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Showing posts with the label Receive

Do you need more trust?

  Oh, what a wonderful God we have! How great are his wisdom and knowledge and riches! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his methods!   For who among us can know the mind of the Lord? Who knows enough to be his counselor and guide?   And who could ever offer to the Lord enough to induce him to act?   For everything comes from God alone. Everything lives by his power, and everything is for his glory. To him be glory evermore. (Romans 11:33-36) When was the last time you stopped to consider the awesomeness of God's protection and intensely focused care over your lives? If it has been a while, today could be a great day to just 'stop' and 'ponder'. There is nothing we do that 'induces' him to act - there is nothing we do to 'keep things in motion' within our lives. All that exists within our lives is the direct result of his overwhelming love and care for us. We partake of his wisdom - through the study of his Word and the exce...

Humble enough to ask

God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. (Matthew 5:2) Many believe to be 'poor' is to be without money, goods, or even the means by which to obtain these. There is a deeper meaning in the original Greek language we sometimes miss - (Ptochos - Gk) to be spiritually poor, humble, and devout. In the original language, it carries the meaning of being humble in one's attitude. It is indeed a character trait we each need to have 'worked into' our lives. It does not usually come naturally to any of us - we tend to be a bit too 'self-centered' in our own nature. When God's nature begins to take hold within any believer who has said 'yes' to Jesus, there is a change in how one views self and others - a good change! What does 'being humble in one's attitude' look like? We come into this world, each of us 'spiritually poor' - we don't possess any means by which to atone for ...

Timid people don't get the answers they desire

Give it everything you have, heart and soul. Make sure you carry out The Revelation that Moses commanded you, every bit of it. Don’t get off track, either left or right, so as to make sure you get to where you’re going. And don’t for a minute let this Book of The Revelation be out of mind. Ponder and meditate on it day and night, making sure you practice everything written in it. Then you’ll get where you’re going; then you’ll succeed. Haven’t I commanded you? Strength! Courage! Don’t be timid; don’t get discouraged. God, your God, is with you every step you take. (Joshua 1:9) As we contemplate these words spoken to Joshua after the death of Moses, I want to focus on just a couple of things today. The instructions to never let God's Word be out of mind seem mighty important to me - God emphasized this a couple of times in one conversation! Anyone ever get 'off track' in life? I don't think I have ADHD, but I can be headed out to the shop to do one project, see somethin...

The luxury of giving

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving. (George Eliot) The luxury of giving - have you ever thought of giving as a 'luxury'? I like how Eliot frames this thought because it points to the extreme need and the appreciation of what is given when it is received. You do realize there is nothing good or noble about giving if there is no real need for what you are giving, don't you? You could give away free trash cans till the cows come home, but if there were no cans or boxes in the pantry to fill the trash cans when emptied to fill a hungry stomach, those trash cans would merely be dust catchers. There is indeed a 'need' - but the need is different from what we are giving, making what is given pretty senseless in the end. For giving to be 'spot on', there must be an awareness of the need - just like when God saw the need for our forgiveness and didn't think twice about providing exactly what was needed to meet that need - his Son. Those who go to him f...

Holding those cards close to the vest...

Can I get you to stop what you are doing for just a moment to consider something? Do you have 100% confidence God hears you when you speak with him? I really would like you to consider very carefully your answer to that question. We don't always live in this bold confidence, do we? We sometimes just 'float things out there' past God's hearing ears in an attempt to see if we might be "on track" with what he might be 'inclined' to do in our lives. It is like we ask, but we don't really know for sure that God will honor our 'ask'. Scripture assures us that we can and should live in this bold confidence - God hears our voices. Sometimes he hears our collective voices - like when we are all gathered together and praying for a matter that we are all intent on seeing him take action in. Most often he hears our singular voice - when we cry out to him for those deeply held secrets and pains of our heart. I don't think the 'collective' v...

Do you keep your options open?

I have been guilty of being more than a little mamby-pamby in my prayers at times. I sort of, kind of, might of asked for this or that, but what I really needed and wanted to ask for was something totally different! Why do we find ourselves being wishy-washy in our prayers? It might just be that God is waiting for us to get totally forthright with him before he gets forthright with the answer we so desperately need! If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open. ( James 1:5 MSG ) God doesn't delight in us not knowing what steps to take next. He doesn't like to keep us in limbo, jostling for this or that, hoping for the best. In fact, he wants to brin...

Not just the easy stuff

Do you ever ask questions, only to find you already knew the answer? Sometimes we ask the question because we want to be certain we do indeed have the right answer already, but there are times we really doubt that we do - making the question really kind of like a fact-finding mission. We ask, hoping to receive, but we aren't sure we will receive anything that we didn't already know. The questions we ask can be 'conditioned' on the type of answer we really want to receive. For example, if we ask only a very superficial question, we are probably seeking only a superficial answer. If we want to get to the nitty-gritty, down and dirty truth of the matter, we might just ask the harder questions. The answer is almost predicted by the question posed. There is a quote that says, "Good questions outrank easy answers." (Paul Samuelsen) But Jesus was matter-of-fact: "Yes—and if you embrace this kingdom life and don't doubt God, you'll not only do minor feats...

It is more than receiving

I want to pose a question to the readers today.  When was the last time you took notes on a sermon?  It could have been something kind of formal like typing them into your iPad or even the app you use on your smart phone, or even a paper journal of sorts.  It may have been "on the fly", such as when you take a portion of the bulletin and write in the margins or something, just to not lose track of that poignant point the preacher made.  It doesn't matter how you made those notes, I want to ask each of us what we "did" with those notes once we were finished recording them.  I think we'd all have to agree it is the "doing" which actually made those notes important - not the "taking" of them.  When we actually "used" those notes to change something we were about to do, had been doing a while, or just didn't realize was a habit we might not want to be doing any longer, we benefited from the note-taking.  Taking is one thing - d...

Peanut Butter and Honey

14-16 The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can't receive the gifts of God's Spirit. There's no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit—God's Spirit and our spirits in open communion. Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God's Spirit is doing, and can't be judged by unspiritual critics. Isaiah's question, "Is there anyone around who knows God's Spirit, anyone who knows what he is doing?" has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ's Spirit. (I Corinthians 2:14-16) Capacity is determined by what is attempting to enter the vessel and the vessel's "space" to hold what is entering.  For example, if we have a used jar of peanut butter that has not been scraped clean and washed out, there are remnants of peanut butter in there.  For all intends and purposes, we'd say the peanut butter jar was empty.  No matter how much we attempt to fill that "empt...

Invitation to receive

21-22 But Jesus was matter-of-fact: "Yes—and if you embrace this kingdom life and don't doubt God, you'll not only do minor feats like I did to the fig tree, but also triumph over huge obstacles. This mountain, for instance, you'll tell, 'Go jump in the lake,' and it will jump. Absolutely everything, ranging from small to large, as you make it a part of your believing prayer, gets included as you lay hold of God." (Matthew 21:21-22) The disciples are marveling over fact that Jesus came upon a fig tree that was covered in all kinds of promising green growth - leaves full, branches broad - yet not one fig was found.  He looks for the fruit, finding none, he curses the tree and  it withers on the spot.  Most scholars would tell us that the fig tree represented Israel and that Jesus was cursing Israel because it was not bearing fruit.  We don't want to focus on that this morning, but the fact that Jesus spends a few moments teaching his disciples about pr...