“Not only that, but we rejoice in
our sufferings knowing that
suffering produces
endurance, and endurance
produces character, and character
produces hope, and hope does not
put us to shame, because God’s
love has been poured into our
hearts through the Holy Spirit
who has been given to us.”
Romans 5:3-5
I took a slow day recently and sat down to watch a movie. So-so movie. Classic good guy chases bad guy.
The bad guy, well, let me put that more accurately – the crazed, psychopathic, sadistic killer – enjoys the chase. He’s cocky and thinks he can’t lose.
He decides to make the game even more fun by coming straight to the door of the good guy, and hits him where it hurts most: his family.
The good guy internalizes that pain, that grief, and lets it boil inside him until the hatred turns to bitterness in his quest to hunt down and destroy his enemy.
In one last-ditch effort to mentally manipulate and control from his place of weakness, the bad guy spews to the other, “I…made…you.”
His last words are arrogant, demented, and maybe a little bit true.
In his quest to fight evil, the good guy gives in to the hatred the evil guy wanted him to. He lured the good guy in until he crossed that line before he even fully realized it. Or worse, he realized it but didn’t care anymore.
As their eyes locked and he used his last breath to try to control him and reel him in the rest of the way, speaking those domineering, pompous, mind-bending words, I thought about how the enemy of God does the same thing.
There are no new tricks up his sleeve. Oh, they may take different forms, different plots, different scenarios, but it’s always the same.
Slip in undetected in the shadows, gain our attention, come to our front doors if need be and attack us personally where he knows it’ll hurt most, and if he can time it just right, in the wake of some other trial, when we’re alone, when we’re tired, when we’re sick, when we’re stressed, maybe we’ll react in the flesh.
And if we react long enough, he’ll try to say he made us. He made who we’ve become, from being filled with anger, to unforgiveness, to bitterness, to leaving our faith and the love of Christ behind.
None of us is immune. Christians are his target, because Christ is his target.
Even if he can no longer take our eternal souls, he will still try to take our joy, our witness, and as much of our reward as he can.
But I don’t want the enemy to shape who I am.
I want to be shaped by the Christ who loved us enough to die for us and fill us with His Spirit so that He’s always with us.
I want to be shaped by the One who loves us enough to write His Word, His will, on pages for us to have, to read, to study and pray over, to hear Him speak to our hearts through.
I want every fiber of my being, every molecule, every thought, every word to be formed by the Christ who lives in me.
That can only happen when day by day, minute by minute, we hold onto Christ, giving up our lives for a life of faith hidden in Him.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
This is the new life we’ve been given in Christ. It is no longer our life, but Christ’s living in and through us. To some that may feel a little restrictive, but in reality it’s just the opposite.
We are now free of that destruction, that condemnation, that guilt and shame of sin, free from having to believe the deluded lies of the enemy. We no longer have to be lured in by the thief whose desire is to steal, kill, and destroy us.
Instead, Jesus said “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10
That word abundant is perissos, which means “in the sense of beyond; superabundant (in quantity) or superior (in quality); by implication excessive; preeminence: – exceeding abundantly above, more abundantly, advantage, exceedingly, very highly, beyond measure, more, superfluous, vehemently.”
In sharp contrast to the life Christ redeemed us from, we’re now free to live a life of forgiveness, hope, love, joy. We’re free to live in and through Christ forever.
But notice it says that we may have it more abundantly. It is our daily choice how much of that abundant life of Christ’s we want to live. Within those pages, Jesus gave us this to remember:
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23
Daily.
Daily we must deny ourselves, daily we must take up our cross, and daily we must choose to follow Christ if we want to live the abundant life Jesus died to give us.
We may not have a bad guy to physically chase, but in our hearts and minds we can chase the ones who have hurt us by holding onto unforgiveness and anger and letting it turn into bitterness.
Instead, we can leave the bad guys to God and chase after Christ and His love, joy, peace, hope, and forgiveness. We can choose faith in Jesus, and let Him shape us.
Heavenly Father, we choose to forgive those who have hurt us and leave them in your wise and capable hands. Help us deny ourselves, let go of our “old man” and the world’s ways and abide in you daily so we can be transformed into the image of your beautiful Son and live the abundant life you so desire to give us. It’s in Christ we pray, amen.
Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you and thank you for all the ways you’ve blessed us, nurtured us, fed us, taught us, ministered to us, held us, walked with us, called us, provided for us, cared for us, showed us your compassion and hope, and a million other ways you’ve shown yourself faithful to us.
Father, today there are some who are celebrating, some are hoping, some remembering, and some grieving. We pray for each and every one, that you would bless them according to your riches in Christ Jesus.
Thank you for imparting your mothering character to all of us, and for giving us people who have mothered us, whether our own or someone else, and for putting others in our lives so that we can nurture and love them.
You are a God of wonders and miracles and joys and we look to you with hearts of gratefulness today.
Thank you, dear Father. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
Illustration 183074016 © Inna Sinano | Dreamstime.com
Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you. Thank you for your unending, merciful love that brings healing and goodness into our lives.
Lord, we pray for the body of Christ, for believers whose spiritual walk has been lukewarm, who have allowed themselves to be pulled into the world and the love of things in it, who have been lured into the belief that they have just enough faith to save them, but are missing out all you have for them.
We pray that in your mercy you would open their eyes, soften their hearts, and bring them to repentance and a desire for spiritual things.
We pray our brothers and sisters would be unfulfilled by all the world has to offer, and know that what is missing is you. We pray you would give them a hunger and thirst for righteousness, that they would seek hard after you, and that you would fill them with the peace and joy they long to have.
We pray you would show them the way to true and lasting faith as they give their whole hearts and lives to you.
For those who have believed at one time, but whose hearts have grown cold, LORD, please reveal yourself and show them your desire to love and forgive them, to gather them under your wing and heal their hearts and minds, and to make known to them the plan you have for their lives.
For those who are abiding in you, but maybe there are some areas of their lives they have kept from you, please give your strength and courage to let you have it all. That we would give you our whole hearts, even the hard things, the things we can’t face alone, and face them with you, knowing you are compassionate and full of grace.
Father, help all of us yield our whole selves to you, that we can experience all you have for us, every healing, every blessing, every gift, and every bit of spiritual growth while we have time. And may we be a light, Lord, for the whole world to see how great is your love. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you. On this Palm Sunday, we praise you for all you’ve done, for sending your Son in fulfillment of the coming Savior written about in the Old Testament of your Word.
That Zechariah foretold His coming in this way – “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey,” and that is just what He did.
And so we praise you, Lord Jesus, and honor and glorify you for coming as the only One who could have saved us, and has saved us from our sins. We are filled with joy that you loved us so much that you came to purchase our souls with the sacrifice of your own life, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
There is no joy like the joy of those who have been saved and filled with your Holy Spirit, that we might commune with you always, and know your love, your peace, and your hope. Help us walk in your joy as we keep in mind all you’ve done for us. In Jesus’ holy and mighty name we pray, amen.
Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you. Thank you for the gift of love, of yourself. You are too grand for us to fully comprehend, to understand your existence and your eternal nature, but we are forever thankful that you created us and through the sacrifice of your Son, by faith, brought us into relationship with you to receive your love, and through the filling of your Holy Spirit, experience its depth, and be given the ability to love you and love others.
Father we ask for forgiveness for the times we’ve failed to love. They are too numerous for us to name, but we ask that you would heal the hearts of those we’ve caused pain, and we thank you for softening our own hearts and granting us repentance and new mercies to begin again.
Hold onto us, Lord, and give us willing hearts to obey you. Keep us from even the temptation to sin, knowing that allowing sin would begin to harden our hearts and break the precious communion we have with you. And when we do sin, help us to quickly repent, so we can abide in your love again.
May we be quick to take the love you give us and your example and love others, our brothers and sisters in the faith, and those who have yet to come to you, and to love our enemies, remembering that
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
This is how you love, Lord, and this is how we want to love, too. Help us understand more and more the scope of it so we can love others in a way that glorifies you.
In Jesus’ holy and precious name we pray, amen.
* * *
If you have any prayer requests please let me know!
One of the greatest joys of being a parent is watching your children come through childhood, with all its arguments and competitiveness and jealousies, grow up, forgive each other, and become good friends.
To see your children making plans to get together, to sit and have a conversation, laughing and enjoying each other’s company, there’s just nothing like it. Seeing the love between them fills a parent with a delightful contentment.
I imagine this is a tiny fraction of the joy the Lord has when He sees His children maturing and growing in His love and then loving one another, forgiving and accepting one another in the spirit of godly brother and sisterhood.
The apostle Paul, along with Timothy, wrote to brothers and sisters in Philippi, sounding almost as a father writing to his children:
“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”
Philippians 2:1-4
There is nothing so easy to fall back into when surrounded by the world than a worldly, fleshly, prideful, egotistical, argumentative attitude. Kind of like children, right? And the very antithesis of love.
But we don’t need to live that way.
We are filled with the Holy Spirit, the One who makes known to us God’s love.
And daily we have a choice: we can walk in the Spirit, or suffer in the flesh.
When we walk in the flesh, not only do we rob God the joy of an unbroken abiding relationship with us, made complete by seeing His children love one another, we rob ourselves of the joy and the peace we all so desperately want and need.
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace…”
Galatians 5:22a
Love is the first fruit of walking in the Spirit, and all others depend on it. Love brings joy, and joy brings peace.
“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
Galatians 5:16
As we walk in the Spirit, we won’t be held hostage by our fleshly attitudes. Yield ourselves to the life God’s given us, day by day, moment by moment, and the Father’s love will flow through the Spirit to us, and through us to others.
What an amazing privilege.
To know God’s love, a love far deeper than any the world can ever know, and to allow ourselves to be a conduit of that love for our brothers and sisters, and even for our enemies who so greatly need Him, glorifying and magnifying the Name of Jesus.
“It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to His commands. As you have heard from the beginning, His command is that you walk in love.”
2 John 1:4-6
In His Love,
Heavenly Father, we praise your holy and precious name. We’re so thankful for your faithfulness and patience with us even when we are less than faithful. Thank you for holding onto us and never giving up.
Father, we pray today that you would enable us to discern good and evil. We know the enemy schemes against us, and he is able to take your truth and twist and turn it, add in a bit of untruth, and try to make us believe it and follow that belief away from you.
Father, may it never be that way with us. We pray you would fill us with such a love for you that we would hunger and thirst for righteousness, that we would fervently seek you in your word and in prayer, that we would grow up in our faith, desiring and receiving the teaching of solid food.
Mature us, Lord, so that we may be discerning and not allow the enemy to trip us up in even the slightest of lies, deceptions, twists of the truth, or anything that would give him a foothold in our lives. Give us discernment to resist him, no matter who he may be using to spread his lies.
Give us ears attuned to your voice, and the wisdom to discern it from any others.
May we be strong in you, Lord, and in your mighty power, alert and filled with wisdom, that we would never accept anything but the unadulterated, powerful truth that brings the spiritually dead back to life, that moves mountains, that brings healing, that gives us the abundant life you came to to give us.
Thank you, Father, for your everlasting love. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
If you have a prayer request, you can leave a comment here, on Facebook or Twitter, or message or email me, and I would be blessed to pray.
In Christ’s love,
It’s Friday, ya’ll! We made it another week. We lived, we worked, we prayed, we grew, and now it’s time to laugh.
Tim Hawkins shows his serious side for just a minute in this one. He and his wife struggled through 2020 like the rest of us, but Jesus was there with them, just like He is for all of us.
But, thankfully, he hasn’t lost his sense of humor.
Happy Friday, everyone, and have a blessed weekend.
Happy Saturday, friends. You know, for the most part I feel called to encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ, but every once in a while the Lord will put me in the path of an unbeliever, and that’s where I want to be today.
In the path of those who have no idea what this Jesus thing is all about, and the path of those who once thought they knew, but they’ve been away for a hundred million different reasons.
I want to tell you from the bottom of my heart that God loves you more than you can ever know. Yes, He does. You might not feel it right now, but sometimes feelings lie.
You might have been hurt and blame God. I understand.
You might have done something terrible and don’t think He could ever forgive you. I understand.
You might be afraid to trust Him again. I understand.
I’ve been there, done all that, bought the t-shirt and worn it until I didn’t think I could wear it anymore.
But the power of the blood of His Son paid for all of it.
And thirty years down the road I also understand that if you let Him, God will heal your heart; that He not only can forgive you, He is waiting to forgive you; and that no matter what the future holds, He will be right beside you, hurting with you when you hurt, but through it He will give you His peace and strength to forgive, to heal, to grow in grace and love, into very the image of His own beautiful Son.
And just like the story Jesus told the people who had gathered around him: “while {the prodigal son} was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him,” (Luke 15:20) so the Heavenly Father waits for you to take but a step toward Him, asking for forgiveness, and He will run to you with such compassion and all the love you ever wanted, throw His arms around you, and welcome you home.
Today’s song is dedicated to you.
Father, let the chains fall…
Lift Your Head Weary Sinner (Chains)
David Crowder