Category: Uncategorized (Page 5 of 34)

“Dead flies putrefy the perfumers ointment, and cause it to give off a foul odor; So does a little folly to one respected for wisdom and honor.” Ecclesiastes 10:1

Every once in while I will just throw a couple of bags of  garbage in the garage instead of the garbage can because I will be going to the dump in the next few days. That is almost always a mistake, especially in the summer. By the time I get around to taking the garbage, it invariably has gathered flies, maggots, and an atrocious odor.  Not very pleasant.  Especially when I have to carry the disgusting bag from garage to truck and from truck to the landfill.

I make a mistake by not putting the garbage anywhere but where it belongs- in a garbage can. Awhile back, after a visit from the kids, I completely cleaned the garage and it looked good.  Unfortunately, I performed my “all to frequent habit” of throwing some garbage in the corner.  In a matter of a couple of days, not only did the garage look bad, it smelled bad as well. Stench tends to do that- it is more powerful than perfume.  You can’t have a bunch of garbage that reeks and spray enough perfume to cover it up. (the same principle applies to arm pits which already have reached the reeky stage!) Stink always seems stronger than sweetness.

What does all this garbage talk have to do with us? There is a true old adage that says “we may often be the only Jesus that a fallen world may ever see.”  We should keep that idea in mind as we go through our daily lives.  Some of us, as believers, are not overly concerned with our actions around others. We put our garbage out there for all to see.  We refuse to restrict our anger, our language, our habits, our worldly behavior in any way. After all, we are saved by grace, so what does it matter?  The Christians in Rome felt the same way, so Paul addressed it in his book written to them. “What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply?  Absolutely not!” (Romans 6:1,2) The Romans had even decided that by sinning more they were revealing God’s mercy more.  After all, He was forgiving greater sins, so He was showing greater mercy. What muddled thinking this is!

These Christians were completely forgetting that their actions are supposed to reflect the Lord Jesus Christ. We serve a risen Savior who cannot be seen visually at this moment in time. We have become conduits to show Christ to this world. God wants to encourage, comfort and save non-believers through His Son Jesus and He uses us to help accomplish these tasks.  What they see in us might be as close as they get to Jesus that day- so what are they seeing in us?   That is why it is important for us to be conscious of what we say and do. As believers we have to realize that the world is constantly watching us, studying us even, in order to see if the Jesus we preach is real, not only in His own right, but in our lives as well.

He is the perfumer of our lives. We want to be able to tell others about the sweet smell of salvation and how it overcomes the stench of the world and brings a undeniable and wonderful aroma to our lives. Our tendencies to act out of unrighteousness in our lives overcomes the sweet aroma of Christ.  When I perform the small act of putting a bag of garbage in the garage, I negate anything good about the garage. As soon as people walk in, their sight and smell is drawn to something disgusting and the pleasant neatness of the garage is lost.  Acts of unkindness, legalism, sinfulness, can all damage other’s view of God. It is a fact of nature. No matter how much we say we are believers if we carry garbage around with us, the bad smell will overcome the good smell every time. How can we influence anyone to step into salvation if it smells that bad!

Here is a test that each one of us can do.  Let us say that someone we know decides  he wants to know Christ, but was not sure how.  We should ask our selves this, “Would I be someone this person would come to.”  If we put off the sweet aroma of the gospel  we could probably expect a call.  If I am a hundred pounds overweight I don’t believe I will get too many questions about fitness, if I live a smelly life, I doubt too many people will request the cologne I wear.

There is an interesting story about a time the queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon.  One day she decides to test him. She brought artificial flowers so perfectly formed that no human eye could detect them from real flowers. She put them in a vase on Solomon’s table, in his throne room next to his flowers. As he came in, the queen of Sheba is reported to have said, “Solomon, you are the wisest man in the world. Tell me without touching these flowers, which are real and which are artificial.”

It is said that Solomon studied the flowers for a long time and spoke nothing, until finally he said, “Open the windows and let the bees come in.”

There are ways to tell the artificial from the real—let the bees come in; they will know where the real is.  If we are Jesus real it will draw people.  Even in the face of rejection by many there will be others who will be drawn to the sweet perfume of the gospel.

None of us are perfect, and we will all make mistakes until the day Christ returns. But we must be aware that our actions have consequences. We must understand that others are affected by who we are. We must realize that those who know that we know Christ will be not just judging us by our actions, but Jesus, as well. We are ambassadors of Christ whether we like it or not.  We cannot just live like we want any longer.  Whenever we join a group, we become associated with that group, whether it is a team, town, or troop. If we believe in the Word and the gospel message we belong to the group called Christians.

In the midst of our imperfection, we should always be trying to improve our character. When we do fail (which we will) and a fly does show up in our perfume, the God- inspired aroma we give off, we need to deal with it and move on. The one thing we should not do is take it lightly.  Our actions matter and we never know when our actions will help someone to meet Christ face-to-face when He returns. Let’s do everything we can to make sure that our actions convey the sweet aroma of Christ’s love.

“No one has real understanding; no one is seeking God.”  — Romans 3:11

Some people speak about their search for God.  They might say something like, “I’m on a spiritual journey. I am trying to find the truth. I am trying to find the light. I am trying to find God.”  Yet the Bible says that no one is really searching for God on their own.

Years ago I heard the story (that I have probably already related to you) about a little girl who was lost during a snowstorm.  The parents and neighbors desperately tried to find her, knowing if they did not, she would soon die.  Just when they thought they had exhausted every possible place, they saw a small bump in the snow next to the porch.  They pulled away the snow and saw the smiling face of their daughter who looked up at her parents and said, “I found you.”  Obviously, the finding was in the hands of the parents, not the little girl’s.

We like to think that God is distantly hidden away somewhere and through many years of tedious search, we come upon him and we have finally completed our journey.  The fact is that most of us are hiding from God.  He calls our name, He puts signs of His presence all around us, and He maps out clearly in His Word how we can be with Him.  He desires for us to come to Him, more than we desire to go to Him.  We go searching for God “in all the wrong places,” and wonder why He is not there.  If we wait upon Him with an open heart then He will come to us, for He desires that none will be lost.

If we want to know God we need to ask Him to come to us with open and willing hearts.  He has done all the groundwork for us.  Our seeking should not be some blind, dart board effort that samples every religion known to man.  Life is not Baskin-Robbins where you order the flavor you like and it’s all good.  The difference between Christianity and all the other “religions” is not like the difference between vanilla and rocky-road.  There is no “right” flavor of ice cream, but when it comes to spiritual things there is one truth.  Christianity and Islam are not two faiths on two sides of the same coin.  They are not on the same coin.

If we try the sixties approach of sampling everything out there, that does not mean we are  necessarily searching.  It can be a built in excuse for never having to accept anything.  We can’t commit if we haven’t tried everything.   God says,  “If you look for me in earnest, you will find me when you seek me.” (Jeremiah 29:13).  So although all roads don’t lead to heaven, all earnest-seeking leads to Christ.

Sometimes people will say something like, “I found the Lord 10 years ago,” as though God had been lost. But God is not the one who is lost; we are. God is seeking to save us, and if we really want to know Him, then He will wipe the snow away and rescue us.  What keeps most of us from earnestly seeking God is an unwillingness to accept God’s assessment of us. We are unwilling to acknowledge our guilt.  We might glibly say we are bad, but those are just words.  We accept our “badness” as a reason to be bad.  We want believe the Christian life is  based on our goodness or badness rather than the shed blood of Christ.  If we fully accept Him and His Word, goodness and badness will not be our focus-  serving Christ and loving Him will be.

If we are “searching for Jeus” we need to look to the WORD and objectively look at what it says.  There was a commercial once that used a different approach to the product advertised.  Let me paraphrase it- “Some will tell you to get prices from many others and come here last because you will see we are the best in every way and you will use us.  I say, instead, come here first and save yourself the trip to other places.  We will let you know their prices if you want, but I can say with confidence that you will stay with us.”  I think that God’s Word says something similar.  “If you want to go around trying out other faiths, hobbies, relationships, locations searching for lasting and deep satisfaction, you can, but if you are earnest in your search you will end up here.  If you come here first, you will save yourself the other trips.”

There is no other place you can find a single inoculation for a seemingly endless number of afflictions.  Although pain may come in varieties, the cure for them all comes in one antidote…. the healing power of the cross of Christ.  He the only God who desires us to come to Him, and He will work sacrificially to that end.  So we can search if we must, but the path is laid out, and all the searching for something to make us happy does not create something that will make us happy.  He already exists and He is reaching down to us.

We make decisions every day and we would like to make decisions that are compatible with God’s will. But how do we know God’s will? I believe that about 99.9% of God’s will can be found in the Bible. If we think we have found God’s will but our decision is contrary to the Word, we can be assured that it is not God’s will. But it is not that easy! What about things that are not spelled out for us. What if we are trying to decide what job to take, which house to buy, or even where to put our money, can we really find places in the Bible that can help us?

When making decisions like this, the first thing we should do is to see if our decisions will be compatible with God’s Word. If the decision would result in a compromise of a Biblical truth, then it would not be a good decision. Let’s say we were considering taking a new job, but that job would greatly interfere with our ability to spend any time at all with our kids. Because there are many verses in the Bible that point to importance to family, we might see this as an indication that that job might not be God’s will and thus not to our advantage.

So where do we find these very helpful verses? All through the Bible! Let’s just take a look at five verses from 1 Thessalonians and look at how many valuable aids Paul has left us if we are trying to determine God’s will. If we are making a choice and that choice will violate one of the following instructions, we should think twice before making it. Let’s look at 1 Thessalonians 5:14-18.

“Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men. Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

Take a moment to think about these clear and powerful exhortations concerning the will of God for believers. These exhortations express the specific will of God in relationships with others, with ourselves, and with the Lord. Packed into these short verses are patterns of life and behavior which will receive His blessing in these relationships.

“Warn them that are unruly…”  When we know people who are idle, undisciplined, pleasure seeking, they need to know the danger they are in. Watching silently as people destroy their lives is not in the will of God. Other parts of God’s Word show us how to approach them; these words just tell us we should.

“Comfort the feebleminded…” We should comfort people who are disheartened, disoriented or confused. We should come alongside them with brotherly affection, encouraging words, and prayer.

“Support the weak…” Our natural tendency is to despise and neglect weaker people, to stay away from them since they have nothing to offer us, can damage our reputation and often require a long-term time commitment. Jesus says find them and lift them up whenever we can.

“Be patient toward all men…” We must realize how patient God is with us, and that “patience” is the first thing that love is. See 1 Corinthians 13:4 for confirmtion! Patience means waiting in love and hope, with prayer, for people to see what they need to see, do what they need to do, change how they need to change.

“See that none render evil for evil…” We should not allow evil men in this world to corrupt our own behavior and character. This is a constant temptation throughout life because evil people are everywhere, including the church. It is easy for us to compromise our own faith because others do it. We need to stay strong in light of worldly influences.

“Follow that which is good…” Doing good of every kind is our lifelong mandate as believers; there are millions of ways to obey it. (unfortunately also as many ways to disobey it) God’s will for us to do good toward all men – even those who don’t deserve it!

“Rejoice evermore…” This is sometimes a tough one to get a handle on, but we know that Jesus has rescued us from an eternity unspeakable misery and pain to everlasting joy and pleasure. This constant reality in our lives can give a reason to rejoice even when the woes of this world attack us.

“Pray without ceasing…” Some of us might find the idea of praying constantly just a pipe dream. The Lord, however, is wide open to communication with Him 24/7, why not continually include Him in your words and thoughts? He should never be far from our minds and we should continuously look for reasons to speak to Him.

“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you…”; Before we pray, before we work, before we travel, we should do so in the spirit of thankfulness. Gratitude can change our whole approach to everything. Thankfulness to our Redeemer in all things lets Him know that we know who is in charge and what He has done for us.

The will of God is not so hard to figure out when we realize that these kinds of statements are all throughout the Bible. Just obeying these exhortations in these verses can give us direction in many, many decisions. Wherever the Lord calls us, He calls us to live out these things. God’s Holy Spirit inspired these words, and He alone gives us the power to carry them out. Our part is to believe and act, and He then will direct our paths.

“For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:3-7

I once heard a wise saying that brings the perspective of distractions into focus for me. “Whatever is not your assignment is your distraction.” I used to talk to my athletes a lot about this, especially on game day. I would say that during the game your assignment must be primary. If the guy across the line gets you thinking about him and the way he is holding you on every play or starts talking about your mother or even tells midget jokes about your head coach, you cannot let your mind go to those things. They are merely distractions that interfere with your assignment.

A distraction is anything that divides the attention, prevents concentration, diverts, or entertains. Wow, is that almost our entire world! Television, radio, video games, smart phones, sports, hobbies, are all available at a moments notice, and these are only a few of the hundreds of activities that are ready and willing to take up our time. How do we discern between distractions of the world and assignments of God? How do we stay on task in a world that provides so many play things.

Most of us welcome distractions into our lives. They divert our attention from those more mundane things that can close in on us at times. Unfortunately, if we are not careful the distractions become our lives. Distractions in and of themselves are not necessarily bad, but when they interfere with more important assignments with regularity, it is time to reevaluate. Our spiritual life is important. When it becomes a rather small part of our day as opposed to other activities, it is probably time to do a distraction check.

One of the devil’s greatest weapons against Christians is our own ignorance. If he can deceive us, he can beat us. But do we allow our distractions to keep us from the assignment of knowing God? The Apostle Paul said, “I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with persuasive arguments.” (Colossians 2:4) If we put all our energy into things that don’t strengthen our spiritual lives, we will remain ignorant and thus vulnerable. God warns us in Hosea that, “My people perish for a lack of understanding.” (Hosea 4:6) So to keep from being deceived and to keep from perishing, we need to know God better. To know God better, we cannot be live in a state of distraction from Him.

We can gain better understanding by reading the Word, listening to Christian music or sermons, fellowshipping with other Christians, praying, serving… well, you know the drill. If we were to draw a line in the sand and wrote all our time commitments that do not include God on one side and wrote down all the things that increase our spiritual understanding on the other, what would those lists look like? No matter how spiritual we are, the spiritual list will be shorter. We all have jobs, some of us have children, some of us have wonderful hobbies and all of us have a multitude of activities. It is not whether the spiritual list is shorter, it is whether it exists at all.

In Colossians 2:4 Paul attempts to expose the things that would keep us from growing in spiritual wisdom. The verse reads, “I am saying this so that no one will deceive you.” But his actual meaning is, “I am saying this so that no one will distract you.” The original language in Colossians 2:4 uses the word “beguile” which is a synonym for distraction and deception. What Paul is trying to say is “be aware.” Knowing that we cannot be in church 24-7 and knowing that there are many activities in our life, we must be careful that we do not involve ourselves in the world to the detriment of the things of God. Paul says in Romans, “I want you to be wise in what is good, and simple concerning evil. And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet.” (Romans 16:19-20). If we don’t allow distractions to keep us from knowing God, Satan will be crushed by God. If we allow distractions to keep us from knowing God, it is us vs Satan and we are sorely overmatched.

We need to test our distractions. How do we do that? God told us in Philippians 4:8 when he said, “Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable–if there is any moral excellence and if there is any praise–dwell on these things.” If our distractions don’t include these things, we may want to find some other distractions to be involved in. If they do, that probably means that we have Christ where he should be in our lives- at the center.

“Lord, in the morning you will hear me; in the morning I will present my case to you and then wait expectantly for an answer.”  Psalm 5:3

Over the past couple of weeks, I have shared about some of the difficulties I have faced in developing an effective prayer life.  I realize now that part of my problem was setting aside the role of the Holy Spirit in my prayers. I tried to take over the process on my own. It is really the work of the Holy Spirit to make my prayers effective, and it is my job to stay out of the way and let Him direct my prayers. As Paul tells us, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how we should pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes on behalf of the saints according to God’s will.” (Romans 8:26-27)  I think that too often we become hinderances to our own prayers with our attitudes and approaches. What I have tried to do in recent years is give the Holy Spirit more freedom to direct my prayer life.  John tells us in John 14:26 “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your memory all that I said to you.”  If the Holy Spirit, who is as real as God the Father and Jesus the Son, dwells within us, we should probably allow Him to be teacher He is supposed to be.  Our prayer life is not our own, but is by the Spirit, through the Son, to the Father.  Although there is only one mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus, our access to Jesus is because of the indwelling Holy Spirit.  We can never forget that…yet, we do.

In Galatians Paul explains, “the person who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption  from the flesh,  but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.” (Galatians 6:8) Paul is not only speaking for himself when he tells us in Romans 7:16 “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it.”  So if there is no ability to do good, what hope do we have?  Paul reminds us of our hope in the next chapter when he says, “Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.”  (Romans 8:8-9)  It is apparent that the Holy Spirit must play the primary role in our prayers if our prayers are going to be in alignment with God.

With all of this in mind, I will tell you how I have tried to revamp my morning and afternoon prayer time.  I will start with the morning because it comes first almost every day. In the past I would read the Bible, do some other reading, pray my prayer list, and then do a little writing.  Often, I would have to rush so much to get through everything that I was not giving my prayer time the solemnity it deserved. On the other hand, I had so many prayers, that if I did not rush,
I would not get through them all and those on the end of my list were left out in cold.  The problem was me.  I was trying to do everything on my own by using a checklist of tasks.  I was sacrificing a true prayer to “get things done.”  I am hopeful that God looked beyond my overly-structured approach to prayer and  extended undeserved grace by answering some of my prayers.  I know there were answers, I am just not sure how much I had to do with it.

So I knew I had do something different.  Getting up early had never been a problem for me, it was using the time wisely that I had to address.  I have always had a special quiet place to pray, so that was not an issue either. So if I had the time and had the place, why wasn’t I getting a handle on these morning prayer times?  I needed to check my heart.  I knew I did not want to be ritualistic, but I did believe I needed to be disciplined.  What was the solution?

I have always been a reader and began reading every prayer book I could get my hands on. I read biographies about George Muller, Praying Hyde, Taylor Hudson and other great pray-ers.  I also read books such as The Kneeling Christian, The Hour That Changes the World, the Common Book of Prayer and studied authors like Andrew Murray and Leonard Ravenhill.  I even subscribed to prayer podcasts. I got good ideas from all of them, but there was still something missing. Then something I heard in a sermon that set me on another course. I realized that I was trying to do all the work on my own.  I had the One within me that moved upon the waters at creation, and I was trying to this on my own.  The sermon I listened to was on the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit tends to be the neglected person of the trinity. There are over 600 prayers in the Bible and over 400 known answers to prayer. The Holy Spirit played an instrumental part of those prayers, yet for every mention of God the Father and Christ the Son in the church today, the Holy Spirit falls into a sad third place. Consequently, I realized the the Holy Spirit was playing a sad third place in my life, as well.

I started to think that ignoring the power of the Holy Spirit in my life might have something to do with my inconsistent prayer life.  I started to make a connection between the reoccurring problems in my own and other’s prayer lives and my own and maybe others disconnect from the Holy Spirit. I talked to many people about prayer and one of the things seems to always come up was the “wandering mind” problem. Struggling to keep focused during prayer seemed to be somewhat universal.  I began praying aloud many years ago to combat those roving thoughts, but that only got me part way there.  I found out, after hearing the sermon, that it is better to allow the Holy Spirit to direct my wandering mind.  In other words, let my mind wander under the direction of the Spirit’s leading.  It is a wonderful thing.  It takes my prayers out of my head and puts in the hands of the Holy Spirit- where they need to be.  What is amazing is my mind no longer wanders to unrelated things, but to other prayer needs.  Instead of wasted thoughts, they are useful thoughts.

The way I involve the Holy Spirit is by Praying the Bible.  This method has been around for a long time, but I don’t think I understood it.  Although, I still keep a list, but I don’t use that list in the morning except for our kids and grandkids and immediate needs. Instead I pick a section of scripture (the Psalms are perfect for this) and pray that God will give me wisdom as I read it all the way through.  I ask God to bring things to my mind that I need to be brought to my mind.  I will then read the scripture again one phrase at a time, and I allow each phrase to take me somewhere.  Often that phrase might lead to a multitude of people or situations, and I just let it go there. What is amazing is that each part of the scripture will lead to new needs.  Sometimes the prayers I pray might not match up with the deeper meanings of the scripture, but will still remind me of a certain person or need.  My mind does not take off on useless adventures, but actual prayer paths.  Instead of being lost in thought, I stay focused.

Let’s see how this works.  Psalm 1:1 says “How blessed  is the one  who does not follow  the advice  of the wicked,  or stand in the pathway  with sinners, or sit in the assembly  of scoffers!” I will say one part of the verse aloud and without me thinking about it, prayers will come to my mind.  After reading the first sentence of the verse above, I might think of someone who is caught up in something wicked, or maybe someone who is fighting against wickedness in his own life, or leading the the fight against wickedness.   The whole planned parenthood disgrace might be brought to mind.  I might think of someone who is leading people into something wicked.  I might even think of something like the terrorists that are plaguing the world right now.  Often that prayer will lead to remembering someone or something else. Sometimes that one line will lead to five or six requests that actually may or may not be on my prayer list.  If I have studied the prayers on my list at all, it will not take much prompting from the Holy Spirit to bring them to mind.  On the other hand, there may be things I have not even thought of before that might be brought to mind.  I used to do the same thing in the past, but it was not requests that were brought to mind, but thoughts of things that directed me away from prayer.  This is much different.  With this method there is an endless supply of readings to stimulate daily prayer. There are enough Psalms (some longs ones can be divided into several days) for well over a year of prayer, and we can use many other books of the Bible, as well.

What this does is allows the Holy Spirit to prompt my prayers rather than having to  constantly be consulting a list.  Sometimes I don’t pray as long when I Pray the Bible (often with the list it was well over an hour), but I believe the prayers are more natural, more sincere, and more in line with God’s will.  I read the Word, thank God for it, and then use those same verses to bring needs to mind.  If ten of us were reading the same verses, we would probably have ten much different prayers that we would be uttering.  The unrestrained direction of the prayer allows the Holy Spirit to be a participant rather than a spectator.  It takes the pressure off me and reminds me that God has left a comforter with me.  I am comforted by His presence and instruction.

I believe this kind of prayer emphasizes quality over quantity.  I used to believe if I did not complete a long list of names, accompanied by several countries, and some worthy causes, my prayer time was a failure.  I now believe that Satan enjoyed the guilt I felt because I would sometimes allow these negative feelings to be an obstacle to prayer.

Praying through the Bible is a wonderful tool that puts the Word and Holy Spirit in charge of my prayer time.  It is a wonderful thing to feel my mind wander with purpose. I don’t think Satan is pleased with a mind that “wanders purposely” and anything he hates I love.  Praying through the Bible takes care of my morning devotion and prayer time, but what about my lists that I keep?  Do I just disregard them?  Not at all.  Next week I will share what I do with the prayers found on my prayer request list. Until tomorrow remember, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  (Philippians 4:6-7)

Have a blessed day!