Posts Tagged ‘Christian Living’

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The Importance of Prayer

Friday, October 5th, 2012

the-importance-of-prayerPeople from the Old Testament who walked with God “sought the Lord in prayer.” Ungodly people did not seek the Lord in prayer. I was aghast to realize that Scripture classifies people who seek the Lord in prayer as godly, and people who do not seek the Lord in prayer as evil. That just sends chills down my spine, because I don’t always seek the Lord in prayer.

Early Christians were devoted to the teaching of the Word and to prayer. Those were equals. So if you think that the teaching of the Word of God is important, then prayer is just as important.

Paul started all of his letters stating how he prayed for the people. He bursts into prayer in the middle of his letters. Paul was a man of prayer. He told the churches how different fellow workers were laboring in prayer with him, to give encouragement to the believers in those churches.

Jesus whipped people with righteous rage at the Temple because the priests were extorting the people and keeping them away from God. He screamed, “My House will be called a House of PRAYER!”

Jesus spent huge amounts of time praying to the Father. Why did God need to talk to God? It’s all about yielding. To glorify God maximally in our lives (which is the purpose of our existence and will give us the most joy), we have to know what God wants us to do. Jesus yielded His will to the Father to show us how it can be done. It is done though prayer.

To read more free articles on prayer, click here, and scroll down to the “Prayer” section.

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That’s What God is For

Thursday, October 4th, 2012

For children to bicker and not get along is the natural human condition. That’s why we need transformation. That’s why we have God. God is able to do what we are not. In our own strength, nothing supernatural is possible. With God, I’ve seen miracles happen on a weekly basis in my home. The majority of those miracles happen inside my own heart as I lean on God. Yes, you have to have a desperation that causes you to throw your entire being upon God for Him to work.

The other day my kids were screaming at each other. I took one of my sons involved in the screaming to another room. Perspective. That’s what I said. He was talking in such a frantic manner, as if playing a game was an emergency. Peace and a yielding to God should rule our hearts, not this frantic screaming and demanding one’s own way. He said his brother was annoying him. (I have already addressed the fact that annoying others is like Satan because it causes someone else to sin, so it’s worse evil than the person who strikes back in self-defense.) But now I’m dealing with the one who strikes back, or in his screaming words he was attempting to strike back. I said, remember Jesus was insulted and struck, but He did not retaliate. My son said, “But that’s impossible.” His brother makes him so furious.

“Sweetheart, of course it’s impossible. That’s what God is for. Our God is the God of the impossible. God changes me all the time in ways that are impossible. That’s what’s incredible about it.” I gave several testimonies of my own life when I was struggling with a sin issue, and God transformed me, usually slowly over time because I wanted so badly to do God’s will, asked Him with all my heart, and tried (although imperfectly) to walk by His Spirit when the sin trigger happened.

My son sat there stunned. “You mean you were furious at my brother, too, for the same annoying mannerisms?” Yes. And God changed me. When I see the annoyances, I have a tranquility in my soul that is called patience. I did not drum it up myself. God gave it to me because I asked, tried really hard, and yielded to God so that He could do the work through me. Sometimes a Scripture verse helped. I could quote the verse to myself to remind me how God wanted me to act. “The anger of man does not produce the righteousness that God requires.” James 1:20

My son calmed down. I said, “Do you want God to change you? You have to want it. That is step one. Then you need to stop the next time you are annoyed by your brother and reach upward in your soul to God. God will do the rest. I promise you it’s true. God so badly wants to change our sinful tendencies. All we have to do is be willing.”

Leaving a Legacy

Blessing Others With Your Words

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Circumstances Don’t Dictate Our Faith

Thursday, September 20th, 2012

This morning when we were listening to the story of Esau approaching Jacob’s family with 400 men, I stopped the audio to ask the kids how they would feel. Esau had previously said that he would murder his brother Jacob for stealing his birthright and blessing through trickery and lying. Jacob knew that he was going to be killed, and he was scared half out of his mind.

“What would you have done to appease your brother’s fury and try to protect your family from being killed?” I asked this after they heard that Jacob had given a huge present of lots of animals to his brother.

“Give him presents” was the answer that seemed appropriate because Jacob had sinfully tricked Esau out of his father’s blessing, and Jacob had received double the inheritance that Esau had, because the right of the firstborn back then was to get a double portion of the inheritance. (To do the math, since there were two kids, the money was divided into three parts; the firstborn got 2/3rds, and the second son was supposed to get 1/3. If you had 8 kids, you divided the inheritance money into 9 parts, giving the firstborn a double portion.) Anyway, since Jacob had swindled riches away from his brother, it was only right for him to make up for his sin through money. Money back then (wealth) was counted through livestock and land. So Jacob was giving large amounts of livestock to his brother to appease his anger.

“But wait, Mom!” shouted my oldest son. “God told Jacob that he would prosper in the land back home. So there was no way that Esau would kill his brother. If he had trusted God, he would not have been scared.”

I paused. My son was right.

Circumstances are not reality. God’s Word is reality. If we can truly grasp this, we would never have fear, because God has promised that all our circumstances will work out for our good. I was shocked that my son had such deep spiritual perception.

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Confidence vs. Self-Esteem

Monday, September 17th, 2012

God commands us to have confidence over and over in Scripture. We are to be bold and courageous (Joshua 1:9), we are to walk boldly to the throne of God to receive help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16), and we are to reach out to the lost (Matthew 28: 19-20), which requires boldness. To have confidence is not sin. We derive our confidence from God.

Self-esteem is not the same as confidence. Self-esteem is thinking more highly of yourself than you ought to think (Philippians 2:3). But humility and confidence are not opposites. People who are greatly used by God are BOTH humble and confident. They know who they are in Christ, and they boldly follow God and lead others closer to Christ.

When God commands us to walk boldly to His throne to receive help in time of need, He wants to grant us confidence so that we possess that confidence, and that confidence is OURS. The confidence that I have in Christ is MINE. It belongs to me because God gave it to me.

So many Christians (like this Beth Moore Basher) say that we’re not allowed to have confidence, because it’s God’s. Oh, really? Just because it came from God doesn’t mean it’s not given.

Most women think they are pieces of dirt. And because we think of ourselves as garbage, believing lies from the enemy, we accomplish nothing for Christ. Instead of splitting hairs about the word “confidence,” I would much rather tell a woman that she is dearly loved by Christ, who gave up His life for her. God created her for a purpose, and she needs to ask God what her gifts, talents, and life purpose is. After salvation, when God is in the process of transforming her, she becomes more and more beautiful. You can see it in her face. She becomes more and more like Christ.

And as she becomes like Christ, she can stand on the Word of God and not believe the lies from the enemy that are crippling. She then has deep confidence in God, and it’s HERS. The confidence belongs to HER, and it shines out of her face.

It’s not a sin to be confident. To be used by God full blast in your life, you must be bold as a lion. Yes, it comes from Christ, but it’s GIVEN to us. That confidence permeates every aspect of our lives, and we are used maximally for His kingdom.

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