A Purposeful Life

“And it came to pass, when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the south, and Ziklag, and smitten Ziklag, and burned it with fire” (I Samuel 30:1).

As David’s exterior world collapsed, he returned to his interior, rebuilt his primary identity, recovered his base. David had escaped Saul, duped the Philistines, now endangered by his own men, and God brought David back to Himself and reliance upon Him.

What do you do when your world collapses? You return to your interior, the interior of where God lives. God allows trouble to bring you to where we belong. We are united and in planted in Christ. Allow God to work. Allow His discipline to take hold.

Christ is capable of living the Christian life, for the obvious and simple reason that He is the Christian life. Allow the grace of God to work in your bad situations and good situations.  As David faced much we are grateful that the Christ who lives in us is more than able to face anything and conquer

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  • A Mind to Work

    “So built we the wall, and all the wall was joined together to half of it in height; for the people had a mind to work.”  (Nehemiah 4:6)

    The people in Nehemiah’s day worked hard at that wall — almost as if they were going to finish it in one day.  It took them fifty-two days, which was quick work at that, but they labored at it so desperately that it looked as if they were trying to do it in a day.  It was that spirit that was with them which roused the attack of the enemy.

    Satan never bothers half-hearted Christian people, but once you are desperate for God and become burdened for the salvation of men, then all hell will oppose you.  Sanballat and Tobias were both the agents of Satan.  Their scorn was a cloak for something else, they were angry that the work was progressing.  If the people jeer at our Christian testimony today, it is because they have no argument against the gospel.  The world will always be angry at any message which exposes sin.

    Watch what happens when you get up with others and try to rebuild the walls that have fallen down.  See if all hell will not come against you when you rise up to build.  The enemy of God will try to ridicule and loathe the work you are trying to complete.  But if we stay away from the rubbish of the wall that has fallen, and refuse the activity of action, then you will find your own life surrounded by passivity and selfishness.  Satan has no reason to disturb you for he has you in his catch and he knows the work will not be approached.

    If we are not building then we are tearing down.  If we are not with Christ then we are against Him.  Either we will love Him or hate Him, there is no middle ground.  Thank God for Nehemiah and the people who had a mind to work, a heart to pray, and an eye to watch.  The apostle Paul said, “…I labored more abundantly then they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (I Corinthians 15:10).

  • The Third Day

    For God To Be Seen

    “And be ready on the third day; for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai” (Exodus 19:11).

     

    Why the third day? Why not the first day, the second day, or even the fifth day? Everything God does He does in His whole Person. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are in total agreement. God is three in One. All is done together to show completeness and holiness. Without oneness there is fragmentation.

     

    Everything we do we ought to do as a whole person. We are to worship God with our “whole spirit and soul and body” (I Thessalonians 5:23). What God does in us He does through us. Why? Our worship of Him effects our wholeness in the world. When we are whole-the body of Christ-then God moves.

     

    We (all born again Christians) belong to God. He has redeemed us from our old way of life (individuality of choices). We have left that life behind and we belong to God. Because we belong to God, we must be separated from sin. We are set apart from the world and set apart unto the Lord together. Why? For oneness in Him. For His glory to be revealed in us.

     

    “Whether, therefore, you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God,” Paul admonishes the Church at Corinth (I Corinthians 10:31). We are not our own for we belong to Him and therefore to each other. When we realize we belong to Him then we will begin to understand we belong to each other in the household of faith. “Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s well-being” (I Cor. 10:24).

     

    When does God reveal Himself in strength, holiness, and power? When God’s people ready themselves to become what we are already in the body of Christ: One body of believers. “Consecrate Yourselves” is for the whole church to know we are one body with many members in Him. Revival in great power happens when we see the power of the third day.

  • Let the Good Times Roll?

     

    “And that, knowing the time, that now is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Romans 13:11).

        There is an old song that was produced and sung in 1978 by the Cars.  It is entitled “Let the Good Times Roll.” Well, America was rolling in good times. She had more influence, more freedom, more stuff, more games, more concerts, more movies, more jobs, more self-absorption, more pornography, more Internet, more travel, more news, more cell phones, and more four-dollar cups of coffee than any nation in the world. Then September 11, 2001 happened!

       Somewhere between September 10th and September 11th, the stick broke, cracked, and splintered into a thousand pieces. It was on that early September morning that the world began to think. With the TV images of the planes again and again crashing into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and into the Pennsylvania field–one wonders if America will wake up from its slumber and sleep on the edge of another fateful morning.

        We are in a war and it is not time to walk out. War is a time to stay put and stay together. Wartime is a time to stay committed. Wartime is a time to forget the petty differences. War is a time to be a man and a woman of God who charges others to stand! Andrew Jackson said, “I was born for a storm and a calm does not suit me.” Paul says, “It is high time to awake!”

  • Facing the Challenge

    “Then answered I them, and said unto them, The God of heaven, he will prosper us; therefore we his servants will arise and build: but ye have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem” (Nehemiah 2:20).

    It is important to remember that all who are Christians have one life.  In the sight of heaven there is only one life that matters before God — it is the life of the Lord Jesus, indwelling each of us by His Spirit.  This is an amazing fellowship.  Because we share that one life, we share one great purpose and one great work:  it is the building of lives into the Kingdom of God, and in such a task one hundred per cent cooperation between Christian people is absolutely vital.  The greatest menace to revival is the Christian who refuses to work with other people because his view of Christian togetherness is different and short-sighted.

    Would it not make a great difference if each believer would say this before God, “Lord, I will make my own immediate locality my mission field. I will see to it that every family is regularly supplied with gospel literature, loved and urged to attend church“?  Would it not make a great difference if every believer was an example to their family and to others that the prayer meeting is the most important meeting of the week night?

    In the Christian work organizing and agonizing should go together.  Alas, too often organizing has crowded out the agonizing.  There is too much working before men and too little waiting before God.  There is more and more motion and less and less unction.  We wrestle with problems but we seldom wrestle on our knees before God against the real enemy, Satan.  We should have a ready burden at all times for the work of 100% cooperation in this work!  We have no room for the independent Christian; we are engaged in one supreme task, that of reaching this world for God, and it will take all of us.  This is how our God works.  Let’s allow the Lord Jesus to work in us and through us.

  • We Close the Door

    “In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them” (2 Chronicles 29:3).

    King Hezekiah began to reign at the age of twenty-five years of age as King of Judah. His predecessors failed to follow the Lord. The condition at the temple was so much like many churches today–closed. Closed doors speak of no access to God and no service for God. While God has set before us an open door (Rev. 3:8), yet we close it by the way we live.

    How do we close the doors of the church? We don’t witness. We don’t pray. The altar of prayer is cold. We don’t sacrifice. We think more of our lives then following the life God intends for each of us. When God looks around He sees plenty of rubbish in the church. No wonder the church of the Living God is so powerless.

    What must be done? There must be a way given–for God wants to prosper His work. God’s heart is to get us to the point of total sanctification-set apart for God. Sacrifice of one’s person to the Lord’s service and a song in the heart leads to the reopening of the doors. God must start with you and me-the preacher and the people. For if God’s servants are not clean, God cannot bless His work.

  • Estrangement Instead of Enlargement

    “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it more take away from it” (Deuteronomy 12:32).

    Sometimes we think a new location or doing something profitable will be the solution to our problems, so we change jobs, addresses, or quit. It has been well said that a change in geography does not overcome a flaw in character. A change can bring out the best in us, but it might bring out the worst in us. A faith that fizzles is a life that is in trouble.

    The nation of Israel had the opportunity to enter into the Promise Land with expectations of enlargement. Instead they enlisted entanglement among gods of the land. It revealed a heart issue. When we become so restless that we don’t go after God then we reveal our discontentment and we become entangled and faithless.

    We receive our spiritual inheritance by God’s grace, and we claim it by faith; but we enjoy it only if we are obedient to His will. The Lord died that we might be free and He lives that we may know peace in our hearts. When the Holy Spirit does not allow peace in our hearts and we are fidgety in our spirit then know that we are treading upon dangerous water.

    Criticism, cynicism, and casualness about God’s work fills the air today and the work of God suffers, causing much more than an isolated man to abdicate his love for God but also creating a rippling effect that influences others to step down instead of stepping up. What is the solution but to get more into God’s Word, stay upon the knees a little longer, and find God’s strength to get up and walk afresh and anew. God has promised joy and happiness when we stay put and go deep into Him.