As we pick up our cross, and follow Jesus, are our eyes fixed on him alone? If so then we will walk a straight path, because our Heavenly Father has made that path straight for Jesus, and we are meant to walk it with Him. If we listen to the teaching, and follow every step that Jesus walks, placing our foot where His has been, then we will be as He is, and live in eternity before our Father as He does. Are our eyes fixed on Him? Are we learning every lesson we are being taught?
I was speaking with a good friend yesterday about a place known to all who even casually read scripture, “The Valley of the Shadow of Death”, and he mentioned that as he toured Jerusalem that this was presented as a real place, The Kidron Valley. We quote this phrase when we are facing terrible situations in which we might truly die, and we have also affixed many figurative meanings to it as well, but when David was writing this psalm (23rd Psalm) he might, quite literally, have been writing about this very real valley; an evil place of deep darkness where children were sacrificed to Baal. Are we facing a place of evil in our lives today? Are we at the entrance to a very real valley of deep darkness in our lives, a place where death awaits, or are we walking through a more figurative place, such as a season of darkness and evil?
Have we ever taken on a duty that is distasteful, or shouldered a hardship, or responsibility, that weighed us down, but, out of necessity, we had to bear? Were our labors meant to help someone in need? There are many things in life that we do simply because they must be done, not because we enjoy doing them. But, if we are doing them out of kindness to someone, and we do these things with a good Christian heart, something wonderful happens as we work at them… we develop a taste for the distasteful, and the burdens we bear for others become light to us, and often a pleasure. If we approach such situations with the caring, and the love of Christ, we find that our love and kindness will reward us. Can we remember such times in our lives?
As Christians we realize that we are being refined each and every day by trials and tribulations. This is our furnace, fired so that once purified we will shine like the sun, and just as pure gold we will become soft and malleable in the hand of our Heavenly Father. 100% pure gold is easily cast or molded into shape, but even though it can easily be made into intricate shapes, it is prone to damage, and can be bent out of shape. Once refined by God we too are precious, beautiful, and highly sought after, but we must also be guarded, protected, and treated with great care lest we be crushed, or bent. The more pure our faith, the more susceptible we are to being damaged by the slightest hint of sin, and the more attentive our Father must be to us. We are susceptible to damage, innocent, and childlike… we are His prized possession.
We face trouble, and complex issues in our lives that we don’t know how to handle. Some of these are life threatening, and others frighten us with their enormity, but regardless of their severity, intensity, or size, we fear failure because our problems are beyond our ability, and we feel powerless against them. So, what do we do? We turn to the Lord our God for help; we lift our eyes unto the Lord. We read these words, and say we believe, but Is this how we behave, and if so do we trust, listen, believe, praise, and then expect him to act? Do we know in our hearts that our salvation is at hand… that the miracle is now?
Our Father doesn’t like to lose a single soul, not even those that turn their backs on Him to worship other gods. If we have turned away, and our god has become money He will take it from us. If our god has become our beauty He will strip us of our youthful looks and fine clothes, and if our possessions have become our gods, He will cause them to break, wither, and vanish. He doesn’t do these things because He hates us, no, He does them to bring us back to Him… because He loves us. Have we become like these who once loved Him, but who have now turned our backs on Him as a people, country, or a person? Have we made the gifts of the world our idols and gods? Are we pursuing earthly loves, and left our One True God behind, alone? Well He still desires to have us return to Him, and will lead us into a desert place where there is nothing left to worship, or love, but Him. There, in that desolate place, He will woo us, bless us, and love us, as if we had never spurned Him, or turned away.
Do we stand a faithful watch as we wait for the Lord to reveal Himself to us, or to hear what He has to say once He does? When our waiting is rewarded, and God speaks, will He call us to task for something in our lives, or faith, and do we wonder what it will be, or how we will answer Him? As we look at our lives, and the practice of our faith, we would like to think that we are obeying Him in everything we do, and are righteous in all aspects of our lives, but are we serving the Lord as we should? Are we wise enough to even know? When He speaks, and we hear His voice, He will ask us a question that causes us to search for an answer, and as we do so, we will realize a fault, or shortcoming in ourselves that has gone unnoticed, or find wisdom that has previously been hidden from us. Are we watching, and listening as we should? Are we wanting to hear Him tell us a truth, or to ask us a question that will lead us to it?
As Christians we struggle mightily to control our tongues, and keep our language not only wholesome, but focused on righteous revelations that will help us, and those around us who might not know our Father yet. What we say in a moment of anger, or by revealing some sinful thought as it races through our mind, can undo in a split second what the Lord has spent years preparing within a soul that He has been leading to receive His Son Jesus, and ultimately Himself. To avoid such evil outbursts and not to become a setback to another’s faith, we must continuously wrestle with that worldly voice within us that remains ever vigilant within us, and seeks any small opening, or chink in our armor, into which it can slip its vile sword. Our guard must always be up, and our minds focused on what is righteous, peaceful, and good. Are we doing this today, and every day? Is our armor perfectly fitted, and are we continuously manning the wall in defense of our righteousness?
We might be a person who never wants help, or someone one who is reluctant to seek help; then again, maybe we are one of those who readily asks for help, or goes straightway for help at the slightest hint of trouble. As God’s children we all have different personalities, so He deals with each of us individually. God wants us to come to Him for help, He gave us Jesus and were are told that whatever we asked for in His name he would do for us, and the Lord also tells us to help one another. So whatever our personality, we are provided a readymade avenue of help that is comfortable for each of us… but the foundation of all these begins and ends in Him. How do we seek and give help in our lives today? In what way has God transformed, or influenced us in this regard?
I don’t know about you but sometimes I am a procrastinator. This morning I proved once again that this is true. Although I typically rise before my phone’s alarm sounds at 3 AM, today I slept until it was ringing, and then I hit the snooze button… not once, but twice. So by delaying I started my morning prayers, my time spent in scripture, devotional reading, and more importantly, I was late when it came to seeking inspiration, and then writing what the Holy Spirit would put on my mind for us to share today. However, as I started my morning with the Lord it dawned on me that this was no accident. But had served His purposes. I was to write about answering God without hesitation, and how He always answers us at the perfect moment… not early, not late, but exactly at the right time. Although we are occasionally inclined to put things off, or as it was for me today, to oversleep; our Father is never late, and fulfills His promises, and does what He says… perfectly every time.
A quiet and still spirit, and a self at peace, these are commonly recognized as precursors to hearing God’s voice. Elijah knew it, Job knew it, Eliphaz the Temanite knew it, and the sons of Korah who wrote the 46th psalm knew it too. These are just a few men mentioned in God’s Holy Word who knew how to listen for Him to speak; they understood that if we seek God, and can still ourselves, we will begin to hear His voice.
When the Lord gives us something it always requires that we trust in Him before we can possess it. When He gave Canaan to the Israelites it was no different. The Lord told Moses to send out men to explore Canaan, the land that He had given them, but when they reported back they had a mixed report. The land was indeed bountiful, but it was well defended, and was also inhabited by giants. How many times has God told us to do something, go somewhere, or take possession of a gift He has extended us, but something intimidating stood in our way… we found that giants stood between us, and the promised blessing of the Lord? How did we react? Did our faith give us the strength to go forward, or did it fail us? Did we find ourselves turning back in fear? Is our trust in God strong enough to accept His blessings?
What do we do when the articles of our faith go missing from within our churches? What do we seek when the Arc of our faith can no longer be found in the houses of worship where we once experienced God’s presence, and forgiveness? If every church, cathedral, temple, and house of worship, were demolished, where would we turn to find God? We should do what so many of us did during the COVID 19 pandemic, and what so many others have done under extreme persecution, we open His Word in our hearts, and seek God in our quiet places by retreating into our own temples to worship Him… into the temples of our bodies, and the safe havens of our homes. In these, the personal sanctuaries of our faith, and belief, we find God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. In these places our spirituality remains safe, and is secure from its enemies. The door to heaven remains open.
Today let’s think about a question that many have considered in the past, and is raised Biblically for us in the book of Romans. Our question today is this… Does God cease to be faithful just because we do? When we waver in our faith, or lose hope in a prayer, does this nullify God’s promises, or make His truth any less true? Does our lack of faithfulness change Him in any way?
Death is not a topic that we as people like to dwell on, but it is one of the central themes to us as Christians. It goes hand in hand with resurrection. We symbolically recognize this in our baptism by being immersed, or dying to our old selves, and it concludes with our being raised up out of the baptismal water, resurrected, to live as new creations. Without Jesus suffering, bleeding, and carrying our sin into death, then rising again righteous and glorified from the grave, what hope would we have of salvation and eternity? How would our sin have been absolved? The Angels sang in celebration at His birth, and all of heaven and earth stood still at the moment of His death, but we are not privy to what transpired in heaven at the moment of His resurrection; it remains a mystery to us now, just as it did then, and all we hear on this subject is divine silence. We do know that our sin died, and we weren’t made one with Him.