Walking With Jesus

Checklist or Benchmark?

“Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God’s law will disappear until its purpose is achieved.” (Matthew 5:17-18 NLT)

There are several implications for us in the verses above that we may well miss if we don’t pay attention to what the Lord is saying. As Gentile (non-Jewish) believers we tend to pay very little attention when the law is mentioned because we fail to see any relevance to 21^st century believers.

Our attitude is essentially that the law was fulfilled by Jesus, that we’re offered peace with God by grace through faith and all we have to do is read the Bible, pray, and follow the Lord’s directives and we’re good to go. And that’s good as far as it goes, but I believe we miss something vital when we fail to realize the law still has relevance to us today.

If “not even the smallest detail of God’s law will disappear until its purpose is achieved” doesn’t it make sense to determine what purpose it’s designed to achieve? Even if we just consider the Ten Commandments, why is it so important to recognize those “laws” still apply to us? Largely because we still have an obligation to obey them.

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What is the purpose of any law? Stop signs or traffic lights? Laws that demand we pay taxes, treat others with respect by not stealing from them or killing them? The late Timothy Keller wrote: “The Law is not a checklist we keep but a benchmark we fail.” So?

The Pharisees and religious leaders of Jesus’ day held, at least by profession, to the strictest letter of the law. That’s what drove them nuts about Jesus. While Jesus said the two most important laws were to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love others as yourself, the Jews had developed hundreds of miniscule laws to cover virtually every detail of life. Which ironically, they didn’t even keep themselves, yet, expected everyone else, including Jesus, to keep.

So, what’s the application for us. We’re Jesus followers, but we’re still accountable to the Lord for how we live and treat each other. So, as Dr. Keller noted, we have a choice to make, which, ironically, we must make nearly every minute of every day. Are we, like the rich young man who came to Jesus in Matthew 19, checking the boxes, but missing the Savior?

Are we content to see even the 10 Commandments as a checklist we check or a benchmark by which we measure our failures. A benchmark is a measure whereby we compare our own progress. It’s like the 4-minute mile that no one believed could be achieved, until someone did. Now it has become the benchmark for mile runners.

Similarly, as Jesus followers, Jesus is our “benchmark,” our goal being to approximate His likeness in our lives as best we can, realizing we’ll always fall short, we’ll always fail, yet, by God’s grace and with His help, we continue to make the effort. But why? Why do we keep allowing our failure to urge us on? Largely because we’re not saved to stay the same.

If the sum total of the Christian life was to receive the gift of eternal life and never change, what’s the point? Out of the shoot we know we’ll always fail to be everything Christ died to enable us to become this side of eternity, so we use His law to measure our progress; to help us have a tangible means of showing we’re actually making progress; otherwise, our constant failure would be debilitating.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Do You Love Evangelism?

“Jesus came and told His disciples, ‘I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’”

While the words “evangelism” or “evangelize” aren’t found in Scripture, the term “evangelist” is and was used to describe those who weren’t Apostles but were commissioned by the Holy Spirit to share the gospel. An Evangelist is the bearer of good news, specifically news about who Jesus is and what He did on the Cross. As a believer in Jesus, it should be in our DNA to want to share Him with others.

For the early Jesus followers sharing about their new life in Christ wasn’t a burden, but a privilege. It never entered their mind NOT to share their love for Jesus and to encourage everyone they met to do the same.

Ed Stetzer made an interesting observation when he wrote: “Many Christians love evangelism as long as someone else is doing it.” On some levels for a person who is born again of the Spirit of God to not desire to share their love for Christ is like a parent not wanting to talk about their child. It’s counter intuitive. Why is that?

Could it be we’ve come to believe that because we’re not a Pastor or church leader we have no responsibility to share? Or could it be we just don’t know how? May I ask you, if you’re a parent, who “taught” you to talk about your baby? “But that’s different!” You may object. How is it different?

A new life has been brought into the world by you and someone you love and with whom you’ve shared life. When a person becomes a child of God, there has been a “new birth” experience that has required two persons, us and our proud heavenly Father who has given us the privilege of having His Holy Spirit come to dwell in us. Why? To empower us to live the life of a Jesus follower.

While it’s not necessarily intuitive, like being a new parent, we learn from those who are parents, but some things we learn by trial and error. The first time I was left alone with my infant daughter I couldn’t get her to stop crying. I checked her diaper, offered her a bottle, laid her down, picked her up, rocked her, and walked her up and down the hallway, but nothing was working. Finally, in desperation, I began to hum songs to her and finally she settled down and went to sleep.

What’s my point? Just because it’s unfamiliar to share your faith with an unbeliever, learn from your mistakes, but don’t stop trying to reach them. What motivated me to keep trying to help my daughter was my love for her. When she was upset, I was upset; when she needed attention, I was there to give it to her, and even if I didn’t know exactly what to do to help her, I kept trying things until something worked.

Because someone I love rejects my efforts to lead them to Jesus, I don’t stop trying. There are two fundamental “rules of faith” that I have to keep me moving in the right direction. First, I don’t push them to make a quick decision. If I sense they’re getting agitated or uncomfortable, I backoff. But, secondly, I continue to love them in practical ways until they give me another opportunity to have a faith conversation with them.

Leading someone to the Lord is rarely a one contact or one conversation process. I have friends and loved ones with whom I’ve been sharing Jesus for years, but there are others who have been much more receptive and have given their lives to the Lord more quickly. The point is, don’t stop trying. Keep praying, learning, and investigating new ways to share your love for Jesus with whomever will listen.

What motivates me to share my faith isn’t my love for evangelism, it’s my love for those who will die and miss heaven if I don’t.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

A Single Sin

“My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the One who is truly righteous.” (1 John 2:1 NLT)

My sense is that we tend to take sin far too lightly. As a result, we often miss opportunities to hear God’s voice or see His hand at work in significant ways. We want to settle for far less than God has for us due to our infatuation with the things of the world.

Part of the problem is we’re asking the wrong question. We ask: “What’s wrong with _____________?” The issue for a believer in Jesus isn’t necessarily what’s wrong with something, because our best choices aren’t between good and evil, but better and best. Sin, like love, isn’t a feeling, it’s a decision. That’s why sin is so heinous. It plays on our emotions and draws us away from the Lord with promises to make us feel better.

Remember, we don’t feel our way to right actions, we act our way to right feelings. You do the right thing; you’ll feel the right way about it. Sin is a decision to do, say, or think something that is displeasing to God, something that will detract from the honor, glory, or fame He deserves. It’s an act of will, not something we accidentally do.

Years ago, I saw a picture of a man walking across the desert with a caption that said: “It’s not the mounds of sand in front of me that slow me down, it’s the grain of sand in my shoe.”

Adam and Eve didn’t accidentally partake of the forbidden fruit. It was the result of planned intention. Why were they at that specific tree in the first place? My guess is they made passes by the tree on many other occasions, getting closer and closer, until one day sin’s pull was just too hard to resist. They allowed the “grain” of curiosity to take its toll.

We flirt with sin, seeing how close we can come without crossing the proverbial line, until one day the draw becomes too much to walk away. The major failures in my life didn’t come about because I spent too much time reading God’s Word, praying, or serving God. They came about because I spent too much time pondering things that were clearly wrong, but rather than shifting my thinking and walking away, I allowed the tentacles of sin to pull me in.

Did I know it was wrong? Absolutely! Did I want to disobey God? Of course not! Then why did I do what I did? My curiosity allowed me to get too close until I could no longer resist the urge to investigate the forbidden. None of us is able in our own strength to resist the devil. We must depend on the Holy Spirit to enable us to shift our eyes or close our ears to things we know will entice us to sin.

Tim Challies wrote: “Just a single sin left in your life is as dangerous as a single rattlesnake left in your bed.” Dear brother or sister, please allow the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom in making decisions that can potentially be dangerous to you. We know ourselves much better than we like to admit, and we know when an “innocent” text or call isn’t innocent at all. The Holy Spirit will alert us to evil. Are you listening?

Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians in the KJV: “Abstain from all appearance of evil.” Be careful how you dress, what you allow your eyes to see, your ears to hear, and that on which you allow your mind to dwell. The greatest battlefield for a believer is our mind. What we think about comes about. So, read what will draw you closer to the Lord; listen to what will instruct your heart for good; and never underestimate the power of even one single sin.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

An Undivided Heart

“Jesus knew their thoughts and replied, ‘Any kingdom divided by civil war is doomed. A town or family splintered by feuding will fall apart.’” (Matthew 12:25 NLT)

What does it mean to love someone with an undivided heart? Be careful, it doesn’t mean to love them exclusively. Our hearts will always require us to love many people. The Lord may own our heart, in the sense that we owe Him full allegiance and total commitment, but we will never love anyone alone, not even God.

Remember Jesus’ words in John 14:15? “If you love Me, obey My commandments.” Loving God with an undivided heart means devoting our energy to the fulfillment of His commands, but it also means obeying Him with a singular focus. How so? How effective will you be as a marriage partner if you have another love interest?

Corky Calhoun wrote: “Obedience is not a requirement of Christian commitment and discipleship, it’s the by-product of an undivided heart.” While I didn’t see his statement in context, so don’t know this with certainty, what it says to me is obedience must be the result of the desire of a heart with a singular focus, bent on pleasing Jesus. A focus that results in following Jesus with full devotion, not having one foot in the world and one foot in my life with Christ.

Obviously, we have many areas of interest and concern as human beings. We have relationships with family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, special interest groups, etc., but as a believer in Jesus we’re called to have a relationship with Him. How can we juggle all these relationships, put Jesus first, and walk in obedience to His directives?

In some ways it’s no different than being married and having all the other relationships. In marriage we still need time with friends apart from our spouse. I belong to a Men’s Group, my wife has her Women’s Group, and we both attend a Couple’s Group. But the design of each of these groups is to make us a better spouse, not push us in opposite directions.

Corky Calhoun also wrote: “Way too many Christians these days are letting the things of this world come between what Jesus is trying to unite.” In my mind the single most important area that demands unity is our heart and mind. We’ve got to determine where our “citizenship” is – heaven or earth? To profess Jesus and live like the devil, so attached to the things of this world we bear no likeness of Jesus is the product of a divided heart.

An undivided heart seeks to reflect the character of Christ in the things we say and do, regardless of who we’re with or where we are. Paul David Tripp wrote: “Live today in the power of the resurrection, power to say ‘no’ to what leads to death and the power to say ‘yes’ to what gives life.” To me that doesn’t mean every decision we make will change our eternal outcome, but holds the potential of interrupting the course of our journey, either moving us closer to the Lord or driving us away from Him.

If I love my wife with an undivided heart I won’t be lusting after other women on the internet or otherwise, and if I love Jesus I won’t be lusting after the things of this world. My focus will be locked on fulfilling my goal of full devotion to my Master, whether in my activities or my relationships.

Having an undivided heart doesn’t mean I can’t love other people or even other things, I just appreciate them in the context of my total commitment to carrying out God’s will in my life. I love nature, but I see it as evidence of the grandeur and majesty of my Creator. And I love my wife as the precious gift from God that she is.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Are You As Close to God As You Want to Be?

“The Lord hears His people when they call to Him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles.” (Psalm 34:17 NLT)

Closeness to God isn’t a feeling. On the contrary, like love, intimacy with God is a decision. When I want to be close to my wife I don’t sit in my office and try to muster up some special kind of feeling. I get up from my chair, walk to where she is and hold her in my arms. Admittedly, it feels great to hold her, but that good feeling was the result of a decision.

Rudolph Dreikurs said in a book I read many years ago, “When you do the right thing, you’ll feel the right way.” In other words, right feelings follow right behavior, not the other way around. We don’t feel our way to right actions, we act our way to right feelings. Why is that so important to understand?

Our closeness to God is made difficult by the fact He’s invisible to our physical eyes. We can only see God with the eyes of our heart. Because of that we often reduce our love for God to a few verses of Scripture or the way we feel when we sing Christian songs.

You may have heard the adage: “If you’re not as close to God as you want to be, who moved?” We tend to place so much stock in how we feel in any given moment. “It’s cloudy, so I’m going to stay in bed. I just don’t feel like getting up.” Have you ever tried this one? “I’m aching all over, so I don’t think I’ll pay my taxes this year.”

Ultimately, we learn to deal with things regardless of how we feel. On some levels that’s how we need to approach our walk with God. Personally, I feel closest to God when I’m fulfilling His will to the best of my knowledge and ability. For example, I believe God’s will is for me to love my wife, but I also believe He’s allowed me to author these blog articles.

So, when I’m heading to my office and I hear my wife say: “You said you’d do (whatever it is I said I would do for her). Is now a good time?” So, what do you think I do? I know both are God’s will, but in that moment I have to prioritize, so, yes, I do what my wife asks me to do.

What’s my point? Whatever God has called and equipped you to do for Him, you will be challenged by many other avenues of His will. But it must begin with a solid commitment to personal holiness. What does that mean? It means to commit to daily prayer and reading/studying/listening to God’s Word, the Bible, then seeking to live out what the Lord is teaching me.

Apart from prayer and God’s Word there can be no long-term closeness to God. And by prayer I’m not talking about “saying” prayers. For example, simply reciting the Lord’s prayer or some other prayer you’ve memorized. Although, even as I’m writing, the Lord is reminding me of the repetition in my prayers every day.

Because of my heart for the lost, I ask the Lord to give me sensitivity and open doors of opportunity for me to reach my loved ones, friends, and neighbors for Him, but I use essentially the same words every day. The point isn’t as much the words we use, but the heart behind those words. If we’re reciting words to fulfill a “commitment” to God, we’re wasting our breath, but if those oft used words reflect the desires of our heart for whatever we’re praying, we’ll move the heart of God and we’ll sense His closeness.

Tozer’s words I’ve shared before: “Every man is as close to God as he wants to be,” may seem a little harsh, but they’re still true. The point is, God is ALWAYS with us, so if we want to get closer to Him, we have to make the conscious decision to make that happen, regardless of how we feel about it.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

God’s Intention (Part 2)

“For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up His life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to Himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault.” (Ephesians 5:25-27 NLT)

How much do you love Jesus? Many would boldly say: “Enough to die for Him!” And, admittedly, sometimes that’s what He asks of us. But largely what He’s asking is for us to live for Him. Similarly, some husbands, under severe circumstances, literally give their lives on behalf of their family. But the design of marriage isn’t death, it’s life “until death do us part!”

Marriage demands compromise, give and take, sacrifice for the health of the one “body” formed in marriage. In much the same way, Christ sacrificed His sinless life to give us the privilege of being in oneness with Him by yielding our life and allegiance to Him. As in marriage, its design is to be an exclusive relationship with benefits designed specifically for those who make that commitment.

As each husband and wife are able, they give birth to children who bear their name and, as they grow, learn to take part in the maintenance and care of their family. They are given responsibilities commensurate with their abilities which, ideally, they take pride in doing as they grow in their appreciation of the family in which they’ve been placed.

Obviously, this is an ideal that isn’t enjoyed by everyone, yet it’s God’ design and desire for His children who become a part of His eternal family. As in the family, our role in the family of God isn’t independence, but interdependence. And yes, of course, children are trained to one day become independent of their mom and dad, but never to be separated from their allegiance to their family of origin.

In much the same way, each Church “family” is to bear spiritual “children” who will learn what it means to be a child of God. The goal isn’t to create thousands of individual “believers,” but to help them understand and maintain allegiance to their whole Family – the Body of Christ. I’ve seen this in its best light as I’ve traveled to other countries.

I’ve never been asked in another country: “What church do you attend?” I’ve only been welcomed with open arms and hearts as I would be if I was coming home to my family, because indeed I was. The love of Christ isn’t given to help us build barriers between us, but to tear them down. Our goal as children of God is to reach our hands in fellowship to every blood-washed one.

When I was in secular employment and someone learned I had been a Pastor, often the first question was (and you know what’s coming): “In what church were you a Pastor?” One of two things was bound to happen when I answered: “Hmmm. Well, I’m a _________!” And I’d either see a smile or they’d often just turn and walk away if I wasn’t part of “their” group.

Friends, that’s the work of the evil one. We don’t have to agree on every point of doctrine to have meaningful fellowship. Our commonality is derived from our Father in heaven, not the name over the door of our church. God’s intention is unity, not division; love and acceptance based on the shed blood of our Savior and our devotion to Him.

One thing I’ve learned over the years of serving and being a part of many churches: I don’t have to like you, but if I’m going to please my Father, I’d better love you, not for yours or my honor, but for His.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

God’s Intention

“The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13 NLT)

Have you ever wondered why there are more than 45,000 Christian denominations worldwide? Admittedly, I’m quite sure there are a few valid reasons, but the glaring picture it paints for me is DIVISION! The Church of Jesus Christ, according to Scripture, is to be ONE BODY, and theologically we may well be, but God’s will for His Body is Oneness, Unity, and Harmony, not division.

To find a unified church is almost an oxymoron. There are people in my family and, I suspect, in yours who won’t have anything to do with a church in their area even though they love Jesus and are avid students of His Word. Where have we gone wrong? How have we missed God’s plan by such a huge margin?

I’m convinced Satan is the author of confusion and division, but how does he do such an effective job, especially among GOD’S people? Could it be our insatiable appetite to please ourselves; our insistence on having a church, among a thousand other things in our lives, that meets OUR needs?

My sense, based on my understanding of Scripture, is that it was never God’s intention to simply have 3.6 billion individuals love Him. His plan is to come back for ONE BRIDE. Robert Banks was on to something vital when he wrote: “God’s intention is not the fashioning of mere individuals, but of a mature community.”

It’s ironic that we have one overriding enemy whose one goal is, if he can’t keep us out of heaven, to at least keep us out of God’s will. And the overwhelming evidence is that he’s quite effective in doing that. How do I know? Because as the world population grows the percentage of Jesus followers can’t come near to keeping up. But why?

Statistically, in any given church, 10% of the people do 90% of the work of the ministry. My heart aches even as I write these words, not only because of how the Lord has worked so generously in my life, but because I remain so relatively ineffective in the things I do for Him. I pray and give and work and volunteer and love and serve, but it never seems enough.

And I’m not complaining, I’m hopefully helping us to see the enemy’s strategy. A.W. Tozer wrote: “Every man is as close to God as he wants to be.” We go to church and hear a powerful message from God or we read a book that stirs our soul, or we experience a life-altering healing or miracle and our initial response is: “I’ve got to do more for God!”

So, we sign up for every class, serve at every service, volunteer for every need – for three months! Until we’re burned out and mad at the church and everyone else for “making us do all that!” But that was never God’s plan or intention. His intention is to blend us into a family, enabling us to work with others in carrying out God’s will, right?

But that’s the rub! What is God’s will? On many levels being a Jesus follower is like marriage. The Lord doesn’t expect me, as my wife’s only husband, to care for anyone else’s house, car, wife, kids, than my own. What’s my point? By God’s grace, the Lord will direct you to a portion of the Body who loves Him deeply, desires to carry out His will completely, and longs to do that in harmony with other like-minded Jesus followers, as He has for me.

The Church is far from perfect, but like any husband or wife, He puts us together, not to be perfect, but to be obedient and submissive to His authority in and over us. Let’s look into this further in tomorrow’s post.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Can You Forgive the Inexcusable?

“Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’” (Matthew 18:32-33 NLT)

Sin seems never so evil as when it’s committed against me! On some levels it’s like no dessert tastes better than the one I shouldn’t have.

In the story in Matthew 18 referenced above, a man was indebted to a king an amount that was impossible for him to repay. His only recourse was to go to the king, confess his inability to pay and beg for mercy. Miraculously, the king forgave all his debt. But rather than rejoicing in that wonderful gift, he left the king and went straight to a fellow servant who owed him a miniscule amount in comparison. But when his friend begged for more time to pay, the forgiven servant had him incarcerated until the debt could be paid. When the king heard what had happened, he scolded the man and had him incarcerated as well.

What’s the picture the Lord is painting here? Our sin debt that we could never in all eternity have paid ourselves was paid on our behalf by Jesus on the Cross. And because of the miracle of grace offered us by Jesus, He requires us to forgive whatever sin anyone ever commits against us. What’s the implication? There’s nothing anyone could ever do to us that would compare with what Jesus suffered in our place on the Cross.

Some might think to forgive someone is cutting them a lot more slack than they deserve. Duh! You think? All we need to do to know that’s true is to look in the mirror. Do you for a millisecond believe Jesus deserved to hang on a cross for your sin? That’s the point! They don’t “deserve” forgiveness, we offer it as a gift of grace in the same way Jesus offers us forgiveness.

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My wife and I watch a crime drama series and it always breaks my heart to see a child suffer injury or death due to the carelessness or deliberate commitment of a crime by their parent. In my mind that’s inexcusable, yet it doesn’t compare with what our sin cost God as He allowed His only Son to be sacrificed on our behalf.

C. S. Lewis wrote: “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.” There’s nothing anyone could ever do to me, or you that could approximate the pain, suffering, agony, and heartbreak of our heavenly Father as He watched His Son die on the Cross in our place.

Another consideration that gives me peace in forgiving someone who sins against me is this: there’s nothing I or anyone else could do to someone that would compare with the penalty they’ll pay for their sin, not just against me, but against a holy God. The writer of the Hebrew letter quotes Deuteronomy 32:36 when he wrote: “I will take revenge. I will pay them back.”

Even in the Lord’s prayer the Lord reminds us to ask the Father to “forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.” What’s the clear implication? We will be forgiven in the measure we’re willing to forgive. Unwillingness to forgive blocks God’s ability to forgive us.

An unwillingness to forgive is like drinking a glass of poison and expecting someone else to die. It’s self-destructive.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Feeling Powerless?

“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” (James 5:16 NLT)

The tentacles of unconfessed sin will squeeze the life out of your effectiveness as a child of God more quickly than anything else. We’ve got to realize that some sin needs to be confessed to more than God. One of Satan’s most effective weapons is lulling us into believing our sin isn’t that big of a deal.

Two things result when we fail to see our sin in its proper light: It weakens our link with God and with other believers. Sin is a huge issue! So gigantic that it could only be dealt with by the life, death, and resurrection of our Savior. Paul wrote in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…” Death is what we earn by ignoring our sin; it’s the cessation of the life God created us to have. What are the implications?

Sin separates us from a holy God, but it also separates us from our brothers and sisters in Christ. How so? Sin turns us inward because Satan’s goal is to keep us focused on ourselves. As long as our gaze is fixed on anything but Jesus, we’re dead in the water. Any hope of effectiveness for the Lord is lost, which basically translates: no effective witness to the lost and no effective growth in our walk with other believers.

Perhaps the most critical piece of this whole puzzle is prayer, and to harbor unconfessed sin is to put a strangle hold on our communication with the Lord. One of the key ministries of the Holy Spirit is to keep the lines of communication open between us and God, but sin clogs those airways. We can easily get frustrated, blaming God for not answering prayers that have no substance or that never reach Him because of unconfessed sin.

“Lord, bless me today” is like saying “Lord, help me get wet while I’m swimming.” God is all about blessing. If we tried to list all the ways God has and is blessing us, we’d run out of paper and ink before we ran out of blessings. Innocuous prayer is worse than no prayer.

Prayer should rattle the gates of hell, boldly expecting God to move in ways that threaten Satan’s hold, not only on us, but on those in our families, friends, co-workers, neighbors, and anyone else in our spheres of influence. Prayer is our lifeline to God apart from which we are hopeless and helpless.

Thom Rainer wrote: “We are powerless when we are prayerless.” Sin will rob us of the desire to pray more quickly than anything else, but it will also render the Word of God useless as well. How so? We can’t hear from God when the lines of communication between us and Him are blocked.

We’re so tempted to believe that sin has no hold on us once we’re saved, but if that’s the case why does the Bible so clearly direct us to seek forgiveness for sin after we proclaim our dependence on Jesus? To sin is our nature and even after the Lord gives us a new nature there is still a constant battle between what God wants in our life and what we want.

Every time our sinful nature “wins,” we lose – we lose ground in our walk with the Lord, we lose focus on our mission for the Lord, and we lose heart to do and be all we can do and be to the Lord’s honor and fame.

Powerlessness is a sin issue that can only be addressed through confession. Certainly, to the Lord, but often, depending on the nature of our sin, it demands confession to another person. “Secret” sin that we think is hidden from everyone and isn’t “hurting” anyone, is the deadliest of all, and must be confessed, not only to God, but someone else – a brother/sister who will walk with us on our healing journey.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Your Personal History

“Those who are wise will take all this to heart; they will see in our history the faithful love of the Lord.” (Psalm 107:43 NLT)

After your life has ended and nothing remains of you but a memory, what will people learn of you? When the way you are living right now becomes the history that tells the story of you, what will the pages of your life reveal? That you were a good person? A person who loved their family? A hard worker?

What will be the sum of all your years as they become a memory in someone’s mind or heart? Will your life inspire someone to greatness? Will it leave a legacy of love? Will it prove your words of faithfulness to Jesus? Or will it reveal a life of faith that was a mile wide and an inch deep? Will memories of you give a clear picture of Jesus, or a muddled view of you? Will they remember a strong person of faith or a weak person who focused mostly on themselves?

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Do you realize you’re not the only contributor to your life’s story? Virtually every person whose life your life touches will leave an indelible imprint on your life for good or evil. Every thought, every decision, every act of kindness, every thoughtless word, every angry gesture, every prayer of desperation, every tear, every hopeless and every joy-filled moment are recorded by God.

Thankfully we have a B.C. and an A.D. in the story of our lives that include our years “Before Christ” and “After Death to ourselves and new life in Christ alone by faith alone.” After we’re born again in Christ our destination is not the only thing that dramatically changes. C.T. Studd wrote: “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”

What do you want to be read on the pages of your life’s story? “He had so much potential, it’s so sad that he wasted it for the things of this world.” “She had the heart of a lion, but Satan robbed her of so much good she could have done.” “He was the person in my life who most lived like Jesus.” “If it wasn’t for her, I would still be lost in my sin.”

Do you not realize you’re “writing” those pages in the moments of this day? But thankfully, you’re not the only one with a “pen” after you meet Jesus. While it’s a staggering consideration that the Lord Jesus sees the day of our death as clearly as He sees the day of our birth, the good news is by His grace we don’t have to fall prey to the way we’ve always been.

By God’s grace and with the help of the strong Holy Spirit who resides in us as a believer in Jesus, we can move in new directions of usefulness and fruitfulness for God’s Kingdom. We can determine that our life will be lived to His honor and fame; that the air we breathe each day will fuel us on to heights of effectiveness for the Lord Jesus that we never dreamed possible.

Do you not know that you are no longer limited by the things that once held you in bondage? Are you not aware that the Lord Jesus has liberated you to be more than you ever dreamed you could be? The pages of your life that you’re writing today can be of one who has been freed to dream big and live powerfully in ways you never could before.

God hasn’t equipped you with His Holy Spirit to enable you to remain the same! Absolutely not! You have been re-born by the Spirit of God to be a child of God. You are royalty that now can be and do things for God that you never imagined you could. There are people whose lives you can touch and help change for the Savior whose eternal destinies can be redirected because of your positive and godly influence.

Please, for God’s sake, get your nose out of the dust of this earth and raise your head to imagine the thoughts God has for you – to be more than anyone has ever imagined you could be for Him! Begin today, right now, to write the rest of the history of your life on this earth, to God’s honor, not yours.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊