Category: Journal

Practical Worship

Situations such as heavy traffic are designed to test and strengthen your godly character.

You wake up in the morning get dressed, feeling good, looking like heavy bling and then you get out of the house only to discover that traffic has built up outside your house and you can’t get out of your road let alone into town to catch your train. You try to walk and catch up with the bus in front, but the driver refuses to open the door, mouthing something like he is in the middle of the road and not at the bus stop. Then he turns the other way, brings out his sandwich and takes a hearty bit.

When you prayed this morning, you were not given the update about traffic making you late for work. Maybe if you had been informed you would have set out much earlier and arrived ontime. Maybe even a little earlier to impress your manager. But you’re not impressed. In your head the verse of the day is ringing, “This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoce and be glad in it”. So you force yourself to smile and not join in with the building crowed that is murmuring and complaining about the situation.

It’s hard, but you know you have to give thanks in all things. So, you internalize a prayer of thanks. You think about it and role over it in your mind until you are able to verbalize it and formulate it into words. Slowly but surely you realize it isn’t such a big deal and you find yourself thanking God you were not in the car crash that caused the traffic in the first place. Your thanksgiving some how made you see the bigger picture. That maybe your safty is more important than being on time to work. That your punctuality was given in exchange for your perfect peace and protection. That providence wasn’t sleeping when it heard your prayers sending the presence of God ahead to make rough paths plain.

Sometimes something as trivial as traffic can be big enough to cause an obstacle to your worship, but “I will enter his gates with thanksgiving in my heart, I will enter his courts with praise”.

This is worship in Practice.

Psalm 118 and Prayer: Thanking, Asking, Declaring

God in his word commands that in all things we must give thanks (Ephesians 5:20). This can be really challenging when we are faced with problems for which we need solutions, and needs we desperately want met. The Psalmist, I think, is brilliant in how he combines thanksgiving with petitioning and declaration. He combines praise with his petition and declarations, based on his confidence in God, with thanksgiving to God. The Psalmist shows a God-awareness and a God-consciousness, that sets God’s will and omnipotence at the center of his prayer and the situation he finds himself in.

God’s place is always meant to be at the center of our lives, problems, hopes and aspirations. This God consciousness should influence our perspective causing us to defer back to God. After many points of thanksgiving and declarations he adds a sacrificial offering to his prayer, which he binds with cords to the horns of the alter.

The horn of the alter is the might, strength and power of the alter. Every alter has a horn. By tying his sacrifice to the horn, he makes God his source of strength and power.

He secures the backing of God when he proclaims that he will destroy the nations  against him (his adversaries) in the name of the Lord. He makes the name of the Lord work for him through this act of binding.

This sacrifice is a living sacrifice, because he does not ask for it to be burnt or pierced in the manner in which sacrifices were made. Implicitly, the psalmist himself is the sacrifice. This is a prophetic act as the concept of presenting our bodies as living sacrifices is not totally established until after Christ. Our ability to be a living sacrifice is based on the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Christ. The psalmist prophetically speaks in anticipation of what will be possible through Christ Jesus, the stone the builders rejected.

When we tie ourselves, our bodies and our souls to the alter we make God the source of our strength and power and because he can never run dry he must supply us with the strength we need.

For he will supply all your needs according to his riches in Glory. (Philippians 4:19)

What great news that our power supply is connected to the omnipotence of our God! The more we demand the more He supplies. Just like this Psalmist let us resolve to build on our demand daily, so he can supply to us daily, according to our need.

So, when we Pray,

  1. we pray with awareness and confidence that God is holding our lives and is listening to us.
  2. we pray with hearts filled with thanksgiving and appreciation on our lips.
  3. we pray making declarations based on his words and promises to us – in sync with God’s heart.
  4. we pray with the earnest fervency of all our faith, knowing that we are willing to make the sacrifice for what we are asking.
  5. we pray for the Holy Spirit because he is our supply
  6. and when we pray we pray daily.

Psalms 118    

(Praying in Thanksgiving, in praise, declaration and prophecy asking but always thanking God.)

1Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!

For His mercy endures forever.

2Let Israel now say,

“His mercy endures forever.”

3Let the house of Aaron now say,

“His mercy endures forever.”

4Let those who fear the Lord now say,

“His mercy endures forever. “

 

5I called on the Lord in distress;

The Lord answered me and set me in a broad place.

6The Lord is on my side; I will not fear.

What can man do to me?

7The Lord is for me among those who help me;

Therefore I shall see my desires on those who hate me.

 

8It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.

9It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.

 

10All nations surrounded me,

But in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.

11They surrounded me, yes, they surrounded me:

But in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.

12They surrounded me like bees; they were quenched like a fire of thorns;

For in the name of the Lord I will destroy them.

13You pushed me violently, that I might fall, But the Lord helped me.

14The Lord is my strength and song,

And He has become my salvation.

15The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous;

The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.

16The right hand of the Lord is exalted;

The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.

 

17I shall not die, but live, And the declare the works of the Lord.

18The Lord has chastened me severely, but he has not given me over to death.

19Open to me the gates of righteousness;

I will go through them, and I will praise the Lord.

20This is the gate of the Lord, through which the righteous shall enter.

21I will praise you,

for you have answered me, and have become my salvation.

22The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

23This was the Lord’s doing; It is marvelous in our eyes.

24This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

 

25Save now I pray, O Lord;

O Lord, I pray, send now prosperity.

26Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

We have blessed you from the house of the Lord.

27God is the Lord, And he has given us light;

Bind the sacrifice with Cords to the Horns of the alter. 

28 You are my God, and I will praise you.

You are my God, I will exalt you.

29Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!

For His mercy endures forever.

 

New King James Version   © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. 

 

The Fire Maker

God is in the business of taking our little and making it great. But often times we put God out of business by doing too much and going beyond the bounds of our responsibility.
A man told the story of coming home one day and being asked by his five year old daughter if they could make a fire in the fire place. They put all the things together in the fire place and started the spark. The final step was to blow until the flames catch. The little Miss had seen it done before and wanted to try. As she blew there was more spit coming out of her mouth than air. Her blowing if anything was quenching the spark. Eventually, though the fire started. This little girl was excited that she started her first fire. And if she should tell the story she would tell everyone what she did and how she did it. She would talk about how hard she worked at blowing. She would maybe talk about the right angle to blow from, how to pout with your lips for the optimum reliese of breath, and the right distance to keep for effective fire making. She might even start a seminar and produce a bestselling fire making book.

Here is the thing she didn’t know, while she was blowing, her father was right behind her matching her feeble blows with his much stronger one.

Yes, work as hard as you can. Do your best, but remember your best efforts cannot bring you the results you hope to see only God can bring that kind of increase.
‘I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. ‘ I Corinthians 3:6-7

So, about those goals…

We often wait to reach the half way mark of the year before we start looking at our goals again and assessing how well we are doing. But I don’t think we should wait that long before we take another look at what we’ve achieved so far, how well we’ve done or how far we’ve strayed from our intended goals.

So, today I had a look at the more detailed notes I have for each goal in my goals journal and I noticed that

a) I had forgotten some things I wrote down and if I used what I wrote as a measurement of my success I wasn’t doing so well, and

b) perhaps I was a little too eager and excited and gave myself targets that were to high to reach.

And finally, C) I noticed that in the last few weeks I have focused more on achieving some goals and have not payed any attention at all to some others.

I’ve been asking myself if perhaps I gave myself to much to focus on in a short time. My goals are centered around the theme of development and having some tangible results at the end of the year. So for instance, I want to develop myself academically which obviously means that I will have some sort of qualification from a short course or will be enrolled on a course by the end of the year as evidence of that development. I also hope to see development spiritually, so I tasked myself to study particular sections and topics in the Bible in addition to my daily reading activity. I also want to develop my mind and broaden my thinking so I’m adding reading a new book every month on my list of things to do to achieve my goals, which in turn will also build my library.

These are just a few of the goals I put down, but as you can see this will inevitably place a demand on my time and finances and will also mean that I feel underdeveloped and stunted in my growth if I don’t meet my daily, weekly or monthly targets.

I’m sure you’re starting to see the importance of reviewing goals and assessing how practical the plans you’ve made are. No matter how smart your goals are they can out smart you if they don’t practically fit your current life style. Yes, of course you should be willing to change, but don’t make goals that will require you to make too many changes at the same time in a short space of time.

But here is what is even more important, No matter how smart your goals are and no matter how smart you are in working towards your goals, you CANNOT OUT SMART GOD!

Your goals are incomplete if you have not made spiritual goals, and they cannot be achieved if you do not priorities your spiritual goals. “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and every other thing will be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). You and I are the the Kingdom, and righteousness is our right standing with God, which is only made possible through the help of God, a thing we enjoy as a result of our relationship with Him.

The other thing we need to remember is that as we work towards our goals we need to constantly check what our motivations are. Is my desire to develop myself in 2018 godly? Am I driven by godly motivations, to please God with my growth and become the person that God wants me to be or am I focused on just getting it done and being able to say that I ticked of things on my list? You can work towards achieving your goals and do so well at this, but can be feeding of on the wrong motives. You might go on for years achieving all your goals before realizing that something is missing. It is the reason (purpose) behind what you do and not what you do that brings true fulfillment.

So, what am I taking away from my experience this afternoon? My focus needs to remain on being motivated on the advancement of God’s Kingdom in me and the promotion of righteousness as I work towards fulfilling my goals. I also see that there is a time for everything and that I cannot do everything at once, but I must stick to what is important and what I’ve decided to do now, being faithful and committed to it.

My prayer is, as always, that God causes what our hands find to do to prosper and makes us find rest in the fulfillment of all He has promised us in this year.

Keeping it Personal: How does Jesus do it?

Writing in the morning can really help get your brain juice working. You come up with stuff and you wonder where it comes from. It’s the same with meditation or just sitting down before talking to anyone in the morning and just thinking. Anyway, I was doing my usual morning devotion and after praying I decided to just sit and listen to what God had to say and he spoke to me about a few things in my life and about a few people. Isn’t it amazing when we just sit down that we realize that our answers to our prayers can come immediately? But how often do we get the chance to just patiently wait for His answers?

After listening I decided to write in my personal Journal since I haven’t had a moment to write in it for a few days and I usually write in this particular notebook in the evenings. I thought I’d share an excerpt from my Journal entry this morning and how I discovered another amazing trait about this Wonderful Jesus.    ……I’m still sitting in bed. I love the quiet peacefulness of the morning and how it feels like to be alone. Just me and God. I don’t like breaking it. That’s probably why people sometimes think I’m cranky in the morning. … Once I’ve spent time in the morning or during the day praying or studying the word, I have no desire to get into any long conversations about money or what somebody did or said or didn’t do. It spoils the little slice of perfect heaven I’ve come back with. I guess I can understand how Jesus must have felt when the disciples bombarded him with questions about their needs and their worries and who is greatest in the Kingdom. Jesus is perpetually living in perfect peace despite the worries, suffering and the natural circumstances around Him. He is living in complete tranquility. It’s no wonder that He is the Prince of Peace. Jesus is operating at a higher level to all his friends. When you pray you are uplifted and you rise above the problems and worries of everyday life. But what happens after you say the final ‘Amen’? Are we still above the cares and worries or do we plummet into the abyss of everyday existence? I mean, when my mum comes with her questions or list of instructions it really does feel like it’s all just cutting the flow, but Jesus would not be troubled by that.

WWJD, What would Jesus do? I think most of us could answer that question, but here is the real question: How does Jesus do what he does? How do I balance the supernatural with common humanity? I think it has a little to do with being real with God about what is going on with you. Dealing with those requests, but remembering that after the warfare we need to wait to hear from God. Let God speak to you and I believe that God answers our prayers immediately. We just don’t wait to receive the answer, which most often comes in the form of blessings, strength and an increase of the fruit of the spirit. …If we receive peace and patience we will be able to stand strong and graciously in the midst of the extreme turbulence or the daily hassles without irritation. …

In devotion, quantity is synonymous with quality. I’ve come to understand that there is just no way around it.

After writing this, I thought about how many times I must have missed out on the daily benefits of peace and grace God promises. I also thought that Jesus wants us to come to him with our worries He invites us to cast our cares on Him and to take up his yoke and learn from Him for His yoke is easy and His burden is light. So, rather than feeling irritated with us when we come into his presence with our daily stress, cares and worries He rejoices over us and delights in our communion with Him. Likewise, we are empowered and engraced to express this aspect of our relationship with God with others around us. What keeps us in everyday Supernatural-Mode is knowing that our encounters with God are intended not only for our own personal enjoyment like a moment of catharsis that is only internal and most likely temporary, but instead is meant to cause us to help and save others. Jesus frequently went away to recharge himself spiritually and spent deep intimate moments with Father God and when He came down the multitudes were already waiting for Him with their infirmities, sickness, demon-possessed state, sins, problems, challenges, hypocrisy and plots to kill him. But he always had the right answers, always had the solution, always had the remedy. On one instance, he came down from his favorite praying spot and found a storm, yet he calmly walked over it. Deep moments with God, where you give time to really listen to God and listen to what he has to say will cause you to walk on unstable waters like on the dry ground. In devotion, quantity is synonymous with quality. I’ve come to understand that there is just no way around it.

Inside the Journal of a Christian

I won’t be surprised to find out that most of the Journals kept by Christians are filtered by scriptural quotes filled with all the right things to say rather than the things that are truly felt and thought. Imagine writing down your truest, purest thoughts and then searching the scriptures for the emotions and issues you wrote about and then writing down the scriptures next to how you really feel. I think this approach to journaling will have a much more fulfilling effect. You are fully expressing your thoughts and emotions and processing them through the Word of God, as you begin to release, your heart is open and emptied to receive. It takes vulnerability to do this, but the reward of vulnerability is intimacy with the Father.

The shame of hiding the emotions, guilt, and issues that are sometimes seen as “non-Christian” is completely eradicated from this process as you completely open up those thoughts to the light of the word and instead of shame and condemnation you’ll be aware of God’s abounding grace. A lot of the times what directs us away from the presence of God are those unprocessed emotions that we carry around, and although we hear God’s word, what is often real to us is what we feel and with the reinforcement of external forces such as modern day media, we are pulled into the direction we are trying to avoid. This hiding of things in us that aren’t outright Christian creates a set of people I’d call “deep-but-shallow-Christians”. There are those people that know all the scriptures, always quick to respond to any negative with a reprimanding bible quote, but if you were privy to their own relationship with God you’d quickly realize that it’s not as deep as it looks. The devotion is not constant enough to provide the roots and depth a strong relationship with God requires to last forever. Not long ago that was me. I noticed the drastic extremes of burning with holy passion for a time and being deeply lethargic and bored the next moment. Chasing the excitement of worship and romanticizing the idea of it to the extent that we chase after the feeling instead of the presence.

What we need to remember though is that God is present with his full presence the moment you allow him access into your life. Yes, even in the uneventful, mundane moments of life.

journaling can really open up your every day to God and builds contentment and gratitude, which facilitates your deeper growth in Him. You can commit to this way of journaling today. As you study your bible or follow a devotional take note not only on what is in the word but also about how you feel before and after you’ve studied.