Mere Life

“A cheerful heart is good medicine but a crushed spirit dries up the bones” (Proverbs 17:22). 

 

Too many people walk through life with gloves and a raincoat on, refusing to observe and experience the beauty and the wonder of the world around them and above them. So many have forgotten the privilege of not only earthly delights, but also of our unearthly purpose.
Each day has its own distinctness and its own inexhaustibility. And yet how few really realize the miracle. Just because we take it for granted, doesn’t mean it isn’t miraculous. Perhaps nothing is really ordinary.
Do not treat your faith in God as if it were an artificial limb that you strap on each day. Though faith in God is meant to be full, yet to many it only helps you to stumble along, it never really becomes an intrinsic part of you. Whatever happened to that holy wonder, that appetite for the sacred? Have we grown blind to the sacredness of everyday things and of everyday people?
It’s been said that as we get older, we don’t regret the things that we did do, but only those things that we failed or forgot to do. Life is short, and at times it is shorter than its “supposed” to be. But there is the question that troubles me far too many times: Why do we still continue to live bland, insipid lives? Why do we waste the days that God has given us? Each day comes and we forget but once in human history that each day comes!

 

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  • They Didn’t Want To Hear

    “And the children of Israel went up against the children of Benjamin on the third day, and put themselves in array against Gibeah, as at other times” (Judges 20:28).

    In the closing pages of Judges you find reports of wife abuse, blatant homosexuality, gang rape leading to murder, injustice, brother killing brother, and kidnapping.  When David Jeremiah said, “I never thought I’d see the day,” you and I have never encountered a day as the day we live in. It is bad. Violence, vice, immorality, idolatry, and blasphemy are rampant.

    This is the daily food people enjoy. TV and film violence is habitual and routinely accepted. It has become the fodder of unredeemed America. What is happening on the screen is being duplicated in the streets. When a nation is entertained by acts of violence, is there much hope for that nation?

    Brother went against brother in Israel because evil was not properly dealt with punitive action. The Word of God tells us that “brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child; and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death” (Matthew 10:21).

    Sin in the city will infect those in it and around and it will lead to war. The center cannot hold with stability. The home, the ministry, and society are disintegrating before our very eyes, and it seems as if people disdain the truth! But whether people want truth or not, the world must be told that Jesus Christ died for lost sinners, and that the power of Christ can transform homes, hearts, churches, and society if people will only trust Him.

    “Christ beats His drum, but He does not press men,” said English preacher and poet John Donne in 1631; “Christ is served with voluntaries.”

  • Gallup-Poll Faith

    “Unless the LORD of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah” (Isaiah 1:9).

    God works with a remnant of people who believe. Isaiah speaks of a remnant of real believers among the many with a Gallup-Poll faith. A Gallup-poll faith is a faith that is wishy-washy. It’s the total amount of people who say but do not behave. Their living contradicts their position.

    It takes the grace of God to preserve a trusting remnant among those who identify outwardly with Him. The remnant is not a super-spiritual elite looking down on others, but they do dare to live by faith in God. The rest are careful not to risk too much on Him. The difference does show.

    Jonathan Edwards describes a true Christian:

    “As he has more holy boldness, so he has less self-confidence…As he is more sure than others of deliverance from hell, so he has a greater sense that he deserves it. He is less apt than others to be shaken in faith, but more apt than others to be moved by solemn warnings, God’s frowns and calamities of others. He has the firmest comfort, but the softest heart; richer than others, but poorest of all in spirit. He is the tallest and strongest saint, but the least and tenderest child among them.”

    That beauty marks God’s true people.

  • Why Do We Mourn? 

    “Can the sons of the bride chamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast” (Matthew 9:15).

    One glad morning the Lord Jesus will return. There are many a tired preacher who will rejoice when He returns. There will be many a people whose hearts have been true to the One they love, who yearn for that day, and then it happens. The Lord Jesus will return to get His bride.

    What a day that will be! What a glorious day when we shall see Jesus. What a wonderful day when all we have lived for, yearned for, longed for – when Jesus shall return. What a great getting-up moment that will be. Loved ones will return with Jesus. Their bodies will be raised from the dead graves from all over, and the power of the resurrection will reverberate throughout all the kingdom of Satan, and the bodies will be released.

    We mourn when the Bridegroom is not here. But one day we will be joined to Him. The older I get, the more I see, and the better I feel about the coming of our Lord. The sin I see, the unfaithfulness that surrounds, with the nations becoming more and more like Sodom, God’s bride yearns for the coming again of Jesus.

    May we say today, “Even so come, Lord Jesus!” We are in the days when the bridegroom is not here with us physically; He has been taken from us, and we fast while we wait. We mourn for Him but it will not be too much longer when we shall rejoice! For He will be with us. Hallelujah! Amen!

     

     

  • Sinners and Their Enticement

    “My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother” (Proverbs 1:8).

    The culture will try to dictate what you are to believe and how to behave. The culture changes but the culture should not change us. We are to go into the culture and choose to confront the culture with the gospel.

    It is the job of the father and mother to teach their children the right way, which is God’s way. The father and mother choose to be the professors in the home, using the Word of God as their main text book, and with total dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

    When parents live with an agenda that says, “Me and no other” will rule and reign in my child’s life, they are setting themselves up for a fall, and their children. We are to live in the fear of God and not by our own set of fears. When we live with God’s total control over any thing that takes place in our children’s lives, then we can know God’s power. The culture entices but God’s leadership through the parents can be much stronger when children are taught with truth and love.

     

     

     

     

  • Revival

    “Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence” (Isaiah 64:1).

    Too many people are tired and worn out. They are so tired, with all of the new gadgets and technology, one would think life would be easier, but the gadgets only add to our tiredness.

    How did some of our great-grandparents do it? How did they do so much with so little and we do so little with so much? How did they bring up their children in the things of God and we just watch our children grow up?

    Is it because we are trusting in our own lives rather than the One who gives it? I pray that all of us would examine our prayer lives. How are we doing? Are we truly praying? When you and I climb to the Summit it is costly business. The bitter cold, raging winds, rarified atmosphere, the blinding blizzards, engulfing avalanches of snow and rock will try to beat us down from the climb. But it is worth it!

    God said that He would look down and come down if we invite Him. The things that wear us out are the things that are keeping us from Him and Him from us. Life on the highest plane is found as we pray, for it is the Upward Way as we press onward and upward. “Comfyness” is a sign of desertion from God.

    Someone has said that “the kingdom of God will be brought in by Christians who, when last seen, were heading toward the summit.” How true! Yes, and how thrilling! Have we allowed “iniquities to separate between us and our God?” True obedience is staying in the upward direction in prayer. It is the sign of a soul that is climbing the Summit with God.

  • Flummoxed and Flabbergasted

     
    “They will be called oaks of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:3, ESV).

    The King of Babylon had a bad night. And because he had a bad night everyone else was going to have one as well. He was confused about the dream he had. He did not understand it.

    The King’s advisers were stunned. They were asked to give the details of the dream and the meaning of it. How could they do this? Only the gods could’ve revealed what the King dreamed.

    Daniel was neither flummoxed (confused) or flabbergasted (stunned). He had FAITH in the living God. Daniel asked for an appointment with the King. He would reveal to the King what God would reveal to him (Daniel 2:16).

    Daniel asked to meet before he knew the dream and the interpretation of it. Now that is faith. That is counterintuitive courage. I will tell you the truth, I am flummoxed and flabbergasted.  How could this young man have been so sure? Daniel wasn’t stalling for time, he was asking for a time to meet with the King!

    The fact of the faith is this: Daniel knew who his God was and what He could do. Daniel was soaked and steeped in the sovereignty of God. Faith like that was not built overnight; it began somewhere and at some place.

    Here is what I want us to take from this lesson. Maturity is a slow process and so is the development of faith. But sometimes God breaks the mold and works swiftly in a man. But for the most of us, faith comes slowly, just as slowly as to the oak tree. But growth does come. Daniel knew God and so can you. God planted His seed in you when you were born again. Allow it to grow. Trust and obey for there is no other way.