I want to take just a moment and pause. LORD, I pause because I want to thank You. Your word says for us to come into Your presence with thanksgiving, and to enter into Your courts with praise.
Since my awakening, and You’re removing the scales from my eyes, or as some would say, healing of this blind man, You have enabled me to carry a weight far greater than I have ever known to be possible. You have undergirded me and strengthened me. You have both shown me love and shown me how to love. I stand daily in continuous awe of Your wondrous working power in my life, and I glorify You with all of my being!
You have kept doors closed if I was not to walk through them, and you have opened doors I had no way of opening. You have made a way, when there was no way for me, and you have given me life and life more abundantly.
I possess no great worldly wealth, nor any great worldly substance. However what I do possess in portioned just for me. I sleep well at night not worrying about it and I rise up early to thank You for it. By Your hand, I am all that I am, and by Your love, I will be what You created me to be.
Because of who You are, I purpose to give You glory in all that I do. And now I know why the song writer wrote: "I worship You because of who You are!"
Thank You, LORD!
The Advent season is approximately four weeks prior to Christmas Day for western Christianity. The word "advent" means coming or arrival. The focus of this season is our celebration of the coming or arrival of Jesus the Christ. So we celebrate His coming near to us approximately 2000 years ago.
However I pose to you a question. Is Christ not trying to come near to us even now? He may be prodding you with a problem. He may, like Paul, keep a thorn in our side, reminding us His grace is sufficient. He may even have us very accomplished and successful, but yet there is still a feeling of something more for us to be, and to feel complete. Nothing fills the void in our life, like Jesus Christ the Anointed One and His Anointing.
Think of the night He was born. No one paused to check on the pregnant teenager who had slipped into town on a donkey late in the evening. No, they were too busy with the hustle and bustle of the day. Shops had to be opened, businesses awakened, and money had to be made. No there was no time to fee the coming close of our Savior, for the agenda of everyday living had to take place. Somehow they failed to realize, without Christ, there is no life.
I see the same means taking place yet even in today’s society. We are about the hustle and bustle of life; the moving up and down and the going to and fro. We don't have time to notice the Lover of our soul is pressing His way through the canal of eternity, into the realm of time only to be close to us. Drawing ever so near, calling us ever so quietly. "Come to Me, you broken one, and I will give you rest. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. Take Me upon you, I will give you rest!"
You see He loves us. He REALLY LOVES US! And when you really love someone, you can’t go a moment, a day, or a night without thinking about them. You awake with them on your mind, and you vision them throughout your sleep. You simply want to be near them. And you will do whatever it takes to draw them near unto you, for your soul thirst for them. This is why He said on the Cross, "I thirst." It was not because He physically was thirsty, but because He thirsted just to be close to you and me.
What is Christ doing in your life right now? How is He trying to draw near unto you? Is He pulling at your heart strings with a situation, person, or thing? How is He wooing you unto Him? Whatever is that persistent thing in your life which keeps calling, and calling and calling, run to it, for in it you will find Him.
Scripture Reference: Job 1:20-21 "Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
Looking at the life of Job, he lived a long time. He grew up, got married, had children and raised them, buried them, and ended up having more children and raising them also. I find it interesting we judge him and define him over something which took approximately nine months of his life. Yet via the events of this brief period in his life, most of us define the entire man, Job.
One thing we fail to realize is Job had a real relationship with the LORD. He was not a part-time Christian. He was not a once in a while church goer. He was not a deacon on Sunday morning and sneaking out to the club on Friday and Saturday night. No Job loved the LORD with all his heart and soul. How do I know? Well glad you asked me. I will prove it in our Scripture reference.
You see, these tragic events came to him one on top of the other. Not a moment to even catch his breath in between the news of the events happening. Understandably he arises and rents his clothes and shaves his head. These are signs of distress and of being loss or not sure which way to turn. But then something interesting happens. The bible says he "fell down upon the ground." Fell down is denoted by the Hebrew word, "Napal" (Ney-pal). One of its translations is literally "to settle down". Why is this important?
You see Job, like most of us, had a series of events hit him which tried to drive him "over the cliff". As any normal person would, he reacted in distress, grief, and he felt the pain. However, he quickly found his center, his rock, his grounding place and focused on His LORD and began to worship Him! In this Job understood that it was the LORD who was in total control and He would never put more on him then he could bare. Or you may say, "the steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD!"
Sometimes others will attempt to define you by a series of events or circumstances in your life. They will say, "I know Brian, he's like this" or "You know he did this." But when you have spent time with the LORD, and He is your Rock; when you fully trust in Him, then you will always be able to find your center and come back to Him.
Even if you do flip out for a minute, remember it is the LORD who is in charge, and it is He who holds you in the palm of His hand.
Thank You, LORD, for my relationship with You!
Recently I traveled home and was privy to spend time with my children. I got another chance to speak into their lives and another moment just to be close to them.
During my travels, I was able to see my oldest play in a football game. As I sat there with my mother, brother, and his wife, my great nephew who was with us, asked me "what were we going to eat." I, in almost a natural response, without even thinking on it said, "hot-air pudding and pine floats." Now I know what you are thinking. What in the world...? He has lost his mind!
But stay with me here for there is a learning point 43 years in the making here. My mother quickly started to laugh and said, "I can't believe you remember that!" You see, our mother would come home every day from work, and being a single parent, we boys would often meet her at the door with, "What's for dinner?" After a long hard day at work, she barely had time to come in the door and we were ready to pounce on her wanting our belly’s filled. So everyday her response to us, in an attempt to say "get out of my face", was "hot-air pudding a pine floats!"
The point I make here is I heard this daily. It was engrafted into my daily life and made to be part of my fiber and make-up. So naturally when I was posed the question years later, I naturally regurgitated what had been poured into me all of my life.
You see, the bible says, "Train up a child, in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6 It does not say they will not stray but that they will find their selves again. Our job as parents, is to make sure we pour into our children daily, and then to keep them from killing their selves unto they begin to regurgitate what the LORD tells us to put into them.
One thing I started to do was text and email a "Daddy's Daily Love" to them. It’s a verse from the bible that will guide them in their life. It’s one small thing, but who knows, maybe one day they will find their selves doing the same for their children?
Scripture Reference: Job 1:20-21 "Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
We all know the story of how Job, in a matter of moments, went from "having everything" to "losing it all". Just think of his compounded distress. The bible says, "While he was yet speaking...While he was yet speaking...While he was yet speaking" (vs. 16, 17, and 18). This tells us Job did not even have a moment to react and absorb the news of the loss of all his oxen and asses, before a messenger came and told him of the loss of his sheep. Job, still not having a moment to take in the second loss, finds out he has loss also his camels. But notwithstanding, before he can absorb the reality of losing all his earthly substance, he is told of the loss of his children. Such shocking news if just one of these events had taken place, but for them all to happen at the same time? Just think of how we act when things don’t go "our way". We moan, groan, whine and complain. We act out, and most importantly get out of the will of God. We think we could do a better job of running our own lives and start to do as we choose. Footnote: this is SIN! When we do this, and not acknowledge God's perfect will and hand over our lives, we then place ourselves as "god" and thereby break the first commandment: "Thou shall have no other gods before Me."
Look back over your life. See where things have not gone your way, and where you decided to take matters into your own hands. Did you get out of the perfect will of God? Did He maybe have a bigger blessing for you around the corner? Or did you get impatient and give up on it, thereby missing out on what He ultimately wanted for you, and in your life?
Whatever situation you find yourself into today, God is saying, "Be still, and know that I am God." He wants you to rest in Him, and praise Him any way. For when the praises go up, the blessing comes down. And let's face it; one blessing from God is enough to change your entire life!
For all the things God does do, there is one thing He refuses to do. He refuses to keep a list of my wrongs. So what good comes from us remembering our sins? And at what point does it become harmful to remember our sins?
The Bible uses several images to depict God's forgiveness of our sins. "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us." Psalm 103:12 "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow: though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.: Isaiah 1:18 "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered." Psalm 32:1
We are presumptuous not when we marvel at His grace, but when we reject it. If we accept His grace and fully understand that He cast them into the sea of forgetfullness, (Micah 7:19) then we will see the enemy's trick when he comes to us, accusing us of our past! Yes, we have all been accused and have done the accusing; so we have all been a devil. But know we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against powers and principalities... (Ephesians 6:12)
The next time someone comes to you bringing up your past, remember that the LORD has forgiven you of your sins and it as if they never happened to Him. You therefore have no condemnation in Christ Jesus! And if you find yourself accusing someone of their past, pause and remember, the LORD forgave you and commands us to forgive as He has forgiven us! Anything short of this is in direct disobedience to the LORD. Knowing where disobedience takes us, we don't want to go there.
After a nation of chosen ones had stripped Him naked and ripped His incarnated flesh, He still died for them. And even today, after billions have chosen to prostitute themselves before the pimps of power, fame, and wealth, He still waits for them. It is inexplicable. It doesn't have a drop of logic nor a thread of rationality. And yet, it is that very irrationality that gives the gospel it greatest defense. For only God could love like this.
God became earth's mockery to save His children. How absurd to think that such nobility would go to such poverty to share a treasure with such thankless souls. But He did. In fact, the only thing more absurd than the gift is our stubborn unwillingness to receive it.
Each of us know how the LORD has been pulling at our hearts; tugging at the very fibers of our soul, calling us softly towards His love. It may be a mother's voice, still heard long after she's gone. Or it may be a continuous thorn in our side which keeps us on our knees. Or it may be just a random act of kindness, blessing, or love from someone whom you never thought would stick around, that God uses to softly woo you into His presence.
The question is when are you going to listen to HIM? What more does He have to do so you will know, "He loves you?"
