pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: holy


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Our Prayer Life

Who or what do you most often pray for?  At this point, who or what is your main prayer focus?  Are these things constants or do they change?  If these answers do not come pretty quickly, consider how you could develop a deeper, more consistant, more meaningful prayer life.  If your prayers seem to focus on just a few people or items, please consider for a few minutes the people in your life and the situations in your world that would benefit greatly from being lifted up in your prayers.

One of the most powerful ways that we can pray for another is to invite the presence of the Holy Spirit into their lives.  In Acts 8 the people of Samaria have been baptized.  John and Peter go to them and pray over them and invite the Holy Spirit into the lives of these new believers.  The Samaritans receive the Spirit as a result of these prayers.  Just like the people that John and Peter prayed for, those that we pray for can be opened up to the presence of the Spirit.  They must still receive this gift, but our prayers can begin this process.

When we go deep in prayer, we are also inviting the Holy Spirit to be present with us.  When we invest time and energy into our prayer life, it is like any other practice or relationship – it grows.  And if we allow space and invite God to be present, the connection we have can reach new levels and can impact us powerfully.

In closing, let us return to the second question.  There are people and situations that I pray for daily. This is a good thing.  But in our prayer lives we must also have a few people or items that we focus on for a time or a season.  To do so we must be sensitive and seeking.  If we do this, God and the Holy Spirit will lay these prayer focuses upon us.  Then we have the holy and awesome privelege of lifting another person or situation up in intense and focused prayer.  Blessings on your prayer life this day!

Scripture reference: Acts 8: 14-17


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Our Great High Priest

Jesus is our great high priest, perfect in all ways, full of mercy and grace.  He is one who can sympathize with our human weakness yet is still perfect Himself.  Jesus is holy and blameless and pure – set apart from sinners in this, yet also interceding on our behalf.  What great love the Father has lavished on us through His Son!

Unlike human priests (and pastors) who sin and struggle with life, Jesus forever remains our great high priest.  Jesus will live and serve forever – at least until He returns!  In His role as the great high priest He gives us access to the Father.  He is the conduit through who we can begin to know God.  Jesus also intercedes on our behalf to bring about our salvation.  Lastly, in His time here on earth, Jesus gives us the example of what God’s love lived out looks like.

What does all of this mean for you and me in our daily lives?  It means we have a savior who we can go to and draw strength from at any time and for any need.  It means we have a friend who is on our side.  Even though He sits enthroned beside God almighty, He still intercedes before God on our behalf.  Through the strength He gives and through the intercession He provides, He makes our salvation possible.  On our own we would surely fail.  And Jesus provides us the perfect example of how to live.  Although we will never attain perfection, still we strive to love God and neighbor as Jesus loved them.  Oh perfecter of our faith, oh great high priest, lead us this day and every day!

Scripture reference: Hebrews 7: 23-28


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God Is Better

Our culture has become adept at bending the truth.  We are good at telling people what we think they want to hear and at ‘working’ statistics to support our viewpoint.  It is easy to say this is who we are and then to go act in a different manner.  Larger society has become very gray.

It was no different in Jesus’ day.  The Pharisees came out to see Jesus and wanted to challenge Jesus and the disciples because they were eating with ‘unclean’ hands.  They had not undergone the ceremonial cleansing of their hands before they ate.  The word ‘ceremonial’ is a tip-off.  In the opening line of His response, Jesus calls them hypocrites and quotes from Isaiah about their lip service and fascination with the rules.  We hear “smack, smack, smack” but the Pharisees were wondering who Jesus was talking about.

Jesus goes on to teach that it is not what we put into ourselves that makes us unclean but it what comes from our thoughts and words that make us unclean.  We sin and become unclean when we have evil thoughts, when we utter lies and unkind words, when we engage in immoral behavior, and when we allow envy, greed, jealousy, and malice into our hearts.  When we work to be holy and to live a righteous life and to keep evil far away, then we are right with God and we are ‘clean’.

People today are pretty good at wading through the smoke screens and half-truths served up so commonly today.  And we must make no mistake about it – God is pretty good at it too.  We cannot fool God.  When we come before Him with sin in our lives – and sinful we are – we must confess, repent, and seek His strength for the battle.  In His great love we find mercy and grace.  He refines us and gives us strength.  Allow Him in, lean on Him a little more, hear His voice, and go forth in Christ, seeking a closer walk with God.

Scripture reference: Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, and 21-23


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The Spirit Remains

In the 40 days between the resurrection and ascension Jesus visited the believers and prepared them for ministry without His physical presence.  He knew that they would soon be on their own.  But He left them to wait with a promise.  His last instructions were to wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them.  The promise was that this would be even better than having Jesus himself because the Holy Spirit would dwell in each of them all of the time.  There would be no more sitting and waiting for Jesus.  The Spirit would be present with the believers at all times.  This is our promise too.

Jesus told them to wait with hope.  Often it is hard to wait.  It is even harder to wait when it becomes a period of time.  But when we wait with hope it is a different kind of waiting.  It is a holy waiting.  When we are waiting with hope we are waiting with the expectation that God will show up, that His presence and power will be made known.  We wait with this hope because we know that God loves us as His children and always has good for those that love Him.

When we live by faith it is essential at times to wait as well.  In this we also wait with trust.  Here we wait, also with God, as we trust in His wisdom and in His plan for our life.  This too is hard because we often do not see the big picture when we are in the middle of it.  But our hopeful waiting is grounded in our belief that He has plans to prosper us and to help us grow in our relationship with Him.

Through all of our waiting the Holy Spirit remains with us.  In ways we cannot understand and with words we cannot comprehend, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us continually before God.  The Holy Spirit seeks for us things we do not even know we need.  I am grateful for the Holy Spirit.  This day and every day, the Spirit not only walks with me and guides me, it prays for me.

Scripture references: Acts 1: 1-5 and Romans 8: 22-27


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Into Holy Relationship

Christ becoming flesh, the incarnation, changed everything.  His birth altered the order forever.  Christ came so that God could draw everyone into relationship with himself.  The barriers of who was in and who was out were shattered – all were now welcome in.

Psalm 148 speaks beautifully of how all of creation is woven together.  From the angels and heavenly hosts to the sun, moon, and stars to the creatures of land and sea to the snow and winds to mankind – all are bound together as God’s creation.  The psalm resonates with power, strength, and majesty.   It brings hope and optimism for our future and for our world.

The hope and optimism lies in God’s desire to be in relationship with all of creation.  He constantly seeks to enter into renewed relationships to restore all of the brokenness to wholeness.  We, as His children, are part of this seeking.  He longs to continue to guide us to be good stewards both to the earth and to each other.  As we live into this holy relationship that God constantly calls us to, may we also seek to include all of our fellow man in this relationship as well, so that they too may find healing, hope, and, most of all, God’s love.

Scripture reference: Psalm 148


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Be Still and Know

There are moments and places where we feel noticeably closer to God.  This can be caused by the physical location.  For example, I have heard many people mention they felt power when they stood at certain places in the Holy Land.  It can also be caused by an experience – such as the birth of a child.  Celtic tradition calls this phenomena “think places.”

Mary experiences a ‘thin place’ just after Jesus is born when the shepherds visit.  They tell her of the angel’s visit and of the multitude of angels singing praise to God as they announce the Savior’s birth.  She treasures and ponders all of these things in her heart.  Once again Mary is draw a little closed to Go din these moments.

According to tradition, a thin place is not where God draws closer to us – for He is always omnipresent.  It is a place where we allow ourselves to drop the veil we hold up and we draw closer to God.  We allow God’s mystery and incarnation to surround us.  In this holy season, quiet yourself and allow Christ to be born anew within you.  Be still and know that He is God.

Scripture reference: Luke 2: 1-20


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Focus in on God and Good

Paul encourages us to stand firm in the Lord and to rejoice in the Lord.  He directs us to go to God with our prayers and petitions.  This brings the peace of God upon us.  Paul also reminds us to do our part – to think about what is true, noble, right, pure, admirable, and praiseworthy.  Simply put, he calls us to focus in on the good.

How we look at the world really affects how we live our life.  For example, if one spends a lot of time complaining, then life is generally unhappy and what they focus on is dominated by bad thoughts.  Loving God and neighbor is a difficult task when all are against you.  On the other hand, when one focused on God and all the good in the world, then life is generally happy and content.  “Life” still happens but the issues and situations carry less weight because God carries the bulk when we focus on Him.

Also, as we fill our minds with what is true, noble, right, … then there is less time for evil or impure thoughts.  As we focus in on the good and God, then He guards our hearts and minds so that our energy and efforts dwell on God and His plans for us in the world.  And the God of peace will be with us.

Scripture reference: Philippians 4: 1-9


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Follow God’s Example

On the 7th day, God rested.  He blessed this day and made it holy.  He went on to lead the people of Israel to set laws to honor the sabbath.  At times, Jesus even took his sabbath rest by going out into the wilderness, away from the disciples and crowds.

We too are called to honor the sabbath. We are called to take one day a week to rest and to honor God by setting aside that day as holy – as a day dedicated to God.  But oh how countercultural that is!!  To suggest one unplugs and powers down for a day sends shudders through some people!  (Side note: if you are just feeling the shudders pass and are grinning and nodding now, I encourage you to try it.  Take a morning and unplug.  Sit with your Bible in a quiet place.  Center in on God and rest.  Thank Him for the many blessings in your life.  Pray through the worries of the past week.  Read His word.  Go fora walk.  Pray some more.  Enjoy a nap.)  Even when one chooses to make a habit of honoring the sabbath, there will be sabbath days when one must ‘do’ something.  Yet it is a practice worth cultivating.

To set aside a day and to make it holy is essential to good spiritual health.  Not so long ago out nation honored the sabbath on Sundays.  It is still the common ‘church day’ but it is also often filled with other “stuff”.  To physically rest, to honor our past week, to connect deeply with God is great for body, mind, and soul.

Lord God, help me to honor You by keeping a sabbath day holy each week.  May this be your prayer as well!