Psalm 33:3-11

The work God does is creative. He made heaven, earth, and all living creatures. He formed Adam and Eve in His image and knitted each of us in our mother’s womb.

His work is also powerful. Through His Son Jesus, He accomplished a great salvation for all who trust in the Savior. Our heavenly Father worked mightily to open a way for us to be reconciled to Him and adopted into His family. Not only that, but God’s work is ongoing, and Jesus is the One who holds all things together (Col. 1:17).

In order to recognize God’s handiwork, we need to pray in an active, persistent manner. Christ-centered prayers narrow our focus to the Lord. Then we can more readily identify His actions and see how to join Him. Self-centered petitions serve to distract us from Him.

The Father also wants our heart and mind yielded to His will. Pursuing our own agenda shifts the focus to ourselves and makes us lose sight of the Lord. But a submissive attitude prepares us to listen and obey. Regularly concentrating on God’s Word will clear our minds and help us understand what the Lord is doing.

When we combine these disciplines with discernment and patience, we will have positioned ourselves to discover how God is working in our lives and in our world.

Our Lord is at work today–calling nonbelievers to saving faith and the redeemed to a closer walk with Him. His plans include individuals, families, and nations. Have you been too busy or distracted to notice what He’s doing? Confess your inattention and refocus your heart and mind on Him

I remember the time when my son had to go through a very simple surgery when he was five years old. He was not able to breathe properly, so the doctors had to remove some extra tissue surrounding his nostril and nasal passages. During the hours and days after his surgery, my once-a-chatterbox son had become completely quiet. Because of the fear of being hurt if he spoke, he quit using words for his way of communication. It was overwhelming to see my boy struggling to express himself in that condition.

As I assisted my son get back to talking, I could not help but think of how unexpectedly Zechariah lost his speech after he questioned the angel who brought him such good news about a long-waited child in his old age.(1) In Zechariah’s case, the temporary loss of words was something of an acknowledgement of the promised child he doubted, a child who would prepare the way for the Messiah. Though he knew why he was made silent, I am sure he felt restless until he held his son in his arms and was finally able to describe his emotions properly.

There are spiritual retreat centers in various locations around the world, which offer “Silent Weeks” to those who are over-exhausted from excessive communication. During these weeks, individuals are banned from verbal communication in order to quiet themselves internally. The goal is simply to bring back the core purpose of real interaction: meaning to what is being said in reality.

When the words are taken from us either because of the inability to speak or the lack of verbal direction, we become strangely poor, almost incomplete. There are two sides of this poverty: one is internal, losing the comfort of one’s capability to express oneself fully. The other is external, as one finds no real guidance to turn to for wisdom. In my opinion, the latter has eternal ramifications if not satisfied in a timely manner.

Similar to these weeks, there once was a time in biblical history when God stopped talking. Between the periods from the prophet Malachi until the first written words of Matthew’s gospel, we do not read any account of God communicating to his people through words. Humankind experienced a poverty of words, a lack of communication and intervention from the creator. It was a long pause before the grand entrance of God into this silence, fully revealing God’s essence by identifying who God is, as the ultimate Word, Jesus Christ.

Once we hear this Word then we truly comprehend the fact that we have been poor, living in the poverty of words over our lives’ direction. Once we hear and know this Word, this is when we discover that only the living Word can quench our thirst for meaning.

Those who have heard are eternally grateful to the Spirit who reveals Christ, the Word, to us. I also think of Jesus’s humility by limiting himself, becoming poor himself for a time, just so we would not stay in a poverty of words.

It did hurt him being on the cross, similar to my son’s feeling after the surgery. But one big difference: This did not stop Jesus from talking and declaring the fullness of our salvation by saying: “It is finished!”

Our poverty of words can be a distant memory for humankind, since God has spoken with the ultimate Word. Once this Person is fully internalized and lived by, from then on, both the creator and the created enjoy the pleasure of a mutual, ongoing conversation.

Senem Ekener is regional director for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Istanbul, Turkey.

(1) Cf. Luke 1:18-20

Morning

“His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

Luke 22:44

The mental pressure arising from our Lord’s struggle with temptation, so forced

his frame to an unnatural excitement, that his pores sent forth great drops of

blood which fell down to the ground. This proves how tremendous must have been

the weight of sin when it was able to crush the Saviour so that he distilled

great drops of blood! This demonstrates the mighty power of his love. It is a

very pretty observation of old Isaac Ambrose that the gum which exudes from the

tree without cutting is always the best. This precious camphire-tree yielded

most sweet spices when it was wounded under the knotty whips, and when it was

pierced by the nails on the cross; but see, it giveth forth its best

spice when there is no whip, no nail, no wound. This sets forth the

voluntariness of Christ’s sufferings, since without a lance the blood flowed

freely. No need to put on the leech, or apply the knife; it flows spontaneously.

No need for the rulers to cry, “Spring up, O well;” of itself it flows in

crimson torrents. If men suffer great pain of mind apparently the blood rushes

to the heart. The cheeks are pale; a fainting fit comes on; the blood has gone

inward as if to nourish the inner man while passing through its trial. But see

our Saviour in his agony; he is so utterly oblivious of self, that instead of

his agony driving his blood to the heart to nourish himself, it drives it

outward

to bedew the earth. The agony of Christ, inasmuch as it pours him out upon the

ground, pictures the fulness of the offering which he made for men.

Do we not perceive how intense must have been the wrestling through which he

passed, and will we not hear its voice to us? “Ye have not yet resisted unto

blood, striving against sin.” Behold the great Apostle and High Priest of our

profession, and sweat even to blood rather than yield to the great tempter of

your souls.

 

Evening

“I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately

cry out.”    –   Luke 19:40

But could the stones cry out? Assuredly they could if he who opens the mouth of

the dumb should bid them lift up their voice. Certainly if they were to speak,

they would have much to testify in praise of him who created them by the word of

his power; they could extol the wisdom and power of their Maker who called them

into being. Shall not we speak well of him who made us anew, and out of stones

raised up children unto Abraham? The old rocks could tell of chaos and order,

and the handiwork of God in successive stages of creation’s drama; and cannot we

talk of God’s decrees, of God’s great work in ancient times, in all that he did

for his church in the days of old? If the stones were to

speak, they could tell of their breaker, how he took them from the quarry, and

made them fit for the temple, and cannot we tell of our glorious Breaker, who

broke our hearts with the hammer of his word, that he might build us into his

temple? If the stones should cry out they would magnify their builder, who

polished them and fashioned them after the similitude of a palace; and shall not

we talk of our Architect and Builder, who has put us in our place in the temple

of the living God? If the stones could cry out, they might have a long, long

story to tell by way of memorial, for many a time hath a great stone been rolled

as a memorial before the Lord; and we too can testify of Ebenezers,

stones of help, pillars of remembrance. The broken stones of the law cry out

against us, but Christ himself, who has rolled away the stone from the door of

the sepulchre, speaks for us. Stones might well cry out, but we will not let

them: we will hush their noise with ours; we will break forth into sacred song,

and bless the majesty of the Most High, all our days glorifying him who is

called by Jacob the Shepherd and Stone of Israel.

 

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am.   –   John 17:24

O death! Why do you touch the tree beneath whose spreading branches weariness finds rest? Why do you snatch away the excellent of the earth, in whom is all our delight? If you must use your axe, use it upon the trees that yield no fruit; then you may be thanked. But why will you chop down the best trees? Hold your axe, and spare the righteous.

But no, it must not be; death strikes the best of our friends: the most generous, the most prayerful, the most holy, the most devoted must die. And why? It is through Jesus’ prevailing prayer–“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am.”

It is that which bears them on eagle’s wings to heaven. Every time a believer moves from this earth to paradise, it is an answer to Christ’s prayer. A good old divine remarks, “Many times Jesus and His people pull against one another in prayer. You bend your knee in prayer and say ‘Father, I desire that Your saints be with me where I am’; Christ says, ‘Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am.'”

In this way the disciple is at cross-purposes with his Lord. The soul cannot be in both places: The beloved one cannot be with Christ and with you too. Now, which of the two who plead shall win the day? If you had your choice, if the King should step from His throne and say, “Here are two supplicants praying in opposition to one another,” which shall be answered? Oh, I am sure, though it were agony, you would jump to your feet and say, “Jesus, not my will, but Yours be done.” You would give up your prayer for your loved one’s life, if you could realize the thoughts that Christ is praying in the opposite direction–“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am.”

Lord, You shall have them. By faith we let them go.

The family reading plan for March 22, 2012

Proverbs 9 | Ephesians 2