For His Honor

“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.

 “So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” 1 Corinthians 10:31 NIV

I have seen this verse posted different places to remind us that no matter what we are doing we are to do our best to glorify God while we are doing it. That is a tall order but it is what we, as Christians are to strive to do…..everything for God. A new Christian may find this verse overwhelming, which I can understand. So let’s look at the context a little.

Paul is writing to the Corinthians and he is addressing the idolatry that was rampant in Corinth. Food and drink were used a lot in Paul’s time as examples of how to bring glory or not to God which is how it is being used here. As he wrote to the Christians in Corinth, he was trying to help them understand that even the smallest of things that they did could be done either for God or not. The non-Christians in Corinth were idol worshippers but were still family members of the new Christians, which meant that they were still in the Christians’ lives and ate meals with them.

Being a Christian back then, as it is now, was hard. It was a new way of thinking and living that was not steeped in years of tradition. The leader of this way of thinking and living had been crucified on a cross, one of the most violent ways to be killed in that day, as well as a way that was reserved for the worst criminals. So everything that a Christian did was looked at closely by others to see if the Christian was truly following this new way of living. If Christians chose to follow the rules of their new way of thinking and living only on some days and not others, than they were no less a hypocrite than anyone else who chose when they were willing to worship whatever idol they were choosing to worship.

Paul is trying to help the new Christians of Corinth to understand that God created us, that He is the One True God. That as His creation, He gave them free will which allows them, His creations, to choose to honor Him or to ignore Him in everything they did each day. Paul informs the Christians of his day that honoring God was not reserved for only certain days or certain actions. They were able to honor God every day and with ALL of their actions.

Paul’s teaching is relevant today as well. We are able to honor God in everything we do each and every day. Things as ordinary as eating and drinking, can be used to honor God or dishonor Him. Most importantly, our intentions in regards to our thoughts and our actions are what we should be paying attention to each day. Are we working at our job to simply pay our bills, or have we considered that maybe God has placed us in our current job to show someone the Light of Jesus through us? Do we complete our tasks around the house so that the house looks nice or could our intention be to purposefully take care of what God has blessed us with in this life?

God is alive, not like the idols made of pieces of wood, bronze, gold, silver. He can speak and interact with His creation, much like a parent is able to interact with their child. In the same way that a child can honor or dishonor their parent, we can honor or dishonor God. As His creation, His children, we can show Him how we feel about being His child.

God has given each one of us everything we need to live life on this earth, from our ability to do the tasks we need to do to make a living, to the desire to love the people in our lives. We can choose to live our lives being thankful or not. We can choose to bring honor to our Creator or not and no action is too small to be used to bring that honor.

What do you choose to do today? Bring honor to God with all of your being, in everything you do or not? The choice is yours.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23 NIV

The last area of the Fruit of the Spirit is self-control. A person who has good self-control is able to prolong gratification, make wise choices and keep their thoughts in line with the will of God. A person who does not have good self-control tends to do impulsive things, say what they are thinking as soon as it comes into their mind and make choices that end up causing them trouble at some point.

Why would self-control be part of the Fruit of the Spirit? When I think of a person who is demonstrating the Fruit of the Spirit as a whole, I think of a loving person, who puts others first, who is calm, generous and loyal. I believe that if that person was not able to control their thoughts, their feelings and/or their actions then they would not be able to be a loving, calm, generous, loyal person who puts others before themselves.

To be loving, you have to control your thoughts of distrust and hate. To be calm, you have to control your feelings of excitement or depression. To be generous, you have to control your thoughts of wanting to keep what you have for yourself and your actions of actually giving what you have away. To be loyal, you have to control all of those because our thoughts about distrust which can turn to feelings of depression. When you are depressed, you are not as likely to be thinking of others or very giving of your time or resources.

Controlling oneself can be difficult if we try to do it on our own. As we develop this area of the Fruit of the Spirit, as with each of the other areas, we need to rely on God for help. He put the seed of each one of the areas inside of us and He is the One who is able to water the seed, feed the seed with His word and help it to grow. Trying to grow or develop this characteristic in particular by your own power can be problematic because of how intertwined it is with the other areas.

Sometimes I think that this area is the hardest area to develop/grow into maturity. As the sinful, immediate gratification seeking people that we are, telling our flesh ‘no’ can be difficult. If we struggle with small areas of control such as what we say out oud or what we eat or what we watch, how much more difficult can maintaining our desire to follow God’s will be?

God asks us to make statements and perform actions that we do not have the strength to say or do on our own. The wonderful news is that we don’t have to do any of it on our own. God is willing to be with us each day, in every situation, letting us lean on Him and giving us what we need to do what He is asking. That is great, but there is one thing we have to do and that is be willing to let Him help us.

We have to be willing to say ‘Lord, please help me’. We have to be willing to follow His lead when He instructs us on what we are to say and how we are to say it. We need to follow His lead about what He wants us to do and how He wants us to perform the action. We have to be able to take whatever amount of self-control we posses and use it so that we don’t run away from God when He asks us to make a statement that we don’t believe we can make. We need to not run when He asks us to perform an action that we don’t believe we can perform.

The number of times over the years that I have argued with God about saying something to another person that I felt uncomfortable saying because I didn’t know how they would respond, is too large a number for me to even imagine. The sad thing is that what God was asking me to say may have been exactly what that person needed to hear, but I was not willing to control my fear and rely on God in that moment.

I have developed this area over the years, but I am not even close to where I need to be. Thankfully I believe God isn’t done with me yet and is still there to help me each step of the way.

Do you struggle with self-control? If you do, have you ever asked God for help in this area? Be ware though, because just like patience, the only way to develop self-control is to experience situations where self-control is required. I believe that every one of us can do this with God’s help. He is not willing to leave any of us behind, so I encourage you to go to Him and ask Him for help today. Don’t put it off, He is waiting for each one of us, patiently.

Have a great day and stay connected to God.