Prayer Drill!

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Beside the Ahava River, I asked the people to go without eating and to pray. We humbled ourselves and asked God to bring us and our children safely to Jerusalem with all of our possessions.  I was ashamed to ask the king to send soldiers and cavalry to protect us against enemies along the way. After all, we had told the king that our God takes care of everyone who truly worships him, but that he gets very angry and punishes anyone who refuses to obey.

So we went without food and asked God himself to protect us, and he answered our prayers.

Ezra 8:21-23

When I was a child in elementary school I always liked the "fire drills." A loud alarm would go off, without warning, and we would all, quietly march out of the building and gather on the playground. Once there the teacher would count us all to confirm that no one had been left behind. There never was a real fire in our school, but the fire drills helped us be ready for one if it ever happened. And you can be sure that tragedies do happen in this life.

How do you prepare for a fire, the death of a loved one, someone breaking in your house to do you harm, or any one of many kinds of evil that can come your way? If you are not a follower of Jesus Christ and you must fight your battles all alone I really don't know what to tell you. Without Jesus the smallest storm in life can sink your boat.

But if you are a follower of Jesus, when the alarm goes off and you don't know if it is a "fire drill" or a real emergency, drop to your knees and call out to God. If you are practiced in prayer and can quickly come before His throne, God and His powerful arm of help will arrive long before the emergency squad can find your house.

Here is a good idea. Have a "Prayer Drill" every day. Call on the Name of the Lord as if you were in the middle of a life threatening emergency and then listen for His answer. Let your time in prayer prepare your heart and mind for the days of difficulty lie ahead for so many people on this earth.

Watching God Work!

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We have everything we need to live a life that pleases God. It was all given to us by God's own power, when we learned he had invited us to share in his wonderful goodness.

God made great and marvelous promises, so his nature would become part of us. Then we could escape our evil desires and the corrupt influences of this world.

Do your best to improve your faith by adding goodness, understanding,  self-control, patience, devotion to God,  concern for others, and love.  If you keep growing in this way, it will show that what you know about our Lord Jesus Christ has made your lives useful and meaningful.

2 Peter 1:3-8

When you are with a growing child everyday it is hard to see the difference from day to day. But when you don't see that child for a year, or a month or sometimes even a week you can easily see the growth!

When you grow as a follower of Jesus Christ your life will become useful and meaningful. You will be useful to Jesus as He works in and through you to accomplish His will everyday. And your life will become meaningful because it will declare to everyone around you that Jesus still works miracles today! Men will see that one who was lost is now found and a man who was once blind can now see!

When my father was a boy there was no such thing as a driver's license in the United States. He told me that a young man could drive a car when his legs were long enough to reach the peddles. It was really quite simple. If you had grown physically enough to push on the throttle and step on the brake then you were old enough to drive a car.

It is the same with a Christian. God will not ask you to do something for Him when your legs are too short to "reach the peddles." There is one great exception to this "rule." God will ask you to accomplish a task that is too hard for you to do and then He will do it for you as you watch Him in awe!

So my life as a Christian changes as I grow. I begin as a young man working for God and end up as an old man watching God work!

"Lord, let me watch You work today. Show me how Your power is moving in the world and in my life and the lives of those around me. And I will praise You for everything! Amen."

The Right Tool

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The angel who explained the visions woke me from what seemed like sleep.

Then he asked, “What do you see?”
“A solid gold lampstand with an oil container above it,” I answered. “On the stand are seven lamps, each with seven flames. One olive tree is on the right side and another on the left of the oil container.

But, sir, what do these mean?”

Then he asked, “Don't you know?”
“No sir,” I replied.

So the angel explained that it was the following message of the [Lord] to Zerubbabel: I am the [Lord] All-Powerful. So don't depend on your own power or strength, but on my Spirit.

Zechariah 4:1-6

When you use the right tool a difficult, frustrating and seemingly impossible job can seem very simple.

One of my sons is a mechanic. He has lots of tools. Watching him work is really quite interesting and enjoyable as I see him use a tool specifically designed for the job he is trying to accomplish. With the right tool the impossible becomes quite easy.

Navigating through this life without the help of the Spirit of God is like trying to change the oil in a car without a wrench. You can try to turn the oil drain plug with your fingers, non stop for a week and it will not move. But with the proper wrench a good counter-clock-wise pull and it comes out!

Are you trying to live and maintain your life without the help of the Spirit of God? You may be busy in the effort and even look like someone who has been working hard at the task, but without God nothing of any value will be done.

"Lord, show me today how I am trying to depend on my own strength and power instead of Your Spirit. Then Lord, help me today to stand back and watch You work. Amen."

Father of Obedience!

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Ezekiel, son of man, the people with you in Babylonia talk about you when they meet by the city walls or in the doorways of their houses. They say, “Let's ask Ezekiel what the [Lord] has said today.”  So they all come and listen to you, but they refuse to do what you tell them. They claim to be faithful, but they are forever trying to cheat others out of their money.

They treat you as though you were merely singing love songs or playing music. They listen, but don't do anything you say.

Soon they will be punished, just as you warned, and they will know that a prophet has been among them.

Ezekiel 33:30-33

There is a deep valley between recognizing the Word of God and obeying it! You say you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the Bible is God's Word, but are you obedient to His desire for you?

When you read the Bible do you try to find the passages that give you peace about the way you live now, or do you look for scripture that shows you a better way?

The Bible does not contradict itself, so the truth you find today will never change, but the ocean of God's truth is so vast there are always greater depths.

Here is where so many Christians stumble in their walk with Jesus. They come to believe that understanding God's Word is more important than obeying it.

We are saved by faith, not understanding. Faith is the father of obedience, but understanding's offspring can include arrogance and pride.

Study the scriptures so you can obey them even if you don't yet understand. That kind of obedience reveals your faith in Jesus and brings glory to God.

"Lord, show me one way I can obey You today that is beyond my understanding. Amen."

Wash Away the World

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The angel showed me a river that was crystal clear, and its waters gave life. The river came from the throne where God and the Lamb were seated.

Then it flowed down the middle of the city's main street. On each side of the river are trees that grow a different kind of fruit each month of the year. The fruit gives life, and the leaves are used as medicine to heal the nations.

God's curse will no longer be on the people of that city. He and the Lamb will be seated there on their thrones, and its people will worship God and will see him face to face. God's name will be written on the foreheads of the people.

Never again will night appear, and no one who lives there will ever need a lamp or the sun. The Lord God will be their light, and they will rule forever.

Revelation 22:1-5

I saw a river once flowing down the middle of the main street of a city in Southeast Asia. It was polluted beyond anyone's imagination. I suppose it would have been better called an open sewer and not a river.

There was a man sitting on the side of that river reaching down into it's brown water with his toothbrush while brushing his teeth! It has been almost 40 years since I saw him trying to clean his teeth with that filthy water but the image is still vivid in my mind.

The counterproductive futility of brushing your teeth in a sewer is still hard for me to grasp and yet I see that happening everyday. Men and women try to clean themselves up by bathing in the sewer. It is a disgusting image, and rarely do we see it happen in the physical world, but spiritually it happens all the time. When we realize that we have sinned the first reaction is to deny that it happened. Then if we do recognize our sin we try to cover it up so that no one will know about it.

But there is only one way to be clean from the sin in your life and that is to be washed in the Blood of Jesus. Any other way of trying to deal with your sin will only leave you stained and corrupted by the world that promises freedom but delivers slavery.

"Lord Jesus, examine me today and see if there is any place that needs to be washed in Your Blood. Let Your cleansing power flow over me and wash away the corruption of this world. Amen."

What is God Like?

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When I saw the Lamb open the sixth seal, I looked and saw a great earthquake. The sun turned as dark as sackcloth, and the moon became red as blood. The stars in the sky fell to earth, just like figs shaken loose by a windstorm.

Then the sky was rolled up like a scroll, and all mountains and islands were moved from their places.

The kings of the earth, its famous people, and its military leaders hid in caves or behind rocks on the mountains. They hid there together with the rich and the powerful and with all the slaves and free people. Then they shouted to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us! Hide us from the one who sits on the throne and from the anger of the Lamb.  That terrible day has come! God and the Lamb will show their anger, and who can face it?”

Revelation 6:12-17

So many people believe that God never gets angry. Their perception of the Almighty is that He is just the "Man Upstairs" or the old grandfather who let's us get away with everything! They look at all the "God is love" passages and tell themselves that the anger of God was for another time and another place.

The Bible says that God created man in His image, not the other way around. But we try to change who God is and make Him into a God who makes it really easy on His children. We want a God who blesses, but makes no personal demands on our lives.

Another way we remake God in our minds is to think that a minimal commitment to Jesus is all He requires or even desires. We do the "essential to Salvation" things and then sit down to wait for Heaven. We pretend that our relationship with Jesus is an intimate one when we barely even know Him!

"Lord, give me a sober and serious respect for the side of You that will cause shaking and fear in those who don't know and love You. And Lord, help me to step deeper into Your love today and know You in a way that goes beyond being able to describe that relationship to others. May You be praised and glorified forever. Amen."

Overwhelmed by His Glory!

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God stays one with everyone who openly says Jesus is the Son of God. This is how we stay one with God and are sure God loves us.

God is love. If we keep on loving others, we will stay one in our hearts with God, and he will stay one with us.  If we truly love others and live as Christ did in this world, we won't be worried about the day of judgment.

A real love for others will chase those worries away. The thought of being punished is what makes us afraid. It shows we have not really learned to love.

We love because God loved us first.  But if we say we love God and don't love each other, we are liars. We cannot see God. So how can we love God, if we don't love the people we can see?  The commandment that God has given us is: “Love God and love each other!”

1 John 4:15-21

There is a rather strange blessing for someone who is blind. A blind man learns to love people he cannot see. A blind man does not base much if any of his love on physical beauty. It is inward beauty that blossoms in his mind and spreads an attractive fragrance.

All human beings are blind when it comes to God. We cannot see Him. He has hidden Himself from our view so effectively that even confronted with the Glory of Creation itself some men decide that God is not there at all!

Truthfully, the ability to see with your physical eyes is the most deceptive sense of all. "Love at first sight" rarely ends well. Love that comes from discovering the inward beauty of a person is the kind that lasts and lasts. Love based on physical beauty is really not love at all.

If we were able to see God as human beings we would be totally taken with His glory and probably not able to go any farther. It would be immobilizing and awesome. But when you are blind to what God really looks like you can relate to Him without being overwhelmed by His Glory!

When we wait for an earthly gift or blessing our imagination is usually greater than the gift we finally receive. But our imagination of God and His Glory can't even come close to the reality of God Almighty. When we arrive in Heaven and see Jesus face to face in His Glory we will be like blind men receiving their sight! And we will never be the same again.

"Lord, thank You for changing me from a frail human being into one that will be able to stand before Your throne and see Your face! I confess to You and agree with You that I cannot look on Your face while living in this human body. But then it will be different and I will be able to see You, the Great I Am! Amen!"