2009-09-11
Good Morning God’s Treasures,
We are led by the Holy Spirit to continue looking at the issue of vertical righteousness, that means lessons in righteous behavior between God and the believer. For awhile now, we’ve been comparing MT 7: 7-11, from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, and other Scriptures and passages. Today, we will look at how EPH 5: 8, 18 support MT 7: 7-11. You’ll remember that MT 7: 7-11 begin with ask, seek, knock on the door. Then, this passage continues to “As bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more, then, will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” in verse 11. This comment goes right to the heart of our relationship with God, Who loves us and wants to bless us. We too should love Him and want to faithfully obey Him, because we understand He is the Source of all that is good.
Now, let’s examine EPH 5: 8, 18. “You yourselves used to be in the darkness, but since you have become the Lord’s people, you are in the light. So you must live like people who belong to the light…Do not get drunk with wine, which will only ruin you; instead, be filled with the Spirit.” Once again, such a directive goes right to our relationships with God. By the way, verse 18 here speaks of drunkenness as being repulsive to God, but one could put any sinful behavior here and emerge with the same meaning. When we lived in darkness, that is led by our natural desires fed by the evil one, we were miserable and unhappy. We felt hopeless, because we had no faith and didn’t know God at all. Since God is the Source of goodness, we had no relationship to that Source. We didn’t know that God was “interested in every detail of our lives, ready to pick us up when we fall” [PS 37: 23-24]. Everything we did was designed for immediate relief of our pain or sustenance of our greedy wants. Nothing lasted, nothing bettered us physically, emotionally, or morally. Then, came along the Holy Spirit, Who worked on opening our hearts before we ever realized it. He was acting on the orders from the Father and was fulfilling the Father’s will. JN 15: 16, “You did not choose Me; I chose you first and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures.”
Does it make you feel special to know that we were chosen first this way? It should! That’s why it is entirely correct for me to refer to each believe reading this devotion as one of God’s treasures. We must remember that we were “created in His own image” [GN 1: 27], that “when united with Christ, we are new creations” [2 COR 5: 17], and that God is constantly renewing us in His image, so that we might have a greater knowledge of Himself [COL 3: 10]. What God asks of us is precious little in comparison to what He gives us. We are asked to ground our thoughts and behavior in His word, in return for a bevy of blessings available from no other source except Him.
There are times when we must be persistent in our willingness to keep our eyes on Him and to pray for certain things. HE 12: 1-2, “As for us, we have this large crowd of witnesses around us. So then, let us rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way, and of the sin which holds on to us so tightly. Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” There are times when God doesn’t answer our prayers right away-even when they are within His will. Oftentimes, that is when we ask Him to solve a problem or help us to solve a problem that has been a long time in the making. We are asked to be patient and wait for God, to give Him the time to unravel the mess. PS 27: 13-14, “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord.” This waiting is tough at times, but we must understand that only from His lofty perspective can He [and not us] know the perfect time and way to answer our prayers. RO 11: 33, “O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How searchable His judgments and His paths beyond tracking out!” And still with all of this, tough prayers to answer and often sinful people who are being gradually perfected, our Lord Jesus steps out on a limb promising us that if we are in Him and He is in us, our prayers will be answered [JN 15: 7]. We must also understand that keeping our eyes on the Lord is definitely learned behavior, behavior that must be practiced to be improved. No one who persists in prayer with a genuine heart will be turned away by the Lord. Now, that should bring us comfort!
PRAYER: O Lord, we must learn to keep our eyes on You. If we do, we will make the wonderful discovery that You are right here with us, walking us step by step through our troubles. We can always turn to You when we are discouraged, and You will provide us with the reminder of Your love for us. IS 41: 10, “Do not be afraid-I am with you! I am your God-let nothing terrify you! I will make you strong and help you; I will protect you and save you.” We realize that God said these words before Isaiah, who lived 300 years before Christ was born, wrote them down for us. And this was not the first offering of comfort for the challenged believer He gave us. The Psalmist, in PS 138: 3, said, “When I called, You answered me; You made me bold and stout-hearted.” That is what You do for those who pray to You with genuinely reverent and caring hearts. Watching You at work is more than an education for us. It is a lesson in promise-keeping. We now live in an age when the end times can come at any time. We look back over Your whole history with us and see Your goodness. PS 107: 43, “Those who are wise will take all this to heart; they will see in our history the faithful love of the Lord.” You have healed us when we were ill; You have called some of us home to You and given them eternal life. You have rewarded us with peace of mind when we took the hardest ways to face our trials, in order to remain righteous in Your sight. Even our very thoughts have been guided into righteous channels by the Holy Spirit, when we prayed asking for this. PS 19: 14, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my Strength, and my Redeemer.” Dearest Abba, there are so many ways that You help us to get through the challenges of our lives, ways we understand and others of which we are not conscious. You have always been available to us and have always prepared the way for us to witness to others. All we have to do is to remember to turn to You first and to listen to an take the direction You give us. There are even times when You make it clear that we must wait for Your righteous reasons for our prayers to be answered. You and You alone know the exactly perfect way and time for these answers to come. You are the most generous and loving God. You never hold back anything from us, not even Your only begotten Son, Who went to the cross for us, so that we could be saved! We offer You thanks and praise forever in the holy and mighty name of Your Son, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Next week we will examine why it’s so necessary to pray with perseverance. There are those times when we must knock for awhile on the door before it’s opened. These times don’t mean that God has stopped loving us, although some foolish people have come to that conclusion. We humans are quite capable of getting into some pretty hairy problems, some that come on gradually and are complicated to unravel, even for God. There are times when this happens, and we really don’t realize a serious problem, particularly those in a relationship are beginning to happen. We only see it after it has become difficult to solve. God’s love for believing mankind is richly demonstrated in GN 22 when Abraham obeyed God and placed his only son of the promise, Isaac, on the altar as a sacrifice. Before Abraham could lower the sharp knife held above his son, God intervened. GN 22: 11-12, “Abraham, Abraham! He answer, ‘Yes, here I am.’ ‘Do not hurt the boy or do anything to him. Now I know that you have obedient reverence for God, because you have not kept back you only son from Him.’” Abraham is even given a glimpse of his cosmic purpose in life in (18), “All the nations will ask Me to bless them as I have blessed your descendants-all because you have obeyed My command.” Of course, Abraham most probably didn’t understand the full ramifications of what God is saying here, but still it was said. Each of us has an immediate purpose for our lives, one which we understand, but few people are told what the long-range [cosmic] purpose is. In Abraham’s case, he was told he would be a “father to many nations” [GN 17: 5], but he never realized his descendants would establish the royal line of David [IS 11: 1], out of which our Lord Jesus Christ came. We can believe that those who are true believers in the Lord Jesus will have the help from our gracious and generous God due to His presence and intervention in our lives. That same is true for potential believers, which is why our perseverance in prayer and witnessing to the truth is so very important. Praise and thanks be to God!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn