Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water? Does a fig tree produce olives, or a grapevine produce figs? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty spring.” (James 3:11-12 NLT)
One of our greatest challenges as a Jesus follower is to keep our faith fresh, free from encumbrances with which the enemy of our soul seeks to saddle us. Every day as I walk my neighborhood I pray for those in each house, in mine and the surrounding neighborhoods. Those whose names I know, I use their names seeking to make my prayers for them as personal and specific as I can.
One thing that enables me to keep my faith fresh is by praying as specifically as possible. Rather than something like: “Lord, please bless my neighbors,” I ask the Lord to “please draw Steve and Sarah to you. Help them to turn from the emptiness that’s so evident on their faces to faith in you who alone can give them hope, peace, and life.”
To me it’s as though the Lord is walking with me and He’s guiding me in how to pray most effectively. And I realize that even a walk isn’t realistic for some of you, so, pray from your favorite chair that may be by a window through which you can see your neighbors’ houses or watch as they pass by.
Prayer is the lifeline to our heavenly Father, through which we give love and express our concerns, but it’s also the source of our daily (sometimes moment by moment) strength. Freshness implies current, in the moment, but it also suggests attentiveness to the Lord’s presence. He enables us to see what we might miss or hear what might otherwise be jumbled into the background noises of our life.
Dr. David Jeremiah wrote in a recent Turning Point devotional: “We all long for a global revival, another ‘Great Awakening.’ We pray for that, but we cannot control the seasons God keeps under His own authority. But we do know this—He wants each of us to live in perpetual revival, constantly renewed in the spirit of our mind, keeping a fresh mental and spiritual attitude. Does that describe you? It should and it can!”
Intimacy with the Lord is the pathway to intimacy with every other person in your life. If your walk with the Lord is stale and dated, so will your life be, thus, crippling your means of expressing love to others effectively. Robert Lowry wrote: “The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart, a fountain ever springing! All things are mine since I am his! How can I keep from singing?”
Just as fruit picked from a dying branch isn’t as satisfying as what’s chosen from a vibrant and alive branch, so the “fruit” of our life, if we’re not walking closely with the Lord, is going to be ineffective, dull, and often meaningless as we seek to share our faith with others. The people in my life that I most admire and from whom I most easily learn, are those who spend time with the Lord and have an intimate and current connection with Him.
How fresh is your faith? Are you spending quality time (not leftover time) reading, studying, and memorizing His Word? Is your prayer life vibrant and alive with the freshness of a Spring flower, or stale like your breath when you first awaken? If you don’t like the freshness of your faith, only you can do something about it.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 