Black and Blue Knees

Recently God has been doing some major work on my heart as prayer is concerned. I am starting to understand that when I am not spending time in prayer before God I am saying that I don't think I need Him and that He isn't all that important or worth taking time to talk to. See any problems? I certainly do!

God is the one who keeps my heart beating and my lungs breathing, to think for one second that I don't need His power and strength to do anything physically is suicide; much less spiritually! Yet I will so often stride into a meeting with someone where I will attempt to communicate deep and profound truths and go in proud and without prayer. How arrogant!

May God sanctify me to the place where I am often knocked from my arrogant feet to black and blue knees because I am so moved by my weakness and His fulness and strength. May I see that prayer is more worth my time than anything I try to do. May I know intimately the joy of talking with my Creator, Savior, and truest friend. To quote Pastor Jason Vaden, may I pray like it is my next breath of air.

For the glory of God

Seth

Watch Your Mouth!

Recently God has been showing me more and more how His word needs to govern every aspect of my life, not just the where it is easy or convenient. This has been so good because I am beginning to taste the joys of obedience to Him. One of the areas that I recognized I hadn't let God completely govern was my speech, and from my limited observation, it seems as though a lot of people my age have the same problem.

From scripture it is obvious that a Christian's speech is never to do two things:

1. Tear down

A person who has been rescued by Christ has no place tearing another person down with his or her tongue. Our words are to be gracious, edifying, and uplifting at all times. This means that sarcasm or humor at the price of the degradation of someone else is offensive to God and must not be a part of our speech.

2. Joke about or make light of what God has made serious

Joking about or making light of the things God has made serious is an offense against our pure and holy God and I lose sight of this at times. To joke about anything God has made serious is offensive to God and so we must stay run from it. However, the sacred and serious gift God has given us that I see gets made light of and joked about possibly the most (besides God Himself), is sex. Sex and everything that surrounds it is the end of countless jokes, even in Christian circles. On an arrogant campaign to be the funniest person around, so many Christians, or so called Christians, let their humor run wild in this sacred realm. Just because something makes you laugh, doesn't make it right. If you feel guilty that you are laughing than what you are laughing at probably isn't right and is an offense to God because it violates your conscience.

I am guilty of both of these categories, but by God's amazing grace I am repenting and turning away from my sinful speech and striving to honor God with the tongue He has given me.

Christian, will you allow God to govern the way you live in every aspect of your life? Then surrender your speech (and everything else) to Him. Do not take my word for what He says, pick up your bible and go and see, and may it change you in every way.

For the glory of God

Seth

"If You Love Me..."

In John 14:15 Jesus says these words to His disciples and to us, "If you love me you will keep my commandments." This is a verse very well known to the church, but I hope the conviction it brings will never loose its sting. The truth is our obedience says volumes about our hearts. Here we find a big problem. On our own we only disobey revealing hearts that hate God. This is why Jesus is our only hope.

Jesus was perfectly obedient. His obedience, even to the point of death on a cross (Phil. 2:8), revealed his boundless love for the Father (John 14:31), and on the same hand His love for us. Our only hope of salvation is to be covered in His perfect obedience. Hallelujah for the cross which purchased both forgiveness and our obedience for us.

Yet we are not off the hook! God sees us in Christ's righteousness and that is a beautiful truth, but as we see God's never ending love for us we should be able to do nothing else but show love back. How do we do this best? By striving toward the perfect obedience we are covered in. If we love Him, we will keep His commandments.

Christian, do you love Him? Than stop treating His commands as spiritual suggestions (as I am often guilty of) and start seeing the as His loving demands on your blood bought life. Love Him with everything you have by the spirit by striving to obey in everything He has commanded. That is how you say "I love you Father."

For His glory

Seth

A Very Small Thing

This past week I got to go to Cincinnati with my family. We got to do a lot of amazing things while we were there like going to the 3rd highest rated amusement park in the country (King's Island) and the #1 zoo in the country (The Columbus Zoo). As my family and I walked around these places filled with people, I noticed something going on in my heart...I wanted to be liked, accepted, thought well of by all these people that I didn't even know!

I am naturally a people pleaser. I don't like it when people are upset with me and I always want people to like me and accept me. But there is a huge problem...if I follow and obey Christ, I won't be accepted and liked by most people because most people don't accept and like Christ; in fact they hate Him. What I had fallen into was valuing the opinions of men higher than the opinion of God.

God started to convict me of this and I began to repent...but He wasn't done. On our way back from Cincinnati we got to visit a church in Louisville and the pastor got up and preached on 1 Corinthians 4:1-5. In this passage Paul tells the church of Corinth that (along with many other things) he considers it a very small thing to be examined or judged by them or any human because God is His ultimate judge. Now Paul is not saying that he considers it a small thing when someone brings a sin of his to his attention...in fact in the very next chapter he tells the church to judge and kick a man out of the congregation who was in sin. What he is saying is that it isn't a big deal if people don't think highly of him because of what he looks like or how he speaks or you fill in the blank. It wasn't a big deal because he had been accepted by God in Christ and was now working through the Spirit to be faithful to do all that God had for him to do. If people thought less of Him for this...no big deal! Needless to say I needed to hear this, and maybe you do too!

Knowing that God is our judge frees us to consider the approval of man a very small thing. If you are in Christ you are accepted by God! Now strive to obey God in everything submitting to every whim of His will and know that it isn't a bid deal what people think of you for it.

For the glory of God

Seth

Spiritual Laziness

Toil, strive, practice, run; these words all have a common theme: work. Isn't it interesting though, that these are some of the words you will find in scripture that go along with or describe the Christian life. God gives it to us straight! As a people who have been redeemed from our old ways and are now going against our flesh, the rest of society, and the devil, we have work to do.

Now to be clear, this work is the result of the grace we have been given, not the cause of it. There is nothing we can do to earn the grace of God, we are sinners and all our good deeds are as filthy rags before God, so we need to get that idea out of our minds forever. In our sin, nothing we can do is pleasing to God, but Christ is. Jesus lived a perfect life fully pleasing to God, and He graciously covers all people He brings to Himself in this righteousness. We are pleasing to God only because of Christ, so now because of this grace and through the strength God gives us, it is time to work.

We need to...

1. Work toward a deeper relationship with God through communion with Him. Let me just say it and take whatever objections may come; asking God to speak to us outside of His word is spiritual laziness. In His Word, God has given us everything we need to know both for our relationship with Him and for life. But lets face it! Studying scripture is work! Perseverance in the study of the Bible is an area that I struggle, but when God gives me victory I am able to reap the sweet benefits of hearing Him speak to my heart through the word. So let us work hard through the spirit to seek God through His word.

Communion, however, is two ways. It takes work to hear from Him, and it takes work to talk to Him. We have to be totally honest with the one who sees our hearts, and this takes a lot of effort because most of the time we aren't even honest with ourselves.

2. Work to put off sin. We must work to kill the sin that remains in our lives and keeps us form a deeper relationship with God. As Hebrews 12:1 puts it, "let us also lay aside every encumbrance and sin which so easily entangles." Christians, in the words of John Owen, "be killing sin, or it will be killing you."

May the Holy Spirit fill us with the strength we don't have to work hard after a deeper relationship with our God.

For His glory

Seth

Following Like a Sheep

In John 10 Jesus makes a beautiful analogy. He calls Himself the good shepherd, and His people sheep. He is the good shepherd because He loves and intimately knows His sheep and lays His life down for them. In verses 27-28 Jesus says, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of my hand."

Now sheep are creatures that instinctively follow. Are we different? Earlier in John Jesus said that everyone who has sinned is a slave to sin, so all sinners are following sin. Sheep will also follow what they think will lead them to better pastures. Again, are we so different? Don't we sin because we think we can trust it? Don't we sin because we think it will fulfill us and make us happy? This is a lie, but without spiritually opened eyes we cannot see this. But for all God's people who have had their spiritual eyes opened; for all those for whom the Shepherd has laid down His life, we have been given the gift and the strength to turn from following sin and begin following Christ.

Let us briefly consider the one who we are following. Jesus is completely trustworthy. He has died in our place and nothing can pluck us form His hand. He is good and loves us with a love too great to fathom. He will lead us where we need to go. Considering all these things, why would we ever question Him when He tells us to follow in a specific way? Now I am not talking a feeling that you have or something like that, I am talking about how He tells us to follow Him in His word. If our leader is completely trustworthy, when He commands something, no matter the cost to our lives, we must like sheep, trust and obey.

For the glory of God

Seth

"Who knew I had to become a slave to be free?'

What is freedom? It seems like most people would characterize freedom as being able to do whatever they wanted to do. Is this really freedom?

In John 8:34 Jesus says "everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin." Acknowledging that the bible says that everyone has sinned, everyone is a slave to sin. So unless God acts to free you from your slavery to sin, whenever you do what you want to do, you are actually just obeying your master; sin. This is a sobering thought, and if we were left here we would be hopeless. if we stopped here all of humanity would be held captive by sin and loving their master's chains. But God who should have punished us for our sin, made a way for us to be free. He sent His son to redeem his people through his blood. Jesus literally bought us from sin and set us free to live a life of worship to God.

So what is freedom? Not doing what you want to do, but doing what He wants you to do. It is beautiful slavery to the perfect will of God and His good commands. It is life as it was meant to be lived, in blissful worship of God.

"Who knew I had to become a slave to be free?" -PRO

For the glory of God

Seth