Praying Pint

 

 

 

Ephesians 3:20-21.  Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 3:20

Ever since Adam and Eve, families have been messy. Even the best of families encounter stress and complications. Our deepest hurts often involve our deepest loves. The Lord knows all about that. His own earthly family—the Church—can be messy too. What do we do when things are not going well?

We cannot control other people, but we can bring our own lives under the Spirit’s control. We can ask Him for patience, for influence, for the ability to minister grace to grief. We can leave our deepest burdens with Him, remembering the words of Luke 18:1, that we “always ought to pray and not lose heart.”

In building a successful family, you must put God at the head of it—the center of everything. Ask God to take control, and let it begin with allowing Him total control over your own life. Ask for greater measures of the fruit of the Spirit, qualities like love, joy, patience, kindness, faithfulness, and self-control. We must draw on God’s grace and rely on His timely intervention. The Lord is certainly more able than we are—“exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think.”

 

Then he restored the chief butler to his butlership again, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand. But he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them. Yet the chief butler did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. (Genesis 40:21-23)

Because he stood for righteousness, Joseph was put in prison. Most anyone else accused of assault by Potiphar’s wife would be immediately executed. But Potiphar knew Joseph, and he knew his wife – and instead sent Joseph to prison.

In prison, it would be easy for Joseph to be self-focused because so much wrong had been done against him. Yet, by the hidden hand of God’s grace, Joseph was concerned about others. When distressing dreams troubled two other prisoners (Pharaoh’s own butler and baker), Joseph cared enough to help them.

Joseph explained that the butler’s dream meant he would be vindicated and restored to serving Pharaoh. That was good news. Joseph also explained the dream of the baker, that he would be convicted and executed. That was bad news. Three days later, Joseph was proved right and found to be a true messenger of God.

Sadly, even though Joseph helped the butler greatly, yet the chief butler did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. Here, Joseph was wronged again. He thought that the butler’s kindness might mean his release from prison, but it was not to be. God had another purpose.

All men God uses greatly, He first prepares greatly. Few are willing to endure the greatness of God’s preparation. God was in both the steps and stops of Joseph’s life, and this is an example of how God works in the life of a believer today.

When we read the Bible, we often see ourselves in the characters. It’s easy to read Genesis 40 and say, I am like Joseph – though I have been wronged, God can use me to reveal His word or His mysteries to others. There’s a place for that, but it’s not the best way to see ourselves in Genesis 40. Here is a better way to read Genesis 40.

More than being like Joseph, we are more like the butler and the baker. In this picture, Jesus is like Joseph to us.

– Jesus is the innocent Man who came into our prison and shared our condition.
– As He shared our condition, Jesus revealed God’s message to us.
– Like Joseph, Jesus was proven true in three days.
– Joseph shows us Jesus, whose message from God brings life or death.
– If you are looking for a message from God, look to Jesus.

There is also a blessed contrast, a difference between Joseph and Jesus: Joseph’s word only rescued the innocent prisoner, not the guilty one. The good news – the greatest news – is that the message and rescue of Jesus is also for the guilty who repent and believe on Him.

Jesus shared our condition and brought the message of life. Respond to Him with faith, gratitude, and remembrance.

 

Jeremiah 45:1-5  The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in a book at the dictation of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, to you, O Baruch:  You said, ‘Woe is me! For the LORD has added sorrow to my pain. I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.’  Thus shall you say to him, Thus says the LORD: Behold, what I have built I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking up—that is, the whole land. And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not, for behold, I am bringing disaster upon all flesh, declares the LORD. But I will give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go.”

According to Scripture, each believer has a gift to be used to advance God’s kingdom. And what a joy and privilege it is to serve Him! There is nothing quite like it, yet our service can be hindered or even corrupted by thoughts of grandeur.  Such was the condition of the prophet Jeremiah’s co-laborer Baruch.

Jeremiah was front and center as a prophet, while Baruch, the scribe, worked behind the scenes. Both were vital callings, but brewing within the scribe was a desire for some of Jeremiah’s limelight, and God knew it.

Baruch may have kept his hopes to himself, or he may have voiced them aloud. Scripture doesn’t say what prompted the Lord’s strong words, but one thing is certain: If we want notoriety and applause from people, self-seeking will follow, and no one is exempt from that. John the Baptist’s disciples experienced this when they felt overshadowed by the rise of Jesus’ ministry, “Behold, He is baptizing, all are coming to Him!” (John 3:26). John’s response is a healthy reminder to all those serving God, “He (Jesus) must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

God’s admonition to Baruch wasn’t easy to hear, but it came with this promise, “‘…behold, I will bring adversity on all flesh,’” says the LORD. “‘But I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go’” (Jeremiah 45:5b). Like Baruch, we have the precious promise of salvation. Let us determine to glory in that alone. (Hibbs)

 

 Habakkuk 2:1   I will stand my watch And set myself on the rampart, And watch to see what He will say to me, And what I will answer when I am corrected.

 

I slowly inched my motorcycle down the mountain road, staring into a dense blanket of fog unlike any I had ever seen.

I was in the middle of holding evangelistic meetings in multiple communities in Montana when a few of us decided to take a quick road trip to Glacier National Park. Things hadn’t gone as planned, however. Rainy weather had already obscured much of the view, and we eventually rode into a cloud that had formed around the mountain. I couldn’t see two feet in front of me.

I couldn’t keep riding. After all, I could barely see my own boots, let alone the road ahead. Further, the asphalt had recently been repaved and there were no painted lines. With absolutely zero visibility or clarity, the only option was to slowly push forward, feet on the ground, scanning for car headlights slicing through the dense fog.

At one point I nearly bumped into the steep rock wall to my right. I didn’t see it until it was inches away. A few minutes later I almost hit the guardrail that separated the road from the cliff on the other side. I was in a tough situation.

It occurs to me that life—especially in our current culture and world—can be like that treacherous, obscured journey through the fog. As we follow God’s Word, we know that we’re ultimately on the right path, but everything around us appears sin-sick and confused. The Prophet Isaiah once warned, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20, NKJV). That certainly seems to describe the fog of our modern world.

We may even wonder why God is allowing the chaos and pain that surrounds us. What is His plan? Why is He seemingly silent as the world devolves? We take encouragement in Isaiah 55:9 (NKJV), where God says, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts”—but we long to see clearly how the plan fits; how “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28, NKJV).

This begs the question: How do we as Christians respond when the fog of life overtakes us?

For the answer, let’s look at the Old Testament Prophet Habakkuk. He found himself in a situation similar to many of us today. He spoke with God and knew His commands. He understood righteousness. He also knew that the culture around him in Judah had grown wicked. I imagine that his heart ached as he saw people doing what was right in their own eyes.

As a result, Habakkuk cried out to God, and frankly he didn’t hold anything back. While Habakkuk wanted his sinful neighbors to repent, God revealed a plan to punish Judah for its wicked ways, and to use the godless Chaldeans (Babylonians) to accomplish it.

Imagine Habakkuk’s dismay. A nation that was far worse, by any measure, would be used to enact God’s judgment on Judah. Evil was going to triumph. Talk about being in a fog and not having any idea of how God’s plan was being worked in the midst of chaos.

Habakkuk desperately tried to make sense of the situation. He struggled in his sorrow and prayed another strongly worded lament. What happened next is very interesting. After he petitioned God one last time, he made a simple statement: “I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer when I am corrected” (Habakkuk 2:1, NKJV).

It is in this singular sentence that we can learn lessons on how to respond to the fog that surrounds us.

First, we must live a life of commitment.

Habakkuk went to the rampart—the fortified wall—of the city to wait for God’s answer. He had proposed questions to God in chapter 1, and now he waited patiently for God to respond. Similarly, when we cry out to God, we also need to put ourselves in a place to hear God speak to us. We do this not by going to a physical location necessarily, but by going to our knees, by studying His Word, and by resting in His presence.

Second, we need to live a life of anticipation, expecting to hear from our Lord.

The God that we serve is a God who desires to make Himself known to all people. Like Habakkuk, we should realize our own utter dependence upon God. We must cling to Him and be sensitive to His leading in answer to our prayer.

Finally, we are to live a life of correction.

Habakkuk had just boldly challenged God about the injustices he saw around him. Once he had said his piece, however, he humbled himself. He recognized that God’s ways are perfect, even if he didn’t understand them, and he was ready to be set right. What a lesson for us! Rather than holding stubbornly and sinfully to our personal desires, we must let God’s response shape and correct our views.

Habakkuk’s circumstances had not changed. He was surrounded by wickedness, and judgment at the hands of the Chaldeans was on the horizon. However, in the midst of the fog, Habakkuk called upon the Lord and humbled himself, recognizing that God was truly in control.

The world may look dark, our hearts may hurt, and chaos may envelop us. However, as we live a life of commitment, anticipation and correction, and as we keep a heart of worship and praise to our Heavenly Father, we can trust that He sees more clearly than we ever could and has a plan and purpose for all things. (Graham) 

 

 

 

So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust.
Joel 2:25

In the late 1940s when people began to consider the consequences of atomic weapons, a new word came into our vocabulary: fallout. Billions of airborne particles ejected into the atmosphere by a nuclear explosion would settle on earth and contaminate it. The word fallout soon came to be used to describe the results of any kind of problem. Christians began to talk about the fallout of their sins—the aftereffects of hurt and pain that follow disobedience.

When we sin and ask God’s forgiveness, He is happy to give it. The blood doesn’t lose its power. But that doesn’t mean we’re exempt from the fallout of sin. Often our sin bears consequences, and we reap what we sow. If you have sin in your life, go to God for forgiveness, then trust Him to manage the repercussions.

Romans 8:28 says that “all things” work together for good for those who love the Lord. Even though the fallout of sin is painful, God can even use that—in time—for His purposes and His glory. He can restore what the locusts have eaten.God’s Word should be our nutrition and food for living.  Christian music is like a vitamin to help us rejoice and worship Jesus Christ. (Jeremiah)

 

 

Then Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom is the Spirit of God?” Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Inasmuch as God has shown you all this, there is no one as discerning and wise as you.” (Genesis 41:38-39)

It’s been said that the successful executive is the one who can delegate all the responsibility, shift all the blame, and take all the credit. Hoping to find success, that’s the plan many people follow. But that strategy is like a house of cards. Joseph’s example shows us God’s way to achieve and handle success.

Note that timing is important to the success that God gives. Here, in Genesis 41, Joseph had just arrived at the pinnacle of his success; but it took him a long time to get there. It may have felt that Joseph had been “wasting” his time in prison the previous few years, but it wasn’t a waste at all. It all had a place in God’s timing for Joseph’s success. From his youth, Joseph had the idea God had destined him for great things. But Joseph didn’t know the fulfillment would take so long.

Psalm 31:14-15 says but as for me, I trust in You, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in Your hand. Can you say this also? We might feel as though we are all ready for what we know God will do through us, yet we must rest in the LORD, and say to Him “my times are in Your hand.”

Pharaoh finally promoted Joseph. He rose from the pit all the way to the pinnacle. But Pharaoh wasn’t the one responsible for Joseph’s promotion – God was. Joseph wasn’t waiting on Pharaoh to get out of jail; he was waiting on God. The psalmist reminds us: For exaltation comes neither from the east, nor from the west nor from the south. But God is the Judge: He puts down one and exalts another (Psalm 75:6). The credit for Joseph’s amazing rise to power did not belong to Pharaoh, or to Joseph, and especially not to blind fate or circumstance. Joseph’s rise was the fulfillment of God’s divine plan.

Genesis 41:50-52 tells us Joseph had two sons, naming them Manasseh and Ephraim. Joseph lived in Egypt, married an Egyptian woman, and worked for the Egyptian Pharaoh – but he gave his two sons Hebrew names. This shows us that Joseph did not forget about God, even in his success. Many people, when they have been promoted the way Joseph was, feel they no longer need God. They think that God is only good for the prison, not for the palace. We should be like Joseph, who was devoted to God no matter what – good times or bad. (Guzik)

Here’s a good prayer for today: “God, give me a heart that will wait on You and serve You faithfully even when I am successful in the eyes of the world.”

 

He Has Risen

He Is ALIVE

 

 

Deuteronomy 32:10  [God] found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of a wilderness; He encircled him, He cared for him, He guarded him as the pupil of His eye.

Living far from God isn’t all pain, and it isn’t all pleasure. But one of the most confusing things about wandering away from God is how long we can stay there without severe consequences. Ecclesiastes 8:11 says, “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil.” When God doesn’t zap us the moment we step out of line, we think He doesn’t care about sin.

One reason God may not judge sin immediately is His patience. In 2 Peter 3:9, the apostle explained why the Lord has delayed His second coming. Peter said, “The Lord . . . is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” God doesn’t have a short fuse like we do–He doesn’t blow a gasket when somebody cuts Him off in traffic. But just because God is patient doesn’t mean His judgment isn’t coming. If you’re living apart from God and He hasn’t judged you yet, He may be giving you one final chance to repent. (Jeffress)

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Repent (becoming aware of and turning away from that which does not honor and glorify God in obedience to His Word) – It is a word that we don’t often think about, yet it is the very thing we need to be ready to do. What is it that brings us to repentance? The Holy Spirit exposes our hearts and minds to the Holiness of God and our sinfulness. It is in this light that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, redemption, and salvation are freely offered and faith, repentance, obedience, reliance, and trust change the heart and mind of a person. They are born again, made new, and have eternal life.

There will always be areas of our lives that are hidden from us.  The Holy Spirit through the Word of God will bring these hidden areas to view. When this occurs we can disregard or confess and repent of it. The key is the Word of God must be in our lives and we must desire and seek the Holy Spirit’s leading.

Do not neglect God’s Word or disregard the Holy Spirit’s instruction, conviction, and leading.

 

 

Heb 13:13  Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.

I confine myself here to the general ideas suggested – that the very living heart of the gospel is an altar and a sacrifice. That idea saturates the whole New Testament, from the page where John the forerunner’s proclamation is, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,’ to the last triumphant vision in which the Apocalyptic seer ‘beheld a Lamb as it had been slain’; the eternal Co-Regnant of the universe, and the mediation through whom the whole surrounding Church for ever worships the Father. The days are past, as it seems to me, when any man can reasonably contend that the New Testament does not teach – in every page of it, I was going to say – this truth of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ

I will just suggest that the relation between the ancient system of revelation, with its sacrifice, altar, priest, temple, and the new system of Christianity is far more profoundly, and, I believe, far more philosophically, set forth in this Epistle to the Hebrews, as being the relation between shadow and substance, between prophecy and fulfilment, than when the old is contemptuously brushed aside as ‘Hebrew old clothes,’ with which the true Christianity has no concern.

And what lies in this great thought? I am not going to attempt a theory of the Atonement. I do not believe that any such thing is completely possible for us. But this, at least, I recognise as being fundamental and essential to the thought of my text; ‘we have an altar,’ that Christ in His representative relation, in His true affinity to every man upon earth, has in His life or death taken upon Himself the consequences of human transgression, not merely by sympathy, nor only by reason of the uniqueness-of His representative relation, but by willing submission to that awful separation from the Father, of which the cry out of the thick darkness of the Cross, ‘Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ is the unfathomable witness. Thus, bearing our sin, He bears it away, and ‘we have an altar.’

From this altar, says the writer, the adherents of the ancient system have no right to partake. That implies that those who have left the ancient system have the right to partake, and do partake. Now the writer is drawing a contrast, which he proceeds to elaborate, between the great sacrifice on the Day of Atonement and the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. The former was not, as many other sacrifices were, partaken of by priests and worshippers, but simply the blood was brought within the holy place, and the whole of the rest of the sacrifice consumed in a waste spot without the camp. And this contrast is in the writer’s mind. We have a sacrifice on which we feast.

That is to say, the Christ who died for my sins is not only my means of reconciliation with God, but His sacrifice and death are the sustenance of my spiritual life. We live upon the Christ that died for us. That this is no mere metaphor, but goes penetratingly and deep down to the very basis of the spiritual life, is attested sufficiently by many a word of Scripture  There is one Christ that can thus hallow and make acceptable our living and our dying, and that is the Christ that has died for us, and lives that in Him we may be priests to God. There is only one Christianity that will do for us what we will need, and that is the Christianity whose centre is an altar, on which the Son of God, our Passover, is slain for us. (MacLaren)