Daily Archives: February 19, 2013

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Solving Problems through Prayer – Charles Stanley

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2 Chronicles 20:1-13

The cultural emphasis on “self “ has bred a prayer crisis. Too many believers focus on a problem or its perceived solution instead of making God the center of their attention. Second Chronicles 20 shows us a better way.

King Jehoshaphat faced a dire situation: “a great multitude” approaching quickly to overthrow him. If he had wrung his hands and wailed instead of concentrating on God’s promises and past provision, Jerusalem might have been wiped out as the Moabites and Ammonites intended.

The king magnified the Lord’s greatness, recalling for himself and his people many divine triumphs. In that way, he was able to bolster the Israelites’ courage and prepare them for whatever solution God proposed.

Through the words of his powerful entreaty, Jehoshaphat revealed his firm belief that no problem—not even three fast-approaching murderous armies—is bigger than the Lord of the universe. The Israelite army was powerless against such an onslaught, but the king refused to give in to his initial fear and despair. “Our eyes are on You,” he pledged. In other words, “We know You have a plan, and we are waiting to hear what to do.” Seeking the Lord’s will and His best way is a priority for those who want to solve problems through prayer.

God doesn’t want us to pray casually, “Lord, please solve my problem. Amen!” and then rush into our day, thinking we’ve done well to unload our difficulty onto Him. If He’s going to solve a problem, we should have our ears and mind open to receive His answer—and our heart ready to obey.

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Our Daily Bread — Wait

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1 Samuel 13:7-14

Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you.” —1 Samuel 13:13

In an act of impatience, a man in San Francisco, California, tried to beat traffic by swerving around a lane of cars that had come to a stop. However, the lane he pulled into had just been laid with fresh cement, and his Porsche 911 got stuck. This driver paid a high price for his impatience.

The Scriptures tell of a king who also paid a high price for his impatience. Eager for God to bless the Israelites in their battle against the Philistines, Saul acted impatiently. When Samuel did not arrive at the appointed time to offer a sacrifice for God’s favor, Saul became impatient and disobeyed God’s command (1 Sam. 13:8-9,13). Impatience led Saul to think he was above the law and to take on an unauthorized position of priest. He thought he could disobey God without serious consequences. He was wrong.

When Samuel arrived, he rebuked Saul for his disobedience and prophesied that Saul would lose the kingdom (vv.13-14). Saul’s refusal to wait for the development of God’s plan caused him to act in haste, and in his haste he lost his way (see Prov. 19:2). His impatience was the ultimate display of a lack of faith.

The Lord will provide His guiding presence as we wait patiently for Him to bring about His will. —Marvin Williams

Tune your anxious heart to patience,

Walk by faith where sight is dim;

Loving God, be calm and trustful

And leave everything to Him. —Chambers

 

Patience means awaiting God’s time and trusting God’s love.

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Wonderful Life – Ravi Zacharias Ministry

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“I know what I’m going to do for the next year, and the next year, and the year after that…I’m going to shake the dust off of this crummy old town and I’m going to see the world.”(1)

Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” is the classic film of Christmas holiday fare. It’s ubiquity on the airwaves belies its dismal performance at the box office when it was first released just after World War II.(2) Capra’s film follows the life of George Bailey in his small town. And while the film has a happy ending, it exposes the creeping despair and bitterness that comes from the loss of George’s dreams. The film offers a powerful visual of the gap that forms between knowing what George will do “the next year and the year after that” and the reality of living that leaves him wondering whether his is a wonderful life.

Despite the film’s often saccharine sentimentality, it nevertheless presents a realistic picture of lost or abandoned dreams. Like the film’s main character, George Bailey, many of us had dreams of “seeing the world” and “kicking the dust off” of our ordinary lives and existence. Our ideal plans and goals called us out into an ever-expanding future of possibility and adventure.

In this sense, “It’s a Wonderful Life” offers all who enter into its narrative a chance to look into the chasm between many cherished ideals and the often sober reality of our lives. This glimpse into what is often a gaping chasm of lost hopes and abandoned dreams offers a frightening opportunity to let go. Indeed, facing the death of ones’ dreams head on forces a moment of decision. Will we become bitter by fixating on what has been lost, or will we walk forward in hope on a path of yet unseen possibility?

For Christians, the journey through Lent offers a visible and living reminder of the fact that life entails death; it cannot be circumnavigated or avoided. Those who follow the path of Lent are presented with a similar decision: will the giving up of aspects we believe essential to our vision of a wonderful life lead us to bitterness or to hope? The discipline of Lent often reveals hands grasped tightly and tenaciously around ideals that must give way to new realities. Author M. Craig Barnes suggests that the journey away from our own sense of what makes for a wonderful life is actually the process of conversion. “It is impossible to follow Jesus and not be led away from something. That journey away from the former places and toward the new place is what converts us. Conversion is not simply the acceptance of a theological formula for eternal salvation. Of course it is that, but it is so much more. It is the discovery of God’s painful, beautiful, ongoing creativity along the way in our lives.”(3)

Lent takes those who seek to follow Jesus on an unwanted journey to the cross, and it extends an invitation to follow his example of willing surrender. “For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s shall save it.”  As Jesus prophesied to Peter, this invitation is to a place “where you do not wish to go” (John 21:18). The journey away from “the former place” is hard because we don’t want to abandon the places we think make for wonderful lives.

Yet, if we want to follow Jesus, we will have to abandon many, perhaps even all, of these cherished notions for our lives. We can choose to follow Jesus in his painful, beautiful death march to Golgotha—to die so that we may live—or we can retreat into what appears to be safe and certain ways of life. Significantly, Barnes argues that a wonderful life on our own terms is not a realistic option. “In spite of all our carefulness and hard work, we probably will not achieve the life of our dreams. In fact, our dreams are precisely the things that have abandoned us. But it is then that we hear the invitation of Jesus Christ, ‘Now is the opportunity to step out, walk forward and give your life to God.’”(5) It is a frightening invitation, to be sure, but one indeed that offers the possibility of a wonderful life.

Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

(1) Spoken by George Bailey in the film “It’s a Wonderful Life” by Frank Capra, RKO Productions 1946, 60th Anniversary Edition.

(2) “The Making of ‘It’s A Wonderful Life,’” narrated by Tom Bosley on “It’s A Wonderful Life: 60th Anniversary Edition,” Paramount Home Entertainment, 2006.

(3) M. Craig Barnes, When God Interrupts: Finding New Life Through Unwanted Change (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 21.

(4) See Mark 8:27-38.

(5) M. Craig Barnes, 28.

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Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

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Morning “Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of

Israel, to do it for them.” / Ezekiel 36:37

Prayer is the forerunner of mercy. Turn to sacred history, and you will find that scarcely ever did a great mercy come to this world unheralded by supplication. You have found this true in your own personal experience. God has given you many an unsolicited favour, but still great prayer has always been the prelude of great mercy with you. When you first found peace through the blood of the cross, you had been praying much, and earnestly interceding with God that he would remove your doubts, and deliver you from your distresses. Your assurance was the result of prayer. When at any time you have had high and rapturous joys, you have been obliged to look upon them as answers to your prayers. When you have had great deliverances out of sore troubles, and mighty helps in great dangers, you have been able to say, “I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.” Prayer is always the preface to blessing. It goes before the blessing as the blessing’s shadow. When the sunlight of God’s mercies rises upon our necessities, it casts the shadow of prayer far down upon the plain. Or, to use another illustration, when God piles up a hill of mercies, he himself shines behind them, and he casts on our spirits the shadow of prayer, so that we may rest certain, if we are much in prayer, our pleadings are the shadows of mercy. Prayer is thus connected with the blessing to show us the value of it. If we had the blessings without asking for them, we should think them common things; but prayer makes our mercies more precious than diamonds. The things we ask for are precious, but we do not realize their preciousness until we have sought for them earnestly.

“Prayer makes the darken’d cloud withdraw;

Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw;

Gives exercise to faith and love;

Brings every blessing from above.”

 

Evening  “He first findeth his own brother Simon.” / John 1:41

This case is an excellent pattern of all cases where spiritual life is vigorous. As soon as a man has found Christ, he begins to find others. I will not believe that thou hast tasted of the honey of the gospel if thou canst eat it all thyself. True grace puts an end to all spiritual monopoly. Andrew first found his own brother Simon, and then others. Relationship has a very strong demand upon our first individual efforts. Andrew, thou didst well to begin with Simon. I doubt whether there are not some Christians giving away tracts at other people’s houses who would do well to give away a tract at their own–whether there are not some engaged in works of usefulness abroad who are neglecting their special sphere of usefulness at home. Thou mayst or thou mayst not be called to evangelize the people in any particular locality, but certainly thou art called to see after thine own servants, thine own kinsfolk and acquaintance. Let thy religion begin at home. Many tradesmen export their best commodities–the Christian should not. He should have all his conversation everywhere of the best savour; but let him have a care to put forth the sweetest fruit of spiritual life and testimony in his own family. When Andrew went to find his brother, he little imagined how eminent Simon would become. Simon Peter was worth ten Andrews so far as we can gather from sacred history, and yet Andrew was instrumental in bringing him to Jesus. You may be very deficient in talent yourself, and yet you may be the means of drawing to Christ one who shall become eminent in grace and service. Ah! dear friend, you little know the possibilities which are in you. You may but speak a word to a child, and in that child there may be slumbering a noble heart which shall stir the Christian church in years to come. Andrew has only two talents, but he finds Peter. Go thou and do likewise.

 

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Avoiding Indiscriminate Love – John MacArthur

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I pray “that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment” (Phil. 1:9).

As a Christian, you are a repository of divine love. More than anything else, your love for God and for other believers marks you as a true disciple of Jesus Christ (John 13:35).

In addition to possessing God’s love, you have the privilege and responsibility of expressing it to others on His behalf. That’s a sacred trust. Paul qualifies it in Philippians 1:9, which tells us love is to operate within the sphere of biblical knowledge and spiritual discernment. Those are the parameters that govern God’s love.

No matter how loving an act or word might seem, if it violates knowledge and discernment, it is not true Christian love. Second John 5-11 illustrates that principle. Apparently some believers who lacked discernment were hosting false teachers in the name of Christian love and hospitality. John sternly warned them, saying, “If anyone comes to you and does not bring [sound doctrine], do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds” (vv. 10-11). That might sound extreme or unloving but the purity of God’s people was at stake.

In 2 Thessalonians 3:5-6 after praying for the Thessalonians’ love to increase, Paul then commanded them to keep aloof from so- called Christians who were disregarding sound teaching. That’s not contradictory because Christian love guards sound doctrine and holy living.

Unfortunately, today it is common for Christians to compromise doctrinal purity in the name of love and unity, or to brand as unloving some practices that Scripture clearly commands. Both are wrong and carry serious consequences if not corrected.

Be thoughtful in how you express your love. Abundantly supply it in accord with biblical knowledge and discernment. Excellence and righteousness will result (Phil. 1:10-11).

Suggestions for Prayer:  Thank God for the love He has given you through His Spirit (Rom. 5:5).

Ask for opportunities to demonstrate Christ’s love to others today.

Pray that your love will always be governed by deep convictions grounded in God’s truth.

For Further Study: What do the following passages teach about love? How might you apply them to your life?

Romans 12:8-10

Romans 5:5

1 John 4:7-10

Galatians 5:22

1 Peter 1:22; 4:8

 

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Gain through Pain – Greg Laurie

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Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow—James 1:2–3

I avoid pain at all costs. That is why I don’t run. I have tried running, and it hurts. People have told me, “Just run a little. Walk, and then run from here to there.” So I do it, and I hate it.

For me, the most ideal workout would be a pain-free one. I don’t want my muscles to be sore the next day. But as the expression goes, no pain, no gain. And what is true of working out is also true of life: no pain, no gain. If you are looking for a pain-free life, then you are not going to gain spiritually. You see, pain reminds us of a deeper need. Adversity teaches us eternal truths that we would not otherwise learn.

I experience a certain kind of pain every day. I don’t know if I would call it pain, but it is a hunger pang. From the moment I get up, I want to eat. And by 10:00, as lunchtime begins to roll around, I am basically hungry. So I wait, and I tell myself that lunch is coming. And that hunger pang reminds me of a deeper need.

When I have pain in my life, it reminds me of a deeper need, which is a need for God. And He will teach us lessons in those valleys that we would never learn on mountaintops: things we need to know and things we need to share with others.

Think about your life and about some of the greatest lessons you have learned. They have come through adversity, haven’t they? Those are the things you pass on and share with others. You remember those times when the Lord came through for you. And that is why we need to understand that God is in control of all these things.

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His Presence Never Diminishes – Max Lucado

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For years I viewed God as a compassionate CEO and my role as a loyal sales representative. He had his office, and I had my territory.  I could contact him as much as I wanted. He encouraged me, rallied behind me, and supported me, but he didn’t go with me. At least I didn’t think he did.

Then I read 2nd Corinthians 6:1:  we are “God’s fellow workers.”  Fellow workers?  Co-laborers?  God and I work together? Imagine the paradigm shift this truth creates. Rather than report to God, we work with God.Rather than check in with him and then leave, we check in with him and then follow. We are always in the presence of God. We never leave church. There is never a non-sacred moment.

His presence never diminishes. Our awareness of his presence may falter, but the reality of his presence never changes!