A reflection on words

 

9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. - James 3:9-10

Our words have the power to bless or to curse. Words have power both to negate or confirm. A good word can edify. It can encourage someone to keep going. It can even give life direction to those who lost their way. Not only our words can bless others, but they can also motivate others to glorify God. Our words declare His great works. They testify to His limitless mercy and praise His wonderful ways. The truth is these are the main use of our tongue. To bless others, bless God and in doing so, we bless ourselves too. The question we need to ask ourselves is this: do we use the power of our tongue to bless? Are our words too negative that cause discouragement to others? Do our words build up or destroy? Do our words make people closer to God or otherwise? Lord, I know my tongue often gets ahead of my mind and heart. I am quick to speak and I repent of the many thoughtless things I have spoken. I am sorry for words I have spoken in anger or in gossip. Please help me to see when I am about to speak without thinking and to check my heart. Help me be slow to speak. Help me Lord to be a person full of loving words, full of your Spirit, overflowing with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control. Amen.* *Prayer online by Debbie Przybylski

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Meeting Our Needs

Philippians 4:19

“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus.”

The Bible reveals God as our provider. Throughout the pages of Scripture, God is portrayed as the one who sees and cares for all of our needs.

Today we are examining the wisdom we can extract from Paul's New Testament letter to the church in Philippi, which was founded around 50 AD. Paul is sharing four important truths about having our needs met by Christ, Himself.

What can we learn from Philippians 4:19?

One

Paul uses the words “my God.” We can take comfort in the fact that God knows us intimately and deeply and is our personal provider.

Two

Paul tells us, “my God shall supply.” If we seek God, we can allow Him to supply whatever we need.

Three

Paul reports that God shall meet “all your needs.” This is where we have to separate out our desires from our needs. God will give us what we need to develop into the persons He originally created us to be.

Four

Finally, Paul asserts that God meets our needs “according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus.” God's giving is not merely giving from His riches, but according to His riches. In other words, Christ, Himself, is the prize, not what we can gain from Him. It is a critical distinction.

One Minute Reflection

What do you need out of God's riches today?

“After the Lord has tried our faith, he, in the love of His heart, gives us an abundance. For the glory of His name and for trial of our faith, He allows us to be poor and then graciously supplies our needs.”- George Muller

True Humility

James 4:10

“Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up.”

James made it clear that God will lift up those who live a humble life that honor Him.

What is true humility?

It means seeing God as the gracious giver of everything and seeing ourselves as sinful and needy in His presence.

Ultimately we need to get the focus off our own abilities and trust totally in God, so that He gets all the glory and our own light is merely a reflection of all He has done.

How do we keep our humility in check?

1. Routinely confess our sin to God
2. Always keep God's Grace in view
3. Remember that all we have comes from God
4. Invite God to search and expose places where pride has taken root
5. Get on our knees as an act of humility before God in prayer

True humility is a place where our pride is abandoned and our hope is lifted.

It is when we admit our need and claim our dependence upon Almighty God.

One Minute Reflection

What area of your life could you demonstrate more humility?

The true way to be humble, is not to stoop until you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature. – Philip Brooks

Excerpt from Tracy Fox, Having A Heart For God Devotional: 365 of the One Minute Bible Study

What Are You Thinking?

Proverbs 23:7 

“For as He thinks in His heart, so is He."  

Many philosophers take this idea but God said it first in the book of Proverbs. We are what we think.

What we think, is what we become.

The happiest and most fulfilled people are those who focus on the Word of God and His promises. They are intentional about maintaining joy and gratitude to honor God with their lives. We can have the same experience. If we want to be happy and joyful, we must affirm all the good and it becomes part of our nature to emit joy.

Here Are Some Suggestions For A Happy and Successful Mindset

1. Start your day with Scripture: "This is the day the Lord hath made - let me rejoice and be glad it in" (Psalm 118:24)
2. Do not speak negative words about other people, situations, or feelings
3. Thank God for everything in your life - both the good and the bad.  Then remind yourself that God has a better plan in mind when we place our trust in Him
4. Expect only the best and then go get it
5. Be careful what you think about: As Philippians 4:8 reminds us, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

One Minute Reflection
What do you think about all day long?

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you are always right."  (Henry Ford) 

Excerpt from Fox, Tracy. Having A Heart For God Devotional: 365 Days of the One Minute Bible Study (Kindle Locations 474-503).

Discipline of Prayer

1 John 5:14-15 

 “And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.” 

Prayer is a discipline that completely transforms our lives!

Why?

The more we understand the heart of God, the more we are taught to see things from God's point of view and not just our own. 

 

When we plug back into our Creator, He gives us the answers we seek.

Christianity's heroes of the faith have viewed prayer as the most important activity of their lives.  Jesus, Moses, David and the Apostles invested a regular part of their day in prayer.  Other great inspirational leaders such as Martin Luther, John Wesley, Charles Stanley, and Billy Graham - all have proclaimed the discipline of prayer as the most important of spiritual disciplines.

Prayer is something we learn and cultivate over time.  The more time we spend in prayer, the better we get at it.  The Bible teaches that prayer makes a difference in the events and situations of our lives.

Prayer is so important that it is mentioned over 250 times in Scripture.

In 1 John 5 above we are reminded of several things:

Prayer gives us an opportunity to share all aspects of our lives with God

Prayer gives us the chance to express our gratitude for the things God provides

Prayer provides the platform for confessing our sin and asking for help 

 Prayer is an act of worship to acknowledge that God is really in control of our lives

During prayer, we find communion with God

One Minute Reflection

How much more time could you dedicate to prayer this week?

"Fight all your battles on your knees."(Charles Stanley) 

Excerpt and adopted from Tracy Fox, Having A Heart for God: 365 Days of One Minute Bible Study. 

Audience Of One

Matthew 6:1

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in Heaven.”

Most of us, whether we are aware of it or not, do things to please an audience. This has become increasingly true in our modern, publicity-seeking, popularity-concerned, reality-television, social media based society.

The question is not whether we have an audience but which audience we have.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we should only be concerned with God being our number one fan. When we take this pursuit seriously almost all of our endeavors are transformed.

God has designed each of His commands for our benefit: to protect us from harm and help us develop a foundational contentment, regardless of circumstance.

Jesus makes it very clear in our passage today that we are not to practice our righteousness in front of others because if we do, we will receive no reward from our Father in Heaven. When we live only for God’s praise, we realize that His commands are actually blessings in disguise.

If we want to create a tangible difference in our own call as Christians, we need to grow in our awareness that only one opinion ultimately matters.

Our desire should be to please God alone.

One Minute Reflection
What audience do you care about and why?

“I have only one audience. Before you, I have nothing to prove, nothing to gain, nothing to lose.” [Winston Churchill]

Tracy Baumer Fox, Having A Heart For God Devotional: 365 Days of the One Minute Bible Study

Wait Upon God

He [Daniel] prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to his God.- DANIEL 6:10

The more I think of and pray about the religious situation in our country, the deeper my conviction becomes that Christians do not realize the aim of conversion is to bring them into daily fellowship with the Father in heaven. For the believer, taking time each day with God’s Word and in prayer is indispensable.

Each day, we need to wait upon God for His presence and His love to be revealed. It is not enough at conversion to accept the forgiveness of sins or even to surrender to God. That is only a beginning. We must understand that we have no power on our own to maintain our spiritual life. We need to receive new grace daily from heaven through fellowship with the Lord Jesus.

This cannot be obtained by a hasty prayer or a superficial reading of a few verses from God’s Word. We must take time to come into God’s presence, to feel our weakness and our need, and to wait on God through His Holy Spirit to renew our fellowship with Him.

Then we may expect to be kept by the power of Christ throughout the day. It is my aim to help Christians see the absolute necessity of spending time with the Lord Jesus. Without this, the joy and power of God’s Holy Spirit in daily life cannot be experienced.

Heavenly Father, as I come into Your presence, I desire to know more of You. Teach me to wait quietly, with expectation that You will reveal Your love to me. I surrender all to You, Lord. Amen.

Andrew Murray. 3-Minute Devotions with Andrew Murray (Kindle Locations 33-46). Barbour Publishing, Inc. Kindle Edition

Made for each other

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. - Proverbs 27:17

We are made for each other. Yet making relationships work, let alone making them flourish, is often remarkably difficult. We all know that justice matters, yet it slips through our fingers. We mostly know that there is such a thing as spirituality and that it’s important, yet it’s hard to refute the charge that it’s all wishful thinking. In the same way, we all know that we belong in communities, that we were made to be social creatures.

Yet there are many times when we are tempted to slam the door and stomp off into the night by ourselves, simultaneously making the statement that we don’t belong anymore and that we want someone to take pity on us, to come to the rescue and comfort us. We all know we belong in relationships, but we can’t quite work out how to get them right. The voice we hear echoing in our heads and our hearts keeps reminding us of both parts of this paradox, and it’s worth pondering why.

“We were made for each other” is a profound statement of reality, echoed in the proverb—for it’s in the community that we are shaped and find our sharpened selves. It’s also a signpost of a deeper reality, telling us there is a road ahead that leads to goodness. Lord, thank you for making me for the community; may I become more like you through others’ help. Amen.

N. T. Wright. Faith That Matters: 365 Devotions from Classic Christian Leaders (Kindle Locations 409-422). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

God lives in Everywhere

The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. – Acts 17:24-25

Creation is the temple in which God dwells. It is a living temple, a holy place without walls. There are no walls that can contain God; there are no walls that can keep God out. There is no place where God is not; there is nothing from which God is absent. As a seed is in the flower that sprouts from it; as a child in the adult that she becomes; as spring is in the river that flows forth from it; as food is in the body that it fuels—so too does God the Creator reside within creation.

Sometimes you may have difficulty believing that God lives even in hatred, in chaos, in pain, and in death. But there, especially does God live, as a redeeming presence. God does not eradicate hatred, but overcomes it with love; does not eliminate chaos, but moves it toward order; does not abolish pain, but convert it into wholeness; does not end death, but resurrects it into life.

Celebrate God as a dynamic, creating, transforming presence. God is the Source and will not be separated from the world. Remind yourself as often as possible: God lives in everything.

Excerpt from Having the Mind of Christ by Paul E. Miller & Phyllis Cole-Dai

Healing may take time*

He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Can you see anything?” And the man looked up and said, “I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesus laid his hand on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. – Mark 8:23-25

In today’s scripture, Jesus healed the blind man gradually. When his sight was not immediately restored, the man staged with Jesus and followed his direction until the healing was complete. This requires patience.

As we have previously noted, healing does not always come on our timeline. Furthermore, it does not always come in a form that we want or expect. In the scriptures healing means wholeness. Wholeness is not the same as the perfection of all the parts. You can be whole and still have some physical problems that will not go away. If you are deaf or lame, for example, you can be whole even though you may never be able to hear or walk. Although you have physical challenges, you are not prohibited from experiencing the fullness of lie as God intended it to be.

In the same way, you can be a whole person and still have some life challenges that will not go away. You can still celebrate wholeness even part of your life is less than perfect.
Find a person who experiences a chronic physical problem. Ask this person to share his or her story with you. You might ask several of the following questions:

1. What it has been like to struggle with your pain, weakness, or limitation?
2. In what ways have you experienced the power of God working in your situation?
3. How have you been blessed because of the difficulty you experience?
4. What transformation has happened in your attitudes, your faith, or your relationships as a result of the problem?

As you converse with this person, listen for his or her own sense of wholeness. And celebrate that you, too, can feel whole even when some parts of your body or your life are less than perfect.
Healing may take time.

*Excerpt from Having the Mind of Christ by Paul E. Miller & Phyllis Cole-Dai

Higher Calling

"I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:14).


Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, told a story about a goose who was wounded and landed in a barnyard with some chickens. He played with the chickens and ate with the chickens. After a while, that goose thought he was a chicken.

One day a gaggle of geese flew overhead, migrating home. They gave a honk up in the sky, and the barnyard goose heard it.

Kierkegaard said, "Something stirred within the breast of this goose. Something called him to the skies. He began to flap the wings he hadn't used, and he rose a few feet into the air. Then he stopped, and he settled back again into the mud of the barnyard. He heard the upward call, but he settled for less."

Is there a chance that this story is about you? Are you settling for being less than you know in your heart God has called you and created you to be? It's not just for your sake that you must respond to God's call on your life — it's also for all the other meaningful people in your life. The longer you wait before answering, the more annoying your life becomes to those around you. There are few things as disruptive to the peace and well-being of other people than a person who is running from God. How many lives are being distressed because you won't answer the call? And besides, are you really that happy clucking with chickens?

Rylisms: Daily Devotion, by Pastor James Ryle
The photo is taken from Google images.