With God all things are possible
Mark
{1:35} And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.
Jesus prayed.
Strange? No. Not strange and yet some people might think so because if Jesus, the Son of God, prayed that shows weakness and a need to commune with another and why would the Son of God show such weakness if He had power to do miracles and such? We often associate praying solely with the thought in mind of petitioning God for help in some way. We tell others to pray when they're in need. We tell them to pray for others that need help. Praying and need seem to go hand in hand and this isn't so far off because of our own selves we are nothing. Jesus said He does nothing of himself.
John
{8:28} Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am [he,] and [that] I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
{8:29} And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.
'I do nothing of myself' Those are Jesus' own words! He does NOTHING of Himself, NOTHING. Jesus relied on God just as we need to rely on God. Jesus prayed, He communed with God all the time. He needed God, apart from God, Jesus had nothing. We need to pray. It's more important than we realize to have this communion with the Father. Why do we think we can get by without praying when Jesus Himself prayed all the time. Prayer gives us the strength of God. Not that we have any of the strength ourselves but we connect ourselves to God and through God all things are possible.
Mark {10:27} And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men [it is] impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.
Jesus taught us this with His entire life holding true to this. Why we think we can do anything of ourselves is a trap that Satan wants us to hold fast to and not let go of. He wants us to flail and wail as life hands us hardship after hardship and we fail to meet the hardships and just let it overwhelm us. He wants us to look to ourselves and call ourselves failures and he also glories in our taking the credit for our successes. You hear people say- where was God when this or that happened. Basically where was God when I needed Him most. And yet throughout their lives as God has blessed them none of that matters, nothing. Satan will get us any way he can using everything he can and the bottom line is if he can break our faith in God to see us through no matter what comes our way, then he wins. Good or bad, worldly success or failure. The worse life, the best life through it all God is the same for all of us no matter what.
May God bless and keep us as we live. May our lives be realized ONLY in Him. May we pray to Him always. All by the mercy and grace of our Lord and Savior may we find all we need to survive all that life gives us - the good and the bad - and prepare us for life eternal in Jesus our Savior now and forever!
Amen.
7/16/10
Mat 24:44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
Be ready.
We are taught as children to be ready to act in cases of emergency. Our schools have fire drills, and we're asked to go back to our homes and together with our family prepare an emergency plan should something happen. In hospitals they have fire drills, in many buildings they have emergency exercises and they conduct these drills and exercises to prepare people to on how they should react during an emergency-- they are taught how to be ready for the unexpected.
Christ's return for us isn't unexpected BUT… 'in such an hour as ye think NOT… the Son of man cometh.'
I don't know about you but I've heard more than once that the Bible is a bunch of nonsense and people who are waiting for Christ to return are delusional fools looking for a way to escape real life because they can't handle the pressure. Are those people who believe that way towards Christians (because ALL who are Christians are expecting Christ to return- other wise they're NOT Christians at all) are those people thinking about Christ's return? No. Christians have to be expecting Christ to return. To be a follower of Christ you have to believe in Him and all He said and He told us He would return someday. If you have any contact with any professed Christians who don't believe in Christ's return then you have to conclude they aren't really followers of Christ.
As followers of Christ we are waiting for Christ to return. Our thoughts are constantly on the fact our Savior will return to wipe evil away. We live among evil, it surrounds us. However, there are a lot of people who do this…
Isa 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Those who call evil good don't necessarily believe the world is all that bad and in need of a Savior. As Christians we KNOW that the world is evil and in desperate need of a Savior and our Savior's return to do away with evil forever. We are expecting Christ to return, hoping for His second coming. Yet the Bible tells us that… ' in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh'.
We have to watch for Him always! We have to never believe there is a time He won't come to take us home with Him. I'm not talking we have to be ready for some secret rapture. The Bible tells us EVERY eye shall see Him, that He'll come as lightening shining from East to West, so obviously His return for us will be very visible. We have to watch, but even for those watching, even for those who are ready Christ's return will be at a time when we aren't expecting. Seems kind of contradictory doesn't it? Be expecting Him always and yet He will return ' in an hour as ye think not'. All will be asleep yet some wake up and are ready because they've prepared for Him before sleeping. Remember that parable? Matthew 25:1-13. All sleep. The difference is in the preparation. We won't expect Christ to come when He does, even if we are expecting His return. We need to be ready though, yes, we need to be ready at ALL times. Even if we're sleeping we need to be ready. Just as emergency plans are taught to us so we're ready at any time, we must be ready for Christ's return at any time. If a fire breaks out in your house in the middle of the night and you wake up to the smoke alarm- because you've planned what to do ahead of time you can spring into action. When we are woken up from our slumber when Christ returns we will go to meet Him with oil in our lamps, our lamps burning brightly because we know to have them ready, we know to be prepared for His return.
No, we can't know the hour of Christ's return, and when we might be lulled into believing His return is not just yet, we can still be ready for Him, ever ready for Him.
By the grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior, by His love and through His righteousness now and forever!
Amen.
7/16/11
2Sa 12:22 And he said, While the child was yet
alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether GOD will be gracious
to me, that the child may live?
We have NO way of
knowing what God will do in our lives, what God will allow. We often pray for
*things* whether those things are certain situations, or whether they're for
actual items, specific desires it doesn't matter does it? We pray asking God for
whatever is on our minds, our hearts at the time. And we pray without knowing
whether or not 'GOD will be gracious to us.' As long as the there is hope for a
prayer prayed in expectation we keep praying. At the bedside of a sick loved
one, at the race yet unfinished, during the test as it is being taken, at the
interview still hoping to influence, for the results not yet given, for the life
as yet unfulfilled, seeking goals.
Once that loved one is healed or succumbs to their illness the situation
is over. When the race is finished, the outcome is decided. The test submitted
and graded is done. The interview ended any influence. The results known cannot
be altered. The desires of the heart found, the goals met, and there is no
reason to continue to pray for these things, right?
To keep seeking divine intervention after a situation is decided is
pointless. David sought for God's
intervention in his favor, in favor of his young child, but once the outcome was
revealed David no longer had reason to believe any of his weeping or fasting
would change a thing. As long as there was hope David earnestly sought God's
change of heart. Until the answer is revealed in anything- there is hope of
obtaining God's graciousness.
Did David
continue to weep and fast after he was given the undesired outcome of all his
fasting and weeping? No. Obviously
this wasn't the expected reaction of others. They expected David to fast and
weep even more after receiving the undesired reply to all his supplication for
His son. His young son was dead,
this was cause for great weeping and fasting, mourning and carrying on. It
wasn't to be though, David could not bring back His son. David knew his own sin
had brought about the tragedy and none of his pain, none of his agonizing over
the impending death changed that decree of the Lord's. How often we pray for
things, how often we agonizing in desiring different outcomes, and the time to
agonize in hope of God's graciousness is before the result, not after. That's
not to say we shouldn't be devastated by any great loss we experience, it's
natural to be so, but it would be foolhardy of us if we continued on in the same
entreating vein of hope for something that cannot be changed.
*
Isa 38:1 In those days was Hezekiah sick unto
death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came unto him, and said unto him,
Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live.
Isa 38:2 Then Hezekiah turned his face toward
the wall, and prayed unto the LORD,
Isa 38:3 And said, Remember now, O LORD, I
beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart,
and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.
Isa 38:4 Then came the word of the LORD to
Isaiah, saying,
Isa 38:5 Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the
LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy
tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.
*
Joel 1:14 Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn
assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house
of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD,
Joel 1:15 Alas for the day! for the day of the
LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
Joel 2:14 Who knoweth if he will return and
repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink
offering unto the LORD your God?
*
Amos 5:15 Hate the evil, and love the good, and
establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be
gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.
*
Jonah 1:6 So the shipmaster came to him, and said
unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that
God will think upon us, that we perish not.
Jonah 3:9 Who can tell if God will turn and
repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
Jonah 3:10 And God saw their works, that they
turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that
he would do unto them; and he did it not.
*
Jas 4:9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let
your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
Jas 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the
Lord, and he shall lift you up.
*
Who can tell
whether God will be gracious?
We cannot be
presumptuous and believe that God will not be gracious towards us. We cannot be
filled with pessimism erring on the side of defeat. We must have hope. We must
believe as we encounter each and every obstacle in life's way that there is
hope that God will be gracious.
His choice not to be gracious is not for us to understand or question. We
have to believe that God who knows the end from the beginning knows how the
ultimate decision will work for good to all those who love Him.
God can be
gracious and we cannot allow ourselves to forget this. We cannot let anyone tell
us to give up our hope, no one can tell whether God will be gracious and any who
presume to be able to tell is a liar. God decides without counsel from any man
on whether or not He will be gracious. God and God alone knows.
People might say
all the crying in the world won't change a thing, but I say they're wrong. All
the crying in the world might change something, we don't know, we just don't
know. When we feel the need to weep and fast, to seek God's graciousness through
our repentance and sorrow, don't hold back with the idea that what will be -
will be. Yes, it is what it is, but ONLY once it is, not before. What will be
doesn't have to be what we believe it will be. God's will be done in all
things, yes, and no other's will certainly not mine. God knows the end from the
beginning, and trusting in God for His will to be done does not mean we
shouldn't entreat Him. We must entreat Him- and our faith, our trust in His
will must be fully realized after we receive whatever answers we are seeking-
good or bad, desired or undesired.
In His love! In
His mercy, by His grace always!!!
Amen.
{1:35} And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.
Jesus prayed.
Strange? No. Not strange and yet some people might think so because if Jesus, the Son of God, prayed that shows weakness and a need to commune with another and why would the Son of God show such weakness if He had power to do miracles and such? We often associate praying solely with the thought in mind of petitioning God for help in some way. We tell others to pray when they're in need. We tell them to pray for others that need help. Praying and need seem to go hand in hand and this isn't so far off because of our own selves we are nothing. Jesus said He does nothing of himself.
John
{8:28} Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am [he,] and [that] I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
{8:29} And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.
'I do nothing of myself' Those are Jesus' own words! He does NOTHING of Himself, NOTHING. Jesus relied on God just as we need to rely on God. Jesus prayed, He communed with God all the time. He needed God, apart from God, Jesus had nothing. We need to pray. It's more important than we realize to have this communion with the Father. Why do we think we can get by without praying when Jesus Himself prayed all the time. Prayer gives us the strength of God. Not that we have any of the strength ourselves but we connect ourselves to God and through God all things are possible.
Mark {10:27} And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men [it is] impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.
Jesus taught us this with His entire life holding true to this. Why we think we can do anything of ourselves is a trap that Satan wants us to hold fast to and not let go of. He wants us to flail and wail as life hands us hardship after hardship and we fail to meet the hardships and just let it overwhelm us. He wants us to look to ourselves and call ourselves failures and he also glories in our taking the credit for our successes. You hear people say- where was God when this or that happened. Basically where was God when I needed Him most. And yet throughout their lives as God has blessed them none of that matters, nothing. Satan will get us any way he can using everything he can and the bottom line is if he can break our faith in God to see us through no matter what comes our way, then he wins. Good or bad, worldly success or failure. The worse life, the best life through it all God is the same for all of us no matter what.
May God bless and keep us as we live. May our lives be realized ONLY in Him. May we pray to Him always. All by the mercy and grace of our Lord and Savior may we find all we need to survive all that life gives us - the good and the bad - and prepare us for life eternal in Jesus our Savior now and forever!
Amen.
7/16/10
Mat 24:44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
Be ready.
We are taught as children to be ready to act in cases of emergency. Our schools have fire drills, and we're asked to go back to our homes and together with our family prepare an emergency plan should something happen. In hospitals they have fire drills, in many buildings they have emergency exercises and they conduct these drills and exercises to prepare people to on how they should react during an emergency-- they are taught how to be ready for the unexpected.
Christ's return for us isn't unexpected BUT… 'in such an hour as ye think NOT… the Son of man cometh.'
I don't know about you but I've heard more than once that the Bible is a bunch of nonsense and people who are waiting for Christ to return are delusional fools looking for a way to escape real life because they can't handle the pressure. Are those people who believe that way towards Christians (because ALL who are Christians are expecting Christ to return- other wise they're NOT Christians at all) are those people thinking about Christ's return? No. Christians have to be expecting Christ to return. To be a follower of Christ you have to believe in Him and all He said and He told us He would return someday. If you have any contact with any professed Christians who don't believe in Christ's return then you have to conclude they aren't really followers of Christ.
As followers of Christ we are waiting for Christ to return. Our thoughts are constantly on the fact our Savior will return to wipe evil away. We live among evil, it surrounds us. However, there are a lot of people who do this…
Isa 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Those who call evil good don't necessarily believe the world is all that bad and in need of a Savior. As Christians we KNOW that the world is evil and in desperate need of a Savior and our Savior's return to do away with evil forever. We are expecting Christ to return, hoping for His second coming. Yet the Bible tells us that… ' in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh'.
We have to watch for Him always! We have to never believe there is a time He won't come to take us home with Him. I'm not talking we have to be ready for some secret rapture. The Bible tells us EVERY eye shall see Him, that He'll come as lightening shining from East to West, so obviously His return for us will be very visible. We have to watch, but even for those watching, even for those who are ready Christ's return will be at a time when we aren't expecting. Seems kind of contradictory doesn't it? Be expecting Him always and yet He will return ' in an hour as ye think not'. All will be asleep yet some wake up and are ready because they've prepared for Him before sleeping. Remember that parable? Matthew 25:1-13. All sleep. The difference is in the preparation. We won't expect Christ to come when He does, even if we are expecting His return. We need to be ready though, yes, we need to be ready at ALL times. Even if we're sleeping we need to be ready. Just as emergency plans are taught to us so we're ready at any time, we must be ready for Christ's return at any time. If a fire breaks out in your house in the middle of the night and you wake up to the smoke alarm- because you've planned what to do ahead of time you can spring into action. When we are woken up from our slumber when Christ returns we will go to meet Him with oil in our lamps, our lamps burning brightly because we know to have them ready, we know to be prepared for His return.
No, we can't know the hour of Christ's return, and when we might be lulled into believing His return is not just yet, we can still be ready for Him, ever ready for Him.
By the grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior, by His love and through His righteousness now and forever!
Amen.
7/16/11
2Sa 12:22 And he said, While the child was yet
alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether GOD will be gracious
to me, that the child may live?
We have NO way of
knowing what God will do in our lives, what God will allow. We often pray for
*things* whether those things are certain situations, or whether they're for
actual items, specific desires it doesn't matter does it? We pray asking God for
whatever is on our minds, our hearts at the time. And we pray without knowing
whether or not 'GOD will be gracious to us.' As long as the there is hope for a
prayer prayed in expectation we keep praying. At the bedside of a sick loved
one, at the race yet unfinished, during the test as it is being taken, at the
interview still hoping to influence, for the results not yet given, for the life
as yet unfulfilled, seeking goals.
Once that loved one is healed or succumbs to their illness the situation
is over. When the race is finished, the outcome is decided. The test submitted
and graded is done. The interview ended any influence. The results known cannot
be altered. The desires of the heart found, the goals met, and there is no
reason to continue to pray for these things, right?
To keep seeking divine intervention after a situation is decided is
pointless. David sought for God's
intervention in his favor, in favor of his young child, but once the outcome was
revealed David no longer had reason to believe any of his weeping or fasting
would change a thing. As long as there was hope David earnestly sought God's
change of heart. Until the answer is revealed in anything- there is hope of
obtaining God's graciousness.
Did David
continue to weep and fast after he was given the undesired outcome of all his
fasting and weeping? No. Obviously
this wasn't the expected reaction of others. They expected David to fast and
weep even more after receiving the undesired reply to all his supplication for
His son. His young son was dead,
this was cause for great weeping and fasting, mourning and carrying on. It
wasn't to be though, David could not bring back His son. David knew his own sin
had brought about the tragedy and none of his pain, none of his agonizing over
the impending death changed that decree of the Lord's. How often we pray for
things, how often we agonizing in desiring different outcomes, and the time to
agonize in hope of God's graciousness is before the result, not after. That's
not to say we shouldn't be devastated by any great loss we experience, it's
natural to be so, but it would be foolhardy of us if we continued on in the same
entreating vein of hope for something that cannot be changed.
*
Isa 38:1 In those days was Hezekiah sick unto
death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came unto him, and said unto him,
Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live.
Isa 38:2 Then Hezekiah turned his face toward
the wall, and prayed unto the LORD,
Isa 38:3 And said, Remember now, O LORD, I
beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart,
and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.
Isa 38:4 Then came the word of the LORD to
Isaiah, saying,
Isa 38:5 Go, and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the
LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy
tears: behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.
*
Joel 1:14 Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn
assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house
of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD,
Joel 1:15 Alas for the day! for the day of the
LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
Joel 2:14 Who knoweth if he will return and
repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink
offering unto the LORD your God?
*
Amos 5:15 Hate the evil, and love the good, and
establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be
gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.
*
Jonah 1:6 So the shipmaster came to him, and said
unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that
God will think upon us, that we perish not.
Jonah 3:9 Who can tell if God will turn and
repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?
Jonah 3:10 And God saw their works, that they
turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that
he would do unto them; and he did it not.
*
Jas 4:9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let
your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
Jas 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the
Lord, and he shall lift you up.
*
Who can tell
whether God will be gracious?
We cannot be
presumptuous and believe that God will not be gracious towards us. We cannot be
filled with pessimism erring on the side of defeat. We must have hope. We must
believe as we encounter each and every obstacle in life's way that there is
hope that God will be gracious.
His choice not to be gracious is not for us to understand or question. We
have to believe that God who knows the end from the beginning knows how the
ultimate decision will work for good to all those who love Him.
God can be
gracious and we cannot allow ourselves to forget this. We cannot let anyone tell
us to give up our hope, no one can tell whether God will be gracious and any who
presume to be able to tell is a liar. God decides without counsel from any man
on whether or not He will be gracious. God and God alone knows.
People might say
all the crying in the world won't change a thing, but I say they're wrong. All
the crying in the world might change something, we don't know, we just don't
know. When we feel the need to weep and fast, to seek God's graciousness through
our repentance and sorrow, don't hold back with the idea that what will be -
will be. Yes, it is what it is, but ONLY once it is, not before. What will be
doesn't have to be what we believe it will be. God's will be done in all
things, yes, and no other's will certainly not mine. God knows the end from the
beginning, and trusting in God for His will to be done does not mean we
shouldn't entreat Him. We must entreat Him- and our faith, our trust in His
will must be fully realized after we receive whatever answers we are seeking-
good or bad, desired or undesired.
In His love! In
His mercy, by His grace always!!!
Amen.