Month: August 2024

“but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:31 NIV

As Isaiah is talking to the Israelites, God’s people, he brings them the news of God’s comfort. As a prophet, Isaiah brought the Israelites a lot of news and warnings throughout the years, but this time he is able to talk about comfort. He lets them know that for those who trust in God, place their hope in God, and walk the way God wants them to walk, that God will renew their strength. God will be with them and help them.

We all need renewed or recharged physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. By placing our hope and trust in God, He provides that renewal or recharging to us. We will become weary and faint in this life and God promises to be there with us lifting us up. When we come to know God, become His child and follow Him, He does not desert us, He stays with us. When we come to Him, maintain a close relationship with Him, He shows us how we are to live life so we can be renewed and recharged.

The concept of soaring on wings like eagles is used in scripture at times to denote freedom, freedom that God gives us since we are in bondage to sin. When we experience that freedom from sin, we should acknowledge where that freedom came from and be thankful to God. As we walk in that freedom, we can remember that our freedom is strengthen by our continuous connection with God. As we grow our relationship with Him, we are able to draw on that strength He possesses and enjoy the freedom from sin that He provides.

When we are in bondage to sin, our natural inclination is to do what our flesh wants and that continues to draw us into that bondage of sin, of getting what our sinful nature wants. This freedom obviously is the opposite of us indulging in whatever our flesh wants because true life is found in freedom from that bondage, freedom to walk with God.

So I encourage you to think about your life and determine if you have been renewed lately?

“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'” Matthew 6:9-13 NIV

This verse is the last of the petitions in this prayer. Jesus tells His disciples to ask for direction from God, ask for help in determining what actions to take, what thoughts to pay attention to, what words to say. It is hard to follow God’s will for your life when you don’t know what it is and if you don’t ask to be shown God’s will, you will have a difficult time trying to figure it out on your own. As God’s children we should want to do HIs will and we should not want to sin.

I do not believe that God will lead us into temptation but I do believe that He will not stop temptation from entering our lives. Temptation comes into our lives from several sources, one of which is the natural consequence of our choices in life. This is why it is important to ask God to show us His will, so we can make the choice to follow Him and not whatever our fleshly body desires. Most of the choices we make based on the desires of our flesh, those things we want because we think that they are what is best for us, end up being the source of the temptations in our lives.

Another source is the devil, because the devil places temptations in our paths whenever he wants to, which is why we need to remember the second part of this verse. The second part is where Jesus is saying that we can ask that when temptation comes our way, that God help us to have a way to resist that temptation. This request is naturally something we think of when we are facing temptations we feel we can’t handle, but can be a request that we make each day when we decide to rely on God to help us in every situation.

Jesus prayed to His Father and showed respect and reverence, acknowledging that the Father’s will was what needed to happen. He was in human form and therefore dealt with hunger and temptations. He was perfect and was not in need of forgiveness, but showed us how to forgive others. This prayer is a pattern of how to pray to the Heavenly Father, given to us by Jesus and not a prayer that we are to simply repeat each day.

When I began writing about the Lord’s Prayer 5 days ago, I stated that we should look at each part of the prayer and examine ourselves in that area so that we are not simply repeating the prayer but giving each part careful consideration. I hope the last 5 days have given you a place to start in your own personal journey of what each section means to you. I encourage everyone, including myself, to truly think about what we are praying as we are communicating with the Creator of the world and the universe.

“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'”

This verse is the second petition in this prayer. It has been used at times to “make” people forgive others. Some would say that your sins will not be forgiven if you don’t forgive those who have sinned against you. That is not correct! Our sins are forgiven when we ask God to forgive us because He will forgive us when we are sincerely ask for forgiveness. Nothing we do can earn us our forgiveness from God. It is a gift from God and God only. The challenge comes in that withholding forgiveness from someone who has harmed you is not pleasing to God, since God has forgiven you and you are asking God to do something that you have decided you don’t want to or are not going to do yourself. It is a bit hypocritical.

So when Jesus told His disciples to ask for forgiveness as they have forgiven others, I believe He wasn’t telling them that they had to forgive everyone so they would be forgiven. I believe He was reminding them that they should forgive others because they have been forgiven. They have been given that gift and they should give that gift to others when it is needed. We need to follow that same advice as well. To know what it feels like to be forgiven is powerful and it should give us the power to choose to forgive others.

Also, forgiveness is not for the other person, it is for us. When you have been hurt by someone, sinned against, the feelings that come with that of pain and anger can weight you down. When you choose to forgive the person, that weight is lifted because you are not carrying that heavy feeling with you any longer. The decision to forgive is truly for our own mental and spiritual self, as the other person may or may not know that they have hurt you or sometimes may not even care that they hurt you.

By practicing forgiveness, we are choosing to imitate Christ. He forgave others who did not ask for forgiveness such as the soldiers who were casting lots for His clothes while He hung on the cross dying for their sins. Jesus forgave others who acknowledged their sin as well. It is our responsibility then to choose what we are going to do when someone hurts us, forgive or not.

I encourage everyone to examine your heart and see if there is anyone who you have not given forgiveness to whether they have has asked for it or not. Carrying that weight around is extra weight we don’t need to carry with us. Ask God to help you choose forgiveness when it is needed. He understands that it is hard to forgive when you are hurt but He will help you work through the pain.

“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'”

When I come to this part of the Lord’s Prayer, I sometimes think of the Israelites and how God was giving them food each and every day. The food only lasted for that day and they had to trust Him that He would provide food again for them the next day.

I believe that Jesus was not only talking about food, but that He was also talking about our needs in general. Asking to be supplied with what we need for the day whether that be food or financial help or emotional help, can be considered asking for “our daily bread”. The level of trust that is evident in the prayer in amazing because it feels like we, as God’s creation, do not tend to rely on Him in that manner as much in this day and age as we did in Jesus’s time.

We believe ourselves to be more self-sufficient now than before. We are able to store food for future use, save money for the future and believe we can handle ourselves more than we did before. However, until we truly understand that we are more dependent on God than we believe, we are going to struggle when it comes to trusting Him for our daily bread.

Do you ask God each day to supply your needs for that day? I know this sounds like it is not needed in our world of convenience, but going and asking God to supply what you need for the day is a wonderful way to remember that we are dependent on Him and should be relying on Him daily.

“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'” Matthew 6:9-13 NIV

As Jesus continues this prayer model, He is showing us that not only are we to acknowledge God’s holiness and worthiness of praise, but we are to submit to God’s perfect will. We go about life usually with a plan in mind and hoping that what we want is what is going to happen. Sometimes our plan or will for our lives matches God’s plan or will for our lives and sometimes it does not.

The level of submission that Jesus is demonstrating here is a level that a lot of Christians struggle to attain. Jesus is saying that no matter what it is that the person wants, God’s will should take precedence and be the plan or will that occurs. It occurs in heaven that way and the idea is for it to occur on earth that way as well.

This section of the prayer can be viewed as a wanting of God’s will for everyone in general and at the same time it can be viewed as asking for God’s will to be done on a personal level, for the person praying the prayer. Either way, praying this type of prayer can be scary for us because we like to have some sense of control over what is happening in our future, which this removes.

When you have prayed this part of the prayer before, have you really meant that God’s will be done? I know there are times when I have prayed it and not really meant it and then there have been times when I sincerely meant for whatever God’s will was to be done. Unfortunately, most of the time when that happens, I have been in a situation where I do not know how to move forward. My goal as God’s child is to say “Your will be done” and mean it all the time.

Lord, help us as we grow in our communication with You. We don’t always see the bigger picture and we want our will to be the one that occurs. Continue to guide us in submission to Your will. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

I finally received my Author’s copy of my book today. There seems to be nothing different about it. I want to thank everyone who has purchased the book and taken the time to read it. I am excited to see what God does with it.

“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'” Matthew 6:9-13 NIV

The Lord’s Prayer. Most people who have been to church of almost any denomination, for any period of time in their lives, know this prayer. This passage of verses is part of the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus gave. There are many topics covered during the time that Jesus is giving the Sermon on the Mount and prayer, in my opinion, is the most important. It is our way of communicating with our Heavenly Father, our Lord and Savior.

The Lord’s Prayer follows a time of instruction that Jesus is giving that has to do with not performing religious or charitable activities solely for others to see you doing it. Jesus says that everyone should be charitable in secret so that there is no praise from the people around the person being charitable. No one is to do what they do simply to be noticed by others.

Jesus talks about prayer in the same way, it should also be done in private so that the person is not getting praised by those around them for praying. He then instructs them how to pray to God and gives the following verses as a way to communicate with God the Father.

I am only going to talk about the bolded portion of the passage, verse 9, today. Jesus tells the crowd that they are to begin the prayer by acknowledging that they are talking to their Father Who is in heaven. The instruction is the same for us. He is all of our creator and just like parents and children, we all should address Him as our Father. This also is a way of us showing reverence to God.

The very next thing Jesus says we are to do is show our adoration. “hallowed be Your name” is showing God that we praise Him and we worship Him because He is holy. Getting ourselves in a mindset of praising God, showing Him How worthy of praise He is to us and that we know He is holy, helps us understand the importance of how we communicate with our Heavenly Father.

I believe that we should be very intentional with each section of the Lord’s Prayer and not run through it as a rote memorization exercise. It is so much more. Join me tomorrow as we continue to look at the Lord’s Prayer.

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:9-11

The book of Philippians is a letter from Paul where he is not only thanking the Philippians for sending him a gift, but he is encouraging the believers in their walk with God. In the second chapter, Paul is talking about how we, Christians, can imitate Jesus. The idea of trying to think, talk and act the way Jesus did during His life on earth, can be overwhelming at first. However, as we mature in our faith, the idea of trying to be like Jesus becomes less daunting because we know that we are not doing it alone. We have the Holy Spirit with us at all times, helping us.

In the verses leading up to verses 9-11, Paul is talking about how the Philippians and Christians of all times, can begin to think like Jesus. He talks about having the same mindset as Jesus, one of humbleness and servitude. Paul then informs the Philippians that because Jesus was humble, gracious, faithful and obedient to God and His will, that God exalted Jesus.

In the verses for today we see that Jesus is exalted to the highest place and given the name that is higher than any other name. We also see that every person will acknowledge and bow to Him no matter who they are or where they are. As we have free will, this will not happen until the final judgement but at that time, even those who hate Jesus or what He stands for, will acknowledge Him. There will be no one, not even those who have chosen to follow the devil, that can deny that Jesus is the rightful ruler of everything.

Since we have free will, it is still up to us at this time to decide if we are accepting of Jesus, His sovereignty, and following Him or are we choosing to either deny His sovereignty or ignore who He is and go on with life as we want. The choice is ours right now, but there will come a day when we will no longer have a chance to change our choice.

Lord, I pray that anyone who is not chosen to follow You at this time be given the opportunity to understand who You are so that they may change their choice of not following You. Place people in their lives to help them learn about You. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:14 NIV

Moses is talking to the Israelites in a very emotional moment in this verse. They are at the edge of the Red Sea and the Egyptians are about to catch up to them and overtake them. At that moment, as the Israelites are scared that they are about to die, Moses reminds them that they serve God. He tells them that God will fight for them, but they have to trust, believe and remain calm.

I can imagine their fear was great, but God is greater. As the Egyptians came closer, Moses did as God instructed him to do. He lifted his staff over the sea and the waters parted. The Israelites crossed the sea on dry land, not muddy land, not wet land, but dry land. God delivered them, He fought for them and they just had to not try and solve the problem themselves. They needed to be still.

For Moses to tell the Israelites to be still as thousands of Egyptian chariots, horses and soldiers were racing towards them, took a great deal of courage. There were thousands of Israelites and they were panicking. When someone is panicking, it is very hard for them to think rationally or listen to logic. As Moses told them to stop and be still, they could have overtaken him, harmed him out of fear and frustration that they had walked all this way to then die, but they didn’t. Moses wasn’t sure exactly how God was going to save them but he knew God would and they just had to be still.

There are many times that the idea of being still is hard for me. I become anxious about a situation and feel like I need to fix it right at that moment, instead of letting go and letting God do what He is going to do. Being still is hard for a lot of people and in this verse, the Hebrew word that is used actually means to not only stop talking or complaining but also to stop moving. It literally means to be ‘still’.

When we stop relying on God for small things in our lives, the things we believe we can handle all by ourselves, we can get in trouble. We can become used to doing it all ourselves and forget that we serve God and our God can do anything. I am not saying that we shouldn’t do for ourselves what we can, but we shouldn’t cut God out of the equation of how we are going to do it either. It is easy to rely on God when we see no other way or the challenge is so big that God is the only way to solve it. However, He wants to be involved in each part of our lives, not just when we see no other way other than relying on Him.

In each situation, as we come to God, we need to practice the idea of being still. When we become still, not talking or wishing and physically not moving, we can hear God talking to us. We can’t hear Him when we have everything else going on because God doesn’t yell to talk to us, He whispers. He wants to know that He has our attention, that we want to hear from Him. He doesn’t want to have to fight to get our attention.

So, how hard is it for you to be still? Do you include God in all of your situations, big, small, important or trivial? He wants to have that relationship with us, He didn’t send Jesus so we can only have Him involved in our lives during the ‘big’ times. God created us, loves us and wants to be a part of our lives each and every day.

My question for you today is this…..

Will you let God fight for you?

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10

In the Gospel of John, John is writing to the new Christians in his time and he was explaining who Jesus is. As in other books of the Bible, John is recording what Jesus has said and done. Jesus used common examples from everyday life to explain to the people around Him, Who He was and what He was able to do.

In the 10th chapter of the Gospel of John, John records that Jesus is talking to the crowd around Him which included Pharisees, those who thought of themselves as the individuals who knew and practiced the true and pure ways of the Jewish religion. As Jesus did many times, He uses a common job, role or item to explain a spiritual concept, and in this case Jesus is describing what He has come to do for mankind.

Jesus used the role or job of a shepherd for this explanation. A shepherd was a common job in Jesus’s time as most of the population either had a shepherd in their family or knew a person who was a shepherd, so they were be able to relate to the duties of a shepherd.

A shepherd’s main job was to keep his flock of sheep safe. He is to do whatever it takes to protect them, feed them, care for them. In turn the sheep will follow their shepherd’s voice and commands as that is who they know to be their protector and provider. The sheep can tell by the tone of the shepherd’s voice if it is really him, as his voice is full of concern and love for his sheep. So as Jesus talks to those around Him, He compares Himself to the shepherd and His followers to the sheep.

In the first half of this chapter, Jesus addresses false prophets, those who are only pretending to be the Shepherd. Those who actually want to harm the sheep. Jesus describes these individuals as a thief. A thief has only selfish thoughts and they want what they want, which is usually to harm others, take what others have and leave tragedy behind.

Jesus uses this particular comparison to show that as a thief is coming only to cause harm to others, He, Jesus is coming to provide safety and life. Life, that is not just an existence but life that has true and deep meaning to it as the person lives life connected to Jesus. In the last part of this verse, Jesus says that He wants us to have a life that is to the full or in other translations it says more abundant.

More abundantly refers to having a life that contains more than what is absolutely necessary to live. Jesus wants that for us, He wants us to have a relationship with Him that is so much more than just a religious connection to God. He wants us to live a full spiritual life while we are on this earth but also He came to ensure that we were given the opportunity to choose life in heaven for eternity with Him.

Choosing heaven is the gift that we receive when we are saved. To be saved we need to admit that we have sinned, need forgiveness of those sins, believe in Jesus, and confess with our mouths that He is our Lord and Savior. Jesus wants us to be with Him for eternity. He does not want us to believe and follow false prophets, those who present themselves as people who are messengers of God, but in reality are messengers of the devil.

Who do you choose to follow today…the thief or the Shepherd?

Today, I encourage you to examine who it is that you follow.