A Perfect Prayer

                                         

                                              A Perfect Prayer

The Book of Daniel (in the Old Testament) has some profound prayers.

I am thinking especially of His prayer in chapter 2. 

Daniel had been given the king's malicious command to not only interpret the king's dream but also to remind the king what the dream was about! A humanly- impossible task!

If Daniel failed then he and the others would be killed.

So Daniel prays for God to reveal the dream and its meaning to him. 

He begins his prayer of thanks for God's answer with grand proclamations of worship and praise: "Praise be to the Name of God forever and ever, wisdom and power are His..." he starts.

It is a short prayer.

As he ends he thanks God for answering: "You have made known to me what we asked of You. You have made known to us the dream of the king."

We learn from this that we should be specific in our requests, and then specific in what we are thanking Him for!

Asking Him to bless generally ('bless everybody in the world' we might say) is sometimes appropriate but maybe just a lazy approach when communicating with our loving Father!

Let's be like Daniel and tell our Father exactly what we want from Him and what we are thanking Him for! 

Wouldn't our earthly father prefer that?

What's To Come?

An observation from Eric Metaxas --

"Conversion to faith in God is one of the great mysteries.

The signs of conversion are difficult to pinpoint, but one of them is this:

Many of those who have experienced it seems, now and again, to have a curious, distracted look, as though they have glimpsed something so beautiful they can never forget it, as though they've glimpsed the 'thing behind all things.'

And they have, and now they are turned toward it forever, toward that glorious faraway country that is their true home."

    -- From Everything You Always wanted to Know About God

[Part of that distracted look we display, for most of us, includes a longing, a yearning, a deep eagerness to get all "this" behind us and see Jesus face to face, and be with Him forever! YES, the best is truly yet to come and we know that! How can we help but display that?]

 

For This I Have Jesus!

 I have a new wrist band. I can wear it 24/7! The message works all of the time: "For This I Have Jesus".

If I win the lottery -- if I get cancer -- good news -- bad news -- For This I Have Jesus!

This wrist band is a reminder to me that God is with me no matter what. The question is: Do I let God shine through me in my most difficult times?

Do you?

That's the time people see that He is truly Lord of your life, not just in the good times, but also in the hard and difficult times.

As God works in us through our hardships, we display His perseverance and His character developing in us.

Charles Stanley wrote, "Adversity is not simply a tool. It is God's most effective tool for the advancement of our spiritual lives."

Sometimes we don't see, or understand, how He is working. But we can always trust that He is working for our good.

As the song says:

"God is too wise to be mistaken. God is too good to be unkind. So when you don't understand, when you don't see His plan, when you can't trace His hand, trust His heart."

We can always trust His heart! Always! 

For this we have Jesus!

Don't Think Less of Yourself!

 

                                        Don't Think Less of  Yourself!

Thinking about humility this morning. Praying about it, to be more accurate.

Paul tells us in Romans 12:3 -- "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think."

And we have Christ's supreme example of taking a servant's role continually.

So are we supposed to sit around counting our faults, listing our failures, considering how we don't (ever) measure up to what Christ wants?

I turn to C.S. Lewis who says the key is "not to think less of yourself, but to think of yourself less"!

Pretty smart, right?

We should stop thinking of ourselves so much! Keep our focus on Jesus. His beautiful holiness, His humility, concentrate on Him. Just stop thinking so much about ourselves, good or bad.

I think this is good advice! Just think of ourselves less and Him more!

What is Endurance?

 

"Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us..." (Hebrews 12:1)

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize. Everyone who competes goes into strict training. He does it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever" (1 Corinthians 9:24-25).

I'm thinking about the 1984 Olympic Games held in Los Angeles. An amazing young man, Rowdy Gaines, won the gold medal for swimming the 100-meter race in 49 seconds.

He had worked hard to win -- swimming laps daily for hours. He later figured he had swam over 25,000 miles as he prepared himself for the games. During an interview once, he said, "I swam around the world preparing myself so I could win a race that lasted 49 seconds!"

(The earth is just under 25,000 miles in circumference.)

WOW! That's perseverance! That's dedication! That's commitment! But that's what it took to win "the race set before him."

Who sets the race before us? Do we honor and glorify Him with our dedication and commitment? Or do we give up pretty quickly? Maybe take all the credit for ourselves?

The crown awaits us...that crown that we can someday joyfully cast before Him....

Charles Wesley wrote a hymn about that crown - "Changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place. Till we cast our crowns before Him, lost in wonder, love and praise!"

That's the point of it all -- honoring and glorifying Him!

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus! And all the people said 'Amen'!