On the day that we accept Jesus as our savior we wash our robes clean in His blood, and in that moment of absolute purity we have been made worthy, dressed in white, and praise God as we are there before His throne, but do we continue to wash our robes thereafter? Do we remain clean and pure so that we can serve God day and night in His temple?
When we pray, how do we envision our prayers? Do we see them as merely being sound waves going out in every direction? Perhaps we visualize them as vapor, or maybe as invisible words that are spoken, and that make tiny ripples like those of a pebble which we have thrown into a pond; insignificantly small. However, none of these imagined manifestations of prayer could be further from the truth because our prayers have substance, and are brought like treasure before God… highly valued, pleasing in their scent, and prepared as an offering for the weight of His glory.
We accept Jesus Christ as our savior, and immediately find ourselves seeking knowledge of Him in ravenous fashion, but quite often the things in our lives that we approach in this way die out just as quickly as they flared up. Thus, we are instructed to walk in our faith, and to steadily make progress. Our goal in faithfulness should be to please Him in everything we do… not to simply WOW Him in a flash of righteous spirituality. Our Love should imitate the love of Jesus, and be life long, even to eternity.
Do we live as members of Christ’s Kingdom, and serve our God as priests? Do our lives, as well as our words, shout out “Glory to God!”, and do we understand that the love of Jesus has made us to be, and to serve, in this capacity forever? We are not alone, nor held prisoners of sin, but have been made a holy kingdom, and freed by the blood of Christ to assume our place before God’s throne.
Some of us are feeling weak and faint today, and in our sickness or suffering, we have lost hope, but there is one source of hope and strength for us that will never fail us; that is able to heal every ill. Our God, the God of Abraham, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, He is our unfailing hope, and the source of strength to the sick and suffering. He restores health and vigor to those who will trust in Him, and who come to Him in the name of Jesus… His love for us is unfathomable, and He walks with us through every valley.
The riches of grace that have been bestowed on us reach much further than the moment we first believe, or at the instant of our judgement when God pronounces us worthy in Christ. When we win an earthly race we receive a reward, but it is for that moment alone, and it fades over time, however, when we are victorious over sin through Christ, and presented with the grace of God, it is meant to bring us His unlimited gift of riches Forevermore.
Our God is dependable, He is faithful, and we know what His promises are, but these are the images we have of him from afar. We know that He will defend us, go to war for us, and win the day, but on the eve of every battle our God surprises us, and our enemy, with the new strategy He has prepared for the next day’s conflict. So why is it that we ourselves get so rooted in our faith, and never attempt to surprise our enemy, or thrill our friends, with how we implement our newness of faith, or the freshly forged sword of the Word He has given us?
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?