A new thought summary will
be presented on this site every month. Follow the page down for past lessons. Please return each month for new updates.
Thank you for your support.
In Christ always
V.R. Thompson
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June 2007
Jesus' Humanity
Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Let me take you
back just a few days prior to this where Jesus’ after being told His friend Lazarus was ill delayed His trip to Bethany
until after Lazarus had died. He did this in order that the world might see God’s power and glory.
Prior to this, when Jesus performed a miracle he directed the
recipient not to speak of it but that it was to be done in secret. Not this time however, this time Jesus stood boldly in
the open before the entire world and raised Lazarus from the dead for all to see. Is it no wonder then that the following
day all of Jerusalem was worshiping Jesus as their Lord and King?
There are two verses in this story that I want to look at that
demonstrates Jesus’ complete nature as fully God and fully man.
The first is John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” We sometimes over look the fact that Jesus was fully a man just like us, the same feelings, the same pain,
the same desires and wants. Jesus felt love, joy, sorrow and pain.
The second verse is John 11:43, “When He had said these
things, He cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” Why did Jesus use Lazarus’ name? Because had
He just cried out come out, every dead body within ear shot would have stood up and walked out of their grave. Jesus had God’s
full power and authority over everything. Jesus is God!
Let us consider then as we bring the sacrifice of Jesus to mind
this Easter season that Jesus is God, but also Jesus was a man, with a man’s body, fears, pain and emotions. Let me
ask this question. Does this make his sacrifice for us all that much greater to us? This is something we each must decide
for ourselves, but when I consider what Jesus went through as a man it boggles my mind that he would go through this, but
He did. For me, for you, for all of us!
So over the course of the next few weeks as we go through the
Easter services I would ask that each of us keep in mind the humanity of Jesus. And think of the facts that as God the Father
and God the Holy Spirit, that god never in all eternity felt the fear, the anguish, the terror or the pain that he felt during
this time, the final week in His flesh and blood body. The same flesh and blood body that we have!
And yet He still went forward and allowed mortal man to stretch out his arms and nail Him to a wooden
cross so that he could say to us: Children I love you this much.
July 2007
Jesus Loves Me
The Bible (Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth)! The Bible
tells us many things;
“Jesus Loves Me this
I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
The Bible tells us
Jesus loves us all – and we accept and believe this in Faith because the Bible says so.
The Bible tells us many things however, not just that Jesus loves us all.
But do we believe and accept
all the Bible’s sayings in Faith? We should, for the Bible is God’s word, Jesus in written form.
We choose, to Follow Christ and believe, we don’t have
to, we aren’t forced to, we choose to, in faith. Following Christ is not
a feeling but rather a choice. We may feel emotion sometimes, sometimes even in a physical sense, but not always. However we always choose to follow Christ because we have faith in God’s Word and because we love
God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
We CHOOSE to follow Christ
We CHOOSE to Love God
We CHOOSE to Love others
We CHOOSE to Believe – Have Faith
We CHOOSE to Obey God
Why? Because
Jesus commands us to! His commands include – BELIEVE – LOVE GOD - LOVE OUR FELLOW MAN – GO FORTH AND SPREAD
THE GOSPEL – CONFESS HIS NAME and to REMEMBER JESUS AND HIS SACRIFICE IN COMMUNION.
August 2007
Thoughts on Being Christian is an Action:
Matthew 28:18-20
“And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given
to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to
observe all that I have
commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of
the age."
Jesus gave many teachings, lessons and examples in his ministry on how to live and treat our relationship to God and
our fellow man. He also gave us several commands – directions to action-
which all include taking action on our part. Not just believing but doing something
about our beliefs.
- Love
- Communion
- Great commission
All of these involve action on our part. We cannot just say we Love, we must show it, in our charity and our actions. We cannot just speak of the Lords Supper, we must partake of it.
We are not to just think of spreading the Gospel we are to “go” and actively spread God’s work and
physically “make” disciples for Christ.
James 2:17-19
“So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, "You have
faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works,
and I will show you
my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well.
Even the demons
believe--and shudder!”
True belief in Christ is action, not actions for profit and
gain but actions out of love and devotion. Faith does not save you but rather
you are saved by God’s grace because of your belief and faith in Christ. True,
honest belief produces works through the Holy Spirit, through the fruits of the Holy Spirit given to believers upon their
conversion.
What is true belief? It
is accepting Christ as your Lord and Savior, letting him come in, surrendering your self to Christ’s will to become
like Him. For even Satan and Demons believe – they just don’t accept
Christ as their Lord and Savior. Therefore, belief brings on acceptance, acceptance
leads to repentance, repentance leads to growing to become Christ-like. Once
we begin to become like Christ we cannot sit still, we must act, bringing forth action and works.
Even Jesus never stayed in one place just thinking about God
being His Father – He went forth throughout the land proclaiming God the Father.
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September 2007
Thoughts on intentional sin:
“For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice
for sins” Hebrews 10:26
Deliberate sin, intentional sin, these are sins that we continue to commit even after the Holy Spirit convicts us of
a particular sin. All sin is wrong but the intentional sin is open rebellion against God.
Romans 3:23,24
“for all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God, and are justified
by his grace as a gift, through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus”
Sin is anything that is outside the will of
God. Everyone commits sin, however not
everyone commits deliberate, intentional sin
(open rebellion against God). As we go
through life we all make mistakes, commit sin,
and Jesus is there for us to accept our
repentance, forgive us and put us back on the
pathway along the will of God. We must
make it our goal, our objective as Christians
to rid ourselves of all sin but especially
intentional sin.
Romans 6:1-3 and 11
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that
grace may
abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in
it? Do you not know that
all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized
into his death?… So you
also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in
Christ Jesus.”
We have died to sin, to us sin is dead and we must choose to rid ourselves of deliberate sin. If God has forbidden
an action and the Holy Spirit convicts of this then we must repent and seek forgiveness. If we slip and commit this same sin
again, again we must repent and seek forgiveness. Doing so each time until we realize, prior to sinning, what we are about
to do and STOP before we commit the sin.
Deuteronomy 30:19
“I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life”
The Bible tells us to choose “choose life”. Intentional sin is also a choice, so choose life not sin (which
brings death). Listen to the Holy Spirit within you and choose to crucify the sin in your life, over and over again until
the sin stops and doing good becomes a way of life for you. Practice makes perfect is a common saying, we will never be perfect
until we are glorified with Christ in heaven, however we can train ourselves to become more perfect, Christ-like, which is
one of our main objectives on earth.
The Japanese people have a word “KAIZEN” which means continuous improvement. We as Christians want to continually
improve each day becoming better and better, getting closer to our objective of becoming like Christ. Don’t ever give
up, keep trying, keep moving forward to your goal. If and when we slip, it is like falling off the horse, get up and get back
on. Repent and seek God’s forgiveness, God will forgive you, and go on, doing it better the next time.
“The measure of
success is not whether you have a tough problem to
deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year.”
Pastor
John Hagee
Are you getting better? Do you keep trying? Do you get up and try again? We as Christians don’t just wear a cross
or have a Jesus bumper sticker on our car, for the life we lead is different from the life the world lives. It is not if we
slip and fall, everyone does, it is that we get back up and run to God our Father for his forgiveness and love.
Micah 7:8
“…when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me.”
Romans 7:18-20 and 8:1-2
“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in
my flesh. For I have the desire to
do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do
not do the good I want, but
the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no
longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me…There
is therefore now no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of
the Spirit of life has set
you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”
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October
2007
Thoughts On: God’s
Word (Our User Manual)
Proverbs 2:1-5
“if you receive my words and treasure
up my commandments with you, making your
ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your
heart to understanding; yes, if you call out
for insight and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver and search
for it as for hidden treasures, then you
will understand the fear of the LORD and find
the knowledge of God.”
The knowledge of God! God’s
wisdom, God’s love, God’s understanding, God’s strength, God himself, they are all there inside the Bible,
God’s Word, God’s user manual given to us His children. The Bible is not only God’s love letter to us but
also an instruction manual to live by. Every problem man could encounter-every answer man needs are both contained within
the Bible.
Jesus Christ walked the earth
two thousand years ago, God’s own Son, so that we His children might obtain salvation through Him. However, more than
that Jesus has been with God since the beginning of time itself, the Alpha and the Omega (beginning and end), Jesus is also
known as the Word.
John 1:1 and 14
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among
us…”
Does this mean that Jesus and the Bible are the same? The Bible contains the very nature of God Himself within its
pages; therefore, it also contains Jesus (God’s Son) and the Holy Spirit (God’s Spirit). All are inside, waiting
for man to discover them, learn about them and come to know them.
The Bible tells us to fill ourselves with the Word, to fill ourselves to overflowing. In overflowing we spread God’s
own nature to others, bringing them to the knowledge of God. In doing this we fulfill one of the commandments Jesus left for
us, “Go and make disciples of all nations…” (Matt 28:19.
The Bible, God’s Word-our
users manual, keeps us on the right path, the straight and narrow path to God, and operating properly, just as your car’s
users manual does for it. If we use the Bible, read it, meditate on it and apply it, then the Bible keeps us on the road of
God’s kingdom. The Bible keeps us faithful, dedicated and in God’s will. Left on the shelf to collect dust however,
the Bible does nothing for anyone except act as a paperweight.
Do you have a special Bible, one with gold pages, a genuine leather binding and pretty pictures? One you won’t
use for fear of bending a page or marring the binding. If so, put it in a glass case to be admired and go out to the local
bookstore or discount house and buy you a cheap Bible that you can use. One you can read, mark in, take notes in and use until
it literally falls apart. Use it until you become so immersed in the Word that you find the true nature and knowledge of God.
Use it until you find Jesus within the pages. Jesus, your friend, your savior, your Lord, Your God!
Jesus God’s Word made flesh-the Bible God’s Word in written form.
Referance verses:
Det. 8:3
2Sam. 22:31
Ps. 33:4, 119:11 and 119:105
Pr. 30:5
Is. 55:11
Mt. 4:4
Jn. 17:17
He. 4:12
1Pe. 2:8
2Pe. 1:19
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November
2007
Thoughts on: Give it to God
1Peter
5:6-7
Humble yourselves, therefore, under
the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time
he may exalt you, casting all
your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
Worry can steal our peace, wearing
us out, both physically and mentally. Worry can
make us sick, but worry can also
drain us spiritually, How-Why?
Worry is fear and fear is an opposite
of faith. In fact fear is faith, faith in evil, faith in the
bad things that happen, not faith
in God. Worry and fear are caused by not fully trusting
God and his ability to care for and
protect us. Sometimes we fail to trust God out of
doubt and from being unsure, but
sometimes we fail to trust God out of pride and ego.
We do this by being to macho, to
self confident in our own abilities to surrender to God
and give our cares to Him.
God tells us over and over again
throughout scripture, fear not-do not be afraid, for I
(God) am with you.
Joshua 1:9
“Have I not commanded you?
Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do
not be dismayed, for the LORD
your God is with you wherever you go."
Matthew 28:20
“…And behold, I am
with you always, to the end of the age."
God tells us continually he wants to take care of us, to do
for us:
2Chronicles 20:15 “…Thus says the LORD to you,
'Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed…for the battle is not yours but God's.” Proverbs 16:3 “Commit your
work to the LORD, and your plans will be established.”
God however is not a forceful God in that he will never force
us to turn our cares over to Him. All we need to do is humble ourselves, and give our cares to God and he will take them.
But God forces himself on no-one, God doesn’t push His way in, he waits, waits for us to ask Him and for us to give
our cares to Him. Either, we try to handle all our cares ourselves, to do it outside of God, or we surrender them to Him,
we cannot have it both ways.
God, however, will not do for us what we can and should do for
ourselves. Casting our care is doing what is required for us to do and trusting God (really trusting) God to do the things
we cannot do. We make the effort-God provides the results.
When we humble ourselves and make the effort to turn them over
to God, surrendering to Him, then God is able to release His power to us and our situation to bring victory to us.
Read and meditate on these reference verses:
Joshua 1:9
2Chronicles 20:15
Proverbs 16:3 and 30:5
Micah 7:8
Matthew 28:20
Mark 10:27
Luke 11:9
Romans 8:28
Hebrews 11:1
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December
2007
Thoughts on: What God Did for Us
John 1:1
and 14
“In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among
us…”
Have you ever been cold,
hot, hungry, or thirsty? Have you ever experienced fear, anxiety, loneliness or pain? None of these feeling are very comfortable
for us are they? God never experienced any of these feelings, they are all human in nature and after all He is God, until
around two thousand years ago that is. God came to earth in a human body, Jesus, and He felt all of these feelings and more.
Have you ever stopped and taken a moment to try and understand just what God did for you. What He had to go through and what
He had to feel for the first time ever.
Why? Why did God do all of this, subject Himself to all of this for us. One
word, Love!
Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us.”
God
loves all of us, each and every one, and was willing to take this upon Himself to save us. But save us from who and what?
Save us from ourselves and our own sin. No outside force was killing us, it was our own inner source of sin doing it, and
we were killing ourselves with our own sin.
God however loved us enough to send His own son, Jesus of Nazareth, to earth
to sacrifice Himself upon a cross so that we might be saved. He didn’t have to but He did because He loved us that much.
He subjected Himself to the brutality and wrath of His own creation that we might go on through all eternity with Him. You
see God did not come into the world to be a healer, a prophet or a teacher, yes He did all of this, but God came into this
world to be a savior-our savior, so that we might have life now and forever.
John 3:16-17
"For God so loved the
world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish but
have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to
condemn the world,
but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Jesus Christ came to earth,
allowed men to beat Him, spit on Him, humiliate Him and
crucify Him. Jesus died
on the cross taking our sins with Him, forgiving us even as He
was dying. But good the
good news is that on the third day Jesus rose from the grave,
alive, defeating death
for both Himself and us.
As Easter is here it is
time that we take a moment and remember just what God gave for
us, what He went through
for us. Everything that is mentioned here and much more. For
the most brutal thing
Jesus went through for us at the cross was His separation from
God. For the first time
EVER Jesus was totally separated from the Father-ALONE! God
had to withdraw His presence
from Jesus as He was dying because of the sin that was
placed upon Him, our sin,
and the sin of the world. The Bible tells us that God cannot be
in the presence of sin,
so He had to withdraw.
Can you imagine the terror,
fright and emptiness Jesus must have felt as God the Father
withdrew Himself form
Him. I cannot! I can speculate, I can ponder, but can I fully
understand and know what
Jesus felt, honestly no I cannot. But I do love Him and thank
Him and praise Him for
feeling all of this, because if He had not, you and I would still be
lost.
Luke 19:10
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."
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January 2008
Thoughts On: Do You
Know God
Matthew
7:21 “"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter
the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Jesus
says that not everyone who calls him Lord will get into Heaven. Why is this? Many people claim to be Christian and know God,
but do they really. Just because someone claims to know God and to be a Christian does not mean that they truly believe in
their heart. John 3:16 says, that whoever believes has eternal life, but what is truly believing.
True belief
comes out of the heart and not out of head knowledge. One cannot control nor fake what is in the heart. Actions can hide the
heart from the world, but what is truly in the heart is pretty much set in stone.
Proverbs
23:7 “for as he thinks in his heart so is he.”
Works
cannot gain you salvation; only by faith and belief can salvation be obtained.
Ephesians
2:8-9,
True belief
however produces works, not out of obligation or duty, but out of love. Good works and the desire to remain sin free are both
automatic responses that come from true belief and love for the Lord. (Read James 2:14-26)
The believer
has four biblical proofs to know that they in fact, truly believe and love God, that they truly know God:
- The world does not appeal to or attract you.
- You look toward heaven (Phil 3:8).
- You look forward to Jesus’ return
- The world is (as Paul Puts it) dung to you.
- The most important thing to you is knowing Christ.
- You stand firm and take action.
- Book of Daniel is a great example of this.
a. Refusal
to eat meat. (Dan. 1:8-21)
b.
Refusal to worship idols. (Dan 3:8-30)
c. Pray
to God and God alone. (Dan 6:1-28
- You have love of the brethren.
- God loved us first, before our redemption. (Rom 5:8)
- True love for others comes out of the heart and cannot be faked.
- You serve the Lord with passion.
- You have a fire within your heart to bring the gospel to others which will
bring them to Christ. A witness that cannot
be quenched, God is number
one in your life, over all and everything.
- The passion of Jesus is in you. Jesus loved his Father, he loved spending time with
his Father in prayer, and wanted nothing more than to let everyone see how wonderful the Father is.
Revelation
3:16 “…because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor
cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”
“The first step away form Christ is the first step toward Satan.”
February 2008
Thoughts on: Does
it Really Matter Whether the Resurrection is True or Not?
Romans
10:9
“because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your
heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
It is
essential that all Christians believe that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead. If we only believe that Jesus died for our
sins we fall short. To believe that Jesus is the Son of God is not enough for salvation for the Bible tells us that even the
demons believe that (James 2:19). We must also believe that Jesus was resurrected in order to receive salvation. (Romans 10:9 “if
you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”)
Christ
did pay our debt for our sins but his work on the cross doesn’t mean a thing if He did not rise and have the power over
death. By defeating death, sin and Satan Jesus made our salvation possible.
Jesus’
resurrection did in fact prove He did have the power that he claimed and more importantly the authority to forgive sin. If
we were to assume Christ remained dead it would also mean that we deny his power, authority and who he claimed to be, the
Son of God. If Jesus did not rise again from the grave then we as believers are still in sin and therefore we are without
salvation.
Romans
6:5
“”For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly
be united with him in a resurrection like his.
Jesus Christ is either Lord of all-to include all that he claimed to be-or Lord not at
all.
If a Christian does not accept or believe in Christ’s resurrection then they have
nothing, nothing to look forward to, nothing to hope for, nothing to gain. No heaven, no home with Jesus, no salvation, just
an empty meaningless life with no real hope.
1Corinthians 15: 13-20
But if there is no resurrection of
the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if
Christ has not been raised, then
our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
We are even found to be misrepresenting
God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.
For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and
you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped
in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those
who have fallen asleep.
But Jesus did rise on the third day to sit at the right hand
of the Father and to be LORD OF ALL Lord of you, Lord of me, Lord over all creation.
John 11: 25-26
Jesus said to her, "I am the
resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me,
though he die, yet shall he live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me
shall never die. Do you believe
this?"
DO YOU?
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March 2008
Thoughts on: God’s Love for Us
Romans 5:1-2
Therefore, since we have been justified
by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through
him we have also obtained access
by faith into this grace in which
we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the
glory of God.
When we first come to the Lord Jesus Christ God loves us just as we are. We have a tendency to attempt to earn God’s love. God’s love can never be earned by human effort. There is nothing that we can do to make God love us, or to make Him
love us more. We may understand this in our minds, but we have trouble believing
it deep down in our heart. Sometimes we don't even realize that we struggle to believe in God's unchanging love, as there
are times when we have all tried to make God love us by the way we act or things we do. These attempts won’t work for
us because God already loves us in an unchanging, unconditional way. God proved that with the sacrifice his son made for us
on the cross.
No matter what your past, or what you feel right now, God's love has always been freely given to you. God pours out
His love upon us with no exceptions, for God is not a respecter of persons, God loves every one of us the same. God did not
begin to love you the moment you invited Him into your life. He did not begin to love you when you first started going to
church. He did not begin to love you when you rose from baptism. God in fact, never “began” to love you at all;
He has always loved you! From the creation of the world, God knew you and loved you.
1 John 4:19;
“We love because he first loved us.”
God’s character is that His love never wavers to the left or right. It is always exactly the same, never changing,
for all eternity.
1 John 4:16-17
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for
us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him”.
Have you ever thought that something you have done made God love you less?
Most of us have had this fear at some time in their life. No matter how we've felt before, we have the assurance in
Scripture that God’s love does not change. He loves us no matter what we may do. In fact, He was aware of our sinfulness
from the beginning of creation, and has always loved us and continues to love us, for God is love.
Romans 5:8
“but God shows his love for us in that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us.”
This is our proof, God’s own son came for us, to save
us before we ever did anything for God. This is our proof, our promise from God that he loves us, has always loved us and
always will love us.
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April
2008
Thoughts
on: Trials
1 Peter
1:6
“In this you rejoice, though
now for a little while, if necessary,
you have been grieved by various
trials, so that the tested genuineness
of your faith-more precious than
gold that perishes though it is tested
by fire--may be found to result in
praise and glory and honor at the
revelation of Jesus Christ.”
1Peter
5:10
“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace,
who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself
restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”
2Peter 2:9
“then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials,
and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the
day of judgment,”
Why must we suffer? If God loves us then why do bad things happen, why would God let them
take place in our lives? People smarter than I have ask this very question throughout
time and if they didn’t know what would make me think I do. I don’t, but I do have my ideals and God’s word.
However when it comes down to it only God really knows.
God wants us to come to him, not out of fear and obligation, but rather out of love for
Him and because we realize that we need God in our lives. Need Him in so many way and so many things that only He Can fill
our need.
The reality is that from the time we are born until we go home to be with Jesus we will
have trials, suffering and trouble. This is a fact and the nature of this world ever since Satan was given control over it
from Adam. Some people have more trouble or worse trouble than others but still sufferings and we all face trials.
When we as Christians have trouble we do have God in our lives to turn to
for comfort and assurance that we will come through the other side victorious. By turning to God during our trials we do in
effect witness for God, sometimes without knowing it, by letting unbelievers see how we stand up under the pressure. By maintaining
our joy (God’s joy) and peace (God’s peace) through trials, others see our calm and want it for themselves. For
non-believers, they have nothing to fall back on, to comfort them. Therefore our actions during this time may very well draw
people to Jesus Christ, His salvation and His comfort. Matthew 28:20 “…behold, I am with you always, to the end
of the age.”
Suffering also leads to thanksgiving in that as we receive comfort
from the Lord we give God praise and glory for our deliverance. God will seek to speak to us and to comfort us; in turn we
are thankful to Him and show it through our worship.
As Believers we must not allow Satan to use our trials for his
gain, and he will try, he always does. He tries by placing thoughts into our minds such as; “if God really loved us
He would never allow such things, or God has deserted us.” (Will never happen, Hebrews 13:5 "I will never leave you
nor forsake you.") The truth of the matter is we all have trials (we always will) but how we handle those trials is a
testament to our faith, our belief and our trust in God.
James 1:2-18
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of
various kinds,
for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
And let steadfastness
have its full effect, that you may be perfect
and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let
him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and
it
will be given him. But
let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for
the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven
and tossed
by the wind. For
that person must not suppose that he will receive
anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable
in
all his ways. Let
the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the
rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass
he will
pass away. For
the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers
the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also
will the
rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. Blessed is the man
who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the
test
he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to
those
who love him. Let
no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted
by God," for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself
tempts
no one. But each
person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his
own desire. Then
desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and
sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my
beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is
from above,
coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no
variation
or shadow due to change.
Of his own will he brought us forth by the
word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his
creatures.”
Trials will come but we as believers have God to comfort us,
the non-believer has nothing. Yes we will have trials, but because of Jesus and the sacrifice He made on the Cross, we also
have victories. We can have hope, joy and enjoy our lives during hardships if we truly believe that God is working in our
behalf for our good.
Romans 8:28
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together
for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
When we suffer and have trials it
may be a reminder to us that we follow in the footsteps of some of God’s greatest saints. Even Christ Jesus and his
Apostles suffered during their lifetimes. In the words of James;
“Count it all joy, my brothers,
when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness
have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4)
____________________________________________
May
2008
Thoughts on: Jesus and Prayer
Mark 1:35
“ And rising very early
in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.”
Luke 5:16
“But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.”
Luke 6:12
“In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all
night he continued in prayer to God.”
Luke 9:28-29
“Now about eight days after these sayings he took with
him Peter and John
and James and went up on the mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the
appearance of his was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white.”
These verses capture a dominant characteristic of the lifestyle of Jesus.
Anyone who spent any time at all with Jesus saw something unique in his daily lifestyle. Jesus prayed. Not the perfunctory
prayers of the Pharisees but the passionate prayer of someone who knew God on intimate terms. It has been said that Jesus
himself was God, if so why did he need to pray to himself? Was it possibly because Jesus came to earth not only for our salvation
but also as an example for us to live by? Not only to tell us how to live but also to show us how to live and approach God. Is it any wonder then that the disciples approached him one time and asked him to
teach them to pray.
Luke 11:1
“Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished,
one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples."
They had observed Jesus. Lifestyle of prayer for many months and had begun to realize the priority
of prayer.”
Matthew 10:24-25
"A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his
master. It is
enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant
like his master.
If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much
more will
they malign those of his household.”
Jesus said, In Luke 6:40,”everyone who is fully trained will be like his
Teacher.” The Holy Spirit’s work is to do exactly this, to train us to be like
Christ and that includes his lifestyle of prayer. Our aim is not simply to pray or read the Bible each day; we are
developing a culture of intimacy with God.
There is an intimacy to be found in prayer. When we pray, we are
not simply mouthing words to God. We are meeting with God in prayer.
There is an intimacy to be found in God’s Word. When we read the
