Desires

Blessed Already

“Let God’s promises shine on your problems. When you know Jesus, you are truly blessed.” – Corrie ten Boom

Somebody sneezes and the person next to him says, “Bless you.” What does he mean? I’m not sure, but it seems to mean something like, “I wish you well.” That’s probably just a tiny bit of what Jesus had in mind when he gave a long list (Matthew 5) of the kinds of people on whom God would show his favor, aka bless.

These are the people Jesus says are blessed: those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who want to be good, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted for being righteous. Do you identify with any of those categories? If so, look for God’s blessing all around you. And remember that, while some of the blessings he promises will not be fully seen until eternity, there are some that we can experience in this present moment and they include such things as mercy, comfort, and satisfaction of our deepest spiritual desires.

I take away two very encouraging things from this list:

First, the promise that, no matter what you are going through now, it will be better when God’s Kingdom has fully come.

Second, we can experience God’s blessing and favor right now in the middle of the poverty, hunger, mourning, or persecution.

In short, Jesus promises that, if we are committed to God, at some point all our needs will be met and our desires fulfilled. If we think about that for a while, we will be blessed already!

“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” – Numbers 6:24-26

God has bigger plans.

“Whenever God calls a man, he bids him come and die.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God has bigger plans for us than anything we can accomplish ourselves. So he tells us we have to die to ourselves and yield every desire of our hearts to him. We can be sure doing that will be a struggle!

The things we hang on to usually relate to our comfort, security, appearance, or reputation. We long for praise, recognition, and control. But we’re unaware that holding tight to managing our lives around those values creates a barrier between us and God and all kinds of anxiety within.

For our own good, he invites us to let him take control. Then he waits until our desire to let him lead is greater than our desire for living our self-centered, and often desperate, lives.

As, over time, we keep returning to an attitude of surrender, we will begin to see changes: We will care about what others are feeling more than about what they’re thinking of us. We will no longer be so focused on physical comfort: sleep, preferred foods, the way we dress, personal safety or health. We will accept circumstances and see beyond them.

Finally, we come to a point where we no longer look to God for what he can give us, but for who he is. When that happens, he comes close, and we find we’ve given up nothing, and we’ve gained everything.

Dying to self is not easy, but it is the only way to true joy and peace. It starts with a simple prayer: “I surrender.” He’ll show us where to go from there.

“I have been crucified with Christ . . . the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” – from Galatians 2:20

Their god is . . . .

“Each day provides a multitude of ways to improve the way we shelter the Holy Spirit of God.” – Gary Thomas

There are times when we seem to have a love-hate relationship with our bodies. As Christians, we know that our bodies belong to God, that the Holy Spirit lives within us, and that we have a responsibility to take care of the body we have, whatever its present condition may be. Much about our bodies is outside of our control. But we do have something to say about how we eat, exercise, and rest.

Paul actually refers (not favorably!) to people whose “god is their belly” (from Philippians 3:19). I think we could safely interpret it to mean that it’s possible to let our bodies have too much to say about how we live. Sometimes it is our baser instincts that rule our decisions.

But we don’t have to follow the demands our body makes for satisfaction, pleasure, or foods. We have to give it what it needs, but not everything it wants! When we make God our first priority, our one and only God, we are less likely to make our appetites, our comfort, or our happiness into “gods”.

If we’re serious about having God rule our bodies, what do we do? We learn to feed them well, to get exercise to keep our muscles strong, and to find the right balance between work and rest and between feasting and fasting. We can use our bodies to turn us toward God, not away from him, as we learn to care for these temples in ways that please him.

 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship“- Romans 12:1

Promises, Blessings, and Smiles

“The promises are of no use or comfort to us, until they are meditated upon.” – Thomas Watson

Are you smiling today? If you are more stressed than joyful or more worried than peaceful, there’s something you can do that might help. Turn to God’s word, not just to read it, but to think about it, to ask him to help you see what he wants you to see. Here’s an example:

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul (Psalm 23:1-3a).

Some of you know this so well, you can go on to quote the rest of the psalm. But do we really know what it means when God said that with him as our caretaker, we won’t lack anything? He controls everything – money, health, wisdom, weather, etc. And he promises not to withhold anything we need.

If we really believed that, how would it change our level of contentment? How would it calm our anxiety?

What does it tell us about God’s provision when we read that he takes his sheep to green pastures and still waters? What does it mean to have God restore our souls? Think about these things for a while. What do these verses say to you?

God intends for his word to be read, but he wants so much more than that. He wants it to soak into our hearts as we ponder what he says, and as we accept it as truth. When we do that, we are blessed, no matter what circumstances surround us. And that kind of blessing will bring smiles to our faces!

“My eyes are awake before the watches of the night,
    that I may meditate on your promise.” – Psalm 119:148

Healing

God alone is qualified to answer prayer, and at some point we have to let go and trust God, who can transmute our self-focused requests into an unimaginably larger plan.  – Philip Yancey

Do you have anyone on your prayer list right now for whom you are praying for healing? Most of us do. We read about Jesus healing people everywhere he went, and we believe he can still do that today. And he does – sometimes. Often, though, we wait in vain for the physical healing to happen.

These are the times when, as Spurgeon says, “we must meekly bow to his will by whom life and death are determined.” Wait! Bow to his will when the life of someone we love is at stake? That sounds hard. And, it is.

But what do we learn when we humbly bow to his will? We learn he is loving, kind, and good, even when we don’t understand. We learn that his power is not limited to physical healing. Sometimes he’s working on something of far greater value – something we will most likely not understand this side of heaven. In the process, though, we realize there are some things more important than physical healing and, if we could see the bigger picture, we would not trade the spiritual blessing for anything – not even healing.

I have heard people testify to this very thing. That the sense of God’s presence, the knowledge that he’s walking beside them in the pain, and the confidence that his will is best for them and for those around them is worth the suffering they are undergoing. I want that kind of peace and the comfort it gives. Maybe the only way to get it is by having some of my most earnest prayers go unanswered.

“Though he slay me, I will hope in him.” – Job 13:15a

The Monks’ Two-Minute Rule

“Thinking Christianly is thinking by Christians about anything and everything in a consistently Christian way – in a manner that is shaped, directed, and restrained by the truth of God’s Word and God’s Spirit.”
– Os Guinness

High up in the mountains of central Greece sits Meteora, a monastery representing retreat from the world and all its temptations. However, the monks realized, as isolated as they were from worldly allurements, they still had problems with evil thoughts – things like vengeance, lust, envy, anxiety, and pride. The thoughts just seemed to come out of nowhere and, once planted in their minds, they began to savor them, engage them, and treat them as welcomed guests.

St. Paisos the Athonite, one of the great teachers at Meteora, heard their confessions and gave this advice: Essentially he said that an evil thought is like a hand grenade tossed into your mind. When it comes you have about two minutes to toss it back. If it stays longer, it will explode and cause great damage. It comes from the evil one. Throw it back to him!

We know from Jesus’s teaching that evil thoughts are where sin begins in our lives. If we are serious about our spirituality, we simply can’t accept them. We have to cultivate good thoughts instead: Those that are honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable and excellent (Philippians 4:8) and those that are from above (Colossians 3:2).

It’s not sin to have evil thoughts come into our minds, but it is a sin to let them stay. And, if we do, they will lead to pain and destruction. The trajectory of our lives begins in our minds. Let’s protect ourselves by protecting our minds. Remember the monks’ two-minute rule!

“For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” – Romans 8:6

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It’s a family thing.

“Father is the Christian name for God.” – J. I. Packer

We all have an idealized picture of what a good family should be like. It’s where we are loved, accepted, corrected, and encouraged. It is where we’re secure and confident. While every earthly family falls short of that, there is a spiritual family designed to meet every one of those desires. Let’s look –

On the cross Jesus paid the debt we owed for our sins and he offers us forgiveness. That is an astounding gift. But it doesn’t stop there. The cross was the first step in God’s ultimate goal for us – that we be adopted into the family of God. It’s not a perfect family yet, but this family does have a perfect Father and we are his kids.

J. I. Packer in his book Knowing God teaches that having God as our Father means that, much as a good earthly father, he has authority over us, he has affection for us, and he provides for us.

Unlike earthly fathers, he is all-wise and all-sufficient. He will never steer us wrong and he will never run out of resources with which to help us.

Having God as our Father also means that we can approach him without fear and we have the honor of carrying his name. We are children of the King – forever. That should make us all smile – and relax!

Whatever our circumstances today, we know we have a Father who loves us, who will never leave us, and who will provide for us from his endless resources. It’s good to be adopted into God’s family!

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” – Galatians 4:4-5

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Thirsty?

“Knowledge about Him will not do. Work for Him will not do. We must have personal, vital fellowship with Him; otherwise, Christianity becomes a joyless burden” – John Piper

When I talk to friends who are more health conscious than I am, they always encourage me to drink more water. Apparently, water lubricates joints, is necessary for digestion, delivers oxygen throughout our cells, makes healthy skin, regulates body temperature and blood pressure. We need water, and when we don’t have enough, our body calls for it by making us thirsty.

Thirst is typified in the Bible as a longing for God. The psalmist said it this way: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God” (Psalm 42:1). Do our souls thirst for God? If things are going OK, we just move along sipping here and there, but not really feeling the thirst. That’s when he may take us to the desert for a time so we will begin to thirst again.

I have a friend in the desert right now. She’s not sure how she got there; the journey there was just a little at a time. She’s beginning to feel God’s absence, his quietness, and she wants to sense that connection again. She’s getting thirsty!

God wants us to want him. He wants us to be dependent on him, to know how much we need him. And we do need him, but we don’t always realize our great our need is. The desert, as much as we resist it, creates the thirst that will bring us back to the still waters. He is leading us there.

“You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.– Psalm 63:1

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Direction, not Perfection

“Hope in God, who is not the God of the perfect only, but of the becoming.” — George MacDonald

Don’t we all sometimes think that we want to be further along in our spiritual life than we are already? That God must sometimes shake his head in disapproval of our spiritual status? That maybe he’s getting impatient with us? If so, read on for some encouragement.

The people of Israel had wandered away from God for many years. King Hezekiah cleaned up the temple and wanted to call the people back to worship. So he scheduled a Passover celebration, an annual commemorative feast commanded by God, but that had not been kept in years.

People began to come to Jerusalem for the celebration. But when Hezekiah realized that some of the people had not done the proper spiritual preparation which was required to participate, he was worried. He didn’t want them to be excluded, but he didn’t want God to reject them either. So he decided to pray.

Hezekiah said, “’May the Lord, who is good, pardon those  who decide to follow the Lord, the God of their ancestors, even though they are not properly cleansed for the ceremony.’ And the Lord listened to Hezekiah’s prayer and healed the people” (2 Chronicles 30:19-20).

Do you see God’s response to Hezekiah’s bold request? He accepted and blessed those whose hearts were turned toward him. They didn’t have to have followed the rules perfectly, they just had to have the desire to please him. He would forgive what needed to be forgiven.

What an encouragement! We don’t have to be perfect to be blessed by God, we just have to be pointed in the right direction and moving toward him. That’s what he wants.

“Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.” – Psalm 25:4

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Extraordinary Things

“Jesus was God spelling himself out in language humanity could understand.” – S. D. Gordon

I don’t think we are supposed to live ordinary lives. Why? Because we follow Jesus and, because of him, we have a chance of participating in the extraordinary every day. There’s a great example of this told in the gospels.

Jesus was teaching, and people had comes from miles around to hear him. Some caring friends brought in a paralyzed man. They had come in through the roof because the crowds made it impossible to get close to Jesus any other way.

Jesus looked at this man who couldn’t walk and told him his sins were forgiven. Who says things like that? The religious leaders who were watching knew exactly who says things like that – they knew he was claiming to be God.

Then Jesus healed the paralytic, who promptly got up off his mat and walked!

And then we read about the reaction of the crowd: “. . . amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, ‘We have seen extraordinary things today’.” (Luke 5:26)

The One we follow still teaches – through the Bible, other Christians, and in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Crowds are still following him from all over the world. Jesus still forgives sins. He still is God who came in the flesh so we could be with him forever. He still works miracles. These are all things that should amaze us every day!

Lord, I want to live close enough to you to see extraordinary things – to participate in them, to know you through them, and to share, with anyone who will listen, who you are. With you, no life will ever be ordinary!

“We have seen extraordinary things today.” – Luke 5:26b