Paul's words are encouraging to me, especially those where they touch on the subject of faith, and my daily walk with God. I want to encourage you to read carefully, and prayerfully ponder, the 7th through the 11th verse of his second epistle to the Corinthians, the 4th chapter. This passage came quickly to my mind when I read King David's 51st Psalm, which I have come to call the prayer psalm of repentance. After David poured out his heart and soul to God, expressing genuine sorrow for his sin with Bathsheba, the wife of Urriah, one of his soldiers, he arrived at a very comforting conclusion: that God will honor and accept anyone who comes to Him with a broken spirit.
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken
and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise."
Verse 17
Brokenness is one of the most important features of the Christ centered life. Yet, it is often the most overlooked. And I have to admit, with much regret, that I have only recently discovered it has been missing for many years in my walk of faith. In fact, the Lord has shown me over the past eight months that I will never grow in my faith unless I am willing to allow Him to target and destroy those things in my life which hinder my faith walk. No, He is not out to destroy me, His child. And He does not intend to do you harm, either, if you are one of His. But He does intend to go after and do away with anything which we hold on to that will hinder His finished work in our lives.
This is something which is not mentioned, taught, or preached very much these days. Our idea of what it means to be a Christian is that we must always be about doing something. Starting programs, holding committee meetings, and making sure we are in the Lord's house almost every Sunday. But as I heard one fellow preacher put it, "Christianity is not doing. It is being. It is allowing our Lord to have complete unconditional control of every part of our lives. All that we value, whether it be possessions, even family, loved ones, and close friends. He has rights to all these and more, and when any of these are more important to us than our love and devotion to Christ, He will need to remove them. He wants to transform us into a finished work of grace so that what finally shows through us is His image.
The hour is late, but I intend to return to this theme soon in more detail.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
August 11th, 2008
Blogging is an art which may take a little while for me to learn. I do not dare use the word "master." The reason for that is I do not believe any of us can truly say we have mastered anything. Again, Paul comes to mind here. He writes in Philippians 3:12:
"Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after
,
if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehending of Christ Jesus."
What he says here is that "no matter how close is my walk with the Lord, as long as I am still in this body of flesh, I will never arrive to mastery or perfection. Only in heaven will that occur. And only Christ can and will make that one day happen."
That goes for anything any of us pursue in this life. I have been a piper now for a little over forty years, if my memory serves me well enough. And I try to practice the pipes almost daily. Sundays I would prefer to reserve for a rest, as this is the Lord's special day when all labor should cease, at least any labor which is not cecessary, like law enforcement and hospital work. Crimes and illnesses do not take place Monday through Saturday only, and some jobs have to be done on Sunday as well.
Over the last couple of days, I have been experiencing a spiritual dry spell. Drought is not limited to climate and weather. It can occur in a Christian's heart and soul. But it is during those times when God can do His best work in us. I hope someone out there in viewing land will read these words, as I believe the Lord laid upon me to write such words in the hope that they might be an encouragement to fellow believers who are going through such times in their lives.
Keep praying even if you do not feel like praying. And stay in God's Word, keep meditating on its timeless truths. Our Lord will honor that, especially when we tell Him what He already knows how we really feel.Two things He has revealed to me about this: One: We should never trust our feelings. We should trust in Him and His blessed Word. Two: We should keep up our prayer and Bible when our hunger and thirst for Him seems as if it approaching empty. My wife Miriam read to me one day from one of her nutritional health books that we should not stop eating when we do not have much of an appetite, because the body still needs food. I believe the same applies to a Christian's walk with God. Keep walking with Him, talking with Him, even when we do not think we have any words left. Romans 8:26 gives much credance to that.
Well, I will bid farewell for the time being, but hope to return with more from "Faith Walk." Next time, I will try to post a recent photo of my wife and me sitting in front of the church house where we were brought together in holy matrimony nearly 32 years ago. This coming November 6th will commemorate our 32 years together. Also, I will try to include some photos of our two girls, Meg and Emily. Both are married, and have each given us two grandchildren.
May your day be blessed as you spend it with loved ones and family. The grace of our Lord and Saviour be with you all.
"Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after
,if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehending of Christ Jesus."
What he says here is that "no matter how close is my walk with the Lord, as long as I am still in this body of flesh, I will never arrive to mastery or perfection. Only in heaven will that occur. And only Christ can and will make that one day happen."
That goes for anything any of us pursue in this life. I have been a piper now for a little over forty years, if my memory serves me well enough. And I try to practice the pipes almost daily. Sundays I would prefer to reserve for a rest, as this is the Lord's special day when all labor should cease, at least any labor which is not cecessary, like law enforcement and hospital work. Crimes and illnesses do not take place Monday through Saturday only, and some jobs have to be done on Sunday as well.
Over the last couple of days, I have been experiencing a spiritual dry spell. Drought is not limited to climate and weather. It can occur in a Christian's heart and soul. But it is during those times when God can do His best work in us. I hope someone out there in viewing land will read these words, as I believe the Lord laid upon me to write such words in the hope that they might be an encouragement to fellow believers who are going through such times in their lives.
Keep praying even if you do not feel like praying. And stay in God's Word, keep meditating on its timeless truths. Our Lord will honor that, especially when we tell Him what He already knows how we really feel.Two things He has revealed to me about this: One: We should never trust our feelings. We should trust in Him and His blessed Word. Two: We should keep up our prayer and Bible when our hunger and thirst for Him seems as if it approaching empty. My wife Miriam read to me one day from one of her nutritional health books that we should not stop eating when we do not have much of an appetite, because the body still needs food. I believe the same applies to a Christian's walk with God. Keep walking with Him, talking with Him, even when we do not think we have any words left. Romans 8:26 gives much credance to that.
Well, I will bid farewell for the time being, but hope to return with more from "Faith Walk." Next time, I will try to post a recent photo of my wife and me sitting in front of the church house where we were brought together in holy matrimony nearly 32 years ago. This coming November 6th will commemorate our 32 years together. Also, I will try to include some photos of our two girls, Meg and Emily. Both are married, and have each given us two grandchildren.
May your day be blessed as you spend it with loved ones and family. The grace of our Lord and Saviour be with you all.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Daily Walk
Monday, July 7th, 2008
During the past four days, I was made all the more aware of how much people need the Lord. We hear a great deal about the spiritual needs of many in other lands across the great expanses of salt water. Most of our Protestant denominations, particularly my own Southern Baptist affiliation, carry the burden of foreign missions. But what about the mission needs to reach out to folks in our own backyards? To quote one fine preacher I once heard, "We are putting our cart before the wheels when we are more adamant about taking the gospel message to distant lands, than we are about taking it to lost persons living all around us." He means here the very people with whom we work, and those people who live in our community.
One other insight I received this morning came from 2 Kings, the 19th chapter, verses 15 & 19:
"And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said, O Lord God
of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubim, Thou art God
even Thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: Thou hast
made heaven and earth.
"Now therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech Thee, save Thou
us out of his (Sennacherib's) hand, that all the kingdoms of the
earth may know that Thou art the Lord God, even Thou only."
Hezekiah was one of Judah's kings, and he was a godly man. Jerusalem was under siege by
Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. Sennacherib was a vain and arrogant man who boasted that
his power was greater than God's power, and that Hezekiah's faith in his God and all his prayers
he prayed to Him would not prevent Sennacherib's army from overrunning Jerusalem.
What struck home with me was the closing words of his prayer to God: "that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou art the Lord God, even Thou only." Hezekiah knew that God loved and cared for him and the people he was given by God to rule. But he also knew that God must receive all the credit and glory for all that was done so that other people would come to know He is the only really true God. God wants people everywhere today to see this truth about Him, and that He is the only one who can help them when they are in any trouble. Most important of all, He desires that people everywhere will come to believe that His Son Jesus Christ is the only one who can deliver them from sin's power and horrible penalty.
How He shows unbelievers this is not always in ways that suit us, His people. Sometimes He may choose to use sickness. Yes, Christians can and do lose their physical health. In some cases, mental health can suffer, too. I say this from a personal perspective, as I was diagnosed several years ago with severe depression. The supreme irony of all this is, He may see fit to show the unbelieving world His power to save and deliver a Christian from despair by allowing a Christian to go through times of despair. And yes, He wants to use those dark times in our lives to show us, His people, that He alone can bring us through them.
What He has shown me over the last several months is that He is just as interested in converting unbelievers into believers, as He is in protecting from harm those of us who are His born again children. This is where brokenness comes into action, where God targets areas which hinder us from becoming all He wants us to become. We are all very security minded people, and we want to hold on to what we hold dear to us. But those things we grasp onto so tightly are usually the very things which hold us back from truly relying upon our Father God. I want to write more about that in my next entry. Until then, may His peace carry you above every dark cloud in your life.
During the past four days, I was made all the more aware of how much people need the Lord. We hear a great deal about the spiritual needs of many in other lands across the great expanses of salt water. Most of our Protestant denominations, particularly my own Southern Baptist affiliation, carry the burden of foreign missions. But what about the mission needs to reach out to folks in our own backyards? To quote one fine preacher I once heard, "We are putting our cart before the wheels when we are more adamant about taking the gospel message to distant lands, than we are about taking it to lost persons living all around us." He means here the very people with whom we work, and those people who live in our community.
One other insight I received this morning came from 2 Kings, the 19th chapter, verses 15 & 19:
"And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said, O Lord God
of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubim, Thou art God
even Thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: Thou hast
made heaven and earth.
"Now therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech Thee, save Thou
us out of his (Sennacherib's) hand, that all the kingdoms of the
earth may know that Thou art the Lord God, even Thou only."
Hezekiah was one of Judah's kings, and he was a godly man. Jerusalem was under siege by
Sennacherib, the king of Assyria. Sennacherib was a vain and arrogant man who boasted that
his power was greater than God's power, and that Hezekiah's faith in his God and all his prayers
he prayed to Him would not prevent Sennacherib's army from overrunning Jerusalem.
What struck home with me was the closing words of his prayer to God: "that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou art the Lord God, even Thou only." Hezekiah knew that God loved and cared for him and the people he was given by God to rule. But he also knew that God must receive all the credit and glory for all that was done so that other people would come to know He is the only really true God. God wants people everywhere today to see this truth about Him, and that He is the only one who can help them when they are in any trouble. Most important of all, He desires that people everywhere will come to believe that His Son Jesus Christ is the only one who can deliver them from sin's power and horrible penalty.
How He shows unbelievers this is not always in ways that suit us, His people. Sometimes He may choose to use sickness. Yes, Christians can and do lose their physical health. In some cases, mental health can suffer, too. I say this from a personal perspective, as I was diagnosed several years ago with severe depression. The supreme irony of all this is, He may see fit to show the unbelieving world His power to save and deliver a Christian from despair by allowing a Christian to go through times of despair. And yes, He wants to use those dark times in our lives to show us, His people, that He alone can bring us through them.
What He has shown me over the last several months is that He is just as interested in converting unbelievers into believers, as He is in protecting from harm those of us who are His born again children. This is where brokenness comes into action, where God targets areas which hinder us from becoming all He wants us to become. We are all very security minded people, and we want to hold on to what we hold dear to us. But those things we grasp onto so tightly are usually the very things which hold us back from truly relying upon our Father God. I want to write more about that in my next entry. Until then, may His peace carry you above every dark cloud in your life.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Saturday, July 5th, 2008
As I already said earlier in my introductory entry, the only regret about my starting this blog is that I did not begin it much sooner than now. In fact, I had already expressed that very same sentiment in my hand-written faith and prayer journal I began in January of this year. Had I begun writing and maintaining this journal shortly after the Lord delivered me from a life of sin in 1978, there would have been volumes of journey books written by this time.
What really hit home with me was that just as it took the first thirty years of my earthly life before I came to trust Christ as my Lord and Saviour, it took another thirty years before I came to realize how important this written record is to remind me of God's faithfulness. Oh well, so the old saying goes, I suppose, "Better late than never."
What I want to tell about first is that God is showing me that being a Christian is not a life of doing nearly so much as it is a life of being. The words of my favorite saint, the apostle Paul, have helped me see how true that is:
"And (be) found in Him, (Christ), not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith in Christ, the
righteousness which is of the law by faith."
For those of you reading this blog, please understand that the King James Bible has always been my most favored Bible, and hopefully will continue to be so for as long as the Lord gives me to live on this earth. It was my pick above all other "versions" when as a very young man I was desiring to know the Truth. It was my Book after I was first saved and I began memorizing its verses, and it was the very book from which I preached when I was a pastor. Today, it remains my most favored, and I still preach from it whenever opportunities arise. For the sake of those who have trouble understanding its awesome prose, I will try to offer explanations of its meaning wherever I quote its passages.
Paul, in the verse I just quoted, is saying that he wants his Lord to find him always relying upon Him and his righteousness, and never relying upon his own form of righteousness. This means so much to me because I am comforted to know that my heavenly Father is not the least bit interested in what I think I am able to do; rather, He is interested in and concerned about how much faith I have in what only He can do. And of course, when there is any doing on my part, it will come as a result of my complete reliance upon Him.
Now, there is much more I want to tell you, especially about how God has been working with my wife Miriam and me over the past ten months. A better way of putting this is how He has been working ON us. What I mean here is how He has been working to bring us further away from ourselves and that much closer to Him. He wants to bring us to the point where He is all we will ever need, and all we will ever truly desire, to give our lives purpose and meaning. Now, this involves a lot more than our making a simple statement of faith in Him. To bring any of us to that level of trust will mean we will have to be broken, remade, reshaped. Pain is always a big part of that process, and there will be more said about that later.
Now, we all matter very much to God. If this were not so, He would not have sent His blessed Son here to suffer and die the horrible death of a common criminal in order that we all might be forgiven and live with Him in heaven throughout eternity. Without that act of truest love on His part, none of us would have hope. We would ALL be condemned and on our way to an eternal hell. Paul's words come again to my mind:
"For He hath made Him (Christ) to be sin for us, Who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."
And if that were not enough to convince any of us that God loves us sinners, His Son certainly said it best of all:
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life."
Yet, being a Christian means much more than just saying "I believe in the Lord." The Christian life is a committed life. It means that if I trust Him to be my Saviour, I will also trust Him to be my Lord. And this what I hope to explore in my next entry. Until then, remember, there is hope.
What really hit home with me was that just as it took the first thirty years of my earthly life before I came to trust Christ as my Lord and Saviour, it took another thirty years before I came to realize how important this written record is to remind me of God's faithfulness. Oh well, so the old saying goes, I suppose, "Better late than never."
What I want to tell about first is that God is showing me that being a Christian is not a life of doing nearly so much as it is a life of being. The words of my favorite saint, the apostle Paul, have helped me see how true that is:
"And (be) found in Him, (Christ), not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith in Christ, the
righteousness which is of the law by faith."
For those of you reading this blog, please understand that the King James Bible has always been my most favored Bible, and hopefully will continue to be so for as long as the Lord gives me to live on this earth. It was my pick above all other "versions" when as a very young man I was desiring to know the Truth. It was my Book after I was first saved and I began memorizing its verses, and it was the very book from which I preached when I was a pastor. Today, it remains my most favored, and I still preach from it whenever opportunities arise. For the sake of those who have trouble understanding its awesome prose, I will try to offer explanations of its meaning wherever I quote its passages.
Paul, in the verse I just quoted, is saying that he wants his Lord to find him always relying upon Him and his righteousness, and never relying upon his own form of righteousness. This means so much to me because I am comforted to know that my heavenly Father is not the least bit interested in what I think I am able to do; rather, He is interested in and concerned about how much faith I have in what only He can do. And of course, when there is any doing on my part, it will come as a result of my complete reliance upon Him.
Now, there is much more I want to tell you, especially about how God has been working with my wife Miriam and me over the past ten months. A better way of putting this is how He has been working ON us. What I mean here is how He has been working to bring us further away from ourselves and that much closer to Him. He wants to bring us to the point where He is all we will ever need, and all we will ever truly desire, to give our lives purpose and meaning. Now, this involves a lot more than our making a simple statement of faith in Him. To bring any of us to that level of trust will mean we will have to be broken, remade, reshaped. Pain is always a big part of that process, and there will be more said about that later.
Now, we all matter very much to God. If this were not so, He would not have sent His blessed Son here to suffer and die the horrible death of a common criminal in order that we all might be forgiven and live with Him in heaven throughout eternity. Without that act of truest love on His part, none of us would have hope. We would ALL be condemned and on our way to an eternal hell. Paul's words come again to my mind:
"For He hath made Him (Christ) to be sin for us, Who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."
And if that were not enough to convince any of us that God loves us sinners, His Son certainly said it best of all:
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life."
Yet, being a Christian means much more than just saying "I believe in the Lord." The Christian life is a committed life. It means that if I trust Him to be my Saviour, I will also trust Him to be my Lord. And this what I hope to explore in my next entry. Until then, remember, there is hope.
M y Daily Walk With God
I am very excited about beginning a blog I wish I had begun much sooner than now. More words and thoughts will soon follow. Please stay in touch for more, as the Lord directs.
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