- Feb 7, 2010
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I asked the Lord this morning a really dumb question. I got up about 3 AM because I finally realized thats what he wanted. I am learning just how much I am on the throne of my life instead of Jesus, so we were having a discussion about that until I got it that he wanted his doulos up. So I got up.
I checked around in the dark for my glasses in most of the usual places and decided they were not in my bedroom, so I went out to the living room. Of course, they were not to be found out there either. Suddenly, my newly-started plan of giving everything over to the Lord kicked in, so I asked the Lord, Do you know where my glasses are?
In my minds eye he gave me one of those looks with his mouth wrinkled up like he was saying, Youre kidding, right? Embarrassed, I rephrased the question, Would you please tell me where the glasses are? He immediately led me to them in the dark in the bathroom I was so sure in him where they were I reached out my hand and picked them up perfectly.
But this was not like me seeing them in the dark, like he showed me and I saw them and reached out for them. No, this was like a blind person reaching out in complete confidence at the direction of a trusted friend to pick up a lost item. So sure was I of the Lords direction (and so embarrassed) that I literally reached out and closed my hand at precisely the place on the right ear piece to pick them up, still seeing that look of amusement on his face at my question.
One other unusual part of this experience was what the Lord looked like to me at that moment. None of us can look upon God and live in our present state, for he is too holy and righteous and his glory is too much for us. So he sends his angels or even his children to represent him here on this earth. Never forget this! So it was his angel who I saw, whose face wrinkled up at the absurdity of my question. How profound it was to me to see a specific face, not like all the pictures of angels weve seen drawn by man, but that of a man I saw in a movie yesterday called The Grace Card. Not some bright, glowing being in a white robe, but a black man one of two main characters in the movie. In the movie the black man played a believer a pastor and a cop who was kind and gentle and loving, but struggled to minister to the white man his partner who was angry at God and at the world and was very prejudiced.
As I considered why the Lord chose to speak to me specifically through this black man, I knew this was something more than race, which is not an issue for me. I am praying about what God wants to tell me about myself and my own issues with anger and control, and how that impacts others around me. But, I felt God was taking me through a new door of discovery where he was going to reveal to me many more truths I had missed over the years. Not that God was black or was white, but that I didnt really know him or how he worked. I sensed excitement and a longing to go through that door, and so I did.
One key word that immediately came to my mind was fresh. We had started to read another book by Jim Cymbala with fresh in the title, and I was reminded of its use in those titles and of how God had started to show me last night that when we come to him at his throne each day he gives us something fresh, not stale, not recycled, but full of his Spirit and power.
As I had spent time in prayer last evening, struggling long with the Lord before I understood that my only recourse in life was prayer and getting off the throne of my life so he could take it back, I began to realize just how much control of my life I was used to having that did not include him. Sure, I studied his word and prayed for understanding and the ability to get it right and to teach it as he wanted, but I relied mostly on my own ideas, my own resources, my books and software and presentation tools and skills. I asked God to help along the way and sought his understanding, but it was mostly my efforts done mans ways. So often I would sacrifice the message or application for the method. In my pursuit of formulas and cool presentations I left the message of Gods Word half-baked and served it in my own flesh. Even now as I write I battle against my own tendencies to pontificate rather than allowing Gods Spirit to direct the process of my quiet time.
Like an all-knowing individual who interrupts before hearing the whole story and goes off in the wrong direction, which is one of my worst habits, I get a crumb from Gods table and go off thinking Ive gotten him, and then build my own message from that crumb, using mans tools and mans thinking. I check out the words and the context in Scripture for the passage, and do some of the work needed to get it right, but much of it is still my own ideas and hot buttons wrapped with others ideas to validate it, and then spiced with Gods word, sometimes untested in my own life, to come up with my message.
God doesnt need my message. People dont need my message. What we need is Gods message fresh from his throne. We need to sit at his feet and listen to him. The Bible tells us that he knows what we need before we ask. He doesnt need us to inform him of our needs through our prayers, so there must be other reasons we need to pray. If Jesus prayed and prayed while here on the earth, we might want to understand why, and then we should follow his example.
Im confident that if we are not truly praying to God consistently, then whatever we are doing in his name is of little value. In Matthew 6 Jesus taught his disciples how not to pray, and how to pray:
When you pray, dont be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.
When you pray, dont babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Dont be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! Pray like this:
Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins ,as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And dont let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.
If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.[1]
We cannot start to understand who God is or what he wants if we are not consistently in his presence and pursuing him with all of our hearts. Anything else is hearsay and mans finite opinion of an infinite God. We may grasp scriptural principles and teach Gods truth despite ourselves, because God said:
For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.[2]
The Holy Spirit may use us to reach others for Christ, but we hamstring Gods work in and through us by our pride and laziness and by our prayerlessness. God is the same God of the Bible who is all-powerful, but he works his power in and through us only as much as we are yielded to him, allowing him to truly be in control of our lives, coming to him humbly and quietly until he speaks, and waiting on him to give us his words and his message that is fresh and powerful.
There are no limits to how God can and will work. He can have a donkey speak. He can make the rocks cry out. Day after day and night after night the very skies declare the glory of God in every land in every language without a word (see Psalm 19). How is it that we can presume that we know anything better than he does? Like Job, we are way over our heads if we take on God and question his intentions or motives. We may not see why he does what he does, but thats not required. He is God. He is good. We arent.
Let us seek him daily, moment by moment, praying constantly for his guidance and his direction. Let us not limit him by any boundaries we may have ourselves. If he seems to be speaking to us in a new way, let us ask, Lord, is that you?, even if it doesnt fit within our experiences or comfort zones. God is looking for people who will seek him with all of their hearts, who will love him with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength, who will allow him to be in complete control of their lives, and who will live holy and godly lives in obedience to him. We cant do that, but he can. I want to be one of those people. How about you?
[1]Tyndale House Publishers. (2004). Holy Bible : New Living Translation. "Text edition"--Spine. (2nd ed.) (Mt 6:5-15). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.
[2]Tyndale House Publishers. (2004). Holy Bible : New Living Translation. "Text edition"--Spine. (2nd ed.) (Heb 4:12-13). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.
I checked around in the dark for my glasses in most of the usual places and decided they were not in my bedroom, so I went out to the living room. Of course, they were not to be found out there either. Suddenly, my newly-started plan of giving everything over to the Lord kicked in, so I asked the Lord, Do you know where my glasses are?
In my minds eye he gave me one of those looks with his mouth wrinkled up like he was saying, Youre kidding, right? Embarrassed, I rephrased the question, Would you please tell me where the glasses are? He immediately led me to them in the dark in the bathroom I was so sure in him where they were I reached out my hand and picked them up perfectly.
But this was not like me seeing them in the dark, like he showed me and I saw them and reached out for them. No, this was like a blind person reaching out in complete confidence at the direction of a trusted friend to pick up a lost item. So sure was I of the Lords direction (and so embarrassed) that I literally reached out and closed my hand at precisely the place on the right ear piece to pick them up, still seeing that look of amusement on his face at my question.
One other unusual part of this experience was what the Lord looked like to me at that moment. None of us can look upon God and live in our present state, for he is too holy and righteous and his glory is too much for us. So he sends his angels or even his children to represent him here on this earth. Never forget this! So it was his angel who I saw, whose face wrinkled up at the absurdity of my question. How profound it was to me to see a specific face, not like all the pictures of angels weve seen drawn by man, but that of a man I saw in a movie yesterday called The Grace Card. Not some bright, glowing being in a white robe, but a black man one of two main characters in the movie. In the movie the black man played a believer a pastor and a cop who was kind and gentle and loving, but struggled to minister to the white man his partner who was angry at God and at the world and was very prejudiced.
As I considered why the Lord chose to speak to me specifically through this black man, I knew this was something more than race, which is not an issue for me. I am praying about what God wants to tell me about myself and my own issues with anger and control, and how that impacts others around me. But, I felt God was taking me through a new door of discovery where he was going to reveal to me many more truths I had missed over the years. Not that God was black or was white, but that I didnt really know him or how he worked. I sensed excitement and a longing to go through that door, and so I did.
One key word that immediately came to my mind was fresh. We had started to read another book by Jim Cymbala with fresh in the title, and I was reminded of its use in those titles and of how God had started to show me last night that when we come to him at his throne each day he gives us something fresh, not stale, not recycled, but full of his Spirit and power.
As I had spent time in prayer last evening, struggling long with the Lord before I understood that my only recourse in life was prayer and getting off the throne of my life so he could take it back, I began to realize just how much control of my life I was used to having that did not include him. Sure, I studied his word and prayed for understanding and the ability to get it right and to teach it as he wanted, but I relied mostly on my own ideas, my own resources, my books and software and presentation tools and skills. I asked God to help along the way and sought his understanding, but it was mostly my efforts done mans ways. So often I would sacrifice the message or application for the method. In my pursuit of formulas and cool presentations I left the message of Gods Word half-baked and served it in my own flesh. Even now as I write I battle against my own tendencies to pontificate rather than allowing Gods Spirit to direct the process of my quiet time.
Like an all-knowing individual who interrupts before hearing the whole story and goes off in the wrong direction, which is one of my worst habits, I get a crumb from Gods table and go off thinking Ive gotten him, and then build my own message from that crumb, using mans tools and mans thinking. I check out the words and the context in Scripture for the passage, and do some of the work needed to get it right, but much of it is still my own ideas and hot buttons wrapped with others ideas to validate it, and then spiced with Gods word, sometimes untested in my own life, to come up with my message.
God doesnt need my message. People dont need my message. What we need is Gods message fresh from his throne. We need to sit at his feet and listen to him. The Bible tells us that he knows what we need before we ask. He doesnt need us to inform him of our needs through our prayers, so there must be other reasons we need to pray. If Jesus prayed and prayed while here on the earth, we might want to understand why, and then we should follow his example.
Im confident that if we are not truly praying to God consistently, then whatever we are doing in his name is of little value. In Matthew 6 Jesus taught his disciples how not to pray, and how to pray:
When you pray, dont be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.
When you pray, dont babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Dont be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! Pray like this:
Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins ,as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And dont let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.
If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.[1]
We cannot start to understand who God is or what he wants if we are not consistently in his presence and pursuing him with all of our hearts. Anything else is hearsay and mans finite opinion of an infinite God. We may grasp scriptural principles and teach Gods truth despite ourselves, because God said:
For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.[2]
The Holy Spirit may use us to reach others for Christ, but we hamstring Gods work in and through us by our pride and laziness and by our prayerlessness. God is the same God of the Bible who is all-powerful, but he works his power in and through us only as much as we are yielded to him, allowing him to truly be in control of our lives, coming to him humbly and quietly until he speaks, and waiting on him to give us his words and his message that is fresh and powerful.
There are no limits to how God can and will work. He can have a donkey speak. He can make the rocks cry out. Day after day and night after night the very skies declare the glory of God in every land in every language without a word (see Psalm 19). How is it that we can presume that we know anything better than he does? Like Job, we are way over our heads if we take on God and question his intentions or motives. We may not see why he does what he does, but thats not required. He is God. He is good. We arent.
Let us seek him daily, moment by moment, praying constantly for his guidance and his direction. Let us not limit him by any boundaries we may have ourselves. If he seems to be speaking to us in a new way, let us ask, Lord, is that you?, even if it doesnt fit within our experiences or comfort zones. God is looking for people who will seek him with all of their hearts, who will love him with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength, who will allow him to be in complete control of their lives, and who will live holy and godly lives in obedience to him. We cant do that, but he can. I want to be one of those people. How about you?
[1]Tyndale House Publishers. (2004). Holy Bible : New Living Translation. "Text edition"--Spine. (2nd ed.) (Mt 6:5-15). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.
[2]Tyndale House Publishers. (2004). Holy Bible : New Living Translation. "Text edition"--Spine. (2nd ed.) (Heb 4:12-13). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.
