Are we afraid to speak directly to God? Do we feel safer going to a deacon, an elder, or our pastor when we have sin issues in our lives? If you look inward and find that this is true of yourself, don't fear, there is nothing new in this... it has been happening since the time of our first sin. Men have been afraid to approach God in sin from the moment that Adam and Eve first hid themselves in the Garden of Eden, continued on to the time of Moses, and occurs today as well.
Do you focus and contemplate on God each day, and in everything you do? Is your imagination being used to reveal the Lord in every circumstance and activity in your life? These are the questions we will consider today, and we will see that our imagination is the portion of our belief that allows us to see beyond what our eyes can show us; imagination is the key to hope, and faith. We are about to examine the concept of spiritual imagining, which is not fantasy at all, but a very real key to the doorway into a world beyond our physical senses.
What do we imagine our faith to be? How great and unbound can we dream that God is? What binds us to the commonplace, and the everyday? It isn't God, or faith, but our own perception of their combined greatness and possibility. Oswald Chambers touched on this when he wrote these words…. "Is your imagination looking in the face of an idol? Is the idol yourself? Your work? Your conception of what a worker should be? Your experience of salvation and sanctification? Then your imagination of God is starved, and when you are up against difficulties you have no power, you can only endure in the darkness."
Are you spiritually exhausted, and if so why? This is our topic for consideration this morning. Oswald Chambers gives us some insight into this type of exhaustion when he writes of its origin... serving God, but what do we do once we realize we are suffering in this way? Do we quit serving Him? Do we walk away from our faith? Let's look at the answer to these questions today, and refresh ourselves.
When I first believed and professed Jesus as my savior, I thought I was sanctified, but what I really had become was a believer. I had gained general admission into salvation, heaven, but there was so much more that awaited. I was still moving easily back and forth into the secular world that I was seeking to transition out of... I was a double citizen; I had citizenship in the world and claimed another in heaven. I gained forgiveness in one world for the sins I committed in the other...
As we approach Lent and Easter, I am thinking about the two who walked the road to Emmaus and encountered Jesus. I am amazed that they had left Jerusalem and were returning home dejected and believing the Lord had failed them... they were disappointed that their timeline had not been met as they thought it should have been. The promise of three days, in their eyes, meant that Jesus would arise and redeem Israel by force from the Romans. Let's read their words...
As I read Oswald Chambers this morning, I was touched by the message of offering ourselves to God, and then allowing Him full reign in changing us and perfecting our lives for His service. Chambers used the words of Paul to illustrate that we should present our old self as a drink offering and then allow Him to pour us over the altar.
Do you find yourself longing for God? Are you at a place in your life where you feel separated from him and sit in darkness waiting on His light to shine on you once again? Maybe you have asked for His Holy Spirit to fill you, and are waiting expectantly for it, or you need an answer to some other prayer that is yet to come. However you wait upon God remember that He is already with you; that your realization of His presence is what you truly await. Remember also that you are not alone, even in this feeling.
Who do we live for? Who have we chosen above ourselves? These are the questions I am contemplating this morning. I am thinking about the spiritual aspect of these questions, but also upon the impact that our life choices have on who, or what, we value as well. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote these words...
I often talk about how I feel regarding Jesus and my love for God, but today I am considering the love God has for us, and the reason for the love He feels for us. We know very well that God loves us, and the Bible is filled with scripture to that effect.
“Thus says the Lord: "The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, the Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”
When we look at our children, what do we see, and how do we see it? We look on them with our eyes, and see their physical characteristics, we observe their actions, and come to know their character by studying them with our minds. We go further, and see their heart through the eyes of our own, and come to know their love as it mixes with ours and grows, but there is one other way we should look at our children... one that many neglect, we should see them spiritually.
Are we unacceptable to God? If we live amongst sinners, or in places where false gods are served, are we precluded from knowing Jesus Christ, and the God of Abraham? Do we feel excluded or lost, and do those around us tell us it is so? Well it is not so, and Peter taught this truth to the Gentiles. Though many Jews sought to exclude them from the worship of God, Peter taught otherwise. He told us that God knows no partiality, and if we fear the Lord, and do what is right, we are acceptable to Him. Are those who once believed and behaved in ways contrary to what is right before the Lord prepared to fear the one true God, and do those things He deems right? If so, then rest assured you are acceptable to Him, and worthy of receiving life in Christ
Are we called to be Holy men and women? If we don’t believe so then what might our calling possibly be? These are two questions we should be asking ourselves this morning, and Paul is a good example we can look to as we search out their answer, and the Lord's call in our own lives. We can be called to do many things as we walk with the Lord, but none more important than to be holy.
This morning I ask you to join me in contemplating those times when God has spoken to you. It may have been in a feeling you couldn't shake, a dream, in a voice only you could hear, by signs, or maybe in a vision. Is there a time when you realized that you were engaged in a "God Moment?"
Yesterday we gave thought to wounding Jesus, but today we will look at this in a different light by asking the question... “Do we persecute Him?” On the road to Damascus, Saul didn't understand what was happening to him. He didn’t recognize the voice that was speaking to him; so He asked... “And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.”