Responding to the Presence of God in Our Lives

Exodus 3:4

When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”

Moses was going about his normal business of shepherding the flock when he came upon the burning bush.  He could not see anyone who might have started the fire.  Moses could have run away in fear or he could have simply walked away thinking that this is no concern of mine.  Instead, Moses approached the bush to discover more of this mystery unfolding before him.   He heard a voice but there was no human there speaking it.  But it was unmistakeable to Moses, He was being addressed by someone who knew him and knew His name.  When the Lord saw that He had Moses' attention, He called out to him and Moses responded, "Here I am."

As noted, the first appearance of God to Moses was while he was tending his sheep.  This seems poor employment for someone who was raised as a prince in the Pharaoh's court. Yet Moses was well satisfied and God was pleased with him.  God was pleased with Moses because he was learning the meekness and contentment that he would need in the calling that was awaiting him.  He was also pleased with Moses because Moses was seeking God in his life. 

Moses is a great model for each of us.  He looked for God in his daily life and, more importantly, Moses was ready to hear and act upon whatever the Lord asked him to do.  So it should be with us.  We should look for God at all times.  We should expect to be surprised by Him showing up in the smallest details of our everyday lives.  We should be ready to respond to His calling.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for always being present with us.  We exalt Your Name for being our ever present God.  We pray that You will open our eyes so that we can see You in every detail of our lives, from the grandest places and moments to the lowliest of places and moments.  May Your Holy Spirit prepare us to be alert to see Your presence and to hear Your calling.  May we always be eager to be instruments of Your good work and vessels of Your perfect love and forgiveness.  We ask all these things in the name of our ever present Lord, Jesus Christ.

There Is No Tolerance in the Truth

1 Corinthians 3:11

For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

In construction, if a beam is one degree out of level it is no longer true.  There is no tolerance for this measure.  The beam is either true or it is not true.

The world would like to teach us that there are many ways to heaven besides accepting Jesus Christ as Savior.  It is sad to say that Satan has done a remarkable job selling this line of thinking, putting a large portion of mankind in danger of missing the way, the truth and the life that is only found in Jesus.

We Christians must be extremely careful not to bend the Word of God to fit today's culture.  The Word of God is the truth.  God's Word is the same today as it was yesterday and as it will be tomorrow.  Jesus Christ alone is the firm, abiding and immovable Rock of Ages.  In every way, He is able to bear all the weight of the sins of mankind that has been placed upon Him.  He alone can bear this load.  He alone is the trustworthy foundation.  Anyone who sets their foundation elsewhere will find nothing but destruction in their future.

Making God's Word more pleasing to others is not being tolerant.  It is abandoning what is true.  More importantly, massaging God's Word to make it more acceptable to the world endangers the eternal lives of those that we may be trying to appease.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You that Your Word is true and that Your promises are certain.  May You open our hearts to receive the fullness and truth in the precepts that You reveal to us through Your Holy Word.  May You embolden us to speak the truth about Your Son as the world around us rejects Him.  May You strengthen us to stand firmly on the foundation that only He provides.  We ask all these things in the name of the way, the truth and the life, Jesus Christ.

Fully Consumed by His Love

Matthew 22:37

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

To love God with all of our heart, soul and mind requires that all of our physical strength and all of our intellect and understanding be fully engaged in turning all of our affections toward our heavenly Father.  May we always be mindful that God provided His Son to die for our sins because we can not measure up to this command from Almighty God.  We simply do not have the capacity, except through Christ in us, to love God to the extent that our love consumes our whole heart, soul and mind.

We should also be mindful that God is completely aware of our weakness.  He provides His Holy Spirit to dwell within us to guide us along our path of sanctification.  The Holy Spirit will not rest when we depart from making God the love above all loves in our lives.  The Holy Spirit will not accept us living with one foot in God's kingdom and one foot in the world.  It is all or nothing with the Holy Spirit.  The good news is that the Holy Spirit's job is to follow through on God's promise to perfect His strength in our weakness.

Charles Spurgeon captured the essence of this command so eloquently in his teaching. "Come in, O strong and deep love of Jesus, like the sea at the flood in spring tides, cover all my powers, drown all my sins, wash out all my cares, lift up my earth-bound soul, and float it right up to my Lord's feet, and there let me lie, a poor broken shell, washed up by His love, having no virtue or value; and only venturing to whisper to Him that if He will put His ear to me, He will hear within my heart faint echoes of the vast waves of His own love which have brought me where it is my delight to lie, even at His feet for ever."

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for the mercy and the endless grace that You provide to each of us.  We bless the name of Jesus who allows us to fulfill the law that we cannot fulfill on our own.  Help us, Lord, to be keenly aware of the urgings of the Holy Spirit.  Help us to humbly accept the corrections that the Holy Spirit is asking us to make in our lives.  We pray, Father, that Your Holy Spirit will take us to the high places that can only be reached when our hearts are fully consumed by Your love.  We ask all these things in the name of the Exalted One, Jesus Christ.

Paired Side By Side With the Son of God

Matthew 11:29

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

In days of old, the yoke was used to pair field animals together.  The yoke enabled the pair to work together more efficiently.  In this passage, Jesus invites us to join Him in His yoke. He then points out that He is gentle and lowly in heart.  Thus, He is telling us that He is a willing servant that welcomes us along side, where He will teach us about His demeanor and bring us rest.  How could we pass on such an offer from our Servant King?  How could we pass on the opportunity to learn from the only man who ever lived in perfection?  How could we pass on being paired side by side in all things with the Son of God, the Son of Man, Jesus Christ?

And consider this...to make the offer even greater, Jesus places no limits on the time He will allow us to come along side of Him.  Nor does He place any limits on the burdens that He would share with us.  His invitation to be at His side is available 24-7.  He is always along side us to bring us comfort when we are under the greatest level of stress or experiencing pain at the limits of our ability to endure.  Truly He offers us the endless joy that He shares with the Father.  When we surrender to the yoke of Our Lord, the joy of the Lord is our strength when we would have none otherwise. When we take up His yoke, we take on His meekness, His humility, His lowliness and, most of all, His complete subjection to His Father.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing all that we need to get through our troubles.  We rejoice in knowing that we can find joy in the heaviest of burdens when we accept the yoke that is offered by Your Son, Jesus.  We pray that You teach us how to be lowly in heart so that we readily accept our place in the yoke. We ask all these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Comforter who rescues those who are crushed in spirit.

Overcoming the Burdens We Face

Psalm 55:22

Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.

It is obvious from this verse that we are to have burdens in our lives.  But God in His mercy promises us that He will not give a burden that is larger that the provision that He will grant to overcome the burden. 

God gave His own Son a cup of sorrow and suffering that was so intense that Jesus sweat blood as He faced His upcoming crucifixion.  But Jesus did as the verse commands, He cast His burden upon the Father.  Thus He was provided with all He needed to face the Cross and rise from His trial in victory.

No affliction or tribulation is joyous.  They are all troublesome.  Some are much heavier than others.  At times they even seem to gather together or to extend much longer that we would care to bear.  The total of it all adds up to the burden we face.  Our relief is to look to Jesus Christ who bore it all on the Cross and took it away from us.

To cast our burden upon God, is to rest upon his providence and promise.  Our Heavenly Father will not let His righteous children fail.  It is indeed His promise to us.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us cups of sorrow and suffering that we must swallow.   We thank You for using our trials to build our faith in who You are.  We thank You for insuring our victory through Your Son, Jesus.  We thank You for insuring our righteousness through the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  We pray for Your mercies to be granted us each day as You release fresh supplies of strength and comfort just as we need them to overcome our trials.  We ask these things in the name of the One who gave His life for the ransom of many, our all sufficient Lord, Jesus Christ.

The Longer the Wait, the Greater the Harvest

Habakkuk 2:3

For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.

As we wait to see the providence of God in answers to our prayers, we must be careful not to become impatient with God.  His ways are greater than our ways.  His timing is perfect.  He has the perfect appointment set for the resolution of our prayerful solicitations.

The prophet, Habakkuk, was frustrated that God was not dealing with the iniquities that he saw in the world around him.  He was impatient because those that he prophesied to were not responding to the Word of God.  In this scripture, the Lord reminds Habakkuk that he must be patient because the visions and promises that God gives are sure to come.

We probably have not had a vision like Habakkuk had.  But if we have been diligent in seeking the Lord's hand in our lives, we are likely to have found some type of confirmation of God's providence through His Word, through urgings of His Holy Spirit or through the progress we see in our own lives or in the lives of those that we have been praying for.  Let us be joyful.  The things that we pray for in the will of God and in accordance with His promises will come to us.  Though the fruit of our prayers may be deferred for a time, whether long or short our wait may be, the fruit will come at last.  And, hallelujah, the longer wait usually means a greater harvest. 

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your providence in our lives.  We exalt the name of Jesus who has insured that the favor of Your promises will never be withheld from us.  We pray, Lord, that Your Holy Spirit will teach us how to rest on Your Word and that He will strengthen us when the promise of the Word is long in coming.  May we persevere to the end through the graces that You provide.  We ask all these things in the name of the Alpha and the Omega, Jesus Christ.

The God of Heaven Will Give Us Success

Nehemiah 2:20

I answered them by saying, “The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it.”

Nehemiah was inspired by God to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem which were in ruin.  Because God was with Him, Nehemiah was given complete authority and financial support to rebuild the walls by King Artaxerxes of Persia.  When Nehemiah reached Jerusalem to begin the work, He encountered much resistance from the likes of Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem.  Nehemiah quickly put them in their place and moved forward building the walls.

We have to be like Nehemiah when we rebuild the walls of our lives which are in ruin due to the sin in our lives.  We can be assured that Satan will come to discourage us.  We need to let Satan know that he has no claim nor historic right to interfere with the rebuilding of our lives as temples of Jesus Christ. 

Further we need to stand firm not only for ourselves, but also for those around us.  Knowing that we are in the favor of God who promises to complete the good work in us, we must seek to intercede not only for ourselves but also for our loved ones.  The God of heaven will prosper all of us, protect all of us and insure that we all succeed in what He has called us to do.  As we learn to depend on Him, we need not have a concern over what the enemy can bring against us or those that God has put in our lives.  The victory is ours through Jesus Christ.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your promise to complete Your good work in us.  We bless the name of Jesus whose death on the Cross gives us victory over all evil.  We rejoice in knowing that You will give us success in all that we do in Your name.  We pray, Father, that Your Holy Spirit will strengthen us to stand firm against the enemy who comes to destroy us and our families.  May our hearts be prepared to live in dependence upon You as we rebuild our lives as temples of the Living God.  We ask all these things in the name of the One that dwells within us, Jesus Christ.