Liar! Liar

She's a liar and she can't be trusted. Every time you've given her your heart, she mishandles and mistreats it. And other relationships you've had haven't been much better. Or....the truth just isn't in him. You forgave him for his lies and deceit, and he shows his appreciation with more lies and foolishness. Come to think of it, no friend...no family...nobody seems to be trustworthy and dependable like they should be. You have searched your world over and nothing is as it seems to be. Well, that's just it. Nothing is...not even that liar, cheater, deceitful friend, or that problematic family member that you have so readily sized up. Look at them a little closer. The person that is hurting you is hurt too.  There likely has been several events in his/her life that has lead them to devalue honesty and truthfulness. They likely grew up not experiencing much honesty, so for them it's not real. People like this hurt others around them whether they intend to or not because their own misery is so overflowing that it can't help but to seep over into the lives of those they are around. The real truth is, you never should have fully trusted that person to begin with. They are human and, therefore, dishonesty is inevitable. The same could be said of you. Yes, you. Just like them, you'll mess up too. Maybe not on the same level, or in the same way, but it's all the same. Every one of us does wrong and mistreats the ones we love one way or another. We especially mistreat the one who loves us best, God. We don't honor him like we should. We aren't totally open and honest with him about who we are. We think we can fool God. But God never disowns us. His love is different. He doesn't just love. Love is who God is. His love is absolute, unchanging, relentless. That is how he wants our love for one another to be. So even if you have to separate yourself from the person who is hurting you, because that is sometimes necessary. Don't disown them. Even if you feel led to never be around them or say another word to them, you can still pray to God on their behalf. Ask God to redirect their thinking and restructure their heart. The word says God has the power to turn people's hearts around. On the other hand, God may not allow you to separate yourself from some of those people. There may be something in you that they need to help them make a change. I am not saying give them your whole heart. Your whole heart only belongs to God. Just love on them and try to see beyond the smoke screen of their hardened hearts.   (Read I John 4:7,8 along with Micah 7:5-7)

Prayer: Lord, your word says that you love us and we also ought to love one another. It also says to pray for those who despitefully use/mistreat us. Help us love as you love and to see people through your eyes. Help us also to understand that only you can well handle our complete trust, so we should only completely trust in you.

Live for Love

Sometimes we are so filled up with our lives that we forget how to live them.  We spend our time and energy at our jobs trying to make an impression.  Or we put our best effort into keeping up our houses, cars, and clothes so we can make an impression.  Those things are all temporary.  If we want to make a true impression, we have to do it with love.  Take time to let others know how much you value having them in your life.  Say it out loud to them.  Show them with your actions.  Put your best foot forward in what really counts, your loved ones.  In time your place of employment won't care that you ever existed.  The house, car, and clothes you've invested so much in will eventually be reduced to rubble and rags.  Love, though, it is everlasting.  It is so amazing how the love that a person shows can still remain fresh in the hearts of the receiver, even long after the giver has gone.  Think of God's love.  Thousands of years have come and gone since He sacrificed Christ for us, showing the ultimate expression of love.  Yet it still fills us and affects our lives today.  Having received such a heritage of love from our Father, we should pass it on. Your grand children's children may not ever know you, but they can experience your legacy of love as it passes from generation to generation.  Go ahead and get the good job, nice home, good car, and such. But don't live for them.  Live for love.

Prayer: Lord your word says love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God.  Help us to know love and to help others to know love, because knowing love is knowing you.

Bust!

Sometimes you are so filled up on the inside that you feel like if you don't let out some of that blessed steam, you will just bust.  So do it.  Do it now.  Let your arms fly, hang your head back, open your mouth wide, and just...praise.  God is so awesome and wonderfully good that you just have to say it....or show it.  Yell it, sing it, dance it, write it, preach it, paint it, cook it, plumb it...whatever.  Like Nike said, "Just do it." God made you so that you can be a living praise to him.  There are innumerable ways to praise and there is a specific praise in you that only you can produce.  Your form of praise can be as unique as your fingerprint.  Everyone and everything has something in them that can serve as praise to God. 


In Psalm 148 the Bible says:

Praise him, sun and moon, Praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord! ...

Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word! Mountains, and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds! Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! Young men and maidens together, old men and children! Let them praise the name of the Lord..."

Wow. Stormy winds, mountains, fire, snow, fruit trees, livestock and water can praise God.  That tells us that praising God doesn't require lip service, just service.  Simply doing what our creator created us to do in a way that honors him is praise.  Still, God has given us the ability to speak and vocalizing praise to him just has to be music to his ears.  So bust!  Tell God and show God your appreciation for him.  He will love you for loving on him!

 

Prayer: Lord we praise you.  Help us to live our lives as praise to you. We love you!

Why Are You Riding Me?!

What do they want from you?! I mean how does someone ride your back and stay in your face at the same time? There they go pulling you. Now there they go pushing you. If you've got it to give, they want it all and then some. You go the distance for them and all they do is put you on a bigger track. I mean, really. What's the deal? It's frustrating and you just want to yell out, "Why are you riding me?!!!" The answer is simple. You can handle it.

Let me take you back to a moment in Biblical history. Simon Peter and some other fishermen are on the shore of Galilee having breakfast with Jesus after his resurrection. Jesus asks Peter a strange question.  He asked Peter if he loved him . Peter answered yes.  Jesus told Peter what he needed him to do.  Enough said, right? Wrong.  Jesus pulled at Peter a little more. He asked Peter a second time, "Peter do you love me?" Peter wondered why he would ask him again, but he answered him yes again. Jesus again told him what he needed him to do.  Mind you that there are other men sitting around with them at the time. Still, Jesus pushed at Peter a third time.  "Peter, do you love me?" Now Peter is flat out frustrated.  He had already answered and confirmed his answer.  What more did Jesus want from him? By this time Peter has got to be thinking something to the effect of, 'All these other men sitting here and he keeps coming at me. Why is Jesus riding me?'. Because Peter... You can handle it.  Jesus could have focused in on anyone else sitting there at that moment, but Jesus chose Peter.  He chose Peter because he knew that Peter had the zeal, power, and faith in him to get the job done.  Peter's frustration of being prodded by Jesus blinded him from seeing that Jesus was essentially handing him the torch.  Jesus was giving Peter a charge.  Let me paraphrase the moment: "Look Peter.  What I am asking you to do is critical.  I take this work very seriously and so should you.  I keep coming at you because I trust that you'll get it done."  Jesus knew exactly who Peter was and the magnitude of his potential.  He just had to press Peter a little bit so Peter would recognize it  too.

So, all said to say, when you are being pushed don't allow your frustration to cause you to overlook the point of the situation. Yes, you are being pressed.  Yes, you are being pulled.  Yes they are requiring everything of you.  Yes, they are riding you.  The point is that you can get it done.

Prayer: Lord when we are being groomed for growth.  Give us the wisdom to embrace the challenge and empower us to see it all the way through.  After all, we can do all things through you Lord.

The Waiting

What are you waiting on? Everyone is waiting on something: a promotion, a new opportunity to show up, a new love. The list goes on. Waiting can be painful and intense.  Waiting too long can make you quit.  Instead, take a little time to carefully consider what or who you are waiting on? If you are waiting on a person to make something happen, even yourself,  don't. People are limited and cannot always come through. Though they may desire to give you what you are waiting on (and some don't desire to) they may not have it in them to come through for you.  Their experiences are limited.  Their understanding is limited.  They're limited in pretty much everything.  If you're waiting on certain resources thinking that if you have them you will have 'arrived',that's not a good idea either. Unfortunately, even the best of resources are still limiting.  God is not limited, though.  His understanding, resourcefulness, and power reach far beyond what we could ever have need of. He is the only presence in our lives that is unhindered in the ability to see every intricate detail of everyone and everything around us and know exactly what fits where and what should not even be a part of our puzzle.  God knows how to orchestrate the change that you are seeking. Talk to God and ask him to order everything. Ask him to do whatever is necessary to get you beyond waiting whether you would be in agreement with his decision or not. What is so pressing about waiting is the lingering threat that what we are working for and waiting on will never manifest. What relieves that pressure is knowing that God always delivers.  He will put people in your life, adjust your situation, and/or adjust your understanding until either what you've been waiting on comes through or until you clearly see that it was never something you should have been waiting on anyway.  I've seen it happen too many times.  Wait on God. His work is always worth the wait.

Prayer:  Show us the benefits of waiting on and trusting in you Lord.

Believe

How precious are your kids to you?  Wouldn't you, without hesitation,  give your life to keep them out of harms way?  Most of us would rob, steal, and even kill if that is what safeguarding our children required. Thank goodness we have a God whose thoughts are not our thoughts and ways are not our ways.  Our father in heaven has a son we call Christ.  He loves his son dearly. He wants what we want for his Son. Safety, peace, honor, and love.  Still, because it was necessary to protect others, he removed his son from safety and allowed him to be put in harms way.  Jesus, God's son, was wise and pure and honorable.  He testified of God and God's truth.  He healed people and worked miracles that had never before been seen.  He lived a sin free life.  Nonetheless, religious leaders accused him of blasphemy and turned him over to the authorities.  The people judged him harshly.  They mocked him, ridiculed him, beat him to the point of being unrecognizable, and then hung him on a wooden cross by piercing his flesh with nails.  Even then, he asked God to forgive the people who were crucifying him.  He died on that cross. He died on that cross on our behalf.  He took on the death that we deserve and it is God's will that we honor his Son for his sacrifice.  He asks us to honor Him by believing what the Bible tells us about Him. The accounts of Jesus in the Bible are, to our minds, incomprehensible.   Believing requires accepting truths that stretch beyond what is humanly possible or easily understood.  Believing requires faith.  Faith is delicate and not easily attained.  It is precious.  It is productive.  Faith is a gift.  It is a gift that keeps on giving.  So in this season of giving, why not give someone the opportunity to develop their faith.  Find a way to introduce them to the truth of God and his Son.  Maybe give away a few Bibles.  Give some good contemporary Christian music. Books can also be enlightening.  It's amazing how a little trinket with a timely scripture on it, can open someone up to the faith.  Give someone Christ this Christmas.  Help someone believe.

Prayer: Lord the Bible says no one can get to you without going through Jesus.  In order for you to acknowledge us, we must acknowledge that it is truth that Jesus was crucified in our behalf and that he was resurrected and now sits with you in all power.  Lord increase our faith and show us ways in which we can gently lead others to believe.

Name Calling

A prayer is spoken. The presence of the Spirit is more than apparent. The heart of the prayer is unmistakable. It was a prayer from and for God. Still the spiritual conversation isn't thought to be complete until it gets the final seal. We hit it with the consummate "In the name of Jesus". STAMP. Now that prayer can be delivered and the deal is sealed. There's been a misunderstanding. We think praying in the name of Jesus means closing our prayers with the signature phrase. It has become little more than a ritualistic end to our supplication. Or some say it believing, if the phrase is left out,  the prayer won't be heard.  We are right in believing God wants us to pray in Jesus's name. Yet overtime we have lost sight of what that means. When you do something in someone else's name, you are doing it in behalf of them. You are working in representation of them to further the meeting of their goals. Their heart is your heart. You are working for what they want. So when we pray in Jesus's name, the goal of that prayer should be to speak what Jesus would speak. If we are truly praying in the name of Jesus, even if what we want doesn't line up with what God wants, our prayer is such that it is understood that God's desires trump our own. If that is how you have prayed, then there is no need for the "In Jesus's Name" stamp at the end. God already knows you prayed in His name based on the prayer itself. Subsequently, a selfish prayer won't be validated by tagging it with Jesus's name. It's important to understand this, because the power of our prayer lies in the intent of our prayer. The prayers that line up with God's heart and mind will be answered. The prayers that aren't, won't. Liken it to a new reader who can fluently decode words. They can get through a whole paragraph in under a minute. Hit them with some comprehension questions though and they can't answer a thing. They aren't really reading yet. They are just word calling. Those words don't mean anything until they can apply meaning to them.  The same applies to prayer. Putting Jesus's name at then end of a prayer is not a bad thing. It's a step.  Still, until we apply the meaning of praying in His name to the prayer, we're just name calling.  Once we do mature in our prayer life and we begin to pray with God's heart in mind and put his desires over our own, whoo.  Now that's praying.

 

Prayer: Lord your word says some of our prayers aren't answered because the intent of the prayer is wrong. Lord direct us in our prayers and turn our hearts toward you.  Bless us with our hearts' desires when the words of our mouths and the meditations of our heart are acceptable in your sight.