A Prescription for Health

Proverbs 3:7-8 "Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones." 

 God has made a way for us to remain well and strong at all levels of our being. The process begins with fearing the Lord. This is not a dread or terror as of a tyrannical ruler, but a wholesome honour and awe of who God is, a heartfelt respect for what He does, and for the principles He teaches in His word. It means making Him so present in all areas of our lives that we will not want any part of evil. If there is to be a dread at all, it would be just that – an anxiousness to avoid doing anything that might affront our Lord or hamper our relationship with Him!  

This same wholesome fear and awe of God, precludes us from thinking of ourselves as wise in ourselves; experienced and confident in our own abilities without due acknowledgement that we need the Lord and cannot do without Him! When we become wise in our own eyes, we are proud and are attempting to impose our own thinking and ways over those God wants for us. This is not only self-deceiving, but also self-defeating because it replaces the true and God-honouring wisdom we are to have as believers.

We can make the mistake of claiming we honour and fear God and yet subscribe to ways of life which He considers evil. This is not wisdom from above! In serving God there must be a concerted effort to make our departure from what our Lord and Sovereign God sees as offensive to His holy nature. Second guessing God and His word is hardly living in awe of God!

True wisdom begins with fearing God. This is healthy and makes us vigorous at all levels, but self-conceit and arrogance can only bring ailment and self-destruction, whilst at the same time damaging relationship with others.

The 'navel', was seen as the centre of all human emotions, the place where the strongest feelings are formed and acted upon. We still refer in our modern language to the ‘butterflies’ in our belly and the ‘churning’ of stomach, or that 'gut' feeling, in an effort to describe certain emotions.

Fearing God and avoiding evil brings health to the navel and so is presented to us as a godly process of gaining and maintaining emotional stability and fortitude. In a modern world, with humanity marked by mounting troubled emotions and escalating mental traumas, we surely need an answer to our plight! God provides us with His prescription for the problem.

It has been said that the greatest evidence of the fear of God is obedience to Him. Perhaps we would not be hounded and conquered by so many fears and phobias, or overcome and destroyed by the ever-present stresses of life, if we truly obeyed and gave the correct place in our lives of honour and respect to God, the One who knows us best and loves us most! 



See also:
http://dailybiblefocus.blogspot.com.au/
http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion

Proclaim Him Worthy! (part 2)

“Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” 1Ti 1:17  

Our Lord and God is the perfect opposite of all else and others who may present themselves as worthy of adulation and admiration. They have to be constantly ‘visible’ to us and appeal to our natural senses for us to notice them. To make them visible, their talents or products and reputation must be constantly marketed and must compete for the consumer attention, and money. Idols are man-made gods, and are of necessity visible, physical icons, statues, people or things which must be ‘seen’ by our physical eyes to hold any sway. 

In direct opposition to man’s notions of deity, the true God and King of Kings is invisible to the natural mortal eye, He is not obvious to those who cannot look with the spiritual eyes of faith. Yet for all that He does not rely on having to be personally ‘seen’, His presence is everywhere, His creation surrounds us and the evidences of His power and person are written in every molecule and atom of space and matter so that we cannot escape His presence or influence. What an amazing miracle that the signature of this invisible Almighty Sovereign is everywhere around and in us! Like the wind He is unseen but works of His hand and the effects of His Spirit, leave no doubt that He is there!

He is the Only God and the originator of all wisdom, knowledge and information. We have all been enriched by His inimitable wisdom and power. What we ‘discover’ as human beings, are but gems from His inexhaustible treasury, which He in His time and wisdom allows us to find, and what we ‘invent’ are but imitations of the patterns of the creation He made to begin with. We utilize what He has already made and created and made available to us. Like children in a sandpit we make the sand castles of the things that fill and surround our lives, but the sand and implements we use, along with the energy, ability, creativity and a myriad of other processes, have all been given to us, by the ever loving, eternal and only wise God.

What a mighty God we serve! Worthy of all praise, honour, thanks and glory! He it is who must be worshipped and freely, passionately, lovingly appreciated and proclaimed. Jesus and only He is worthy of our acclaim and wholehearted love and affection. Oh that we would like the woman with the alabaster box of ointment, pour upon this ONE, the kind of attention that belongs to Him and is rightly His. Let’s never fall short by being miserly in our worship towards the King and Lord who has lavished all goodness and blessing upon us; or  by surrendering our love and worship to anyone or anything else! 

See also: 

http://dailybiblefocus.blogspot.com.au/

http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion

Proclaim Him Worthy! (part 1)

“Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” 1Ti 1:17 

As humans we often make great proclamations and give praise and acclaim to all sorts of persons. From the appropriate applause given in the media to the praise worthy rescue officer for self-sacrificial efforts made in times of crisis, to the frequently misplaced and even excessive adulation lavished freely by many on some contemporary band, actor or performer, we clearly demonstrate that we are capable of praise and yes worship!

Sadly far too few in this world demonstrate any such passion for the One who is truly worthy of all admiration, praise, worship and acclamation. In fact in the noise of all things human that surround us day to day, entire lifetimes are spent and gone without a single solitary thought of praise, or a word of thanks to the Eternal God who made us all.

In stark contrast to this general spiritual numbness of most of humanity, the gratitude, exaltation and honour expressed by the Apostle toward God, rings a loud and reverberating reminder to all of us of how we ought to view the Lord and what we ought to express to Him.

Like a well primed pump, a ready, unrestrained praise and genuine heart-full worship should burst out from our souls as we consider this ‘blessed and only Potentate’, who is not merely a king but the KING of Kings; not just a nobleman or VIP, but the LORD of Lords; not merely a performer limited to one art or another, but the Creator of all, the author and finisher of our faith, the beginning and the ending of all things, the repository of all knowledge and wisdom -  the Almighty! He is Someone to get excited about!

Kings, sovereigns and leaders come and go leaving a distant or unfamiliar memory, or at most an historical trace in some dusty book on a library shelf, but not this King of Ages! He is ever present and endures forever. He is eternal, having been there before all others and continuing when all others will long have passed away. Everything we know, see and have around us proceeded from Him and will be outlived by Him. God is permanent in the true sense of the word! He doesn’t wear away, rust, weaken or become out-dated!

Looking in the mirror as we age, we can all see the signs and sense the effects which time has on us. We feel the deterioration in our bodies and can admit freely that ‘we ain’t quite what we used to be’! But it isn’t so with this Almighty King! He is immortal and totally incorruptible, not given to any of the decay and weakening and corrosion we are accustomed to. He is now what He has always been and will always remain the same perfect, complete, self-existing and sufficient One. When we have King Jesus in our lives we have a constant and consistent Friend who never changes, leaves or dies! Our eternal Monarch has no successors and will ever rule and reign supreme! (Continued in part 2)

See also: 

http://dailybiblefocus.blogspot.com.au/

http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion

Staying True

"Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life." 1 John 2:24-25

 The teaching, light and revelation God gave us by His Word when we first came to know Him, showing us His love, truth and holiness, is still the message and information which keeps us and saves us today. The same practices of prayer, study and obedience to His Word and sharing the good news of salvation with others are as important and essential today as when we first were shown them. 

We may think that modernizing, up-sizing, 'programmizing', organizing and socializing are the all-essential elements to Christian life and growth, but God is ultimately looking for enduring faithfulness to what He showed us in the beginning and the persistence of the 'first love' and passion with which we embraced those principles when we were first exposed to them. Staying with those basic principles and letting them remain is us, helps us keep our eyes on Jesus - the Author and Finisher of our faith - and is therefore the true goal of Christian living.

Holding those things as precious, and keeping them present and alive in our day to day living, abiding in our hearts and minds, means we safeguard our relationship with Jesus and ensure our eternal future in heaven. It is in this constancy and continuance, that the greatest power of Christian living is displayed. 

The spiritual message and input God supplied at the beginning was perfect and complete to start with and requires no adjustment, modernization or compromise, but only that we grow deeper in the understanding of it and more appreciative of the preciousness of it. 

How many have started out ‘in love with Jesus’ only to end up ‘in love with the world and the things of it'! This loss is tragic for it has eternal consequences.

This then, is the true expression of our faithfulness to God, that we never deviate from what He imparted to us at the beginning, and that we always maintain our fervent 'first love' toward Him and His Word! 

There is a reward promised by the Lord, to those who faithfully adhere to and do not turn or compromise from the principles and faith they first received – that promise is eternal life!


See also:
http://dailybiblefocus.blogspot.com.au/
http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion

Emptying Ourselves

 "But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, ..." Phil 2:7 

Jesus who is God was willing to put aside His rightful place and position and by choice empty Himself (literally made Himself void) so He could purchase salvation for a dying humanity. This is the underpinning truth behind the great Gospel news. In His submission to the Father's will, the Lord did not concern Himself with what others thought or perceived of Him, nor with the humbling status he submitted to, in firstly coming in the flesh and then becoming a servant. Christ's example to us in this detail is of the utmost importance. 

Many are driven by image and what people think of them. To them even the casual observer, is all important, their perceived reputation therefore is to be maintained at all costs. It is true that as believers we have a witness and as such a Christian 'reputation' to uphold, however this should never get in the way of our obedience to God, His Word and His will for our lives. What people may think of us is relative, but what God thinks of us is of paramount importance!

If we are to have the mind of Christ in us, as verse 5 of this chapter exhorts, the example is set, the foundation of thinking at this level has been laid and the pattern of overcoming has been provided! When it comes to a choice between obeying God's direction versus maintaining a reputation which may please or impress those around us, we should follow the example Jesus gave us! We ought to be willing to empty ourselves as He did, and even at the cost of being perceived as base, vile or to be despised we should put God and His will ahead of our reputation. 

In a society and culture which highly exalts personal achievement, status, image and social relevance, becoming void, meaningless or unimportant in people's eyes, may be one of the hardest tasks we may ever face as believers, but if we want to be true followers of the Master we must be willing to go this far and further just as He did, if and when it is required of us. Yes, perhaps this is 'easier said than done', yet it is in the righteousness of 'doing' God's Word, that we are considered wise builders, erecting the edifice of our lives on solid rock; and for the 'doing' of it, we are assured of support and backing of the Lord's own strength and wisdom. 

How could we ever stand before the Lord and excuse our lack of obedience to Him on the basis that we didn't want people to think poorly of us!? If Jesus could shed His reputation as God in the the eyes of those around him on our behalf, can we rightly safeguard ours and protect it at any cost? The least we can do is be willing to yield our measly and by comparison worthless reputation to stand for the convictions, teaching and directions He has given us! Such choices in serving God may seem costly at times, but demonstrate the depth of our love for Him and the degree of our passion for His will and way in our lives. 

Some have paid this price for much lesser, man-made causes, which offer no lasting eternal reward or opportunity to bring God glory. Should we not willingly empty ourselves and become void in other people's eyes for Jesus, the greatest, most noble and most valuable cause? Besides, we may find that in emptying ourselves of "our self", we might make room for Jesus and space for His image and life in us! Food for thought.


http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion

Alert and Watchful

"Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." Matthew 24:42 

We have here a sobering reminder to be watchful and ready for the Lord's return.

Much contention and speculation has been entered into as to the ‘when’ of this glorious event, but Jesus here give us the ‘how’ we should behave in relation to the event. The exhortation to be alert and spiritually awake applies to each of us as believers and clearly the Lord intends to place the onus to choose this attitude and posture, on us.

The god of this world, Satan, wants to blind and numb our minds and hearts with the many distractions and the unending 'noise' of worldly and material things. It must come down to our determined choice and willing dependence on Jesus not to be lured or lulled into the death sleep of carelessness.

God gives us an assurance of His return without giving us an exact timing and that means we have to be ready at all times, because while we don’t know when, we DO know it is going to happen! There is therefore NO time when it is safe for us to be spiritually asleep and it ought to be our prayer and desire each moment of each day that we might by His grace be kept alert, awake and ready.

Prayer is the necessary companion to watchfulness and the only way and means by which we can remain spiritually attentive to the directions and leading of the Spirit and Word of God.

‘What hour’, is a date in God's mind and plan, and may also refer to a particular condition existing at the time of His coming, we don’t need to know the ‘when’. Our motivation for living a holy life which honours God and continues to do so faithfully ‘till the end’, should be our genuine love for God not so much the fear of missing our rapture appointment. True love for Jesus then and prayer are the correct spiritual conditions and preparations necessary for readiness.  

Let's pray one for another and for each member of our families that we might all be properly ready for the soon coming of Jesus.



http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion

No Mere Coincidence!

  
"And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers: and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech." Ruth 2:3

Often, what we may view as happenstance, fluke, luck and mere coincidence, can in fact be the providing and directing hand of God. When we trust in the Lord and lean on Him prayerfully, desiring His ways and will in our lives, and in a Ruth-like determination cling in love and faith to our Saviour, we can pretty well dismiss the idea of ‘coincidence’.

Life doesn’t ‘just happen’ for the believer. It is guided and steered, filled with purpose and answers. God takes a hand in every part of our lives, directing and leading, even when we may not be fully aware of it. He helps and encourages, opens doors, and gives strength to overcome. His providence covers the needs and His wisdom provides the answers that truly fulfil the genuine seeker.

Ruth couldn’t have known that out of all the possible fields she could have chosen to glean in, “her hap” - clearly God’s unseen guiding hand, would land her in the field of her dead father in law’s relation, named Boaz, in whose eyes she would find favour and who would eventually be willing to perform the duty of the levirate, marry her and raise children who in turn would become forefathers in the blood line of the Lord Jesus Christ! She couldn’t have known, but God knew. She couldn’t have planned and directed the events, but the Lord is able to pilot happenings, determine timing and manage individuals to bring forth the outcome which was in His master plan and design to begin with! He knows the end from the beginning and so nothing in what God does and allows in the trusting believer’s life is mere coincidence.

What relief, joy and comfort the believer who walks with God, finds in the knowledge that life is not a chance ‘roll of the dice’, or a series of meaningless, unguided coincidences, but rather the unfolding of God’s loving, purpose and plan. The closer and more intimately we walk with the Lord, the more sensitive we become to this truth and the more thankfully we praise and glorify the One who is able to keep, guide and provide for His children.

What precious lessons we can learn from the text before us, as we consider that for the believer nothing, not even casual events, should be taken as unimportant or inconsequential - for in such seemingly insignificant actions and happenings could hide the seeds of God’s great unfolding plan for our lives. It is wise for us therefore to look out for and carefully follow the leading of the Lord’s providence, sensing after His Spirit for direction and steering. Most of all we should be mindful to give Him glory for all He so graciously performs in our lives, remembering that as we acknowledge Him in all our ways He will direct our paths (Proverbs 3:6). 


http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion