In every moment of trouble, every time of temptation, every joyous shout, or as we utter a single word of prayer. God is with us, sees us, and helps us. This is so reassuring, and we thank Him for looking after us through our days and nights, but it is also unsettling for us, the sinner, when we find ourselves naked and exposed before Him, knowing He has seen us in all we do, and that He judges us.
We desire to praise and worship God, and His Son, the Lamb of God, and yet so often we feel lost as we attempt to do so. We kneel in our prayer closets, and offer up prayers in bowls made of gold, and yet they all seem to fall short. We lift our hands and close our eyes in reverence, but just can’t seem to feel the presence of God. This can be what we experience in places constructed in the world with human hands, but when we come before the eternal throne of God, and Grace, where we prostrate ourselves, then our praise suddenly takes wing, and our worship glows in glory because here we find the Father, and the Lamb of God, prepared to receive us into themselves as we join with all heaven and creation in praise, and worship.
We live in a country, and a world, that is divided against itself; not by God, or by Jesus Christ, but by man. Somehow we have become convinced that we are meant to separate ourselves into camps, so we do this by race, color, culture, religion, short, tall, large, small, and in too many other ways to list. There never seems to be an end to it, and the final result is always the same… the more we divide ourselves, the greater we find it has become an impediment to the commandment that we love one another as ourselves. We forget that Jesus is all in all, and that He joins us together.
Each of us who believes carries Jesus Christ, and His power, within us. This is certainly the test of our faith. We must ask ourselves if we believe this to be true, and if we can say “YES”, then we have passed the test of faith, and the glory of God will be found within us. If Jesus is not in us, and we display no evidence of His power, then we are surely lost, and destined to continue seeking until we can at last accept Him, and invite Him to abide in us.
We are not meant to turn God’s Word, and the gospel of Jesus Christ, into entertaining stories, fables, or otherwise enhanced fictional accounts in an attempt to make them entertaining for our children, or to capture the comfortable imagination of sinners who might then believe wrongly. What good does it do our children to learn a falsehood? Will a cleverly contrived and embellished account of God sending His Son to redeem us actually convey the new covenant in Christ, and save the lost? We are meant to deliver God’s Word and the gospel just as they are written… worshipping in spirit and truth.
Are we childlike in our faith? Do we seek God with our whole heart each day? Do we obey His commandments without doubting, or veering from them? When we feel that we have sinned in some way is our contrition wholehearted, complete, and our desire for forgiveness asked with tears and heartfelt sincerity? God commanded us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, but are we prepared to apply this same degree of heart to every aspect of our faith?
As we humble ourselves in our faith it is easy to forget that this requires us to be strong. Those who are in the world look at humility and strength as being diametrically opposed, but nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus stood in strength before Pilot, and yet He did so in silent confidence. Are we strong enough in our lives to stand in quiet defiance against the forces of evil that come against us, and the sin that tempts us every day? Do we ask God to strengthen us in our love, character, resolve, and in every way, and thing, with which we serve Him?
When we rise up from the waters of baptism we are told that we have put on Christ, but it doesn’t stop there. When we rise from our bed in the morning, our first word should prayerfully be the name of God, and then we should be clothing ourselves in Jesus. Each morning as we dress ourselves for the day ahead, what is the nature of the garments we select? Do we put on a worldly covering or a spiritual set of clothes? Are they the old rags we wore yesterday, or the new clothes of our transformed self… the clothing of Christ?
We know that if we favor, or love, the world more than God that this is a sin because nothing is to come before God in our lives, but John writes that the result of loving the world at all causes us to be separated from God. So where do we stand in this regard? Do we love the creator, or do we love the creation instead… the Father, or what He has provided? If we love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, then there is no part of us left to love the world… we are consumed entirely by our love for Him.
Who are our friends? Who do we associate with every day? We are told to love our neighbors, and our enemies, and we should, but most of these are not believers in God, and Jesus. So if they are not believers should we just love them… or are we to make them our friends and companions as well? How about making them our close friends, or a BFF (Best Friend Forever)? If this bothers you, would it make a difference if these unbelievers who don’t follow Jesus were law abiding citizens of good moral value? What does scripture tell us about who our friends should be?
Do we continue to live for ourselves, and not for Jesus Christ who died for us? Do we not realize that by His death we too have died, and by his resurrection all believers have been raised from the dead in Him? It is in this way that we owe our lives as a debt to Jesus. We are following more than an idea that has been proposed to us, but a life that was given for us. Our belief in Christ is for more than our own salvation, and healing, but so that we can glorify God.
Do we pray and ask as we should? Jesus intercedes for us, and so does the Holy Spirit, but they only do so when we ask for those things that are absolutely within the will of God. Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that God’s will and not His would be done, and this is the same prayer of intercession that He and the Spirit pray over us every day. In hearing His prayer we know that Jesus had His own will, and that it could be different from God’s; why else would He pray as He did. The same is true of us, and we need to be equally careful to pray for God’s will to be done in our lives, and to do so each time we pray.
Today we celebrate Father’s Day, and we remember our fathers everywhere by gathering together around them, and also remembering those who have left us in death. But lest we forget amidst all of the celebration, we should, above all else, pray for them. We should lift them up, and pray that they will always be good fathers, even as God is our good Abba, and our good Father. We should pray that they love us, our mothers, and the Lord our God. Moreover, we should pray for their salvation, and for them to receive the grace of God as they profess Jesus Christ to be their savior. If we do this then we will have given them the best Father’s Day gift that a child can give. Likewise, every father should pray these words over his children:
When decisions need to be made within the church do we pray together as one for God to reveal His will in them, or do the elders, and pastors, select small committees to seek God’s guidance on behalf of the whole; perhaps even sending some Saints away to pray individually, and in solitude? We gain solidarity, harmony, and unity by kneeling together in prayer, and yet so often, we behave like the world and divide ourselves into diverse camps.
There are times in our lives of faith when we come face to face with something we refer to as the silence of God. We pray for a thing that we know in our heart is within His will, and worthy of being prayed for in the name of Jesus, yet nothing seems to come of it. The question is… do we continue to pray each day for this thing, and not lose faith in God’s promise? Do we persevere in our faith and prayer as we wait on the Lord?