Paul Miller - A Praying Life - The 1st Idea

Praying in Jesus' Name...

     Imagine that your prayer is a poorly dressed beggar reeking of alcohol and body odor, stumbling toward the palace of the great king.

You have become your prayer.

As you shuffle toward the barred gate, the guards stiffen. Your smell has preceded you. You stammer out a message for the great king: "I want to see the king."

Your words are barely intelligible, but you whisper one final word: "Jesus. I come in the name of Jesus."

At the name of Jesus, as if by magic, the palace comes alive. The guards snap to attention, bowing low in front of you. Lights come on and the door flies open.

You are ushered into the palace and down a long hallway into the throne room of the great king, who comes running to you and wraps you in his arms.

The name of Jesus gives my prayers royal access. They get through.

Jesus isn't just the Savior of my soul. Jesus is the Savior of my prayers.

               - Paul Miller, A Praying Life


The palace guards bow to me...

          The Father runs toward me and wraps me
              in His arms....

It's truly Amazing Grace.

                                                       ~~~~

     Let us then approach with confidence the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

- Hebrews 4:16

Does God really confide in us?

The LORD confides in those who fear Him; He makes His covenant known to them.          Psalm 25:14

See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declared; before they spring into being I announce them to you. Isaiah 42:9

For the LORD detests a perverse man, but takes the upright man into His confidence. Proverbs 3:32

How does He speak to us this way?

Through His Word - not only has He confided His plan for the ages, He also opens our eyes to see what He is doing right now around us - in our lives and in the lives of those we love.


Through prayer - His Spirit opens our ears to hear His voice and opens our hearts to receive the message. Sometimes it is just a whisper, and sometimes it is a loud a-ha moment of joy!

Through His community - the people He has brought into ourlives - sometimes we can glean great truths and guidance from them - no one comes into our lives by accidence.

Through circumstances - sometimes it is just so obvious!

What we know:

• God tells us what we need to know when we need to know it. Not before.

• God always takes the initiative in revealing His heart to us.

     Whether I can hear His voice depends on my closeness to Him, my living in His Presence, and my love for Him.

As we become aware of His Presence it will become easier for us the see the way we should go.

Instead of wondering about the road ahead we will focus on staying in communication with Him.

We shouldn't go through life like a sleep-walker, just following our own regular routines and personal agendas.

We should look beyond those rutted paths and let Him lead us onto new trails of adventure and freedom.

He will reveal to us new glorious truths all along the way.

Just stay with Him. Don't let go of His hand!

Shalom Shalom

     For many years these verses, Isaiah 26:3-4, have brought me comfort and encouragement:

     You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You,

because he trusts in You. Trust in the LORD forever, 

    for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.

So simple. So profound. As we keep our minds focused on our LORD, everything else diminishes in importance. And peace arrives and settles down in our hearts.

Our pastor mentioned Wednesday night that "perfect peace" could be translated  "shalom shalom."

I love it! What a great way to greet people! Now  I am saying "shalom shalom" throughout the day!  GIve it a try!

Engraved on His Hands - Charles Spurgeon

      Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands...
                                               Isaiah 49:16

No doubt part of the wonder that is concentrated in the word "behold" is on account of the contrast with the unbelieving lament in the proceeding sentence: "Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.'"

How amazed the divine mind seems to be at the wicked unbelief! What can be more astonishing than the unfounded doubts and fears of God's favored people?

The Lord's loving word of rebuke should make us blush.

He cries, "How can I have forgotten you when I have engraved you on the palms of My hands? How dare you doubt My constant remembrance when the memorial is carved upon my own flesh?"


O unbelief, what a strange marvel you are! We do not know what to wonder at most -- the faithfulness of God or the unbelief of His people.

He keeps His promise a thousand times, and yet the next trial makes us doubt Him.

He never fails. He is never a dry well. He is never a setting sun, a passing meteor, or a melting vapor, and yet we are as continually troubled with anxieties, molested with suspicions and disturbed with fears as if our God were a mirage of the desert.

"Behold" is a word intended to stir up our admiration.

Here, indeed, we have a theme for marveling. Heaven and earth may well be astonished that rebels should obtain such a closeness to the heart of infinite love as to be written on the palms of His hands.

"I have engraved you." It does not say, "your name."  The name is there, but that is not all: I have engraved you.

Consider the depth of this!  "I have engraved your person, your image, your circumstances, your sins, your temptations, your weakness, your wants, your works; I have engraved you - everything about you, all that concerns you - I have put all of this together here."

Will you ever say again that your God has forsaken you when He has engraved you on His own palms?

Thoughts of an old Monk

I'm reading a great book: "On Loving God" by Bernard of Clairvaux, written about 900 years ago.

We often think of these ancient saints as rigid and austere.
And we are often wrong. He is loving and joyous in his writing
and displays those attitudes in simple, yet dignified, language.

He also wrote a favorite hymn: "Jesus, the Very Thought of  Thee."

Here are some of the lines:

   "Jesus, the very thought of Thee, with sweetness fills my breast.
   But sweeter, still, Thy face to see and in Thy presence rest.

   O hope of every contrite heart, O joy of all the meek
   To those who fall how kind Thou art, how good to all who seek!

    But what of those who find? Ah, this no pen or tongue can show
   -the love of Jesus, what it is, none but His loved ones know!"

Sort of reminds me of a more modern hymn, "And He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me I am His own....and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known!"

These words are from "In the Garden,"  a favorite of my father's, written about 100 years ago by Charles Austin Miles.

My Dad's favorite line was: "He speaks and the sound of His voice is so sweet, the bird hush their singing!"  (My favorite line, too!)

So wouldn't be glorious to meet these two men someday and
"Jesus talk" with them!  Maybe we will!

Even Little Children

"LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth. You have set Your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants, You have established a stronghold against Your enemies, to silence foes and the avenger." (Psalm 8:1-2) 

We often don't take spiritual warfare seriously enough. Dare we underestimate the devil's hatred for our Lord and for His followers?

Since Satan was cast out of heaven, his mission has been to ruin everything and everyone the Lord loves.

But we have weapons and we can take heart. Even little children can defeat the devil when they speak or sing words of praise to God. The evil one is dispelled and defeated when our hearts, homes, and sanctuaries are praise-filled.

As all of us participate in worship, study and obey His Word, and dedicate ourselves to prayer and praise, we can 'silence the voice of the foe and the avenger.'

Have praise-filled commands ready to shout at Satan whenever he appears.

And we have powerful custom-made armor to wear to "stand against the schemes of the devil." Described in Ephesians 6.

And remember how Jesus defeated Satan? By quoting scripture. And then we are told, 'the devil left Him.' 

Read about it in Matthew 4: "And Jesus said to him, 'Be gone, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.'"

And 'the devil left Him.'

We always succeed when we imitate our Savior!

The Seventh Trumpet-- - Are you listening for it?

 

"The seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, 'The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and  ever.'"

(Revelation 11:15)

Jesus has already begun His kingdom reign, in us, His willing subjects.

As He reigns in our hearts, the rest of creation is groaning in eagerness and longing as we await the return of our Righteous King to His throne He was ordained to rule from since before earthly time began.

His reign will cover the whole cosmos and all His subjects will be the willing, loving, redeemed and rescued ones He brought into His eternal family.

We spend a lot of time analyzing and investigating visible signs of His coming, but maybe we should have our ears tuned to hear that trumpet!

Matthew 24:29-31 tells us how we will all be gathered from all over the earth to join His reigning kingdom.

And in the Old Testament book of Daniel we read how the prophet Daniel explained and predicted that coming kingdom to  Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon: centuries earlier:

     And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up  a  kingdom that will never be destroyed..it shall stand forever....

     (Daniel 2:44-45)

With all this information recorded for us, certainly no one should be surprised when it happens!

Trying to avoid God? - C S Lewis

If God exists, mere movement in space will never bring you any nearer to Him or any farther from Him that you are at this very moment.

How, then, it may be asked, can we either reach or avoid Him?

The avoiding, in many times and places, has proved so difficult that a very large part of the human race failed to achieve it.

But in our own time and place it is extremely easy. Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health and (above all) your own grievances.

Keep the radio on. Live in a crowd. Use plenty of sedation. If you must read books, select them very carefully. But you'd be safer to stick to the papers. You'll find the advertisements helpful, especially those with a snobbish or a sexy appeal.


About the reaching, I am a far less reliable guide. That is because I never had the experience of looking for God. It was the other way round; He was the hunter (or so it seemed to me) and I was the deer. He stalked me...took unerring aim, and fired.


--From The Seeing Eye, by C. S. Lewis




I think all of us who bear the name of Christ can see how God led us to Himself. How the searching of our hearts for the "something that was missing" was, in fact, the way He drew us to Him.

And now as I am older, I see that the reaching and avoiding of God that Lewis talks about applies to our daily walk with God also, as well as our original coming to Him. 

We can still try to "avoid Him." But it is truly hard.

Remember Paul's sermon in Athens at Mars Hill?

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else....God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us.
                   --Acts 17:24-25, 27

It would appear that, because God revealed Himself to us in His creation and sustains us through His providence, that we have an obligation to seek Him.


I have read that the word Paul uses for "reaching out for--or feeling after" is the same Greek word that Homer used in his story about Cyclops, the giant one-eyed monster who captured Odysseus and his men and held them captive in a cave.

Odysseus got the Cyclops drunk and then blinded him with a sharp stake. Then the prisoners tried to make their escape. And Cyclops began groping around and feeling his surroundings, intending to recapture Odysseus. That's the very word Paul uses to describe how God intends for us to "seek out God...and to reach for Him."

In our sin we are as blind as Cyclops. And Paul is saying that because of God's creation we have an obligation to feel after God and seek Him, even though we cannot see Him.

Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.

-- James 4:8

"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

I will be found by you," declares the LORD.

-- Jeremiah 29:13-14

Four quartets - T. S. Eliot - When He Became a Christian

 

                                When T. S. Eliot Became a Christian

From Four Quartets

The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all...
...These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is
   Incarnation.

Here the impossible union
Of spheres of existence is actual
Here the past and future
Are conquered and reconciled....

In order to arrive at what you do not know
   You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
   You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
   You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not....

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning...

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well..

--From Four Quartets






Important dates for T. S. Eliot
     1888 - his birth
     1922 - Wasteland published
     1927 - his conversion from agnosticism/atheism to Christianity
     1930 - Ash Wednesday published -- what he called
                his "Conversion Poem."
     1943 - Four Quartets published -- for which he was
                awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature           
        1965 - his pre-resurrection death

When T. S. Eliot became a Christian - From article by John Piippo

"On June 29, 1927, the brilliant T. S. Eliot converted from Unitarianism to Anglicanism. Some of his former fellow atheists were scandalized. Virginia Woolf was one of them.

Her reaction, writes Peter Hitchens (Christopher's brother) was one of fury and almost physical disgust which was, he says, typical of the educated British middle class.

Woolf wrote, 'I have had a most shameful and distressing interview with poor dear Tom Eliot, who may be called dead to us all from this day forward. He has become an Anglo-Catholic, believes in God and immortality, and goes to church. I was really shocked. A corpse would seem to me more credible that he is. I mean, there's something obscene in a living person sitting by the fire and believing in God.'"

(Hitchens, Peter, The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith, p. 24).

Woolf's response is similar to that of Richard Dawkins who shrinks back in horror every time some brilliant scientist (Like Francis Collins) speaks of his conversion to Christ.

Hitchens comments on Woolf's Eliot-reponse: "Look at these bilious, ill-tempered words: 'Shameful, obscene, dead to us all.' There has always seemed to me to be something frantic and enraged about this passage, concealing its real emotion -- which I suspect is fear that Eliot, as well as being a greater talent than her, may also be right."

               

Keeping the Sabbath

In Exodus 20 the 10 Commandments are listed. It is the fourth commandment where we are told to "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."  And we are reminded, "For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

So God made the Sabbath holy, and we are to keep it holy! (Like in the New Testament God tells us to "keep the peace." And that He "brought us peace." He gives it; we are to keep it. Like Mother used to tell us to "leave things like you find them!")

We used to sing a hymn about keeping the Sabbath. It is called "O Day of Rest and Gladness." 

I don't hear it anymore, but found the words:

   "O day of rest and gladness, O day of joy and light

O balm of care and sadness, most beautiful and bright;

On thee, the high and lowly, who bend before the Throne

Sing, 'Holy, holy, holy' to the eternal One.

   A day of sweet reflection, thou art a day of love,

A day to raise affection, from earth to things above.

New graces ever gaining from this our day of rest,

We reach the rest remaining in mansions of the blessed.

   To Holy Ghost be praises, to Father, and to Son;

The church her voice upraises to thee, blest Three in One."

This amazing hymn was written over 150 years ago by Christopher

Wordsworth, the nephew of the famous English poet, 

William Wordsworth.

 I think we need to reconsider how we obey God's 4th Commandment!

What Does Prayer Really Do? C S Lewis

 

                          

                    What Does Prayer Really Do? C S Lewis

"Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly complete Person.

Prayer, in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and the enjoyment of God its bread and wine.

In it God shows Himself to us."

So in prayer God shows Himself to us....don't we usually get it ackwards?

The Last Time On Earth John saw Jesus...W A Criswell

From W. A. Criswell.....

"When I saw him I fell at his feet as though dead" (Revelation 1:17)

That response of John is most strange. It would seem that he would have looked upon the face of his Master with ecstatic bliss and joy beyond words to describe....He was a beloved disciple in that inner circle who lived next to the very heart and ministry of our Savior.

He laid his head on Jesus' bosom at the Last Supper. He stood at the cross. He saw the blood and the water flow out like a fountain from his heart.

It was this beloved disciple, John, who in obedience to the loving, tender, shepherdly word of the Savior took Mary, the Lord's mother, to his home and cared for her.

Yet when he sees the Master on this Isle of Patmos, he falls at His feet as dead. I repeat, it would seem that he would have looked upon the Lord with joy unspeakable, with a bliss and a gladness that would be indescribable. Instead, great fear fell upon him.

Dr. Criswell goes on to talk about why John reacted the way he did:

The beloved disciple is looking upon unveiled deity. In the days of His flesh, in the days of the Lord's ministry in the earth, His godhead was covered over, it was shrouded, it was curtained in the flesh.

There's a second reason why John fell over as a dead man in the presence of the great God and Savior Jesus Christ and it's this: he immediately was conscious of the burden of his own nothingness, the burden of his own folly, the burden of his own insignificance, his on shortcoming, his own humanity, his own sin and iniquity. No insect would have expected to live in the furnace of the Son.

Remember Isaiah? When he describes his own experience seeing God?

"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." (Isaiah 6:5).

Is there something wrong with the way we (I) view and approach God?

Clarify Thy Son

A clarifying truth...

Look at Wycliffe's English translation of the Bible (directly from the Latin Vulgate and finished in 1382) and see how he expressed the word we use today -- glorify -- as clarify in his version of John 17.


I love reading it this way:


These things Jesus spake, and when he had cast up his eyes into heaven, he said, 'Father, the hour cometh, clarify thy Son, that thy Son clarify thee....


I have clarified thee on earth, I have ended the work that thou hast given to me to do...


and now, Father, clarify thou me...with the clearness that I had at thee, before the world was made...


Father, they which thou hast given to me, I will that where I am, that they be with thee, that they see my clearness..


And I have given to them the clearness, that thou hast given to me....


What a remarkable way to look at it -- when we truly glorify God we make Him clearly visible to those around us -- we should be making Him clear -- clearly seen and free of impurities -- I remember my mother teaching me how to clarify butter --

Prayer for today - that I will clarify the Person of Jesus Christ and the presence of our Father and the Holy Spirit in my walk and in my talk...
everywhere I go - that He will be clearly seen in me!

May the mind of Christ my Savior

Live in me from day to day

By His love and power controlling

All I do and say.

May the peace of God my Father

Rule my life in every thing

That I may be calm to comfort

Sick and sorrowing....

Or, another song we love..."Let Others See Jesus in You"!



I looked up "clarify" in the dictionary -- from Middle English and Latin -- to make illustrious, clear, bright, famous...1.  make or become clear and free from impurities  2. to make or become easier to understand....



Clarify is a great, spiritually functional word!

We Can Start Forever Today!

                                                

                                                       We Can Start Forever Today!

A sincere prayer from Psalm 30:

      To You, O LORD, I called; to the LORD I cried for mercy.

      Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me and be my help.

This is how David cried out to God for mercy. Be my help, he begged.

God hears our prayers for His help.

And here is David's response to God:

      You turned my wailing into dancing; 

      You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,

      that my heart may sing and not be silent.

      O LORD, my God, I will give You thanks forever.

God will listen to our humble and desperate prayers and will reward us with joy forever.

David says, I will give You thanks forever.

Let's start on "forever" today!

Revisiting an Old Truth

Lamentations 3:18-26

"So I say, 'My splendor is gone and all that I had hope for from the LORD.'

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall, I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, 'The LORD is my portion, therefore, I will wait for Him.' The LORD is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD."

These  words were written by the prophet Jeremiah, who chose to rise above his emotions and base his hope on the truth of God's unfailing love, reminding us it is a choice we, too, can make.

Thoughts from Gayle Rogers Foster --

"You, too, should have a short memory about the sadness of yesterday, and an long memory about God's faithfulness. His mercies are indeed new every morning. Rebuke your foreboding spirit. It is not from God. Get up every morning and proclaim, 'This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it' (Psalm 118:24).

If you tried something yesterday and it didn't work, try it again. However, this time you will have more wisdom and experience.

 Don't determine how your day is going to go based on how you emotionally feel when you get up. Just do what you know is right. Your emotions will catch up. 

And never let your feelings simmer in your soul. When you allow Christ to meet your needs you can allow His love to cover up a multitude of other people's sins. Give the gift of a fresh start to both you and everyone else who may have offended you. 

Trust God when you don't feel like it. Trust God when you do feel like it. Trust God until you feel like it. Take the next step. Don't look back. God is already there waiting. If you trust your instincts concerning the future, based on the failures of the past, you could be in for a long and painful detour."

  -- From Front Porch Moments, by Gayle Rogers Foster

The Really Big Picture - Becoming the Gift

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 6:23

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this not from yourselves -- it is the gift of God. Ephesians 2:9

The lost sinner who hears God's Word that Christ died for his sins and places his trust in Him receives the gift -- the supreme gift of all -- restoration to God and eternity with Him.

And then one day, that redeemed sinner catches a glimpse of the bigger story.

Note these words from Christ's prayer, just before His arrest and crucifixion, to His Father, in John, chapter 17.....

"I have revealed You to those whom You gave Me out of the world. They were Yours; You gave them to Me....

"I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those You have given Me...

"Father, I want those You have given Me to be with Me where I am, and to see My Glory..."





So this is the really big picture....

Once we receive the gift, we become the gift!

We come to God through Jesus Christ's atonement for us -- it is His gift to us -- and then God presents us as a gift to His Son!


Once we receive the gift, we become the gift!



            And this is the biggest story of all!

It's Worth the Wait!

 Waiting for God's help in time of trouble is hard. We usually want to pursue our own solutions first, leaving God as Plan B! Even as we pray for God's will and help we are often already figuring out our own ways to proceed. Now that's really dumb! I should know!

The Israelites responded like that when they were threatened by their enemies. They sought help from the Egyptians instead of turning to God. Read about it in Isaiah 30.

"Woe to the obstinate children who carry out plans that are not Mine...who go down to Egypt without consulting Me..."

God tells them what to do instead in verse 15: "In repentance and rest is your salvation; in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it."

"In quietness and trust," God tells them.

Then Isaiah adds: "The LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore, He will rise up to show you compassion...blessed are all who wait for Him."

Do we every consider that? Our Father wants -- longs -- to show us His grace and mercy. He is eager for us to come to Him!

BLESSED ARE ALL THOSE WHO WAIT FOR HIM!

Waiting is hard, but it is worth it, and it pleases God!

Father, help me learn to be patient. I know You are a good and loving God whose ways and timing are always perfect. How could I ever doubt Your love and faithfulness and wisdom? How could I ever forget that? Forgive me, my dear Father. Amen.

Have YOU forgotten to ask?

In John 4 we read the famous story of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. He Himself might have told us the story sort of like this:

"Remember the woman at Sychar? She was a Samaritan and I purposed to meet her at the ancient Jacob's well.

I asked her for a drink of water. She was surprised at the request. But she didn't ask Me for anything. Right there -- in front of her-- the Creator and Sovereign Lord of the Universe, the One able to bestow any gift to any humble creature.

But she didn't ask. I had to call it to her attention.

'Look,' I said. 'If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Me and I  would have given you living water.'

She still didn't understand. She didn't 'know the gift' and she didn't know who I was.'

I explained it to her. Just as I have patiently explained it to you.

Now you do know. You know the gift I bring and who I am.

It delights Me to give My children gifts.

So why don't you ask for more?"

[So why don't we ask for more? C S Lewis compares us to children who are content to play in the city ghetto, just making mud pies, when God is offering us a holiday at a grand oceanside resort, and we could be building sand castles!

Maybe we should rethink what we are asking our omnipotent 'wealthiest Father ever' for!

Paul reminds us, "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen." (Ephesians 3:20).]

Home Again

                                  

Thoughts from Philip Yancey....

"If Easter Sunday was the most exciting day of the disciples'  lives, for Jesus, it was probably the day of Ascension  [40 days later].

"He, the Creator, who had descended so far and given up so much, was now headed home. Like a soldier returning across the ocean from a long, bloody war. Like an astronaut shedding his spacesuit to gulp in the familiar atmosphere of earth. 

"Home at last.

"Jesus' prayer at the Last Supper with His disciples reveals something of this point of view: 'I have brought You glory on earth by completing the work You gave me to do,' Jesus prayed.

'And now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory I had with You before the world began.'

Before the world began! Jesus, who was sitting in a stuffy room in Jerusalem, was letting His mind wander back to a time before the Milky Way and Andromeda. On an earthly night dark with fear and menace, Jesus was making preparations to return home, to assume the glory He had set aside."

  From, The Jesus I Never Knew, by  Philip Yancey, chapter 12.

 The God of power, He did ride

In His majestic robes of glory

Resolved to light; and so one day

He did descend, undressing all the way.

  -- George Herbert

His Mercy is More!

A convicted and condemned criminal was sent to death for his crimes. He was "guilty as charged!" 

He yearned for mercy.

But who could he ask? Not the judge - he was the one who sentenced him. Not the victims -- they jeered at him and desperately sought revenge. The crowd watching was blood thirsty.  No mercy there.

So, as a last resort,  he turned to the bloodied body of the One who hung on the cross next to his. There was a sign on His cross that said, "King of the  Jews." A strange way to treat your King, he thought. But his time was running out, and that Man did seem different somehow. So he gave it a try.

"Jesus, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom." And he heard the answer, "Truly, today you will be with Me in paradise."

A dying thief on a cross, a pedophile in prison, a murderer on death row -- all can receive mercy. Witnesses say Jeffery Dahmer received Christ's mercy before he was killed. He received Christ as his Savior, read his Bible, confessed his sins will great remorse, and urged other prisoners to do the same.

No one of us beyond the reach of God's mercy. And none of us is  beyond the need for it!

How about the law-abiding citizen sitting on the pew in church? He goes to the altar, also seeking mercy. 

Does it matter to God where we are when we call to Him?

On a cross? On a pew? In a government prison or in our own personal, self-constructed prison?

I think not. We are all sinners who need mercy. "Our sins are so many, His mercy is more!"

He is in reach, right now! And reaching out to you! If you haven't already received His mercy,  ask for it now! Take His mercy and all the other gifts He includes and then tell everyone else!

Not Just a Chicken

Remember the story of the eagle who was raised by chickens? 

From her nest in the barnyard, she spots an eagle soaring confidently through the clouds. Her heart beats rapidly. "I can do that!" she whispers. The other chickens laugh, but she knows better. She was born for something more. She can soar. She never lost hope, and then, one day, she lifted herself up and began to soar!

We are like that eagle!

Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us: "He has put eternity in their heart."

Deep down we have a hunch that our ordinary lives can have meaning and purpose and that we were made to know that meaning and purpose -- and we were made to live forever!

Think about Paul's words -

"Therefore we do not lose hope. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes on what is seen, not what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

Max Lucado reminds us --

"If life's troubles are momentary, can't we endure them for  just a moment? We can be sick for just a moment...we can be lonely for just a moment...we can be persecuted for just a moment....we can struggle for just a moment...can't we endure any challenge for just a moment?

It's not about us anyway. And it's not about now."

 -- from It's Not About Me

How Peterson paraphrases the passage --

"So we are not giving up.  How could we? Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without His unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared  to the coming good times, the lavish celebration  prepared for us. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever."

Why Am I Still Here?

"If God has chosen you to live here another day as His ambassador, it is only because you have an assignment to fulfill. You have a Master to please. You have someone to connect with. 

You may not know who it is before your day begins or who it was after your day ends. It may be someone watching you from a distance. You may not have direct connect. Maybe you were left here to intercede for somebody.

Therefore, whatever you do, make certain you fill up with Jesus every morning. You need a fresh word from Him each day to speak to others. Determine to be sensitive, alert, and available to the people God brings into your path.

If you are moping around thinking you have nothing left in the tank and nothing of any value to offer anyone, you are very wrong. When He is finished with you here, He will call you home.

If you are 105 and still here, I would venture to say that your hospice nurse needs to find Jesus!"

        (From Front Porch Moments, by Gayle Rogers Foster)

Sometimes We Make It All Too Hard!

 We want to do great things for God. Yes, He has given us all gifts to use to enhance and enlarge His Kingdom. But are we really opening our minds and hearts to hear His quiet voice right now?

Some days we eagerly plan a new program for our church -- one that will involve more people and accomplish more goals than our last one!

Or we organize a new ministry to get attendance up and create more excitement in our worship service.

But maybe today He just wants us to do the next thing He puts before us: Just be kind and gentle to the next person we see in the ordinary course of our day!

The neighbor struggling to get groceries out of the car -- stop for a moment and help.

The driver behind us obviously in a great hurry -- pull over and let him pass. (Maybe whisper a prayer for him.)

Focusing on some upcoming evangelistic meeting? Maybe God wants us to show more patience and gentleness with our family.

It's just a thought - but is there a difference between serving God in the simple everyday activities and in the spectacular, more flamboyant activities? (A rhetorical question?!)

Reflect again on this familiar passage:

"If I could speak all the languages on earth, and of angels, but didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and understood all of God's secret plans, and possessed all knowledge, and if I had faith that I could move mountains, but didn't love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, but if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing" (1 Corinthians 13).

Maybe God isn't expecting us to do something newsworthy and spectacular today? Maybe He just wants us to be kind, gentle and loving to the next person we see...just "be to others as Jesus has been to us."

My focus for this day....how about you?