Adoring God

"I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever.

Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; His greatness no one can fathom”                         (Psalm 145: 1,3, NIV).

You’d think that adoring God would be easy-- like pouring sweet praise over your lover or speaking with abandon to a gurgling baby.

But I’ve found that it’s not always easy.

In fact, to adore God I have to prime my heart with praise from scripture. If I am preoccupied with a concern, I don’t praise easily. But when I recall God’s prior revelations, I can refocus. That creates an expectant gaze which helps me to move to praise.

When praise doesn’t come easily, I choose to look to Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-3). When I do, my whole being can tell a difference. That’s because adoration takes me into God’s presence.

Adoring God (the first part of the ACTS acrostic: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication) opens windows to fresher air than I breathed a minute before. Adoring God opens my eyes to see the eternal impinging on my day, the power of the Most High poised to act consistently with His good purposes.

Adoring God can bring fresh life to a tired body. It can bring hope to my flagging spirit and the Prince of Peace to a pocket of pain. I might still need sleep, but now I’m aware of Christ's enabling presence with me.

How better to start a day – or finish it – than to adore the most lovely Being who loves us!

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

What helps you focus on Christ’s amazing presence?

What benefits do you experience when you adore God?

Success in Suffering

It takes some strong weather and the maturing of your vine to realize that you can be in a windstorm and still prosper.

Joseph was thrown into prison for doing things God's way. Yet, "the LORD was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor.... and gave him success in whatever he did." (See Genesis 39:21-23.) The scriptures don't tell if Joseph stayed awake, tormented by the false accusations that put him in prison. Neither do they describe him as sullen or bitter. Instead, he seems to have discovered that, in this place of shame and constriction, God was with him and would somehow bring good (Genesis 50:20).

In the midst of difficulty, is this not success: submitting to God's presence, listening for God's insights, applying all that the Lord reveals  -- and in the strength which He mightily supplies? When we have a clear conscience and remember that God is with us, then the severe pruning of the vine is nothing to fear. We know it will eventually cause larger, more luscious fruit to develop. (See John chapter 15.)

Recently, my mother shared with me that, as she faces the ravaging storm of cancer, she feels as if she is in the eye of the storm. Everything around her is in turmoil, but she is at peace in the center. Because, like Joseph, God is with her.

While we might grapple with the whys, moving to the whats and experiencing God's transforming presence is ultimately what brings success in our prisons. There we experience uncommon peace, one of suffering's gifts. That's success!

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Might God be using discomfort in your life to strengthen you for greater things?

What do you need to address with God so you can move to the center and His peace?

Endurance, the Challenge

What makes it hard for you to endure?

For me, it's fatigue, ignorance, or self-reliance. Sometimes in this spiritual race (Hebrews 12), I think I'm looking to Jesus, but I'm running as if I am the one who has to do it all.

Of course I get tired. Of course, I want to chuck it at times and say it's not worth the daily persistence.

I've been living with scriptures on "faith" by prayerfully researching and meditating on those scriptures, and God is teaching me more about trusting Him in hard times.

Patient endurance is not passive resignation. It is actively trusting the energy which God supplies when you are weary, bruised, or flagging in commitment. 

Since I am glaringly aware that it is beyond my natural capacity to excercise that kind of faith, I  journal, pray, and obey with the Holy Spirit's power. Not my own.

So, join me in asking these questions. How can we endure or run with patience this race set before us? How can we look to Jesus who both authors and perfects this faith He has powerfully seeded in us?

We can endure when we realize the important focus is JESUS -- not ourselves nor our issues. Even when we fail (in our eyes or others'), we have to get up, dust off our knees, and refocus and keep running.

Want to be transformed into a woman or man of character? Meet the challenge to endure by looking persistently to Jesus!

Did God Really Say?

I have noticed that when I am forging ahead with some idea God gave me, and I encounter repeated obstacles, a seductive voice whispers, “Did God really say for you to do that?”

When that siren voice sings, I have to call all resources on deck to keep me on course. I have to be on guard against doubt that relishes a slippery deck and rubbery knees.

Maybe what I thought was God’s instruction was really my wish—merely a pipe dream—and not a worthy plan. I wonder how my boat can handle these choppy waters.

So it’s a good time to check the boat, my motivation and my destination.

If my initial check and double check with God’s Spirit and word has been confirmed by other sources, if I had no vested interest in the destination, and if I keep my communication open and current with the Captain, then I can trust all will be well… rough seas or calm.

What God says, God will do. When white waves throw salt water in my eyes, I wipe them off by faith.

Trusting what God said helps us ride our waves. The storm may rage, but Christ is in our boat.

As we listen to our Captain, His infinite wisdom speaks saving grace one word at a time. Hold on to those words already spoken into your mind and heart, then choose to keep thanking our able Captain for what you already know to be true.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
(Genesis 3: Reference to Eve and Adam’s temptation to distort God’s instructions and choose their own desires over God’s.)

What has God already told you that you need to remember?

“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1 Corinthians 10:13, NIV).

Ask the Holy Spirit to bring you a scripture promise to meditate on and to transform your situation.

Extravagant Love

Our daughters drove 20 hours around the clock to Indiana to surprise their Dad for his birthday. They arrived tired but jubilant to give him their love gift.

Through the corner of his eye, he saw them sitting quietly on the stairs waiting for his eyes to find them. They were out of context and his sensory input didn't make sense. It prompted a quick second look and we all went into peals of laughter. We hugged and laughed some more.

Sometimes God's extravagant love comes to us in overwhelming surprises. The first look may not make much sense, until we realize the gift has already been given, the cost paid, and it is waiting for our readiness to receive. Follow up attention and open armed embrace are the doorways to benefit from the gift, allowing us to make time to examine, talk, listen and enjoy.

Those rare occasions punctuate the mundane with exclamations of God’s lavish longing to bless us. Love picks us up and twirls us around in joy.

All because our Creator loves us lavishly and wants to bless us.

No performance required -- only the willingness to receive.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION 
See 1 John 4:19; Jeremiah 32:38-41 and John 3.

“For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NLT).

Take some time to think about the kind of love that sent God’s only Son to die for you.


Though you might recognize that God’s extravagant love is directed to you personally, do you act as if you have to earn it?

What makes it hard to receive and enjoy Jesus Christ's love for you?

Under Authority

Jesus stayed tight with the Father: always listening and doing what the Father revealed. Elijah did the same,and his prayers demonstrated the power of God's authority.

There are some unusual events in 1 Kings 17 that God "commands." I expect God and Elijah had been discussing the altar for Baal that King Ahab had set up in the temple before Elijah told King Ahab that God would stop all rain until He gave further word.

That the rain stopped for three years affirms God's commandment that would create hardship for many. For Elijah to have such powerful confidence in God's commands, he had to be a man under authority -- a man of faith.

The word of the LORD came to Elijah again and directed him to leave and go hide in the Kerith Ravine. There God had ordered the ravens to feed Elijah. Ravens! Dirty (unclean) birds! To feed one of His choice prophets! (Surprise, Elijah!)

The LORD gave further directions to go to Zarephath where God had commanded a widow to supply Elijah with food.

Gathering sticks to cook her last meal with her son, she had to have been afraid of the future -- perhaps even depressed. Elijah assured her she need not be afraid for, if she would do what God asked, the God of Israel would provide flour and oil for her till the famine broke.

She had to trust God's word ... and sacrifice her plans. She was to give Elijah the first cake of bread before she prepared a meager meal for her son and herself. Her adherence to the word of the LORD through Elijah saved their lives. Obedience was her doorway to blessing.

But obedience does not guarantee smooth sailing. Her son got ill and died.

Responding to Elijah's passionate plea that the boy's life be restored, the LORD commanded life to return to this young lad. The result was the mother became assured that Elijah was a man of God whose words were truth.

What lessons might we learn? As we stay under authority by trusting, listening, and obeying God's word, we get to be conduits of God's good purposes so righteousness can come to our land.

For Your Consideration

In addition to 1 Kings 17, see the story of Jesus and the Roman centurion, a man under authority, in Matthew 8: 5-13.

Obeying God may take you to uncomfortable places. How can you make sure that you keep current with God is showing you?

Do you have confidence that God cares about your walk with Him? Or, that God loves to give you what you need and reveal His righteousness?

Faith Training

Weight lifting develops our strength. We sweat, endure pain, and push towards exhaustion. Each time we exceed our former limit, we build greater endurance and strength. When we achieve our goal, the memory of the pain only becomes a badge that we hurdled our obstacles. We admire our better defined abs in the mirror, glad that our discipline has grown strength and a healthier body.

Developing stronger faith muscles is not too different ... except we don't usually sign up for the stress and pain. Oh, we pray for God to develop our faith, but when the opportunity comes for resistance training, our instinct is to question or complain.

Hebrews 12:11 reminds us that discipline is painful, not pleasant. But the pain we endure as Christ followers  produces endurance, character, and a sure hope in Jesus Christ. Suffering, like weight lifting, eventually produces greater joy! As we search for God's help in those times, we discover His love and the Holy Spirit's help. Our hope becomes more sure precisely because of the weight of life's demands (see Romans 5: 3-5).

We do well to remind ourselves that God is at work in every circumstance (see Romans 8: 18-39).  If we continue training with Christ, the weights won't merely display our impotence, they will be the very opportunities that God uses in our faith training.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Are you in a situation in which you can recognize God using "weights" to develop your faith?

What new angle of trusting God are you learning? Will you focus on a scripture promise or principle that could further strengthen your faith?