For His Honor

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28 NIV

I want to start with the third word “know” which is different than “believe”. To know something is to be aware of that something and have facts about that thing. Believing is hoping for but knowing is conviction of truth. As Christians, we need to make sure we know when it comes to God and what He is capable of and not just believe. Because we know, we keep moving forward with God.

“In all things” means ALL, not some, not just a few, not this one and not that one, ALL things. All things includes every part of our lives, the good times and the bad times as we describe them. The good times when we feel we are being productive, successful, encouraged, happy, and our lives are moving in the direction we believe they are to be moving in. The bad times when we feel we are unproductive, failing, miserable and events in our lives are not what we want them to be.

“God works for the good” is a tricky part of the verse because our definition of good is not always the same as God’s definition. Our definition of good typically means that every moment of our lives will be stress free and without conflict. Which we all know is unrealistic, but we hope for it anyway. God works for the good can be described as God taking each and every situation we face, our reactions, the resolutions of those situations and weaves good through it so that His will is able to be completed. As His children, we know that His will is what is best for us, since He can see everything and knows everything.

“of those who love Him” is an obvious because as His children we love Him, we are following Him, and have declared Him as our Lord. For those who have not done that, He is not going out of His way to work things for good. Now, He will work things for good if His will is involved in the situation. There is nothing He can’t do and He will not have His will stopped. We also show our love by being obedient to His will.

“Who have been called according to His purpose”. We are all called but only some of us accept that call and come to the Lord. Only some of us have decided to follow God and only some of us have given our lives over to God. When we do this we are lining up our will with God’s will and we are trying to walk the path the way He wants us to walk.

We can not take this verse to mean that everything always works out for our good, the way we want everything to work out, we need to understand that God’s will is perfect and that He will work situations out to further His will.

“He is the sole expression of the glory of God [the Light-being, the out-raying or radiance of the divine], and He is the perfect imprint and very image of [God’s] nature, upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty word of power.” Hebrews 1:3a AMP

I recently heard a teaching on this verse and it made me stand back and look at our world differently. Normally the focus of this verse is about the deity of Jesus, He is both man and God. That He paid the ultimate and final price for our sins, thereby purifying us. That when He was done He sat down to the right of God the Father, a position that was seen in Jesus’s time as a position of honor.

However, that is not what I wish to focus on, the bolded section of the verse is what I would like to discuss. The teaching I heard talked about how this section described the absolute power of God the Son. This world is held together by Jesus’s mighty word of power, He doesn’t even need to exhibit the power, just say the words. Our world is amazing. The stars stay in the sky because Jesus tells them to, the sea doesn’t over run the land because Jesus tells it to and all of the planets stay in their rotations because Jesus tells them to.

We have just the right amount of gravity to let us walk around without floating away or being stuck to the ground. The gravitational pull is perfect in that the sky doesn’t fall and the land or sea doesn’t float up to the sky. If the combination of oxygen and carbon monoxide was off just the slightest we wouldn’t be able to breath. If light moved any slower or faster, we wouldn’t be able to see it and if sound waves were shorter or longer, the experience of hearing would be different. That is how amazingly perfect our God made this world.

Our world is full of wonder and I hope that you can take some time today to stop and take it all in. Stop and look around you, pause and see all the wonders of God. God created all of this for you and me, for us!

“I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.” Psalm 63:4 NIV

David wrote these words to God as a way of telling God how thankful he was for God’s unchanging love. In the earlier verses, David finds himself in the wilderness running from men chasing him. During that time, he becomes tired, thirsty and hungry, so he uses those experiences as a way of describing to God how much he desired to praise Him and communicate with Him. David had a special relationship with God, his heart was wanting what God wanted.

Because David’s heart was for God, he wanted to praise God, and he talks about raising his hands in the name of the Lord. One position of worship that individuals used in Biblical times was raising their hands towards the heavens. It didn’t matter if they were standing, sitting or kneeling, raising their hands was a way that they praised God. There are people who use that same posture of worship and praise now.

Wanting to be expressive while you are praising God is a wonderful way to worship Him. It doesn’t matter what position you are in, where you are or who is around you, when you have the desire to worship God there should be nothing that holds you back. So go ahead and sing, dance and lift your hands if that is how you want to praise our wonderful God.

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10 NIV

In chapter 40, the previous chapter, Isaiah is talking to the Israelites about the comfort of God, and here he continues with that idea of God wanting to help and be there with them. God is saying to them ‘ if you are afraid, understand that I am here with you, and you don’t need to worry, because I am your God’. He goes on to ensure them that if they are weakened, He will give them strength and hold them up.

What an amazing verse from our Lord and Savior. The Creator of the entire world is concerning Himself with the people of earth, wanting to help them and us. The Israelites viewed God differently than we view Him. They didn’t have the privilege of knowing or hearing about Jesus as the Jewish people in the first century did or that we do. We view God as a caring God, where the Israelites viewed Him in a more punitive way.

In this chapter and especially in this verse, Isaiah has recorded what God says to the Israelites in a loving way. It reminds me of a parent who comforts their child who is afraid of the dark or a thunder storm, by saying to the child ‘I am here’. As children of God, we never have to worry about being alone. God is always with us and we just need to become still and feel that He is there.

“The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” Psalm 27:1

When I was a child, I was afraid of the dark. The unknown of what was out there just seemed to chill me to the core. My childhood was filled with abuse and the inability to control my surroundings drove me to want to know what was going on around me at all times. The dark does not allow for you to know what is going on around you because you cannot your surroundings.

Thinking of my Lord and Savior as my light gave me comfort because with God in my life, I don’t have to fear what is in the dark. The same is true for other areas of my life. I used to be so afraid that events were going to happen to me that I wouldn’t be able to handle. Someone was going to die or leave me and I was not going to be able to keep myself together or worse I would not be able to survive.

Over the years some of those fears have come true and it was in those moments that I learned that even if I fell completely apart, I was going to survive but only because I had chosen earlier in my life accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. At each of those pivotal moments, I was faced with a choice, to lean on God or start down a dark path. Thankfully, I had a foundation of who God is and what He means to me that I was able to choose to place my trust in God. God placed in my life other people who were there physically when each one of those moments occurred. I know that God was the One who placed them there. I also spent time away from other people during those moments, but I was not alone, God was with me.

Now those fears have lessened and some of them have even disappeared but that is only because God has shown me that no matter what happens, He is not leaving me and He is my stronghold.

Who is your light?

“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.