Third Day

“Therefore, I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me” (Micah 7:7).

 Three items of interest to a man or woman who is wanting to please the Lord: I will look, I will wait, and I will pray. Perception, patience, and prayer gives the soul rest for the new day.

 God has promised to come to the help of any who would call upon Him. The prophet intercedes on behalf of Israel, identifying himself with them. God saves from destruction and from deception and Micah knows it. When we pray for others something takes place like no other.

 Call upon the name of the Lord for others today. Micah’s name means, “Who is like the Lord?” We are no more like the Lord than when we pray for others. Try intercession and see if your life changes in that moment.

“Without faith it is impossible to please God…” (Hebrews 11:6).

 What is faith? Three components show us what is true faith.

 1. Knowledge of God. We learn of who God is by His Word taught to a surrendered heart by the Spirit of God.

 2. This persuasion of God leads us to agreement with God. Emotionally we are in agreement.

 3. Now motivation is given to us to embrace God. The will of a man is enacted and now faith says “yes” and acts to embrace Him.

 This faith is a whole-soul movement of intelligent, consenting, and confiding self-commitment to God. True faith involves the intellect, emotions, and volition wherein all three converge into Christ. The heart is fully functional in Christ.

 What does it mean to be unfaithful? When the soul is fragmented, broken, then we are not in tune with God and true faith fails because we fail to see God for Who He is.

When a child of God is torn between the glory of Christ and something God has made (creation) then we are fragmented. True faith is not choosing between good and evil but to act fully, joyfully, and enthusiastically toward Him because our eyes have been opened to the glory of Christ.

This is how to be firm in faith. We unravel if we are not firm in faith. If we are not firm in faith then we are not firm at all. Everything in life, not just religion, flows out of our whole-soul movement toward Christ.

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this way: When, as his mother, Mary, was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:12).

 Isaiah tells us, “For unto us a child is born” (Isaiah 9:6a), not just a child of human conception, but a child of divine representation. God who created all things created and condescended Himself into the span of a young woman’s womb. God took up residence, Himself, in the womb of a woman.

 Who would have thought of such a thing? One question would be, “Why”? Another question to ask is “How low can you go?”

 Would you be willing to become a cockroach to save the world of cockroaches from their filthiness? NO! We would not even think of it. But God became a baby, a child, and for this reason to die upon a cross to save us from our sins! To save us from our sins is to save us from physical, spiritual, and eternal death. To save us from our sins is to allow God back into you to be God in you.

“Great is the mystery of godliness,” Paul tells Timothy. God became a man so that you can become a son or daughter of God. God was born of a virgin so that you and I can become born again. Are you consciously, conspicuously, continually found with the child of the Holy Spirit within you? If not, why not?

“And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them” (Luke 2:20).

 There was only one explanation for the lives of the shepherds: God! There should be only one explanation for our lives: God!

 The Shepherds believed God. The Angels appeared to them and told them there was a Savior, Lord, the Messiah born and given unto them and for the whole world. They left the scene and searched for the babe wrapped in swaddling cloths.

These Shepherds were men who were not counted worthy of anything appearing to them from heaven, yet God thought so. They felt unworthy by their peers and yet God said that they were of value. The religious crowd considered them unclean, unintellectual, and unattached, but God appeared unto them and touched them by angels.

Afterwards the men left in search for the Lord Jesus, found Him lying in the manger and told everyone of what and who they had seen. They went on with God and didn’t stop telling the good news. The appearance of the Living Word changed their lives.

After we meet the Lord Jesus we want to be like Him. We have a sincere desire for the Word. A man without an appetite for God’s Word causes us to wonder if he is saved. We will desire as the shepherds did to be like Jesus.

There should be only one explanation for our lives. “God” is the only explanation for what we are and what we are doing. If we can explain it on any other level, we are a failure. Most Christians’ lives can be explained on a basis other than the work of God. The shepherds represent what happens when we see the face of God.

“Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).

 They (the wise men) came from a great distance, with difficulty, and even through the midst of danger, to find their Desire–the Lord Jesus. They knew that all of life was found in that Child, the Desire of nations.

 To superimpose selfish expectations onto the Bible and our own personal relationships with God is to short-circuit that which God desires. We should understand that God is anxious to “make me” rather than for Him to “give me.”

 God is the One that we must seek, the God who is, not as the God I want. Our expectations toward God is to change the desires of my heart to fit into His desires for me. To delight in the Lord is “to be soft or pliable.” We are to be soft clay in the Potter’s hands, to come before Him without any heavy demands that we want but to look to Him for who He is.

 Instead of telling God what my desires are, we are to come to understand and know Him. What is His character? What are His attributes? How can I worship and serve Him more acceptably? Then an amazing thing takes place: His desires become my desires! When I know Him I will desire what He desires and will pray and serve in that wonderful, freeing capacity.