation is too far gone, the task is too great, this request is too trivial to concern God, or attack me personally by asking a question like… why would God do this for someone as undeserving as you? These are just some of the reasons for doubt that Satan uses to rob us of answered prayer, but if we will remain faithful, and say “get thee behind me Satan”, then we will have won the battle, and perhaps the war.
I was lifted up this morning as I considered God’s anointing to be a portion of Himself. It is a gift of God... Not a gift to aid our physical condition, but rather a spiritual gift. In Matthew 17 Jesus spoke to His disciples of faith as being a mustard seed, something powerful despite its diminutive size, and it being a part of us, but when He spoke of God’s anointing it was of the Holy Spirit... a bit of Himself. Is our anointing something small like the mustard seed of faith, or is it a portal, a doorway into the infinite divinity of God?
Most Christians envision themselves standing on a mountaintop with their arms stretched up towards the sky, and there is nothing wrong with that because it is a Holy place, but when it comes right down to it, we live out our everyday lives in the valleys. We go to the mountain, but we return home to the valley, and yet we spiritually seem to have this idea engrained in us that valleys are bad places to be. Perhaps it is because whenever we think of a valley we recall the 23rd Psalm and its reference to the Valley of the Shadow of Death, but scripture has much more to say about valleys than to tell us that death resides there too. After all, death can only reside where first there is life.
Godlike Sympathies; I was touched this morning by how incredibly merciful, loving, and sympathetic God truly is. I thought of Jesus nailed to the cross and my eyes filled with tears; not so much for the suffering He endured (which always brings me to tears) but for the love, mercy, and sympathy that He and His Father have for mankind, and the grace that they continue to pour out on us. We saw it on Calvary, and we continue to see it every day in our own lives. Does it make us want to be like them?
The divine anointing to preach is once again the subject of our devotional message this morning. I find affirmation in the words of E.M. Bounds' when he says. "Growth, fullness of thought, and simplicity of preaching are the fruits of this anointing." Jesus could debate the scripture in the synagogue... and yet his message remained simple. Jesus could be tempted by Satan and not be deceived, yet his approach to overcoming sin was a simple one. Love thy God... Love they neighbor... Believe in me... Obey my commandments... these are all such simple concepts. He most certainly contained the boundless intellect of God, but our salvation depends upon very simple guidelines. These things are the message of anointed preachers.
God loved us while we were still sinners, and He sent His only begotten Son Jesus to redeem us even though we were sinful unclean people living immersed in a dark and lost world. Knowing this, how is it that we find it so hard to look at the sinners in our personal surroundings with loving eyes rather than disdain, and why is it so difficult for us to love them as God loved us… while they are yet unrepentant? Why is it that we have become comfortable in our church environment where we are surrounded by saints, and yet, are so uncomfortable when a sinner wanders in off the streets to visit a Sunday service? Have we become exclusive rather than inclusive when it comes to our faith in Jesus Christ? Perhaps we have forgotten the purpose of the Great Commission… it wasn’t meant that we should deliver the gospel to the saved, but to deliver it to the lost so that they might be saved.
We can hear a pastor preach a sermon and it thrills our hearts, but we can hear the very same message delivered by another minister and it falls flat within us; why is that so? Haven’t we all experienced such a spiritual phenomenon? When we attempt to understand why this happens, what do we blame the rise and fall of that particular message to be? Was it the condition our own faith in that particular moment, or was it the Holy Spirit moving, or not moving, over the Pastor as he spoke?
This morning as I read my daily devotion, I was struck by what E.M. Bounds wrote regarding waiting on God to answer our prayers. Bounds referred to this as a test, but I couldn't agree with his conclusion that God would use waiting for an answer to prayer to test us. No, I believe it allows us to see, and realize, the strength in our own maturing faith. When we are made to wait it shows us how much we have increased in our ability to demonstrate patience, trust, hope, and confidence in God. For some of us we see progress in our faith right away, but for others it takes a great deal of time to fully develop these traits.
For many people, prayer is certainly a strange exercise; they pray without faith and a sure expectation of being heard. They call out to Him with vague words because they don't actually know or understand Him well enough to know what to say. Furthermore, their confidence in His might and ability to answer their prayers is in doubt for one reason or another; perhaps they can't feel His presence, maybe they perceive their needs to be too great for Him, or maybe they simply consider themselves unworthy of His answer. Whatever the reason might be, they should look at men like Samuel whose prayers are answered time and time again, and who have an exemplary strength of faith. There are many classic examples like Samuel, Moses, and Abraham, but there are also men and women in our churches today who are strong prayer warriors as well.
This morning I am once again in my prayer chair. I can pray in many places but none makes me feel more with God than when the house is still in these wee hours, and I sit in near whispered prayer in this comfortable place waiting for the sun to rise. I feel most at home here because my family, and the rest of the world, is sleeping quietly around me. I find a deep inner peace here, while reclining in my early Morning Prayer, listening for the voice of my Father while the whisper of silence begins to open our conversation, and a low still voice comes to bless me with its presence. I thank God today, and every day, that we are able to spend time together in such a holy and loving way.
Faith and prayer are powerful in the hands of the Christian, and their effect is not to be underestimated. We have spoken about praying within the will of God, but simply asking for something without the faith that what we have asked for will be given to us is not enough. We must believe, and have faith that God intends to provide that thing. We need to trust completely in His Word and provision. Have you ever prayed for the Lord to do or provide something, and then wondered if He had heard you, or if He would actually do so? This is a lack of faith.
As I read and studied over the account of the prayer which King Solomon offered at the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem, I was struck by how powerfully God answered him. Fire fell from heaven to consume the offerings there, and God's glory was so strong that not even the priests could enter. God promised to hear the prayers of Israel at this place, but that promise came with a stipulation and a warning. When God entered the Temple and promised to hear prayers there, He did so with a qualification:
Let’s begin our time of devotion this morning by listening as a lawyer asks Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus turns the question around on him, and asks the man what was written in the law.