Prayer Matters

 
 

“Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me” (Romans 15:30).

      R.A. Torrey, a great man of prayer,  became the president of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and later the Dean of Biola in Los Angeles. Ever wonder how it all started for Reuben Archer Torrey, this great man of God?

      Reuben was a young student at Yale when he was overcome with guilt and shame of his sinful lifestyle. Sin had taken him down a dark road and it about killed him. One night in 1875, overcome with his sinfulness, he looked for a razor there at his wash basin. He was trying to locate the instrument, not to shave, but to end his life. He had rebelled against his father and mother’s upbringing in the church and it now was costing him dearly.

      Reuben did not know, but his mother was on her knees far away in another city,  praying earnestly for her son’s salvation. Reuben became burdened also, and knelt there by his bed, and prayed to God and was found by Him. Prayer became special to this dear man after this time. His salvation resulted from his mother praying and in his own praying.

   What about us? Are we praying earnestly, fervently, time-consumingly? If we were saved because of someone else’s prayer life, should we not consider that God is wanting to reciprocate that very act in our lives?

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    God desires and commands a freshness about our lives. There is to be an aroma of holiness that is fitting of Christ.  A freshness and newness of life will result when we desire Christ above all.  

    It is an odious thing to be stale and contaminated by sin. Because we have peace with God we ought to strive to rest in the peace of God that speaks volumes of a life endued  with power from on High.

    Anything that is a stench in our lives ought to be confessed and burned by the consuming fire of God. An awareness and attitude of holiness should be the prevailing function of the Spirit of God allowed to dwell habitually in our temples.

    The power of the third day is that we can confess our need and our sins before a holy God and He hears that cry. God has promised peace not only by our justification through the cross of Christ,  but also our “peacefulness” by His life freely dwelling within us.

  • Heaven Is For Real

    “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea” (Revelation 21:1).

    Too many of us do not realize that Heaven is God’s idea and not ours. We base so much from our humanness instead of God’s reasonableness. Satan has come to blaspheme God’s name and His dwelling place and those who live there (Rev. 13:6). He wants to skew God’s reality of a place called Heaven.

    Do not allow Satan to cause you to think less than God desires for you. Heaven is God’s idea for you and for me. It is the place we should long for and desire more than anything. Really, we do desire this place called Heaven. Every desire to be fulfilled and satisfied is based on the desire to go to this place and dwell there.

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    God’s people are going to a tangible place, a real place, that is designed on God’s geographical map. It is not a place of disembodied spirits, for human beings are not suited for such a realm. What we are suited for–what we’ve been specifically designed for–it is a place like the one God made for us: Earth. God has never given up on his original plan for human beings to dwell on Earth. The climax of history will be the creation of new heavens and a New Earth, a resurrected universe inhabited by resurrected people living with the resurrected Jesus (Revelation 21:1-4).

  • He’s Coming

    “…for I have provided me a king among his sons”  (I Samuel 16:1c).

    These are days of immense significance to the Christian Church.  Any of us with discernment cannot but believe the truth of the Word of God, that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back soon to take His people home and thereafter establish His kingdom.  Yet how few of us relate our lives to this significant truth!

    The church machinery is working overtime at a very severe strain trying to keep things going.  There is a great denominational cry for production.  Yet there is very little heavenly reality attached to the product.  The lasting quality of the goods is subnormal, and even borders on abnormal.

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    Remember that the Lord is coming.  He said that the last days would be days of great trial and savagery.  The flesh is more prominent today than ever and yet we are told that “greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.”  Don’t stand down.  That’s cowardice!  Don’t stand aside.  That’s compromise!  Don’t stand against.  That’s contention!  Stand Up!  That’s conviction and courage!

  • Revival God’s Way: JOY!

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  • The Third Day

    The Offerings

     

    “But the remainder of the flesh of the sacrifice [peace offering] on the third day shall be burned with fire” (Leviticus 7:17).

     

    God spoke to Moses out of the Tabernacle of the congregation (Leviticus 1:1). The offerings were now of worship and witness of Himself. Five offerings were given to Moses as God called out to him, not from Mount Sinai but from the Tabernacle.

     

    The first three offerings were “Dedicatory Offerings.” It spoke of the value of Christ’s death. They are called the burnt offering, the meal offering, and the peace offering. The offerings prefigured Christ as a “sweet smelling savor” to God, rather than as a sin offering.

     

    The burnt offering speaks of the value of Christ’s death in terms of his “devotion.” The meal offering speaks of the value of the death of Christ in terms of its “perfection.” The peace offering speaks of the value of Christ’s death in terms of His “communion” (Leviticus 3; 7:11-13; Romans 5:1; Colossians 1:20). This was not an offering to make peace, but celebrated and rejoiced in the peace already made.

     

    The power of the third day is that you and I are to experience communion in the Lord Jesus Christ daily, the same day the offering is made. Our communion in Christ ought to take us to tomorrow and then we start over again. To become stale is to lose our freshness and reality in our communion with Christ, and is meant to be cut off from fellowship. This applies not only to our quiet times, but to the holy celebration when we come together for the remembrance of the Lord in His death, until He comes.

     

  • Press On

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    When you and I see the future, we can face anything in the present. The outward form of religion is but a husk, and we must resolve to feed upon the kernel. Oh to have substance, not its shadows.

     

    We are a people stuck on doing things that draw us away from God. We draw from pleasure, prosperity, power, and prominence. And yet these things do not satisfy nor give life. In and of themselves they are nothing without Christ!
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    Take fast hold upon Christ. Take hold of that which is invisible. Have this clear conviction and devout reverence. Let criticism rattle your armor like a hailstone, stand fast and defile it all.