Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Powerful thought

I read a powerful quote in one of my devotionals this week. It came from the perspective of God as he listens to our prayers for the salvation of a loved one. Although we can become frustrated and not know why so and so has not come to salvation, God is still active. Can we bring conviction? Can we bring adversity, or blessing, or the searing prick of salvation to one's conscience? No, but we pray to a God who can.
Do not give up on praying for that loved one. You don't always know what God is doing in another's life. Salvation may seem impossible to us, but not to God. He practices in the impossible.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Time at the Master's Feet

I am going to confess something to you: I have not had a consistent quiet time with my Lord for several months. MONTHS! I know, I know, you haven't either, but who's judging?

Well, convicttion came upon me. A gentlemen in our church told me how he gets up at 5:00 am to spend time with God before going to work. Here I am getting up at 6:00 am and going to work without spending any time with God. Usually, I would try and squeeze a time in during the evening after dinner or before. But, there would always be interruptions, and it is hard to focus. So, after I heard about the 5:00 am time, I knew I needed to get up and act like I love my Lord.

So, I get up at 5:30 and spend a half hour reading and preparing my mind for the day. What, you thought I was going to say I get up at 5:00 am? I'm not the Pope, just paul.

I am writing this to encourage all of us to make some time to be like Mary and do the better thing and sit at the Master's feet.

Whether it is in the morning or the evening, find a quiet place and a comfortable chair to be with Jesus.

I am following the year with a prayer guide I picked up at a book store years ago. It guides me through scripture readings and prayers throughout the year of certain topics. The next couple of things I do vary depending upon what I feel like doing: Oswald Chambers, "My Utmost (modern language edition);" "Magnificent Prayer" by Nick Harrison; "Spurgeon Gold" (a book of quotes from Spurgeon) by Ray Comfort; and a small Bible study using Precept Ministries material.

I can do this in about 30 minutes. How good it is to spend time with my Lord! I am confident that the Lord speaks directly to us through the Word. Any other words He gives to me during the day usually come filtered through what I read that morning. I have been going into work with more comfort and confidence than I have had in a long time.

Beloved, do the better thing and sit at the Master's feet.

The Weapon of our Warfare

This morning in my devotion time I read some things that reminded me of our strongest weapon for bringing the Kingdom of God to earth -- prayer! You thought I would say something really new and profound, nothing is new under the sun. But, prayer remains our strongest tool in our alliance with our King Warrior -- Yahweh-saboath, The LORD of hosts, the God of the angel armies!!!

In Oswald Chambers, "My Utmost for His Highest," he said for September 10th, "God's training ground, where the missionary weapons are found, is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint." (See my next post about our devotional time.)

John Piper said, "When God hungers for some special satisfaction, he seeks out a prayer to answer. Our prayer is the sweet aroma from the kitchen ascending up into the Kings' chambers making him hungry for the meal. But the actual enjoyment of the meal is his own glorious work in answering our prayer. The food of God is to answer our prayer. The most wonderful thing about the Bible is that it reveals a God who satisfies his appetite for joy by answering prayers."

Beloved, let us embrace our prayer time as a time of warfare. It is our prayers that The Lord allows us to partake with Him in his redemption of the world. God wants you and I to join Him in taking back this world. Does He need our prayers? No. Does He want our prayers? Yes. Why? Because all that He does is for His own glory and He allows us to partake in glorifying Him by praying to Him to do some incredible work. What, did you think you were the center of the universe. Wrong-ola! Jesus said, "I AM."