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God’s Story… For My Life – Thursday, December 18, 2014

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Gods story

Prayer for His People

Read John 17:6-19

“During my time here, I protected them by the power of the name you gave me. I guarded them so that not one was lost, except the one headed for destruction, as the Scriptures foretold.

“Now I am coming to you. I told them many things while I was with them in this world so they would be filled with my joy. I have given them your word. And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to this world any more than I do. Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth.”
(John 17:12-19)

Reflect

The world hates Christians because Christians’ values differ from those of the world. Because Christ’s followers don’t cooperate with the world by joining in their sin, they are living accusations against the world’s immorality. The world follows Satan’s agenda, and Satan is the avowed enemy of Jesus and his people.

Jesus didn’t ask God to take believers out of the world but instead to use them in the world. Because Jesus sends us into the world, we should not try to escape from the world, nor should we avoid all relationships with non-Christians. We are called to be salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16), and we are to do the work that God sent us to do.

A follower of Christ becomes set apart through believing and obeying the Word of God (Hebrews 4:12). He or she has already accepted forgiveness through Christ’s sacrificial death (Hebrews 7:26-27). But daily application of God’s Word has a purifying effect on our minds and hearts. Scripture points out sin, motivates us to confess, renews our relationship with Christ, and guides us back to the right path.

Respond

Jesus prayed, “Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth” (John 17:17). You can pray that prayer for yourself or someone else. In what ways has God already revealed his truth through his Word? How has his Word helped shape your priorities and purpose?

Streams in the Desert

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Now may the God of peace himself make you completely holy and may your spirit and soul and body be kept entirely blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is trustworthy, and he will in fact do this.—1 Thess 5:23-24
Many years since I saw that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” I began by following after it and inciting all with whom I had intercourse to do the same. Ten years after, God gave me a clearer view than I ever had before of the way to obtain it; namely, by faith in the Son of God. And immediately I declared to all, “We are saved from sin, we are made holy by faith.” This I testified in private, in public, and in print, and God confirmed it by a thousand witnesses. I have continued to declare this for above thirty years, and God has continued to confirm my work.
—John Wesley in 1771
“I knew Jesus, and He was very precious to my soul; but I found something in me that would not keep sweet and patient and kind. I did what I could to keep it down, but it was there. I besought Jesus to do something for me, and, when I gave Him my will, He came to my heart, and took out all that would not be sweet, all that would not be kind, all that would not be patient, and then HE shut the door.”
—George Fox
My whole heart has not one single grain, this moment, of thirst after approbation. I feel alone with God; He fills the void; I have not one wish, one will, one desire, but in Him; He hath set my feet in a large room. I have wondered and stood amazed that God should make a conquest of all within me by love.
—Lady Huntington
“All at once I felt as though a hand—not feeble, but omnipotent; not of wrath, but of love—was laid on my brow. I felt it not outwardly but inwardly. It seemed to press upon my whole being, and to diffuse all through me a holy, sin-consuming energy. As it passed downward, my heart as well as my head was conscious of the presence of this soul-cleansing energy, under the influence of which I fell to the floor, and in the joyful surprise of the moment, cried out in a loud voice. Still the hand of power wrought without and within; and wherever it moved, it seemed to leave the glorious influence of the Saviors image. For a few minutes the deep ocean of God’s love swallowed me up; all its waves and billows rolled over me.”
—Bishop Hamline
Holiness—as I then wrote down some of my contemplations on it—appeared to me to be of a sweet, calm, pleasant, charming, serene nature, which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness, ravishment to the soul; in other words, that it made the soul like a field or garden of God, with all manner of pleasant fruits and flowers, all delightful and undisturbed, enjoying a sweet calm and the gentle vivifying beams of the sun.
—Jonathan Edwards
“Love’s resistless current sweeping 
All the regions deep within; 
Thought and wish and senses keeping 
Now, and every instant clean: 
Full salvation! Full salvation! 
From the guilt and power of sin.”

God’s Story… For My Life – Wednesday, December 17, 2014

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Gods story

Direct Access

Read John 16:16-33

“I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn over what is going to happen to me, but the world will rejoice. You will grieve, but your grief will suddenly turn to wonderful joy. It will be like a woman suffering the pains of labor. When her child is born, her anguish gives way to joy because she has brought a new baby into the world. So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy. At that time you won’t need to ask me for anything. I tell you the truth, you will ask the Father directly, and he will grant your request because you use my name. You haven’t done this before. Ask, using my name, and you will receive, and you will have abundant joy.

“I have spoken of these matters in figures of speech, but soon I will stop speaking figuratively and will tell you plainly all about the Father. Then you will ask in my name. I’m not saying I will ask the Father on your behalf, for the Father himself loves you dearly because you love me and believe that I came from God. Yes, I came from the Father into the world, and now I will leave the world and return to the Father.”
(John 16:20-28)

Reflect

In his last moments with his disciples, Jesus (1) warned them about further persecution, (2) told them where, when, and why he was going, and (3) assured them that they would not be left alone, but that the Spirit would come. Jesus knew what would lie ahead, and he did not want the disciples’ faith shaken or destroyed.

Jesus is talking about a new relationship between the believer and God. Previously, people approached God through priests with the proper sacrifices in tow. After Jesus’ resurrection, any believer could approach God directly. A new day has dawned and now all believers are priests, talking with God personally and directly (see Hebrews 10:19-23). We approach God, not because of our own merit, but because Jesus, our great High Priest, has made us acceptable to God.

Respond

You can approach God anytime, anywhere. Celebrate your direct access to God by taking the concerns of others before him.

Streams in the Desert – December 16

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And there was Anna, a prophetess… which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day (Luke 2:36,37).

 

No doubt by praying we learn to pray, and the more we pray the oftener we can pray, and the better we can pray. He who prays in fits and starts is never likely to attain to that effectual, fervent prayer which avails much.

 

Great power in prayer is within our reach, but we must go to work to obtain it. Let us never imagine that Abraham could have  interceded so successfully for Sodom if he had not been all his lifetime in the practice of communion with God. Jacob’s all-night at Peniel was not the first occasion upon which he had met his God. We may even look upon our Lord’s most choice and wonderful prayer with his disciples before His Passion as the flower and fruit of His many nights of devotion, and of His often rising up a great while before day to pray.

 

If a man dreams that he can become mighty in prayer just as he pleases, he labors under a great mistake. The prayer of Elias which shut up heaven and afterwards opened its floodgates, was one of long series of mighty prevailing with God. Oh, that Christian men would remember this! Perseverance in prayer is necessary to prevalence in prayer.

 

Those great intercessors, who are not so often mentioned as they ought to be in connection with confessors and martyrs, were nevertheless the grandest benefactors of the Church; but it was only by abiding at the mercy-seat that they attained to be such channels of mercy to men.

 

We must pray to pray, and continue in prayer that our prayers may continue.
–C. H. Spurgeon

God’s Story… For My Life – Tuesday, December 16, 2014

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Gods story

Love as He Loves

Read John 15:1-17

“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other.”
(John 15:9-17)

Reflect

When things are going well, we feel elated. When hardships come, we sink into depression. But true joy transcends the rolling waves of circumstance. Joy comes from a consistent relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus is the vine, and God is the gardener who cares for the branches to make them fruitful (John 15:1-2). The branches are all those who claim to be followers of Christ. The fruitful branches are true believers who by their living union with Christ produce much fruit. When our lives are intertwined with his, he will help us walk through adversity without sinking into debilitating lows and manage prosperity without moving into deceptive highs. The joy of living with Jesus Christ daily will keep us levelheaded, no matter how high or low our circumstances.

Because Jesus Christ is Lord and master, he could call us servants; instead, he calls us friends. How comforting and reassuring to be chosen as a friend of Jesus. Because he is Lord and master, we owe him our unqualified obedience. Yet Jesus asks us to obey him because we love him.

Respond

We are to love each other as Jesus loved us. You may never have to die for someone, but there are other ways you can practice sacrificial love: listening, helping, encouraging, giving. Prayerfully consider someone who needs this kind of love today. Give all the love you can, and then try to give a little more.

How to Remember What Matters Most – K-love Digging Deeper

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what matters most

 

How to Remember What Matters Most

 

Excerpted from The Women of Christmas by Liz Curtis Higgs

 

It was time. All across Judea people went about their business, trading their goods and tending their flocks, unaware, unprepared. But Mary, Joseph, and all of heaven knew. He is coming. We can’t be certain how close to term Mary was, but definitely “in the later stages of her pregnancy.”

 

Tradition and Hollywood often show her reaching the edge of town at the first contraction, but that’s not found in Scripture. She and Joseph may have been in Bethlehem for some time before she went into labor. With a sigh of relief, we can probably let go of the image of an about-to-give-birth Mary being jostled on the back of a donkey. Even so, she didn’t have long to wait. Joseph and Mary were still in Bethlehem, the streets and houses crowded with visitors, when her pregnant days were over.

 

Like John before him, Jesus didn’t come prematurely but arrived when “the days were fulfilled,” and “she came to the end of her time” at the exact moment God had ordained. Whether she labored three hours or thirty, whether a midwife was present or Joseph alone assisted in the delivery process, Mary gave birth to a son. We have no birth weight, no length, no Apgar score. Were his extremities pink? Was his pulse rate over one hundred? Did he have a strong, lusty cry?

 

He came for those he loves.

He came for you.

 

Here’s what matters most: the prophecies had all come true, the miracle was complete, and the Savior rested in Mary’s embrace. This child of the Holy Spirit was her child too, with ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes, with olive skin and a dark whorl of hair. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” On that sacred day God became more than a pillar of cloud or a pillar of fire. He became flesh and blood and bone. He became one of us. Mary focused on caring for her baby while she stored all she’d seen and done “like a secret treasure in her heart.” Some women like to talk their way through experiences; others prefer the Mary approach: “weighing and pondering,” “mulling them over,” and “trying to understand them.”

 

Sometimes the Lord does such a profound work in us and through us that sharing it with others would sound like bragging. Even if we say, “Look what God has done,” others may perceive it as “Look what I’ve done” or “Look how special I am!” God, as always, knows best. The shepherds were noisy, yet the mother of Jesus was quiet. Others would take his story far and wide, encircling the earth with his truth. Mary was called to be his mother—no more and no less. To nurture him, to feed and clothe him, to teach him all she knew of his heavenly Father. As to these things she had treasured up, “holding them dear, deep within herself,” Gabriel had given her quite a list of attributes for this child, starting with “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.”

 

Whenever she held her baby boy, those angelic words surely ran through her mind. He didn’t look like a monarch, but one day he would be called “Lord of lords and King of kings.” He didn’t have the strength to hold up his head, let alone stand on his feet, yet he is the One “who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy.” Just as Mary “committed these things to memory,” we can do the same—not only at Christmas time, but all through the year—thinking about who Jesus is and why he came to earth as a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. He came for those he loves. He came for you.

 

Streams in the Desert – December 15

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Trust in the Lord and do what is right! Settle in the land and maintain your integrity!—Ps 37:3

 

The word trust is the heart word of faith. It is the Old Testament word, the word given to the early and infant stage of faith. The word faith expresses more the act of the will, the word belief the act of the mind or intellect, but trust is the language of the heart. The other has reference more to a truth believed or a thing expected.

 

Trust implies more than this, it sees and feels, and leans upon a person, a great, true, living heart of love. So let us “trust also in him,” through all the delays, in spite of all the difficulties, in the face of all the denials, notwithstanding all the seeming, even when we cannot understand the way, and know not the issue; still “trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass.” The way will open, the right issue will come, the end will be peace, the cloud will be lifted, and the light of an eternal noonday shall shine at last.

 

“Trust and rest when all around thee

Puts thy faith to sorest test;

Let no fear or foe confound thee,

Wait for God and trust and rest.

 

“Trust and rest with heart abiding,

Like a birdling in its nest,

Underneath His feathers hiding,

Fold thy wings and trust and rest.”

An Encouraging Word by Max Lucado

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max lucado

Calling the Unqualified

 

Peter, Andrew, James, Nathanael. Never traveled farther than a week’s walk from home. Haven’t studied the ways of Asia or the culture of Greece. Their passports aren’t worn; their ways aren’t sophisticated. Do they have any formal education?

 

In fact, what do they have? Humility? They jockeyed for cabinet positions. Sound theology? Peter told Jesus to forget the cross. Sensitivity? John wanted to torch the Gentiles. Loyalty? When Jesus needed prayers, they snoozed. When Jesus was arrested, they ran.

 

Thanks to their cowardice, Christ had more enemies than friends at his execution.

 

Yet look at them six weeks later, crammed into the second floor of a Jerusalem house, abuzz as if they’d just won tickets to the World Cup Finals. High fives and wide eyes. Wondering what in the world Jesus had in mind with his final commission: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8 NIV).

 

You hillbillies will be my witnesses. You uneducated and simple folk will be my witnesses. You who once called me crazy, who shouted at me in the boat and doubted me in the Upper Room. You temperamental, parochial net casters and tax collectors. You will be my witnesses. You will spearhead a movement that will explode like a just-opened fire hydrant out of Jerusalem and spill into the ends of the earth: into the streets of Paris, the districts of Rome, and the ports of Athens, Istanbul, Shanghai, and Buenos Aires. You will be a part of something so mighty, controversial, and head spinning that two millennia from now a middle-aged, redheaded author riding in the exit row of a flight from Boston to Dallas will type this question on his laptop:

 

Does Jesus still do it? Does he still use simple folks like us to change the world?

 

God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called.

 

Don’t let Satan convince you otherwise. He will try. He will tell you that God has an IQ requirement or an entry fee. That he employs only specialists and experts, governments and high-powered personalities. When Satan whispers such lies, dismiss him with this truth: God stampeded the first-century society with swaybacks, not thoroughbreds. Before Jesus came along, the disciples were loading trucks, coaching soccer, and selling Slurpee drinks at the convenience store. Their collars were blue, and their hands were calloused, and there is no evidence that Jesus chose them because they were smarter or nicer than the guy next door. The one thing they had going for them was a willingness to take a step when Jesus said, “Follow me.”

 

Are you more dinghy than cruise ship? More stand-in than movie star? More plumber than executive? More blue jeans than blue blood? Congratulations. God changes the world with folks like you.

 

 

 

God’s Story… For My Life – Monday, December 15, 2014

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The Gift of the Holy Spirit

Read John 14:15-31

Jesus replied, “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me. And remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me. I am telling you these things now while I am still with you. But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.

“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid. Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really loved me, you would be happy that I am going to the Father, who is greater than I am. I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do happen, you will believe.”
(John 14:23-29)

Reflect

Before his crucifixion, Jesus wanted to prepare his disciples. Knowing how terrified and alone they would feel once he returned to heaven after his resurrection, Jesus promised the disciples that the Holy Spirit would help them remember what he taught them. This promise ensures the validity of the New Testament. The disciples were eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life and teachings, and the Holy Spirit helped them remember without taking away their individual perspectives. The Holy Spirit can help us in the same way. As we study the Bible and pray, we can trust the Holy Spirit to plant truth in our mind, convince us of God’s will, and remind us when we stray from it.

Respond

The Holy Spirit’s work in our lives is deep and lasting peace. Unlike worldly peace, which is usually defined as the absence of conflict, this peace is confident assurance in any circumstance. With the peace of Jesus, we have no need to fear the present or the future. If your life is full of fear or stress, pray for the Holy Spirit to fill you with Christ’s peace (see Philippians 4:6-7 for more on experiencing God’s peace).

Streams in the Desert – December 14

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His disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray… and he said unto them, “When ye pray, say… Thy kingdom come” (Luke 11:1-2).

When they said, “Teach us to pray,” the Master lifted His eyes and swept the far horizon of God. He gathered up the ultimate dream of the Eternal, and, rounding the sum of everything God intends to do in the life of man, He packed it all into these three terse pregnant phrases and said, “When you pray, pray after this manner.” What a contrast between this and much praying we have heard.

When we follow the devices of our own hearts, how runs it? “O Lord bless me, then My family, My church, My city, My country,” and away on the far fringe as we close up, there is a prayer for the extension of His Kingdom throughout the wide parish of the world.

The Master begins where we leave off. The world first, my personal needs second, is the order of this prayer. Only after my prayer has crossed every continent and every  far-flung island of the sea, after it has taken in the last man in the last backward race, after it has covered the entire wish and purpose, of God for the world, only then am I taught to ask for a piece of bread for myself.

When Jesus gave His all, Himself for us and to us in the holy extravagance of the Cross, is it too much if He asks us to do the same thing? No man or woman amounts to anything in the kingdom, no soul ever touches even the edge of the zone of power, until this lesson is learned that Christ’s business is the supreme concern of life and that all personal considerations, however dear or important, are tributary thereto.
–Dr. Francis

When Robert Moffat, the veteran African missionary and explorer, was asked once to write in a young lady’s album, he penned these lines:

My album is a savage breast,
Where tempests brood and shadows rest,
Without one ray of light;
To write the name of Jesus there,
And see that savage bow in prayer,
And point to worlds more bright and fair,
This is my soul’s delight.

“And His Kingdom shall have no frontier” (Luke 1:33, the old Moravian version).

The missionary enterprise is not the Church’s afterthought; it is Christ’s forethought.
–Henry van Dyke