2009-09-18
Good Morning Dear Ones,
There are some things the Holy Spirit does that utterly amaze me. One of them is giving me so many messages to share on judgment. It has become obvious to me that this subject is very important to God, so He is using me to say a lot about it. We’ve been comparing MT 7: 7-11, the passage that begins with “ask, seek, knock,” with other ones. Today, I am called upon to write about why it’s so important that we be persistent in some of our prayers. Experience tells us that no one who asks with a contrite and genuine heart will be turned away by our loving God. Remember Christ’s amazing promise in JN 15: 7, “If you remain in Me and my words remain in you, then you will ask for anything you wish and you shall have it?” And yet, God may not answer our prayers as soon as we think we would like. There are good reasons for this, ones we may not understand at the time. Take for example Daniel, who prayed for 21 days for himself and the other Jews that were in the Babylonian captivity and had been for a long time. DN 9: 3-4, “And I prayed earnestly to the Lord God, pleading with Him, fasting , and wearing sackcloth, and sitting in ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed the sins of my people.” DN 10: 12-14 gives us a remarkable revelation of the unseen spiritual wars going on around us and an explanation for the delay in answering Daniel’s prayer. “Then [the angel] said to me, ‘Daniel, do not be afraid. God has heard your prayers ever since the first day you decided to humble yourself in order to gain understanding. I have come in answer to your prayer. The angel prince of the kingdom of Persia opposed me for 21 days. Then Michael, one of the chief angels came to help me, because I had been left there alone in Persia. I have come to make you understand what will happen in to your people in the future. This is a vision about the future…” It was then that Daniel was given the vision of the seventy weeks.
Marie Chapian wrote Of Whom the World Was Not Worthy. This book is the story of a Yugoslavian couple, Jakob and Jozeca. They prayed for a child, and then, Josip was born to them. At 11, Josip was run over by a truck and was pronounced dead by the emergency people sent to the scene. Jozeca, his mother, breathed into his mouth for 1 hour and revived him. This young man had 150 seizures in five years and was hospitalized 33 times. Jakob and Jozeca came to the conclusion that God had given them a son, Josip, to train for His glory. After seven years, a Russian visitor came to their village and released Josip from the enemy’s grip. The visitor, a very spiritual man, prayed Josip through rebellion and impending death. Later, Josip decided to give his life totally to God. He went to seminary and eventually became a Baptist pastor. Would the outcome been the same, had there not be this series of events and prayers in Josip’s life? I think not. This is another case where persistence in prayer led to the result God wanted most.
Up to now, we’ve looking at the vertical aspect of righteousness. That involves our relationship with God-looking up. Now, we will examine the horizontal aspect of righteousness-our relationships with others. This is looking around us. What this involves is being faithfully obedient to Biblical teaching. What we must be is faithfully dependant on God. To some degree, this is being like childlike in our approach to obeying God’s direction, rather than childish. We must approach what God tells us to do with the trust a child has, rather then to rebel, refuse to seek God, and even deny God’s existence and efforts to intervene. None of us can go through our lives with peace and success, if we choose to go our own way without Him. Sadly, there are a lot of people who don’t understand their need for God. He speaks to us through His word, prayer, the circumstances of our lives, and sometimes through unconnected people telling us the same message. I remember the time when I decided to withdraw from teaching high school. Until I did it for awhile, I had no idea this wasn’t the right job for me. There are many reasons for this, but specifics aren’t germane to this discussion. Several responsible people spoke with me about what was making me unhappy. None of them were connected to each other. Finally, one and then another, and then, another gave me the advice to go back to school and train for a different profession. As it turned out, I took their advice, and it was the right thing for me to do. I will always be grateful to those unconnected friends and to the loving Lord, Who designed this intervention. I finally had some happiness with my career. What would we do without genuine friends, who are willing to be honest in their opinions and have the courage to share them with us?
How we treat others is a measure of our relationship with God. PHIL 2: 3-5, “Do not do anything from selfish ambition or from a cheap desire to boast, but be humble toward one another, always considering others better than ourselves. And look out for one another’s interests, not just for your own. The attitude you should have is the one that Christ Jesus had.” Are we our brother’s keeper? You bet we are! It’s one of the ways that God’s righteousness is demonstrated on earth. Yes, through us; that is how we make LK 17: 21 come true. [Christ’s words to believers], LK 17: 21, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”
PRAYER: O Lord, we come before Your mighty throne with the confidence that You spoke of in EPH 3: 12. “In union with Christ and through our faith in Him we have the boldness to go into God’s presence with all confidence.” Our heads are bowed and we come in an attitude of reverence toward You. We acknowledge Your generosity, Your goodness, Your sovereignty, and Your righteousness. Our hearts are thankful for Your attentiveness, and we praise You for all You are and all You do. As sinners in need of Your intervention, we recognize our need to cooperate with You in the process of sanctification. We have human limitations, and we admit that they often allow us to fall into the snares set for us by the adversary. That is when we are arrogant, think we can carry on our lives without you, and forget to appreciate Your presence in our lives. With Your direction and our willingness to listen for and take it, we can do Your will. EPH 2: 8-10, “For it is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the results of your own efforts, but God’s gift, so that no one can boast about it. God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus He has creates us for a life of good deeds, which He has already prepared for us to do.” We ask, seek You out, and knock on Your door [MT 7: 7-8], and we need to do this often. At the same time that we need to have a relationship with you that is intimate and personal, we must also cultivate friends and serve our fellow man. It is never right for us to be Christian “lone rangers,” keeping our faith to ourselves and never sharing it. You have called us to join You in Your work. And, that is to spread Your goodness on the earth and serve Your all-important agendas. So, Dearest Father, we make Your will our main agenda, and we learn and obey Your word. This is the desire of our lives in becoming faithfully obedient to You. We ask for Your help in teaching us to live righteously, in the holy and mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
I am led to go on discussing the horizontal aspect of righteousness next week. We will be called upon when meeting a new person to decide if he can be a friend. Friends are rarely made overnight. There must be some time to build trust and to get acquainted. One of the questions we need to find out is if this person is a believer or potential believer. That question comes up because we need to know if that person is worthy of our trust and shares some of our ideals. Not everyone we meet does. Our Lord Jesus told us in 2 COR 6: 4, “Do not be unequally yoked…” for bogus alliances between people will fail. Failure means the non-believer will try to pull the believer away from his values. This can be done by careful persuasion or by strong temptation. It is only a true believer who can resist this effort to deny the truth and necessity of founding one’s life on God’s teaching. Remember Christ’s Parable of the Sower in MT 13: 1-9, 18-23? Only the seeds that fell on arable ground thrived. Those on hard pan, in the thorny bushes, or were eaten by birds didn’t thrive and become mature bushes. Despite having said this, we must remember that with true faith, RO 8: 38-39 kicks in. “For I am certain that nothing can separate us from His love; neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers or power, neither the present nor the future, neither the worlds above nor the world below-there is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord.” Praise and thanks be to Him!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn