It takes a very humble and very willing servant of Yeshua, the Everlasting God, to put one foot in front of the other and walk the road high enough to pray in agreement with these words. For the sake of these souls – both the lost whom Christ loved and died for as well as for us, and for those who would be their next victims, I pray we would each examine our hearts and be willing to walk that high road, following closely behind our Savior.
Category: Prayer
Halfhearted Won’t Do
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13
Have you ever had someone come in the room and try talking to you when you’re in the middle of watching tv? You try listening to what’s being said but half your attention is still on your show. You end up either missing what’s going on on the tube (that’s what we called it in the old days – the “tube”), or you miss most of what was said, and you end up nodding your head, pretending you heard, or you have to fess up and say “What did you say?”.
God says we will find Him when we seek Him with our whole heart. Why? Why can’t we seek Him with part of our heart? Because then the rest of our heart is seeking after something else, or many somethings else.
Our attention would be divided, and our God’s is a still, small voice.
He has visions to give, wisdom to impart, paths to share, but He won’t compete with the world. He won’t compete with us. There is room for only one throne in the heart of each person. If we’re on it, God can’t be. But when we get down, all the way down, get rid of the distractions, and let God have His rightful place, then we’re in the position to hear Him.
Then we’ll find Him. And that’s where the real treasure is.
Grace and peace,
The Garden of Crushing
“Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and He said to them, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’ He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with Him, and He began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then He said to them, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me’” Matthew 26:36-38
Jesus and the apostles walked around the massive, ancient olive trees, past the cemeteries, to the foot of the mountain and into the garden of Gethsemane. The word Gethsamane means oil press.
Olives are not just squeezed to make oil, they must be crushed. The better the olive, the better and purer the oil.
Christ walked deep into the garden and allowed the Father to begin to crush Him.
The physician Luke even noted in 22:44 “And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”
He had matured, that is, He had all but finished His work, like the olives that are ready for crushing. In a garden is where sin entered the world, and there in the garden of Gethsamane would now be the beginning of victory over it.
And there Christ personified the olive oil that was so precious and significant.
In the way it was used as an offering, He would be the sacrifice, once for all.
In the way it was used as currency, He would be the payment for all sins.
In the way it was used to anoint for service, He would anoint His Church.
In the way it was used as fuel for lamps to give light, His Spirit would fill us and make us a light for all the world to see and glorify Him.
In the way it was used to beautify wives, Christ would beautify and prepare His Bride.
In the way the olive branch is a symbol of peace and victory, through Him and His sacrifice there would be peace between God and man, and victory over all sin.
And if there was a shred of doubt left in anyone’s mind about whether or not this was all the Father’s doing —
“So Judas came to the garden, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons. Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to Him, went out and asked them, ‘Who is it you want?’
‘Jesus of Nazareth,’ they replied.
‘I am He,’ Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.) When Jesus said, ‘I am He,’ they drew back and fell to the ground.” John 18:3-6
The power of God accomplishes what it will, and when God wants to bring people to their knees, they fall to their knees. These men who came under their own authority found they had none at all. All authority rested with God’s Son.
While Jesus’s prayers empowered Him, the apostles’ lack of prayer weakened them, again causing Peter and the others to lean on their own devices instead of Christ. Peter lobbed off the ear of the servant Malchus, and they would all eventually desert their Friend.
After Jesus healed the servant’s ear, He allowed them to bind him and take Him away.
Badge of Honor
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’” John 15:18-25
“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Matthew 10:21-22
More and more I’m seeing headlines about someone in America being sued or fired because of their faith in Christ. This is of course just a small taste of the persecution Christians and Jews are facing around the world.
And every time I see one of those headlines I’m as surprised and disgusted as anybody. But we can’t be; we must expect it. Persecution is increasing, and we need to prepare ourselves that we may one day see it knock on our own door. Jesus warned the apostles and He warns us now: we will be hated.
The word for hated in these verses means to detest, especially to persecute. This is not your run of the mill kind of hatred. It’s not just a feeling. This is hatred that is so vile and deep that it moves the person to act on their hatred, to systematically and methodically harm a person or group.
What I find interesting is that this is the complete opposite of compassion, which is to be so deeply filled with sympathy that it moves a person to action. Regardless of how much Christ was hated, He consistently demonstrated compassion His whole life. He’s our example of how to live a holy life in the face of persecution.
The Spirit enables us, we just need to decide if we’re willing. Let God take care of the persecutors, we must be faithful to Christ, to pray and to live holy and upright lives, not giving the enemy a foothold.
Jesus makes a point to remind us though, that all this is not without the hope of our promised salvation and reward.
In the meantime, we can pray to have the same attitude as the apostles who were arrested and jailed by the high priest and the Sanhedrin – people who claimed to know God and should have believed in His Son alongside the apostles – for teaching and healing in the name of Christ.
The apostles were flogged, ordered not to speak in the name of Jesus (which they promptly disobeyed) and let go. And Acts 5:41-42 says “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.”
Rejoicing because they had been counted to worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. From our own perspective it’s an awful thing to suffer persecution, but from a spiritual standpoint, the apostles saw it as a badge of honor. It meant they were living their lives for Christ in such a way that they suffered as their Lord had said they would. It meant the Spirit was moving, lives were being changed, souls were being convicted…and the enemy was not happy.
But I’d give anything to see the smile on Jesus’s face as He watched them fulfill what He called them to do.
In His great grace,
The Power of the Spoken Word
“And God said, ‘Let there be light…'” Genesis 1:3
Not one other person existed when God created the world so there was no one else to hear Him, and yet He spoke it into existence. He didn’t just think it, He said it. Why? Because there is power in the spoken word.
And there are no other words more powerful than those written in scripture, no other author more sovereign than the one who spoke the world into existence.
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17
Today is World Read Aloud Day (which I personally think is fantastic). And what better words to read out loud than God’s Word? Can you imagine if believers all around the world today opened their Bibles and breathed aloud God’s eternal truth? If we drowned out the hateful words that fill the air with God’s exceedingly more powerful word of love? If we spoke the light within us into the darkness; if we stormed the gates of hell with the pillars of life, if we filled the heavens with the ancient way of the Almighty God in the face of the enemy who seeks to threaten the very lives of believers in some parts of the world and increasingly hardens hearts and minds toward believers everywhere?
Ask the Lord to put on your heart a portion of scripture to read aloud today and then make it a prayer. It might not feel effective (and I’m sure the enemy will tell you that very thing), but remember, God began the universe with four words.
