The Most Important Word: Relationships

“For God so loved the world that He gave…” (John 3:16a).
There are many people who can be reached with the gospel if we are ready before God. Broken relationships hinder the work of God. When you and I set ourselves upright with God by meeting God’s conditions, then the Lord will weigh us with a burden to pray.
Something happens which is inexplicable, humanly impossible, that only God can engineer when we decide God’s purpose is more important in our lives than our own  feelings or bitter feelings we have toward someone.
God can bring more people into our lives to have their needs met when we are ready. We become fulfilled as we see the fruit of God’s Spirit impacting lives of those around us. Nothing ever becomes dynamic until we become specific in our doings before the All-Seeing God that we love. Love is meeting needs. God wants to reach others through us.

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  • The Third Day

    “Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off” (Genesis 22:4).

     

    Abraham’s son, Isaac, was the child of promise. All the hopes and desires of nations rested upon this son. Out of Isaac comes Jacob and out of Jacob the twelve tribes, and out of the tribe of Judah King Jesus. And still God told Abraham to take his son and sacrifice him. Would Abraham hold too tightly or would he loosen his grip on his son? Would he trust God or hold tightly?

     

    Corrie Ten Boom said, “Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open.” Do we trust God in all things? Is He all we need? Will God fail us? Has He really promised that if we bow to Him He will honor us?

     

    Abraham traveled three days with his son knowing the time of sacrifice was ahead. Look at Abraham’s fingers for they were not clutching to Isaac. Every step his fingers were opened. On the third day Abraham’s eyes saw the place far off and said to the others to stay behind for he and his son were going to worship and come again to them (Gen. 22.4).

     

    The power of the third day is this: When we walk with our hands open and hold to things and people loosely we can worship God. And what we give back, God takes, and what God takes, He cleanses, and what He cleanses He will use. And what He will use He gives back in a more powerful, pure, and purposeful manner.

  • Moving Away

    “Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved” (Phil. 4:1).

    We as a society have been conditioned to believe in the big, the fast, the expensive and the far away.  Whatever is big, fast, expensive, and away is the life of joy and happiness.  I am convinced that if you have to move ten inches from where you are now in order to be happy, you never will be.

    Paul was in prison for Christ, yet he was content.  Joseph was indeed in a mess down in Egypt, yet he was aware that God was working.  John the Baptist had stumbled over the timeline that God had for him, but he was learning.  The Lord Jesus operated by faith and not by feelings, and never moved from where His true peace was located.

    One can live with joy in their present circumstances and still live with expectation.  Life becomes more precious and more special to us when we look for the little everyday miracles and get excited about the privilege of simply being human.

    There is a powerful story of a young man who was seeking God.  He sought out a wise man who lived in a nearby beach house and posed the question:  “Old man, how can I see God?”  The old man who knew God at a depth few experience, pondered the question.  At last he responded quietly:  “Young man, I am not sure that I can help you–for you see, I have a different problem. I cannot not see him.”

  • Values are Timeless, not Temporary

    “And these words , which I commanded thee this day, shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7a).
    As parents, we need to see our kids at the age of the twenty- or thirty-year-olds they will one day become. This is not trying to grow them up before their time. But it is a vision that says to the world and to the culture that your children will not be had by them. We are talking about placing before them and within them the vision of training them into adulthood, growing them into disciples.
    One of the values of Scripture, for instance, that has always been before us is this matter of being not “yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Cor. 6:14), especially in the terms of the marriage relationship. Of course, this wasn’t an issue when they are only ten, twelve, and fourteen. But since this issue would arise in their lives in a short period of time, as Christians who love our God, we as parents place these values of the sanctity of Christian marital vows before them as they grow.
    It is imperative that Christian parents know their core values and express them along the way. Before you know it the child has grown before you in a manner that is faster than a speeding bullet. God has taught us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto His wisdom. Don’t start tomorrow. Begin today to make those choices that will change and bend the hearts of your children toward Christ and His Word.

  • Joy

    “Joy is withered away from the sons of men…Is not the meat cut off before our eyes, yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God?” (Joel 1:12, 16).

    Joy!  What a scarce commodity this is.  There are many who say they are abiding in Christ.  There are few who show that they are abounding in Him.  Joy seems to be elusive.  How indescribably blessed is the believer who has his soul filled with it.

    This joy is as real at the graveside as at the fireside.  Joy does not evaporate under the heat and pressure of adversity.  Joy does not collapse in the presence of calamity.  Joy does not sour under the test of poverty.  Joy is alive and deep down in the bottom of the heart of a Spirit-filled believer.

    Joy is not created by possessions, or by positions, but by a Person — Him!  Joy can stand all pressures Satan or circumstances bring against it, but, and ponder it well, the sun of joy in the soul can be eclipsed by our own disobedience.

    Joy requires two conditions:  submission and service.  “If ye abide” — submission — means staying put when you feel like quitting, or you think it smart to quit.  Joy also comes through service.  Most Christians are activists, they do a lot of things —  unprayerfully.  Winning the lost at any cost, abiding in Him, allowing Him to live through you — service — brings unqualified joy.

  • The Third Day

    An Expensive Delay Led to a Third day of Death

    “And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males” (Genesis 34:25).

     

    Jacob should have continued to Bethel. God instructed him to return to the place where he first met the Lord. But instead Jacob bought a parcel of land, pitched his tent, built a house and dallying in Succoth and buying more time in Shechem.

     

    Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom and lost his daughters (Genesis 19:30ff), and Jacob moved too close to Shechem and lost Dinah. Jacob was not in a hurry to get back to where he first met God.

     

    Jacob’s delay in obedience to the revealed will of God indirectly brought heartache to the family. Jacob’s granddaughter Dinah was raped and his two sons became murderers because Jacob tarried. When we fail to comply fully to God’s will we place ourselves and our loved ones in danger. Delay led to defilement to deception to disgrace.

     

    Don’t settle “twenty miles short of Bethel” in willful, halfway obedience. We can build our altars to God and it will not “alter” your life. Disobedience never makes up for whatever sacrifices you may give. Morally weak, still deceiving, the old nature lingers in us and we must reckon ourselves dead in Christ everyday. Pay the high cost of right actions before God. The welfare of your life and your children matter.

  • Three Days Three Nights

    “Command therefore that the sepulcher be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first” (Matthew 27:64).

    The Lord Jesus did rise again the third day. Three days and three nights in the tomb were accomplished just as He said. No amount of soldiers, edicts from Rome, nor religious power could tone down what would eventually take place.

    Why do people not desire a God who would die for them and rise again? Do they not want their sins forgiven? Do they not want the grave to be defeated? Do we not want our homes to be healed? Don’t we want what our children need in schools and in life?

    One glorious day the Lord will appear again. The stone was rolled down away for all His enemies to look into the tomb and find that He is not there. It is a reminder that He is coming again and all will see Him in that day. The child of God needs to look in for in that look we are reminded that He is not there–for in great power and provision He is seated in glory reigning from above. Child of God live in His living and find in His grace life more abundantly.