Keys to Contentment

The Keys to Contentment:
Immerse yourself in the Word! Let the Spirit fill you. He alone is the One who gives a singing heart. He cannot fill you if you are not in the Word. Out of the Word. Out of harmony with the Spirit. Empty--songless. And nothing fills the heart like singing a duet with the Spirit.
Pray about everything, but be sure every prayer about everything is a prayer of thanksgiving--a prayer that says "I trust Your love and Your wisdom. Master. My Lord and My God"
Weep, so that He can weep with you. Laugh so that He can join your laughter.
Embrace your calling as a call to service--a sacred ministry dedicated to the One who came as the Servant in order to redeem the world. To know God's heart you must have a servant's heart.
Don't focus on the evil in the world; focus on the desperation of those who believe their sin will give their lives meaning.. Empty lives need to encounter Jesus. You be the encounter.
Always remember that you can do nothing about yesterday or tomorrow. This is the day the Lord has made for you to rejoice in. Ban worry and fear from your thoughts by seeking first the kingdom of God today.
Don't be a grumbler, a complainer. Those are the people who spend their lives wandering in the wilderness forever restless and discontent.
Confess your sins. Keep walking with Him in the light.
Don't compare yourself to others. The night light in the closet is just as effective at glorifying the Father as the city on the hill. Just shine where He has placed you. That's where He needs your light or you wouldn't be there.
You don't need to be recognized by others. He knows. Their approval may subtly become more important than His "well done good and faithful servant."
Don't pursue money; you will be forever poorer than you wish you were.
No matter how much you lose, you can never lose your relationship with the faithful God of your salvation. Jesus Christ is all you need.
Be patient. Contentment is a lifetime process--in other words, a day by day process. Learn.

The Sin of Impatience

I don't believe that there is anything more dangerous than a refusal to wait on God--to doubt His timing in keeping His promises. First, it is to doubt His ability to do as He says, and, even worse, to doubt His willingness to keep His promises. It is a lack of faith in His character--in His faithfulness and goodness. Does He not make it clear in His Word that the surety of His promises rest solely on His character as the faithful, immutable God who cannot lie? To say the wrong things about God is a dangerous choice. Job's friends were guilty of that sin, and if Job hadn't interceded on their behalf, they were in big trouble.
Another danger in such impatience is that too often it leads to our trying to take things into our own hands. We deify our wisdom and power. We try to get people to do what we want them to do, when we want them to do it. We try to manipulate the situation to make it as we believe it should be. We act as if we are wiser than He is. Deadly. If those people do what we want them to do because of our manipulation then they are responding to us and not to the Spirit. How effective will that "spiritual" change be? Their "power" to change--their "boot strap" Christianity will not last long--and they will end up frustrated or even more resistant to God's leading. They may just give up trying to follow Him believing it to be impossible. Their spiritual transformation will be an illusion--an undermining of their faith--simply because we in our impatience with God's will and our lack of faith in Him and His promises deified ourselves. That's a storm that will being down the house. And remember, the greatest tragedy in the life of a fool--a Christian fool--is that all those he or she claimed to love will be in the house when it comes crashing down.
A third danger with such impatience is the effect it has on my prayer life. Every day I am commanded to cast my care on Him. Every day He promises to give me enough strength for what this day will bring forth. When I fail to do that--to wait on Him in prayer about the situation--I lose a sense of His presence. I lose a sense of His love and care for me. I make the problem my problem and not His. I become overwhelmed with worry, I become easy prey for the roaring lion. Instead of deepening my intimacy with the Lover of my Soul, I draw away from Him--deny His heart's desire to do good for me at the exact best time for that good to touch my life and deepen my faith in Him and my experiential understanding of the depth and height and immeasurable breadth of His love for me. I reject His love.
Ah, the consequences of the deadly sin of impatience with God--a loss of faith, a denial of His character, power, and goodness, an undermining of the faith of others, a distancing of myself from His love. "Wait on the Lord" is itself a command--a command with its own promise. They who wait on Him soar on eagle's wings. And the greater the storm the higher their faith in Him and His faithful promises will rise. "Wait, I say, on the Lord."

Like

Like Joseph may we cultivate such a deep sense of His presence that whatever the circumstances we can say with confidence, "His goodness is at work in my life."

Like Abraham may we have such confidence in His promises that if He says "Go," we go. And when when we look up at the stars of promise may we trust completely in the "impossible."

Like Job may we have the humility that as our knowledge of who He is deepens we find ourselves on our knees in repentance and staying on our knees as we intercede on the behalf of our friends because we see their flaws in us.

Like Peter may we set aside our failures, embrace His forgiveness, and seek to nurture His sheep that He has placed into our lives.

Like Daniel may we realize that all that we do is sacred--even when we work the ruler of Babylon or Persia. May we be as faithful in those duties as we are in praying by the open window. His glory is at stake in both callings.

Identity

Searching for your Identity?

Here's who you are:

His friend.
His child by adoption and new birth
Joint-heir with Christ
Sealed by the Spirit
His bride
His temple
His light and salt
An overcomer
The sheep of His pastuer
Reservations have been made for you--a room in the Father's House--for eternity
His beloved.

Meritocracy

Why do we so often believe--at least in our actions--that someone has to earn our love--be worthy of being loved? How much love would there be in the world if that was so? Did you earn His love? Do you think you could? I think that idea is really just another subtle form of idolatry--dishonest idolatry. To be "worthy" of our love just means that they have to do what we want them to do in order to please us. God calls us to love as He loves. Did He send His Son into the world--our loving Savior--because He thought the people in the world were worthy of being loved, forgiven, lavished with grace?

"Wide, wide as the ocean, high as the heavens above, deep, deep as the deepest sea is my Savior's love.  Oh, though so unworthy, still I'm a child of His love; for His Word teaches me that His love reaches me anywhere."

"Little children, let us love one another for love is of God."

Don't forget

A few truths we sometimes forget from the life of our Savior.

Jesus loved the poor--and the rich. And everyone in-between. Equally.

Our Savior had a deep confidence in women. He honored them.

Jesus proclaimed His confidence in the authority and inspiration of the Old Testament--not a jot or tittle will go unfulfilled.

Sometimes the best answer to someone's question is another question.

There is a direct correlation between the depth of our sorrow, our submission to God's will, and the depth of our joy.

The tests in our life are proof of His love and an are an expression of His confidence in us that we will use those tests to bring glory to His name.

Time alone is essential.

Meet physical needs with physical stuff. Don't stop there. Meet spiritual needs with spiritual "stuff."

He can calm any storm.

Tears are not a sign of weakness.  Or a lack of faith.

Righteousness and Sin

God in His Word has defined for us right and wrong--righteousness and sin. Where He has given us principles to apply to our walk, if my application of that principle, violates a clear command that He has given, my application is wrong. Culture does not define right or wrong. Man is not God. My experience--what I feel--does not define right or wrong. I am not God. A political party does not define right or wrong. Again, man as a majority or a minority does not define right or wrong. God's character--and He is immutable--as He has revealed it in His Word through commands by which a man or woman ought to live defines righteousness and sin. And that is not a truth to be "considered" by the world. That is a truth that needs to be embraced in the heart of each of His children. By me. By His church.

True Freedom

Freedom:

"And you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free."

"If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed."

"For you were called to freedom, brethren, only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' "

"Act as free men and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. Honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king."

Freedom is not the right to do as I please. Freedom is the God-given responsibility to choose to do what is right in His eyes. Those who are genuinely free--the bondslaves of God--serve others not themselves. They live lives that are free from the chains of self-absorption, of thinking in terms of what is best for me, but focus instead on the needs of others.

How free are the majority of America's citizens? How free are you? How free am I?

How Great Is Our God!

I have found that He is able to take the deepest sorrows--even those that cause the bones to ache--and to fill them to overflowing with His joy. "My joy I have given to you that your joy might be full." "My cup runs over." How great is our God!

I have found that in my fearful hesitations as I struggle to take one step further that He has come and encouraged my heart. "Only be strong and very courageous!. Every place that your foot will tread, I have given you the victory." He has been into my tomorrows and drawing a line through my fears, He has written instead "more than conquer through Me and the power of my love for him." How great is our God!

I have seen Him take the worst of evils and turn them into the greatest good. And not just for me, but for those who have done the evil. "Because," He says, "I know that you love them." "And because," He reminds me, "I love them too." How great is our God!

I have found that as I stand and watch the enemy "triumph," He has put into my heart a song--no, the song, accompanied by the stringed instruments of the Spirit's lyre: "Yet, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. He has given me the feet of the deer that I might prance on the highest mountains." How great is our God!

I have found that as I pant in thirst for a sense of His presence that the springs of living water that He has placed in my heart assuages my deepest thirst and fills me with His presence and His peace--beyond my comprehension. How great is our God!

I have found that in my deepest need that He has opened wide the storehouse of His "riches in glory" and poured out not just enough, but "more than I could ask or think." How great is our God!

"O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your Name in all the earth.!!!"