2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Ones,
When we repent of our sins and have true faith in Jesus Christ, we become united in the Covenant of Grace with God. That is a wonderful privilege and blessing that He, out of His love for His children, extends to us as individuals. I personally have never felt that love so keenly as I did when I went through Cursillo and became the coordinator of the e-mail prayer chain for a congregation of 3000 souls. At the three-day spiritual retreat which Cusillo is, I felt God’s grace showered upon me. I saw people who had never served God along with those who made it their life’s work spiritually nourished in the most wonderful way. After our weekends, Peter and I made the choice to remain active in the Cursillo community. That is a God-directed blessing. That is why I would hope each of you considers going through Cursillo if you have not already done so. God knew that before I became coordinator of Woodbury Lutheran’s e-mail prayer chain, He wasn’t satisfied with my prayer life. That is how He forced me to do something about it, and what a blessing that has been. There are about 70 of us on the chain. My job is to receive the prayer requests, write succinct prayers about them, select a meaningful Bible verse (so God gets in his two cents ), and send them to the chain to include in their prayers. I feel His hand directing me all the way in this pursuit and am glad for it. I could never do this without His help.
We who believe have basically merged ourselves with God. GA 3: 26-29, “It is through faith that all of you are God’s sons in union with Christ Jesus. You were baptized into union with Christ, and now you are clothed, so to speak, with the life of Christ Himself. So there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free men, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are the descendants of Abraham and will receive what God has promised.” This passage give me enormous comfort, and I hope you feel the very same comfort from it. Let me share how God worked on my prayer life to demonstrate the power He has to do anything in anyone’s life that would bring that person closer to Him. I didn’t need lessons in how to pray; I already knew how. The problem is that I wasn’t making the time to pray or using what I knew about how to pray. I also didn’t have a real clue about how God uses His power in people’s lives. At the time I was asked to coordinate the e-mail prayer chain, Peter was out of work and looking for a new job. God made sure that I felt His hand in my life by giving me a way to put our problems in perspective. He did this by letting me see the problems of others, which were so much more dire than ours. But that wasn’t all. Over time, God let me see what He would do to bring others through the sometimes awful challenges to their faith that they faced and how He blessed their lives when they endured in their faith. The obvious message to me was, “Lynn, endure in your faith! Trust Me, all is not lost!” Now, how could I not love the Lord for teaching me this lesson?
In the future, I hope to write more about spiritual warfare. But for now, the Lord has led me to RO 13: 11-14 as a reminder to all of us that He equips us to be victorious in it and tells us how to use that equipment. “ You must do this [love one another], because you know that the time has come for you to wake up from your sleep. For the moment when we will be saved is closer now than it was when we first believed. The night is nearly over, day is almost here. Let us stop doing the things that belong to the dark, and let us take up weapons for fighting in the light. Let us conduct ourselves properly, as people who live in the light of day-no orgies or drunkenness, no immorality or indecency, no fighting or jealousy. But Take up the weapons of the Lord Jesus Christ, and stop paying attention to your sinful nature and satisfying its desires.” When Paul speaks of the night being nearly over, day is almost here, that says to me that the time of the rapture draws near. I want to be ready for that meeting in the air, spiritually and in every other way; I feel some urgency about that. Do you? The mention of “weapons” twice in this passage is a reminder that we are given weapons to do spiritual warfare and be successful in it. What are those weapons?
I believe that question is answered in EPH 6: 10-18 and that God’s hand is in this big time! “Finally, build up your strength in union with the Lord and by means of His mighty power. Put on all the armor that God gives you, so that you will be able to stand up against the devil’s evil tricks. For we are not fighting against human beings but against the wicked spiritual forces in the heavenly world, the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of this dark age. So put on God’s armor now! Then when the evil day comes, you will be able to resist the enemy’s attacks; and after fighting to the end, you will still hold your ground. So stand ready, with truth as a belt tight around your waist, with righteousness as your breastplate, and as your shoes the readiness to announce the Good News of peace. At all times carry faith as a shield; for with it you will be able to put out all the burning arrows shot by the evil one. And accept salvation as a helmet, and the word of God as the sword which the Spirit gives you. Do all this in prayer, asking for God’s help. Pray on every occasion, as the Spirit leads. For this reason keep alert and never give up; pray always for all God’s people.” I witness to you today that the power of prayer is enormous and that our loving God has equipped those who are faithful in Him to overcome evil. Meditate on how that impacts your life personally.
PRAYER: O Lord, if we will only pay attention to it, we will see Your love all around us. You know we are buffeted by the evils of the world in which we find ourselves. Yet, You protect us by arming us to be successful in our struggles against that evil. You are El Shaddai, the God Who is sufficient for all our needs. In PS 91: 9-11, the Psalmist reminds us, “You have made the Lord your Defender, the Most High your Protector, and so no disaster will strike you, no violence will come near your home. God will put His angels in charge of you to protect you wherever you go.” It was You, Who put this message in his mind to convey to us. By Your love, You repeated the message of LV 19: 18 in several places in the Scriptures [LK 10: 27b & RO 13: 9b-10, for example] telling us to love one another. You showed what that love is all about in 1 COR 13: 1-13 and commanded us to model that kind of love, inspiring organizations like Cursillo. And, You give us the Holy Spirit, Who helps us to understand Your word, and show us daily the power of prayer. Yes, Dearest Lord, if we will only look around us, You are there every day blessing us and eager for us to seek You out in prayer. We dedicate ourselves to obeying Your command for us to pray and pray for all who have faith or have the potential to come to faith. In humility, we offer You our adoration, worship, loyalty, obedience, trust, glory, honor, praise, and thanks. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, I am led to discuss more ways that we are united in covenant with God revealed in the Scriptures. We will see how by entering into the Covenant of Grace, He has gives us a new self and helps us to shuck off the old one. His profound love for each and every one of us is at the base of everything He does. His presence in the life of the believer is the greatest comfort we can have. Our Father is gathering us close to his breast. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn