“There was a man…whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and shunned evil” (Job 1:1).

A little girl named Judy disobeyed her mother, she was sent to her room to think about her attitude and actions. Judy’s mother stood outside the door and listened to her child cry, then pout, and then began to pray. “Do you see, God, all the trouble you gotten me into? Last night I said my prayers and asked you make me a good girl, and you didn’t. So it’s really your fault, God, and it’s not my fault. You didn’t answer my prayer, so it’s up to you to make Mommy stop being mad at me.”

This is childish praying prayed with a childish attitude. Yet it’s not so far removed from much praying that takes place today. When the bad choices we make bring bad consequences upon our lives, we are quick to blame circumstances or other people or God himself. We pray, “God, if only my husband,” Or, “God, if only my wife,” Or, “God, if only you had brought me up in a more loving home,” Or, “God, if only you hadn’t made me to be so easily tempted.” We pray and play in the blame game too many times ourselves. When we come to God in prayer, by the way that is not coming to God, when we come to God with an attitude of shifting blame instead of abject humility and contrition, we are being as childish as little Judy.

God wants authentic mighty prayer, it begins in humility before our awesome and holy God. We are dependent upon God for our physical well-being, our emotional well-being, and our spiritual well-being. We are dependent for all. We have no power in prayer unless we learn to praise Him and recognize our complete dependence on Him.

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:24).

How do we explain…

1.   The massacre in a Florida High School.
2.   A barrage of sex scandals from Hollywood to Congress to our Seminaries.
3.   Continued attacks on Christianity.
4.   The willing slaughter of our nation’s unborn children.
5.   Growing distrust.  Violence.  Confusion.  Turmoil.

Nothing that is happening in our world today — not one act of perversion or evil — is an anomaly or an accident. What we see today are symptoms of an accelerating moral and spiritual unraveling of our country and world — the natural result of a nation that has turned away from the absolute truths found in the Bible.

The only way for change in the direction of America is the change that happens through hearts of human beings, and that catalyst is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  That change must first happen to God’s people.  W.A. Criswell said it this way, “The nation cannot turn to God if I do not turn to God.  The nation cannot repent, if I do not repent.  God doesn’t win nations or companies or crowds or throngs.   He wins souls one by one.  And the only way we can lift our nation Godward is if I am moved Godward.”

The true church can never rest and a faithful pastor’s work is never done.  We need to constantly preach to the world and to ourselves the true gospel, and strive for greater clarity and precision — not less.  By so doing, we cultivate our own spiritual growth, we protect the health of the church, and we strengthen our witness.  Salt and light is what we are to be and that is what will retard the leaven of sin.

“Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation” (Colossians 1:15).

Jesus is the uncreated Creator, the second Person of the God-Head, who subjugated Himself not in essence but in function, that He would exegete God in a language we could understand.

Do you want to know what God said? Listen to Jesus. Do you want to know what God feels? Watch the heart of Jesus as He walked among us. Do you desire to know Him? Look at Jesus upon the cross who died for our sins. Listen to His words. Do you desire to see what God looks like? Look at Jesus. Do you want to know how to live? Look at Jesus and accept Him into your life and He will live in you, through you, and for you.

Jesus is the One and Only. He is the way, the truth, and the life. There is no going to Heaven without Jesus, no knowing of the true God without Jesus, and no real living without the Lord Jesus. He is divine and eternal. He is eternally existent, intimately close, and equally divine to God.

A New Start

“For which cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).

Paul went through much of living in a culture that was antagonistic toward Christ. So many problems came and went against him, trouble on every side of him, problems that pressed hard against him, and yet he learned the secret of contentment.

Look at yourself in the mirror. Tell me what you see? I see in the mirror a man who is aging and breaking down externally. But, again,  take a look in the mirror of the Word. What do you see? Do you see the eternal springing up within you, the everlasting joy that comes from looking away from the obvious to the real?

Paul did not faint because he kept his eyes on the eternal and the internal. His daily focus was disciplined upon Christ and His Word. He learned that the outward things were temporal and could be discouraging. The things not seen were eternal and were an eternal weight of glory. What is discouragement? It is a temporary loss of perspective.

Focus on that which is unseen, the truths you know in your heart, for it is that truth that is a reality. We need to focus on the inner man. Life is passing us by. We have the opportunity to focus on the eternal and internal daily for the next 364 days of the year.

“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall fulfill the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).

Anytime you and I walk outside of the Spirit of God we are using our own thoughts and actions. We are fraudulent in our true salvation. When we were born again God the Holy Spirit baptized us into Christ. Everything we do should be in obedience stayed upon Jesus Christ.

If we walk according to the flesh, our old unredeemable nature, then we are walking alone and making decisions without God’s power and presence. Yet, God has prearranged for His children to abide in His Son. Therefore this abiding assures us of God’s mighty work through us by His Spirit.

The radical part of our salvation is that God saved us, and will save us, and does save us. He saves us from ourselves if we abide in humility and staying power.

What a great God we have. Practice the presence of Christ today in your life and see if it does not make a great difference. No longer are we running the show, which is worldly, but God is working out His plans and purpose through each of us individually. No autonomy here, just God’s economy.

“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.