Prayer Changes things

Pray – talk to your Father.

Pray - and work for the good.

Pray – You’ll find that it profits.

Pray – You’ll be understood.

If we talk to our maker we’ll find comfort there,

and strength and resilience, as those burdens we bear.

When corruption engulfs us, and the evils wage war,

the Father who hears us will even the score.

Work and pray for God’s people.

God will work by your side.

He will build up your muscles and lengthen your stride.

He will multiply effort.

He will magnify strength.

He’ll make greater your forces, and enable restraint.

If we pray, we will act.  If we trust our Father to help us, we won’t be afraid to act.  Prayer changes things – not through the words we say, but through our connection with the only one who can change things. 

Thank you Father.

God's Fire and Gentleness

Do you know much about Elijah – God’s prophet?  He was the one who would show Israel God’s displeasure about their idol worship.  Elijah told the king of Israel at that time, Ahab, that there would be a drought until God decided to end it.  Elijah ran away from Ahab then and God provided for him. 

After three years God called Elijah to go to Ahab and show him God’s power.  He planned to help the Children of Israel return to the worship of the one true God.

God’s instructions were that Ahab was to bring the prophets of Baal and Ashtheroth to Mount Carmel. This is where it gets exciting.  Elijah had the Israelites get two bulls and let Baal’s prophets choose the one they wanted, cut it into pieces and put it on an alter with wood, ready for a sacrifice.  But he said not to set fire to it. Elijah would do the same to the other bull.

He told the prophets of Baal to call upon their god to produce the fire. Elijah said he would call upon his God to do the same thing.  And the god that answered would prove he was the true God.

The prophets of Baal called out to him. But there was no response.  This went on all day.  They cut themselves, danced and cried out – but no response.

Then Elijah repaired the altar of the Lord, and dug a trench around it, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he had the people fill four large jars with water and pour it on the bull and on the wood three different times. 

Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.   Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”

Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.  Can you just picture that? 

The true God had spoken. 

Elijah climbed to the top of the mountain and prayed.  When Elijah’s servant saw a cloud as small as a man’s hand rising from the sea, Elijah sent him to tell Ahab to hitch up his chariot and go down before the rain stopped him. 

The Bible says, “Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain started falling and Ahab rode off to Jezreel.  The power of the Lord came on Elijah and, tucking his cloak into his belt, he ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel.” 

Quite a guy huh? 

Well, he was good at running - and when Jezebel found that Elijah had had all her prophets killed, she threatened to kill him.  He was afraid and ran for his life again.

Do you wonder how many times God had to prove His strength and power and His care before Elijah stopped running?

God told Elijah that he would provide, and He did.  God told Elijah that He would cause a drought, and He did.  God told Elijah that He would send the rain, and He did - but Elijah still ran away from Jezebel.

Are we any different from this man?   Elijah was afraid of Ahab and spent a good deal of time worrying about whether Ahab and Jezebel would hunt him down and kill him even after God showed His care for Elijah and his power. 

How many times have we basked in God’s care and provision and still worried about tomorrow?  Is that any different?

 

When we think about God’s power and His care for His people, don’t you think we should give up worrying? 

Matthew 6:25-34
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?...

1 Peter 5: 6-7 

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for He careth for you.

I love that last part – ”casting all your care upon him; for He careth for you.”

I know that it’s not always easy to give Him all of our cares, but when we look back on our lives and see the times He has provided for us, the times that His power has conquered the evil in our lives, and the times He has carried us, we will be able to stop worrying about what is around the corner of this day because He cares for you!

His arms are strong enough.

They can hold you up when you weaken.

They will carry you when your strength is gone.

But He’s so gentle that you may not even know when it’s His strength that takes over.  You’ll just feel the burden less as life goes on.

You’ll be able to smile a little when you greet tomorrow’s dawn.   

As we go along this path of life, we may learn to recognize His strength in our trials.  We may learn to recognize His touch and see His footprints as He carries us.  Sometimes it’s just an “I wonder if that was God?” moment, or sometimes we know with all of our heart that it was His touch.

He carried Elijah; He proved His strength and power.

He’ll carry us.

It's a New Year

Another Christmas has come and gone

Let us talk of what we’ve seen. 

The angels sang of Jesus birth

announcing peace to all the earth.

The shepherd bowed then at the sight.

They found the child that wondrous night.

He came to earth as Mary’s son, the promised, long awaited one.

We hear of Jesus wondrous birth 

and sing of glorious peace on earth.

We praise the baby in the hay, and pause to celebrate the day 

and then we pack it all away

 

The trees and lights and treasures fair, 

we put the crèche with Jesus there.

For one more year we put away the trappings of that special day.

But

If we take God from His manger bed and see the holy life He led

and watch the Son of God and see Him die upon that cursed tree.

Christmas might be just the start

of Jesus living in your heart.

This is the last poem in the book, "These My Christmas Dreams." It’s the very last page – it’s the end.  Have you come to the end of Christmas?  Should Christmas have an end?  As we put our decorations away, as you get things back to normal, try to think of what normal should really be.

Should we leave the decorations out all year?  I’m tempted to do that. 

Should we try to duplicate that Christmas feeling?  Sometimes we can have the joy of Christmas at other times of the year. 

Should Christ have a more prominent place in our day-to-day lives?  Will He?

Today I sat by the wood stove and thought about the visits with our family – We have a lot of fun with silly gifts like the kazoos we gave all the grandkids, and the package of 4 mousetraps that Ron received in his stocking.  But the best gifts were the love and acceptance from friends and family. 

But now the house was quiet and I had time to think deeply.

I thought about the gift that God has given us – all of us.  A savior was born 2000 years ago.  God’s gift of salvation came wrapped as a tiny baby.  I wondered just how I would use what I’d been given this Christmas.  What would this life of mine involve now – or better yet, who that life would involve now. 

There’s another Christmas gift that God promised us. John 10:10 says, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." 

Abundant Life - what does that gift look like?  The dictionary defines abundant as:  marked by great plenty, ample, or bounteous. 

Jesus’ Christmas gift to us is abundant Life.  Would that be “a great deal of  money, many years on earth, lots of friends, excellent eyesight, or perfect health?” 

I think we’ll find that it’s really none of those things.  

You probably know about Joni Erickson Tada, who was injured when she was 17 in a swimming accident that left her a quadriplegic for life.  She had asked Jesus how she could have a closer walk with Him and He showed her.  She surrendered her will to God, and for the past 30 years, Joni has had a world-wide ministry helping other quadriplegics, and she’s ministered to those of us with sound bodies as well.  I love listening to her sing.  I love listening to her upbeat way of looking at life.  God has blessed her ministry and her life – with abundance.

I have some friends who have lived a long life.  They are in their 90s and above.  Is that an abundant life – plenty of years?  It is a certainly abundant in time, but compared to eternity – maybe not.

What about money?  Do you think that those with a bounty of things and money automatically have an abundant life?  Some people spend way to much time thinking about how rich other folks are and envying them.  All I have to do is think about my warm bed and dry place to live and food to eat – and I definitely see abundance – but is that what Jesus meant?

Let’s look at another person – we sing the song, "Blessed Assurance" written by Fannie Crosby.  The music was written by Phoebe Knapp.  Fannie was blind and very poor.  Phoebe was rich but they were apparently good friends.

Fanny was visiting her friend Phoebe, who played a new melody she had just composed. "What do you think the tune says?" she asked.

"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine", answered Fanny Crosby – and it was.

Phoebe’s life was abundant, not because of her wealth, but because she used her talent to minister to all of us with that beautiful music.

Fannie’s life was abundant, even though she had neither wealth nor sight.

One of the verses in this song says, “Perfect submission, perfect delight, visions of rapture now burst on my sight.” She who had no sight could yet see the visions of rapture in her imagination.  And she gave us the words.

What makes an abundant life, then? Is it Jesus himself? He came to bring us abundant life, but sometimes we think in terms of the material or the physical, but it’s our spiritual life that becomes abundant with Jesus running things.  Our spiritual life, our prayer life, our minds and hearts belong to God if we believe on Him.  They are the most important parts of living.

I pray that this year I will use well His gift of abundant life. 

Tomorrow, when I start to “undecorate” my house, I will not be putting Jesus away for another year.  He will not be living in a box in the attic; he will be living in my heart.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

(Galatians 2:20)