Provision for Today

From Morning and Evening: Daily Readings by Charles Spurgeon under Morning, December 14
"Thou shalt never find a bundle of affliction which has not bound up in the midst of it sufficient grace."

Oh how this quote speaks to me! So easy is it to forget that God is in control of all things and that as a believer He has given you strength for all of them. There isn't a day that goes by with all its afflictions that He did not prepare you for, and even if you do not do well for a particular affliction it is not for a lack of provision but rather forgetting to use the things the Lord has provided for you. We all do this, forget that He has given us what we need for each day. Sometimes I think we try to hold onto what has been given to us for fear that we will need it tomorrow, however when tomorrow comes what we held has wasted away and we have been provided with new in its place. This does not mean we have no work to do to prepare, we must familiarize ourselves with the things we were provided. Daily reading of scripture, prayer, preaching to ourselves the good news, these are the things we must be doing in order to ready the tools God has given us. Once the tools are ready then we must continue to keep them ready for use, our day should be filled with prayer and preaching. By memorizing scriptures we can continue to speak them to ourselves so that the tools are always at hand. Our prayers don't even have to be all that lengthy, sometimes a brief "God help me" is sufficient enough to remind us that we do not go about our tasks alone and unprepared, so we do not need to fear what is coming. Each day, every day, there is provision for it, it is given by God, let us not leave it behind but rather take it and prepare it to be used and not in part but in whole, for all of it is intended for the day it was given.

The Cost

This past Sunday we had a guest speaker. During the sermon he was giving he told the story of John Griffith, a bridge operator. His job was to man a bridge spanning over the Mississippi river, to open it for ships to pass and to close it for trains to cross. Now, I have since the sermon looked online for more information about the story and have seen a couple different ways it is told, but they are all basically the same. John took his 8 year old son with him one day to work. The boy was delighted to be with his father and to see what he does and the father was overjoyed to have his son with him, to be able to spend this time with him. At some point during the day the father is caught off guard by a train approaching the bridge to cross, however the bridge is up. His son at this point had either fallen or wandered into the gears that control the bridge and if he were to close the bridge the gears would crush his son. There is no time to save the son and the people in the train. Faced with this dilemma the father has to make a choice as to who he allows to die, his son or the people on the train. He makes the difficult choice that he knows he has to make and pulls the lever to lower the bridge, sacrificing his son so that many might live.

Now, some may argue the validity of this story, however I would argue that it doesn't matter. This story is one that allows us to see the cost of our own salvation. God was the father who had to sacrifice His Son so that many might be saved and be given life and Jesus was the son who died. Now the biggest difference between these two stories is that Jesus wasn't just there, he had to be there. If Jesus had not been there to give His life then none would have been saved. Think of it this way, Jesus had to stand on the gears to hold a piece in place while they functioned and He knew full well that doing this would cost Him his life. To choose to give your life for another is not something most people would do, and to give the life of your son would not be your first choice either, but this was the plan that they created. God gave up His most precious Son for us, to die in our place so that we could have eternal life with Him. Now most of the tellings of John's story say that he looked upon the passing train and saw the passengers and all of them were completely oblivious to what he had just done for them, they didn't know he had given his best for them so that they could live. God gave His best for us, but we know the story and know what He gave. So in light of this knowledge, lets make sure the other passengers on this train see what we see, that God gave the most precious thing that the world could ever know so that they might live.

Called by Name

Have you ever had a time in your life where you were going about your business and had nothing else in mind except accomplishing your own tasks when suddenly you hear your name called out? You are interrupted from your current direction and redirected to something else, often times something greater. I have had times where someone saw me as I was going about my business and their interruption by calling out my name lead to a wonderful conversation with them and they have even helped me find something better than what I was looking for. Those little interruptions can be life changing and it all starts with someone calling you by name and interrupting what you think is so important.

The greatest interruption I can think of is the one that God had with me. You see, I was going about my life as we all do without a single care about my future life. Everything that I was doing was about my life here and now and I thought I was happy in it when suddenly I heard someone call out my name. The only way any of us ever escape this life and have hope in the next is when God calls us. It is not us that seek him out, we are far too busy for that, it is when He decides to call out our name and cause us to turn and to see there is more than just what we are doing now. We have an eternity of joy awaiting us simply because we were called by God to pursue something more than just this life. God could have simply let us pass by without a word but instead He called us and showed us wonderful things in His Son Jesus Christ. Because of this call my life has changed, I pursue more and more things that are eternal and turn away from things that are worthless. I've stopped shopping the bargain bin of life so that I may shop the super sale of God's abundance where things aren't cheap, they're free and of the highest quality. So, if you see someone wandering about that you know make sure to call out to them, call them by name, you might be able to bless their lives in ways you never anticipated.

This post was inspired by: 1Corinthians1:1-3

Leading in Love

I have been greatly affected recently by listening to the Sanctus Real song "Lead Me", and not just listening, but hearing the words of it. As I hear to the lyrics I understand more of what it is to lead my family as God has asked me to do. As husband to my wife and father to my daughter it is my responsibility to lead them in their walk with God. I am to show them God's love and forsake the things that would prevent me from doing so. One particular verse of this song that I like is when he is praying to God and says, "Don't want to leave them, hungry for love, chasing things, that I should give up." A lot of what God has been teaching me lately has to deal with giving things up so that I can better glorify Him and serve Him better. What better way for me to serve God than to lead my wife and daughter to Him for His glory?

To lead, as the song tells, requires us first to be strong. As men of God we understand that our own strength often fails us. The only strength that we can rely on is the strength of God. To be able to stand against all trials and to lead with strength requires the Lord. We must grow in our understanding of God and to increase our faith of Him to have the strength to endure and the wisdom to lead. The next part of the song teaches us that we need to lead with love. As God tells us in Ephesians5:25 we are to love our wives as Christ loves the church. This means we cannot lead them in a way that doesn't contain love, we need to be humble in correcting them and make sure that above all else that they feel love in all the ways that we lead. We also need to make sure that nothing keeps us from leading them. If we lust for things of this world our love will go towards these things and not towards our family. If this happens it can be devastating for a family, I am reminded of the movie Fireproof where the main character is so obsessed with the boat that he wants that he neglects the relationship with his wife. This leads him in other directions as well, the more you desire something else the farther you walk from your family and also from God. You see, with our family as our focus we then desire God more. As a Christian I am unable to properly love without God, I need His love to love others. The more I desire to love my family and to show them how much I love them the more I desire God and His love so that my love may be more genuine. For God displayed the greatest of all love for us through His Son, who laid down His life for us, His entire life, that we would not suffer for our iniquities but instead be restored unto God and have the great promise of eternal life with Him. This is our example, and what does it cost us to lay aside all that we desire when we think upon what He did for us in order that we may better love as He has called us to do?

God's Plan

His saving work be done,

So God sent man His Son.

Faithful in all His walk,

Never with slanderous talk,

That He would perfect be,

To set the sinner free.

Washed by the blood of Christ,

For through His sacrifice,

The sinner is made clean,

And shows the savior's sheen.

So let us live today,

Remembering His way.

To Him we give our all,

And heed to His great call,

To save all those we can,

By showing them this Man.

Our Everything

In 2Corinthians1:20 it says that all of God's promises find their Yes in Jesus Christ. It is in Him, the Son of God that all of God's promises are made to be true for us as believers. It is in this reality that we can find our comfort, for our lives are unsure and our way is with many struggles, but Jesus walked the way for us and so in this knowledge we have a great assurance of the many promises of God. The richest treasures in the world can not compare to this understanding, to know that we have an unbreakable promise from God for our eternal life. So great is this promise that all other things in life dim in comparison. Why do we need the things of this world when we think of all that we have in Christ? He is our everything.

It is this knowledge that can make it easier for us to commit all to God for the sake of the gospel. There is nothing for us to lose when we already have all that is promised to us. We can commit all that we have in this world to further the gospel and know that we will not be wanting because we already have it all. If God asks of us to give some thing in this world, we should be willing to give it. If there is something getting in the way of our work for Him then we can give it up because we know that there is much greater for us that will come when the Lord returns.

Oh, thank you Lord for this knowledge, this gift from your word! To know that we have all your promises through Christ who has purchased us with His blood. What a comfort for us to know that it isn't our work that brings us Your promises but Christ's work, so that we are not lacking to receive from You the wonderful goodness of your promises. Lord, help us to grow in this, to take it to heart, to commit all to you for it is worth nothing compared to what you have already given us. Lord, even in our trials when the world says we should despair bring us comfort in the wonderful knowledge of Christ's work on our behalf.

Stoking the Fire

Don't you just love those moments when someone or something inspires you in such a way that your fires are stoked and you are anxious to do the thing you've been inspired to do? I know I love those moments. They are few and far apart, however this last Sunday we were given a sermon that stoked my fires in a way I don't think they've ever been. My heart still yearns greatly for what I've been inspired to do. But, before we get to what I desire to do, let us first discuss just what it was that I heard that created such a strong passion in me.

The sermon was about the cost of following Jesus. I have to say, this was a very well done sermon and our pastor should be commended for the way he presented it. The verses he used for this message were primarily Mark8:31-9:1. The way the message started was in revealing that for us to be able to follow Jesus it cost Him something. He had to suffer and die for us. I'm sure as Christians we've all heard that, but let us think a little deeper into this. You see, Jesus had a passion for this, He was going to do this regardless of all the resistance that was put against it. Jesus was well aware of what was in store and said it plainly, He talked of suffering and dying and rising again. What is the most amazing thing about this is that He knew what was coming and yet he was still passionate about doing it! This made me realize just how much He did for us. I don't think anyone could have gone through with it and fought those who opposed it as He did if they knew what exactly was coming. The sermon then continued on to tell us that there is a cost for us to follow Christ. He related to us what it could look like to follow Christ, the things of this world that we might be called to give up for the sake of the Gospel. These things built up in me, I realized that there were things in my life that were interfering with my service to God. That's where the conviction came and where my joy and passion set in.

I love playing games, specifically online games. The only problem with them is that I think about them, in fact, I would think about them so much that even when I should have been deep in the study of the Gospel I was thinking about what I wanted to do on the games when I finished my study. This thing that I was so passionate about was destroying my passion for God, my fires did not burn for Him that saved me because I was being distracted by a worthless thing in this life! What does this mean? It means I was storing up treasures for myself here, getting my instant, worldly gratification and neglecting my future. God tells us to store up our treasures in Heaven, where they are permanent, and here I was leaving my treasures here, where they would perish with the rest of the world. So these things stirred up the fire for God, it burned hot, so hot that it consumed the other fires in my heart. Now, even almost a week later these fires are burning, maybe I do not feel them as I did right after the sermon, but they still burn. I desire more than anything now to be willing to give up all for God and to do the work that He has for me, to bring Him glory and honor and to praise Him for all that He has done! My hope is that this fire burns ever hotter and that with each thing that God reveals to me or calls me to do that it is only further fueled and He will gain all the glory from it! Oh, what a great and wonderful God who stirs up the weak to do His will! I pray He stirs up all of us, that we may all do His work with as much passion as Jesus had to do the work upon the cross.

Beauty and Creativity

God created us in such a way as to allow us to see the beauty in many things. For me, not only do I see the trees, flowers and creatures of this earth, their elegance, fragrance and interesting quirks, but I also get to delight in the thoughts that flow through my head about these things and other things that go unseen. God has given us many gifts and no two people are the same in how they were gifted. One of the gifts that God has graciously given me is in writing. I love weaving words together in such a way as to paint a tapestry for me and anyone else to read. There are a multitude of other things that people do that display beauty and creativity. Some people are gifted with speech, others with crafting or cooking, some with caring for others, and so many others with different types of gifts. All these things that we do, the little things, the great things, all of them are wonderful in their own way, and the thing that makes it all the more wonderful is that we don't just do these things, we get involved in them, it isn't just the thing we are doing, we are investing into the things that we are working on. We put forth love and care into our works, we appreciate them in a way that none but God will ever fully comprehend, though they might spend much time trying to.

You know, one of the best things ever created that holds the greatest beauty of all was in how God constructed and shaped a way for us to come to Him. He displays the entirety of His plan in the Gospel, by sending His Son to die for our sins that we may be forgiven and receive eternal life. This means that we will eventually be with God, forgiven by His grace, in perfect fellowship with Him in the new heaven and earth. Could you imagine seeing this beautiful world when it is perfect? No longer tainted or corrupted but as God intended it to be? What a thing to ponder and imagine! Oh, how I love the way that God created us, the complex ways in which we work, and the ability to look forward with wonder and amazement at something that none of us could possibly imagine! So for today, let us remember the Lord and all His good works and spend some time appreciating the beauty in all the things He has created, for nothing is that He did not first envision. Let us also remember that we too, are masterpieces of God's creativity and we are something of beauty to be appreciated.

Labor and Sin

Sometimes I find myself wishing that things just came my way, that life were easy and I did not have to strive for anything that I have. Most of the time this does not happen, I have to work for what I have and put forth some semblance of effort into everything. This reveals a few things. First, that my desire is for the perfect world that God first created. In the beginning we were given all that we needed, we needed to do nothing to have everything, however, this did not last, sin made sure of that. This brings me to the second thing this reveals, it was sin that made labor necessary for us. It wasn't until Genesis3 that the earth demanded labor to bear its fruits. It was when sin entered the world, when man first failed to have perfect obedience to God's commands, that labor as we know it began. The last thing it reveals is my own selfish desires, I do not desire to work and so I do not work as hard as I should. Yes, it is good that I desire God's perfect plan and it is also good that I recognize that the reason we must labor is because of sin, but it is not good that I do not work as hard as I should.

The Lord said that in whatever we do to do it as if we are doing it for Him. In remembering this then we need to think about how hard we work when it is something we desire. If you desire something enough you work very hard for it, you will push forward until the point of exhaustion and if it is important enough you push beyond that. To us, as believers, there is nothing more important than God and His saving grace. If then what we desire is fellowship with God and to please Him and He says to do everything as if He asked you to do it, then we need to desire this above all other things, to strive for it, to put forth the same effort in all things that we put into what we desire. For me, this gives me fresh conviction to strive harder to do better in all things I endevour in. I want to ensure that I am remembering this truth always, that I work for the Lord and not for man.

Asking and Receiving

As it says in the Bible, Matthew7:7-11, we should ask of God that we may receive from His hand. It seems so simple in its statement, and it is. We should ask God for all things. To pray daily to Him and ask that He provides us with our daily bread, our needed shelter, to do His will. Without Him we accomplish nothing and with Him we accomplish much. Though it may seem at times we toil and achieve alone it is in fact not that way. God is always with us, working His will among us. The thing that slows our success is by not turning to Him and recognizing His work in our daily lives. He is already there, helping us, why are we not turning to Him and asking specifically for the help He is already giving? Does not a crew build a house faster when they discuss what each one is doing instead of all of them just doing the part they think is next? Can you put a roof on a house without first constructing the walls? No! So why do we try to do the next thing without first communicating to the one helping us build? That sounds so simple, but for me, I struggle with something else, a fear, and I should fight the fear because it isn't meant to deter me from asking but to help me understand the desires of my heart.

The fear stems from James4:3. This passage says that I do not receive because I have asked wrongly. I fear being wrong. Which is funny, because I have been wrong enough to know it isn't the end of the world to be wrong. What I fight is my pride. I do not wish to ask wrongly, so I avoid asking for fear that my heart desires worldly things. I already know my heart has a tendancy to desire worldly things, so now I'm just making matters worse by never asking. God doesn't always give you what you desire or give in the way you desire it, but He gives you what is good. If I desire to gain a bit more financially and I ask I hardly ever receive that, but what does happen is God gives me what I need when I need it. So what I have learned is when I do receive something extra in our finances it is probably needed for something else that is about to come up. This in turn has been teaching me to care for the things that God has provided me. I don't do this perfectly, but I try my best and with God's help it is usually good enough to not mess up other things. So moving forward, my goal is to ask God for all things, because the worst that can happen is I don't get what I asked for, but receive something better that God has in mind for me.

Interruptions

Don't you just hate it when someone interrupts you when you're in the middle of doing something? I know it can drive me absolutely crazy. At one moment I am fully immersed in whatever it is I'm doing and in the next something has requested my attention and now I've completely lost the focus I had. I'm no longer in the moment of my activity, I am now split between the interruption and the thing I was doing. At times like this I find it really hard to give my fullest attention to either thing and this is when I learn what my heart thinks is more important.

Honestly, I don't think I always choose the best things to be important to me. What I ought to desire isn't always what I do. When I am torn between what I was doing and something good, I really should release the thing I was doing and give the good thing my fullest attention. The way God times things in our lives is intentional. He wants to interrupt us at times so that we can focus on something greater than ourselves, mainly Him. As much as I hate interruptions, I must admit, if it weren't for these inconveniences in life I don't think I'd be who I am or where I am now. You see, in order for me to be saved and to know Jesus my life had to be interrupted. I was surely not heading in the direction of salvation and really had no desire to look in that direction at all until God decided to call me to Himself. I had no real say in my own salvation, it was all God, He is the one who calls us out individually, opens our box, sets us free and then begins the process of changing us. He is also the one who brought me to where I am now. Through His interruptions of my life I changed schools which lead to meeting my wife and started the whole process of finding the job I wanted. The jobs I've had, each one helping me to realize what I wanted to actually do lead me eventually to the job I have now (which is what I want to do and is a wonderful job). Through these changes He has also made it possible for us to find a house in an area that is convenient for us at a price we could afford and with everything we would need. This house finding adventure lead us to having the ability to pay off certain debts so that my wife could stay home and care for our daughter who we found out after buying the house was going to be our next adventure. So in His timing and interruptions our lives were shaped and we learned just how well our God provides for us. Oh how great it is to know that someone much more reliable than me is the actual provider for our family!

So, in rememberance of God's greatest interruption of our lives, our salvation, let us praise God every time we are interrupted today and give these good interruptions our fullest attention so that God can continue to change us, to shape us into the likeness of Christ.

Warmest Wishes for a Wonderful Day

Each of us has our own idea of a wonderful day. Take for example my idea of a wonderful day, it will probably vary a bit from yours. My ideal day is hazy, cooler but not cold, rainy at times or with a good thunderstorm during part of the day. My day is very relaxing, laid back, but not tiring as most people think of these dreary days. It is a day at home, spending some time listening to the sound of rain and doing various indoor activities. I love these days, but I don't love them every day, I do enjoy sunny days too as most people do, but I really love having a few days in my ideal range of comfort.

Every day is a wonderful day when you think about it. You have been given another day to live, to enjoy life and the good things within it. For me it is another day I get to spend with my Godly wife and enjoy the gift from God that she is. It is another day to see my daughter's smiling face or hear her laugh at something completely random. The new day is also another chance for me to do what I desire to do, though most days I fail to live up to my expectations, but that is the way it is being a sinner in a sin filled world, there are just too many distractions and temptations. One way I'm working on getting back on track is getting back to writing my thoughts. I love to write things down and get them from my head into something intelligible that others could understand as well. By reflecting on my thoughts I can change my mood and get into the groove I want to have and carry with me. So today, for this wonderful day, I am writing to remind myself of how great each day is and improve my outlook on things, that I may do better today to glorify the God who made me the way I am.

Defining the Box

I would like to take this first post to define the box that I see a lot of us living in. The box is our final box, it is our coffin, we are born living inside it, dead in our sins and trespasses against God. It may not seem fair to be born this way, but it is the punishment for the first sin and for all subsequent sins, all of which we are capable of doing and all of which we are guilty for.

There originally was no box, no death, no seperation from God and there was no sin. It was by disobedience that sin was introduced into the world. So now, here we are, living our lives oblivious to the box we are entombed in. Or, at least that's the way it would have been for me. You see, someone opened my box and let in the light of life. The Lord, Jesus Christ was the one who did this, He spoke the words of life into my heart and freed me. He did this by dying and being buried and rising again on the third day so that He could ransom me and release me from my sins, thus opening my box. Because of His work I now have no debt to God and also have the same inheritance that He has. These great treasures are waiting for me, but I must first live life here, outside my box in a world that was beautifully made.