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“Who shall ascend the
hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in
His holy place? He who has clean hands
and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not
swear deceitfully.” Psalm 24:3-4
One thing that God has been showing me lately is how
haphazardly we as Christians live our lives.
How many times do we lack in consulting God before we do something? Even the little things like should I spend
time watching this show, going to this place, or listening to this music? We often times think that these little
trivial things do not matter much, but we are wrong and arrogant if we have
that attitude. I am reminded of the
command that God gave the Israelites before they came into the promise land, He
told them to destroy the nations that set their face against God. He told them to leave no stone left unturned,
get rid of every trace so that they would not become a snare for them. When God calls us unto Himself, He is asking
the same of us. He is asking us to get
rid of the things in our lives that set themselves against Him, no matter how
small or insignificant they may seem. I
believe there is more to it than that as well.
Sometimes God calls us to lay things on His altar that may not be
necessarily evil in themselves, but He is testing our hearts. It isn’t that God wants the thing (whatever
it may be) for Himself, but that God wants our whole heart.
I am reminded of the story Jesus
told in the book of Matthew, [When the
unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest,
and finds none. Then he says, I will
return to my house from where I came out; and when he comes, he finds it empty,
swept, and garnished. Then he goes, and
takes with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter
in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first]
(12:43-45). God desires first to clean
out the wickedness in our heart, which is necessary if we are to come before
Him with clean hands and a pure heart.
Secondly, and more importantly, God desires to fill our heart, mind,
soul, and entire being with His holy spirit so that when the wickedness tries
to return, it won’t find our house empty but full of Christ Jesus Himself.
Another thing that I have been
thinking about is how carelessly we sometimes come into God’s presence. God calls us to come to Him in our secret
closet of prayer, and this is where we commune with our Heavenly Father. I know I have been guilty of coming to this
place with the wrong attitude, and wrong motives. Yesterday the Lord reminded me of the
intricate preparation of the Levitical priests before they went into the Holy
of Holies. They washed their garments
with water and fashioned the ephod and sashes together with great care. They were sprinkled with the same oil that
was used to anoint the altar where the sin offering was to be lifted up to God,
of which the blood of that offering was also sprinkled on their garments
(Leviticus 8). Now this was the outward
preparation of the priests that demonstrated the inward preparation that God
now does through His son Jesus Christ, for if we are in Christ, His blood
covers over our sin, and we can draw near to the throne of grace with
confidence (Hebrews 4:14-16). The
problem lies in the fact that so many times we come before the Lord with either
a religious attitude (got to get my prayer time in today*), or with an
unfocused, distracted mind. Either way,
our heart is not prepared to receive from the Lord, nor to give Him the praise
and glory He deserves. I was listening
to a message yesterday by Ravenhill (Weeping between the Porch and the Altar)
and he reminded me that no man is greater than his prayer life. Ugh…that hurt! This may be the most difficult aspect of a
Christian’s walk, but if we are to truly know our Father we must spend time in
His presence. Someone said to me this
weekend, if we draw near to God, He will draw near to us. How true, we must seek Him while He may be
found.
My prayer is that we would be
willing to surrender every aspect of our lives to a Holy most deserving God,
not because He wants to take everything away, but because He wants to fill us
up. I pray that we would come before the
Lord with focused hearts that see the worthlessness of temporary things, and
desire to know of things eternal. May
our hearts be encouraged to seek is face and be hidden in Christ.
Tiff
*A Good message on this topic is Keith Green’s Devotion or
Devotions
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| Just Thinking:If we are trying to make people see the life we have in
Christ, we must live the life of Christ. If we are Christians but live
like those of the world, how are we to compel those of the world to live like
Christians? (read Acts 2:14-21)
I was talking with my sister the other day about some things
kind of related to this topic and she said very plainly, “The problem is that
too many people try to complicate Christianity, when really it is so very
simple.” I couldn’t agree more. I believe the complications come when we as
Christians choose to sit on the fence, wanting to walk both in the flesh and in
the spirit. Scripture clearly states
that we cannot serve two masters, we will either hate the one and love the
other, or we will hold to the one and despise the other (Matthew 6:24; Also see
James 4:4). The eyes of our
understanding are clouded when we attempt to have one foot in the world and one
foot in the kingdom. We cannot straddle
the line. I am reminded of the fervor of
Joshua when he stood up to the Israelites and pleaded, choose this day whom you
will serve (Joshua 24:15). God says that
He despises lukewarmness, those who are neither hot nor cold (Revelation
3:16). Is God not worthy of every part
of our lives? Is God only good enough on
Sundays? Is God only good enough for
15min a day or whenever we can fit Him in our busy schedules?
I am reminded of the Keith Green song “To Obey is Better
than Sacrifice”:
To obey is better than sacrifice
I want more
than Sundays and Wednesday nights,
‘Cause if
you can’t come to me everyday
Then don’t
bother coming at all.
To obey is
better than sacrifice
I want
hearts of fire, not your prayers of ice
And I’m
coming quickly to give back to you
According to
what you have done.
Our lack of faithfulness is a testimony
against Christ. It says to a dying world
that God really doesn’t care what you do so long as you go to church and read
your bible every so often. God has
called us to be separate (2 Corinthians 6:17).
So is Christ the distinction in your life? What is the evidence of this? Christ says you will know them by their
fruit. [This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you will
not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For
the flesh wars against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these
are contrary the one to the other: so that you cannot do the things that you
would. But if you are led of the Spirit,
you are not bound by the flesh. Now the
works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry,
witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings,
murders, drunkenness, revellings, and things such as these: of which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do
such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such
there is no law. And they that are
Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in
the Spirit.] (Galatians 5:16-25). We must ask ourselves, what fruit am I
bearing? Are we willing to ask the Lord
to search our hearts as David did (Psalm 139:23-24) that we may be exposed and
honest before the Lord? Are we willing
to give up those things which hinder us from walking blamelessly before the
Lord? Are our lives the evidence of
things unseen? Only God knows the heart,
and only He can change it. I pray that
those of us who call on the name of Jesus Christ would walk in a manner worthy
of the gospel, and seek the face of the Lord with all of our hearts. 1 Peter 1:22 says that our souls are purified
by our obedience. May the Lord give us
eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand how much He desires us to
be before Him. He is worthy.
Your Sister in Christ. | | |
| The Test of Self-Interest by Oswald Chambers"If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand then I will go to the left." [Genesis 13:9 When Abraham is allowing Lot to choose for himself the land in which he will inherit].
As soon as you begin to live the life of faith in God, fascinating and luxurious prospects will open up before you, and these things are yours by right; but if you are living the life of faith you will exercise your right to waive your rights, and let God choose for you. God sometimes allows you to get into a place of testing where your own welfare would be the right and proper thing to consider if you were not living a life of faith; but if you are, you will joyfully waive your right and leave God to choose for you. This is the discipline by means of which the natural is transformed into the spiritual by obedience to the voice of God.
Whenever right is made the guidance in the life, it will blunt the spiritual insight. The great enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but the good which is not good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best. It would seem the wisest thing in the world for Abraham to choose, it was his right, and the people around would consider him a fool for not choosing. Many of us do not go on spiritually because we prefer to choose what is right instead of relying on God to choose for us. We have to learn to walk according to the standard which has its eye on God. "Walk before Me."
~My Utmost for His Highest (May 25)
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| Some thoughts...
Tired and weary. My
heart is downcast, but the joy of the Lord is my strength. I am walking in what I know and praying for
wisdom and insight so that I may continue to walk with purpose and desire to
pursue the will of the Lord. I am certainly
learning the flaws of my character and how much I truly need the Lord. I am a new creation, but I am also learning
that I am a dependent creation, dependent upon my maker to lead me in the way
everlasting. I know the road is narrow
and those who take it are few, that is why I have determined to commit to my
life to the cause of serving Christ.
Though I may be beaten and spit upon, I know my reward is not on this
earth. My time here is not my time, it
was not given to me so that I could do what I please with it, but has been
allotted so that the kingdom
of God will be glorified
and increased through my obedience to Him.
I see more and more through the Word of God, that obedience will not
only cause us to do what it right, but it brings us in closer communion with
our Heavenly Father, the purpose for which we were created. As the scripture says, God does not require
much, only to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before Him (Micah 6:8). His commandments are not burdensome. He only desires for us to respond to His
love, like a bride responds to the love of her husband. If we could only understand how much we miss
when we try to do things our own way.
When we submit to Christ we are not losing our autonomy, but instead we
gain the ability to see things with an eternal perspective. When our focus of life is on Christ, and not on
ourselves, we see life clearer, the veil is removed. This is certainly a lesson I have been
learning as of late, and continue to learn even as I am typing this entry. I want to see things as God sees them, I want
to see people as God sees them, and most of all I want to have the purpose of
God written on my heart. Like John the
Baptist says, I must decrease so that Christ will increase. My desire is to be hidden in Christ. May we walk in a manner worthy of the gospel
and trust in the faithfulness and goodness of the Lord. We must go to His table often and eat of His
bread that we may have strength for today and hope for tomorrow.
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| Where Is the Wisdom?
Ravi Zacharias
One of the tragic casualties of
our age has been that of the contemplative life--a life that thinks, thinks
things through, and more particularly, thinks God's thoughts after Him. A person
sitting at his desk and staring out the window would never be assumed to be
working. No! Thinking is not equated with work. Yet, had Newton under his tree,
or Archimedes in his bathtub, bought into that prejudice, some natural laws
would still be up in the air, or buried under an immovable rock. Pascal's
Pensees, or "Thoughts," a work that has inspired millions, would have
never been penned.
What is even more destructive is the assumption that
silence is inimical to life. The radio in the car, Muzak in the elevator, and
the symphony entertaining callers "on hold" add up as grave impediments to
personal reflection. In effect, the mind is denied the privilege of living with
itself even briefly, and is crowded with outside impulses to cope with
aloneness. Aldous Huxley's indictment, "Most of one's life... is one prolonged
effort to prevent thinking," seems frightfully true. The price paid for this
scenario has been devastating. As T. S. Eliot observed:
Where is the life we have lost in the living?
Where is the
wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in
information?
The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries
bring us farther
from God and nearer to dust.
Is there a remedy? May I make
some suggestions for personal and corporate benefit? Nothing ranks higher for
mental discipline than a planned and systematic study of God's Word, from whence
life's parameters and values are planted in the mind. Paul, who loved his books
and parchments, affirmed the priority of Scripture: "Do not go beyond what is
written" (1 Corinthians 4:6). And Psalm 119 promises that God's statutes keep us
from being double-minded.
The church as a whole, and the pulpit in
particular, must challenge the mind of this generation. The average young person
today actually surrenders the intellect to the world, presuming Christianity to
be bereft of it. Many a pulpit has succumbed to the lie that anything
intellectual cannot be spiritual or exciting.
Thankfully there are
exceptions. When living in England, our family attended a church pastored by Roy
Clements, one of the finest preachers in the western world. Every Sunday at two
morning services he preached a one-hour sermon to a packed auditorium.
Cambridge, being rife with skepticism, demanded a meticulous defense of each
sermon text.
I mention this to say one thing. When we were leaving
Cambridge, our youngest child, who was nine years old, declared the preaching of
Roy Clements to be one of his fondest memories. Even as a little boy he had
learned that when the mind is rightly approached, it filters down to the heart.
The matter I share here has far-reaching implications. We do a disservice to our
youth by not crediting them with the capacity to think. We cannot leave this
uncorrected.
The Bible places supreme value in the thought life. "As a
man thinks in his heart, so is he," Solomon wrote. Jesus asserted that sin's
gravity lay in the idea itself, not just the act. Paul admonished the
church at Philippi to have the mind of Christ, and to the same people he
wrote: "Whatever is true, whatever is pure... if there be any virtue... think on
these things" (Philippians 4:8). The follower of Christ must demonstrate to the
world what it is not just to think, but to think justly. Thus, in the words of
aging David to his son Solomon: "[A]cknowledge the God of your father, and serve
him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches
every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him,
he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever" (1
Chronicles 28:9).
Let us serve the God of creation with both hearts and
minds. After all, it is not that I think, therefore, I am, but rather, the Great
I Am has asked us to think, and therefore, we must.
Ravi
Zacharias is founder and president of Ravi Zacharias International
Ministries.
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