Friday, November 25, 2011

Quiet Down


"Then He said, 'Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.' And behold, the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks is pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a still small voice." 1 Kings 19:11-12, NKJV

I remember my teachers in school shouting, “Quiet down!” over the roar of our classroom. Our teacher knew that she couldn’t talk over the noise of those kids. She knew that if anything was going to get done, we all needed to be quiet.

Do you ever have trouble stopping all the noise in your life? Does it seem like there is always some sort of noise running in the background? The trouble with commotion in our lives is that it makes it extremely difficult to hear from God. The passage of scripture above is showing us that we have a tendency to always look for God in the wind, the earthquakes and the fires of life. But that’s not His primary way of speaking with us. He’s looking for those times where we quiet down our lives so that we can hear His still small voice.

I don’t know about you, but I long to hear God’s still small voice. It reminds me of two verses that talk about getting quiet or getting still so that we can hear:

“…meditate within your heart on your bed and be still.” (Psalm 4:4, NKJV)

“Be still and know that I am God….” (Psalm 46:10, NKJV)

How can we ever have a quality “quiet time” when we don’t build margin in our lives to get quiet? How can we ever hear from heaven if we keep turning up the noises here on earth? I want to encourage you this weekend to carve some time in your life to hear from God.

Would you be willing to do an experiment with me? Will you set apart some time to find a place to get quiet and spend some time with God? Block out at least two hours – four would be better – and get yourself somewhere that you won’t be distracted by the wind, an earthquake or a fire. The first thing to do is quiet your mind and your heart. This may take more than a few minutes. Don’t try to get here too quick. It’s a time to really put your focus upon God. The second thing would be to write down some questions that you would like to know from God. Don’t be too generic or superficial, but write down real, heartfelt questions about your life. Then pray and ask God to bring clarity to you during this time. Ask Him to open up your heart to revelation knowledge about His plan and His will for you. Let this be a time where you are drawn closer to Him. He says that if we seek Him, we will find Him. Now it’s time to start reading your Bible. I would suggest to start by reading a few Proverbs, a few chapters in Psalms, and then some chapters out of the New Testament. Then begin to journal your thoughts. What are you seeing in the scriptures, what are you hearing? Then just go back and forth between reading then writing, writing and reading, and reading and writing. You get the picture? And please, whatever you do, don’t be in a hurry, don’t get distracted, but stay focused. Remember, God’s not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire – He’s in the still small voice. So quiet down, and listen!

Friday, November 18, 2011

A Work In Progress



"But now, O Lord, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand." Isaiah 64:8, NKJV

Will it ever stop? Will my need to hop up again on the Potter's wheel for a re-shaping ever end? I don't know about you, but it seems like I'm always finding myself challenged to either stay the same or allow God to mold and shape me into the person He wants me to be. You see, we're the clay and He's the Potter. We don't get to shape ourselves—He does! I've found that sometimes His re-shaping hurts. It hurts my ego, it hurts my pride and it even hurts my feelings. (Call the waaambulance) But in the end, it makes me a better person. How about you? Can you relate to this, or am I writing this just for me?

Did you know that God is always working in our lives? Sometimes He is very obvious and at other times He is working more behind-the-scenes shaping us into who He created us to be. Philippians 2:13 (NKJV) tells us, “…for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” It all starts with our willingness to be open for God to work in our lives.

So where do we start? Where does our Potter need to do His most important and vital work? It starts in the heart. I love the cry of David in Psalm 139:23-24 (KJV),“Search me O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

A natural potter works to shape the outside of his project, but our Potter knows that His work is an inside job. If we’ll let Him, He will shape our hearts in such a way that we can become a reflection of His Son Jesus Christ. In Ezekiel 36:26 God tells us that when we are born again He replaces our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh. He takes out our hard and immoveable hearts and gives us a pliable and moldable heart of flesh. That’s the kind of heart that He can work with. For so many years my heart was hard. It was hard toward others, and even hard toward God Himself. But when Jesus became the Lord of my life, He began to soften my heart in an amazing way. The really cool thing is that the Potter’s work on the inside began to show itself on the outside. So now some thirty years later I find that I still need the Potter more than ever. I just love it when the Potter does His thing in my heart, because He’s always working to make my heart look more like His. I admit it; I am a work in progress.

So today, will you join me in presenting our hearts to God? Let’s ask Him to do a work in us in ways that will please Him, and Him alone. A work that will cause us to be more like Jesus in everything we do.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Which Way Do I Go?

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6, NKJV

Life’s way too short to ever head down the wrong road. Why? Because it takes so much extra energy and effort to turn around rather than just take the right path in the first place. God’s got a straight path for every one of us; He always has the best route to get from point A to point B.

I love the simple plan that God lays out for us in the opening verse of this devo in terms of following His direction for our lives. Let’s walk this out together:

1. Trust in the Lord

It all starts with us trusting in Him more than we trust in ourselves. We are taught early on to trust ourselves, our ideas or even our instincts. But that’s not always the best. It’s best when we put our trust in the Lord. He sees the big picture. He sees things that we don’t see. He sees the roadblocks, the things in the road that will cause us to be delayed. When we choose to trust God with our decisions and the direction, it opens up the door for His guidance. It’s called faith. It’s when we get to the point when we seek God’s direction rather than coming up with our own. In John 16:13 Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will actually, “show us things to come.” He helps us to see further and better than we can see by ourselves. And this leads us to point number two.

2. Lean not on your own understanding.

This just means that we need to learn to “lean into God” more than we lean on our own brainpower. The way we lean into God is by presenting every part of our lives before the Lord in prayer. It’s something that we need to do daily through our quiet times, through journaling or those times we take extra time to prayer through our decisions. The Good Shepherd does speak to His sheep, but we have to be willing to listen. This brings us to point number three.

3. In all your ways acknowledge Him.

This is what happens when we bring our “issues” before the Lord. We’re just acknowledging our dependence upon the Lord. And by the way, that’s not for His benefit, it’s for ours. Because He knows that we need Him, we just need to consistently remind ourselves that we’re helpless without Him. Philippians 4:6 is a great reminder that we don’t have to worry that we’re making a wrong decision as long as we bring everything to Him in prayer. This brings us to point number four.

4. And He shall direct your paths.

This is our confidence. If we will trust in the Lord, lean not on our own understanding, and always acknowledge Him, we’ll stay on the right path. We won’t get off course. We can trust that He knows more than us and that the road we’re on will result in us staying in His perfect will for our lives.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Stay On God's Side


"For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations." Psalm 100:5 NKJV

When I was in Bible School one of our instructors used to say when it came to interpreting scripture, “Always stay on God’s side.”

He was wisely telling us that there would be times in life when we would begin to question certain scriptures, question our faith, and even the occasions when we would have more questions than we did answers. But he reminded us to always stay on the side of God, knowing that the Lord is good—all the time! So, let’s break this verse down into its three foundational components:

(1) The Lord is good.

God is good and He is good all the time. Is that just a fun saying or is that a reality that we can build our lives on? I’d say it’s one of the most important of these three foundational components of this verse. Jesus came to do His Father’s will. In fact, He said that He only did what He saw His Father doing, and what He did was good, and it was good all the time.

It’s hard to dispute that when we read Acts 10:38, which says, “…how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” (NKJV) Did you notice what the power of God caused Jesus to do? It caused Him to do good – and to do good all the time.

So whatever you’re facing today, you need to know this: God is working behind the scenes for you and His work is good. So stay on God’s side.

(2) His mercy is everlasting.

This second component is also very important to get deep down into your soul. God is merciful and His mercy outlasts anything you could ever do. When you and I deserved judgment for our sin, God sent mercy in the form of His Son on the cross. When the woman caught in adultery was brought before Jesus, her accusers wanted judgment but Jesus offered mercy. God’s power to overcome our failures is without end. “Everlasting” simply means that God’s mercy is perpetual, it literally has no vanishing point, it never wavers and will never go away. God’s mercy will always always always be there for us, without question and without end. Lamentations 3:23 speaks of God’s mercy when it says, “They (His mercies) are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.” (NASB)

Today is a new day, so if you’ve blown it, simply ask God for mercy and it will be yours. God’s mercy is available to you today. So stay on God’s side.

(3) His truth endures to all generations.

What’s truth? What is truth to one person may not be truth to another. The only thing that we can ever really put our trust in is the Word of God. People change, fads come and go, opinions differ, but God’s Word always stays the same and we can build our lives upon that truth. Jesus said in John 8:32, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (NKJV) God’s Word can really change the way we live if we’ll just believe it and put it into practice.

Knowing that God is good, that His mercy endures forever, and that His truth is everlasting is a huge revelation that I hope you spend the day meditating on. Because when you do it will help you through everything and anything that you may face. So remember to always stay on God’s side, because He will always stay on your side.