Prayer: Our Time Saver
What do you think about when you wake up? Are your thoughts instantly focused on the day ahead, or are they centered on the Lord? Although most of us have busy lives that consume much of our time and attention, the most important and time-saving part of each day is that spent in quiet solitude with God.
Yet many believers feel so rushed that they don't think there's time for the Lord. They immediately jump onto the treadmill of life and then wonder why they're so frustrated, confused, and dissatisfied. Even if their desire is to follow God, they don't know where He's going since they haven't stopped to get directions for the day. There's also a disconnect because they've ignored their relationship with Him. No one can have intimacy with Christ without daily communication.
Perhaps the problem is our own human logic. We think spending time reading the Bible and praying each morning will result in having less time and lower productivity. However, when we seek Christ's direction and wisdom for the day and invite Him to control our lives, He'll accomplish more through us than we can do by ourselves. He'll give us wisdom for good decisions, increase our strength and energy, and free us from time-wasting anxiety.
Are you too busy for the Lord? If so, you're denying yourself the blessing of an intimate relationship with Christ. When you make time for Him, He'll fill you with peace and joy, guide your decisions, grant you wisdom, empower you to obey, make you more productive, and comfort you with His love.
~Dr. Charles F. Stanley~
____________________________
God's Heart
It is easy for us to think of Christ as this majestic, powerful figure in the heavens, unfazed by what is going on in our lives. But Hebrews4:15 paints a very different picture,
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus sympathizes with you? The King James Version says He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. God is not aloof, distant, and unconcerned, and He does not look at you through some clinical, cold eye. He is moved; He is touched!
I want to show you a verse that, to me, is quite amazing. It is Isaiah 63:9, and it is talking about God and His people. It says,
In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bore them and carried them all the days of old.
When you suffer, God suffers. He is not untouched; He is not unmoved; He is not unsympathetic.
Then there is Jeremiah 31 where God says (speaking of Israel as one single person), I earnestly remember him still; therefore My heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him, says the LORD.
Finally, look at Psalm 145:8-9,
The LORD is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The LORD is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.
God feels and sympathizes. He is moved and touched and afflicted as you walk through the difficulties of life. He understands. And He yearns to give you tender mercy.
That is the compassionate and gracious heart of God!
~Bayless Conley~
_______________________
So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning (Job 42:12).
Through his griefs Job came to his heritage. He was tried that his godliness might be confirmed. Are not my troubles intended to deepen my character and to robe me in graces I had little of before? I come to my glory through eclipses, tears, death. My ripest fruit grows against the roughest wall. Job's afflictions left him with higher conceptions of God and lowlier thoughts of himself. "Now," he cried, "mine eye seeth thee.
And if, through pain and loss, I feel God so near in His majesty that I bend low before Him and pray, "Thy will be done," I gain very much. God gave Job glimpses of the future glory. In those wearisome days and nights, he penetrated within the veil, and could say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." Surely the latter end of Job was more blessed than the beginning.
--In the Hour of Silence
"Trouble never comes to a man unless she brings a nugget of gold in her hand."
Apparent adversity will finally turn out to be the advantage of the right if we are only willing to keep on working and to wait patiently. How steadfastly the great victor souls have kept at their work, dauntless and unafraid! There are blessings which we cannot obtain if we cannot accept and endure suffering. There are joys that can come to us only through sorrow. There are revealings of Divine truth which we can get only when earth's lights have gone out. There are harvests which can grow only after the plowshare has done its work.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire, and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gates of Heaven.
--Chapin
I shall know by the gleam and glitter
Of the golden chain you wear,
By your heart's calm strength in loving,
Of the fire you have had to bear.
Beat on, true heart, forever;
Shine bright, strong golden chain;
And bless the cleansing fire
And the furnace of living pain!
~L. B. Cowman~
_________________________
But we must take heed to ourselves. The love of God will come naturally and easily in us as the fruit of the Spirit, unless we do anything to mar or hinder it. Love begets love; think then how much He loved you, when He gave Himself for you. Take heed to your speech, acts, intentions, volitions, affections; watch as well as pray; keep yourselves in the love of God; love one another and so abide in His love; and in you also the love of God will be perfected.
~F. B. Meyer~
_________________________
Pursue Peace
Seek peace and pursue it. Psalms 34:14
My computer crashed one night and oh, the feeling of anguish and loss that came over me. My husband and I tried hard to work on it, reboot it and reinstall the system, but to no avail. I was reading and studying Psalm 34:14 when the computer went down, "Seek peace and pursue it." Obviously the verse and my state of mind were not in the same place, so I started reasoning with the Lord over it.
To seek peace means to search for it like you are looking for a lost child. Have you ever had that happen to you? One minute your child is right next to you and the next minute, gone. Oh the feeling of panic that overwhelms you as your heart starts beating faster, a burning sensation moves throughout your body, your eyes become fixed and your voice raises as you firmly and seriously call out your child's name. Nothing is right until you find your child. That state of mind is not very peaceful and yet we are instructed to seek peace like we are seeking a lost child. What does that mean?
A missing child isn't normal for the parent as much as missing peace isn't normal for the Christian. Jesus left us His peace as if He left it in His will for us to claim, own and enjoy. However, it doesn't come naturally. Jesus says that He gives us His peace not the world's peace. If we don't have peace, we need to find out why and then pursue it.
I pursue peace by meditating on Scripture, and thinking on the verse over and over. I pray the verse back to the Lord asking Him to reveal His will for me from the verse. So when the computer crashed, I felt my peace being traded in for panic. Because the contrast was so evident, I sought for my peace first and then focused on the computer. You have to put yourself in that place to claim your rights to God's peace regardless of the circumstance at hand. Peace is yours. Seek for it, pursue it, claim it and own it!
~Daily Disciples Devotional~
It is easy for us to think of Christ as this majestic, powerful figure in the heavens, unfazed by what is going on in our lives. But Hebrews4:15 paints a very different picture,
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus sympathizes with you? The King James Version says He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. God is not aloof, distant, and unconcerned, and He does not look at you through some clinical, cold eye. He is moved; He is touched!
I want to show you a verse that, to me, is quite amazing. It is Isaiah 63:9, and it is talking about God and His people. It says,
In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bore them and carried them all the days of old.
When you suffer, God suffers. He is not untouched; He is not unmoved; He is not unsympathetic.
Then there is Jeremiah 31 where God says (speaking of Israel as one single person), I earnestly remember him still; therefore My heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him, says the LORD.
Finally, look at Psalm 145:8-9,
The LORD is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy. The LORD is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.
God feels and sympathizes. He is moved and touched and afflicted as you walk through the difficulties of life. He understands. And He yearns to give you tender mercy.
That is the compassionate and gracious heart of God!
~Bayless Conley~
_______________________
So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning (Job 42:12).
Through his griefs Job came to his heritage. He was tried that his godliness might be confirmed. Are not my troubles intended to deepen my character and to robe me in graces I had little of before? I come to my glory through eclipses, tears, death. My ripest fruit grows against the roughest wall. Job's afflictions left him with higher conceptions of God and lowlier thoughts of himself. "Now," he cried, "mine eye seeth thee.
And if, through pain and loss, I feel God so near in His majesty that I bend low before Him and pray, "Thy will be done," I gain very much. God gave Job glimpses of the future glory. In those wearisome days and nights, he penetrated within the veil, and could say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." Surely the latter end of Job was more blessed than the beginning.
--In the Hour of Silence
"Trouble never comes to a man unless she brings a nugget of gold in her hand."
Apparent adversity will finally turn out to be the advantage of the right if we are only willing to keep on working and to wait patiently. How steadfastly the great victor souls have kept at their work, dauntless and unafraid! There are blessings which we cannot obtain if we cannot accept and endure suffering. There are joys that can come to us only through sorrow. There are revealings of Divine truth which we can get only when earth's lights have gone out. There are harvests which can grow only after the plowshare has done its work.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire, and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gates of Heaven.
--Chapin
I shall know by the gleam and glitter
Of the golden chain you wear,
By your heart's calm strength in loving,
Of the fire you have had to bear.
Beat on, true heart, forever;
Shine bright, strong golden chain;
And bless the cleansing fire
And the furnace of living pain!
~L. B. Cowman~
_________________________
Take good heed unto yourselves, that ye love the Lord your God - Joshua 23:11
Love is the crown of human nature; its regal chaplet of flowers; the bond by which the sentient universe is made one; the trait in which we most nearly resemble God - for God is love. We may love God from four parts of our nature (Luk 10:27). From the heart, the seat of the emotions; from the saul, the seat of individuality or will; in the strength of our activities; and in the mind, the organ of thought and intelligence. Some natures are more prone to one, and others to another. Each is a gate into the metropolis of Love, or by which the love of God may enter us. And it is of small consequence which gate you use, so long as you use one, and in this way enter the city.
Many people are accustomed to impute love to the heart only, instead of associating it also with other departments of the inner life. Because you have no emotion of love, you therefore conclude that you do not love. But there may be the love of soul, wherein the will crowns Christ as King; or the love of the strength, wherein all the energy of life revolves around Jesus; or the love of the mind, in which all thought is brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Choose which you will.But we must take heed to ourselves. The love of God will come naturally and easily in us as the fruit of the Spirit, unless we do anything to mar or hinder it. Love begets love; think then how much He loved you, when He gave Himself for you. Take heed to your speech, acts, intentions, volitions, affections; watch as well as pray; keep yourselves in the love of God; love one another and so abide in His love; and in you also the love of God will be perfected.
~F. B. Meyer~
_________________________
Pursue Peace
Seek peace and pursue it. Psalms 34:14
My computer crashed one night and oh, the feeling of anguish and loss that came over me. My husband and I tried hard to work on it, reboot it and reinstall the system, but to no avail. I was reading and studying Psalm 34:14 when the computer went down, "Seek peace and pursue it." Obviously the verse and my state of mind were not in the same place, so I started reasoning with the Lord over it.
To seek peace means to search for it like you are looking for a lost child. Have you ever had that happen to you? One minute your child is right next to you and the next minute, gone. Oh the feeling of panic that overwhelms you as your heart starts beating faster, a burning sensation moves throughout your body, your eyes become fixed and your voice raises as you firmly and seriously call out your child's name. Nothing is right until you find your child. That state of mind is not very peaceful and yet we are instructed to seek peace like we are seeking a lost child. What does that mean?
A missing child isn't normal for the parent as much as missing peace isn't normal for the Christian. Jesus left us His peace as if He left it in His will for us to claim, own and enjoy. However, it doesn't come naturally. Jesus says that He gives us His peace not the world's peace. If we don't have peace, we need to find out why and then pursue it.
I pursue peace by meditating on Scripture, and thinking on the verse over and over. I pray the verse back to the Lord asking Him to reveal His will for me from the verse. So when the computer crashed, I felt my peace being traded in for panic. Because the contrast was so evident, I sought for my peace first and then focused on the computer. You have to put yourself in that place to claim your rights to God's peace regardless of the circumstance at hand. Peace is yours. Seek for it, pursue it, claim it and own it!
~Daily Disciples Devotional~
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