stevenrealife

I continue to experience just how much reading my Bible and praying belong together! They fit together like cheese and a burger! This cheese burger from the Cup & Saucer Cafe in Monterey, TN was as good as it looks. Listening to God and responding in prayer is even better! I can listen to God talk to me through His Word, and I can respond back to Him as I pray. This week I was reading Isaiah 28:23-29 during my prayer time. In them, Isaiah says that God instructs the farmer, even in proper farming techniques! Verses 26-27 say, “For his God instructs and teaches him properly. For dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is the cartwheel driven over cummin; But dill is beaten out with a rod, and cummin with a club” (NASB). Verse 29 concludes, “This also comes from the LORD of hosts, who has made His counsel wonderful and His wisdom great.” So I prayed back to the Lord and thanked Him that all truth is His truth. I thanked Him that His counsel/wisdom is vastly beyond my comprehension. And if He gives counsel to the farmer, He will give me the wisdom I need to navigate life.

Matthew 5:6 says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (ESV). One aspect of this yearning for righteousness is yearning for Jesus Christ’s Kingdom. He will reign on David’s thrown on earth forever over a kingdom of righteousness. New Year’s Eve I was downtown St Paul, MN eating supper. I came out of the restaurant at 5:30 PM to find someone had slammed into my pickup and drove off without leaving their contact information! $5,000 damage!! I kept asking, “Why does stuff like this happen?” Matthew 5:6 is part of the answer to my question. Inequity, falsehood, cheating, taking advantage of someone all remind us that the kingdom has not come. My pickup is just a hunk of metal. It isn’t that important. I get it back from the shop this week. But in a tiny way “stuff” like this happens to create a deeper sense of yearning for Jesus. He is coming back. He is going to reign. His reign will be a righteous reign!

This is the first Christmas Eve night in 28 years that Barb and I will be by ourselves! And that is okay. One son cannot make it home for Christmas. Our other children are coming over tomorrow. Joy does not come from family, presents, a Christmas meal, or a star lit evening with fresh snow. Joy comes in a person: Jesus. An angel told the shepherds, “‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!'” (ESV). I have joy today because a Savior was born for me! I need One!

Flying back from Dallas this week, I looked out to see that we were flying above the clouds. The sun was shining. It was beautiful. We descended into the cloud cap and could see absolutely nothing. The pilot was flying blind. As we broke through under the clouds, it was dark and depressing. The cloud cover above us was thick. You could not see the sun. What a picture of our everyday lives! Some days we fly above the clouds, basking in the sun. Some days we fly blind, prone to succumbing to fear. And some days are dark and depressing. Psalm 62:8 is good for all days, saying, “Trust in Him at all times, O people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us” (NASB).

Having been a pastor now for 28 years, I clearly see the vital importance of staying refreshed. One of the main ways to do this is to prioritize what the Lord sets as a priority. Acts 6:4 delineates top priorities for a pastor, saying, “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” My planner has four to five times per week blocked out just to pray, some by myself and some with brothers in Christ. The more I am pulled in multiple directions and realize that I am not up for the task, the more these times of reading my Bible (listening to God) and praying (talking to God) renew me in steady streams of grace. It is like water falling over the cliffs at Middle Falls (pictured here) in Burgess Falls State Park in Tennessee. How spiritually refreshing it is to listen to God and talk to God!

This is one of my favorite spots on Ocracoke Island, on the Outer Banks of NC. Each morning I usually get up before Barbara and head out here on the porch with a  cup of coffee and my Bible for a couple of hours before breakfast. I’m reading through the book of Isaiah. What a rich read! The indwelling Holy Spirit reveals truths every morning which cause me to reflect. The other morning I was reading Isaiah 5 where the prophet is pronouncing judgment upon Judah for their disregard for the Lord. Isaiah writes, “Destruction is certain for you who buy up property so others have no place to live. Your homes are built on great estates so you can be alone in the land. But the LORD Almighty has sealed your awful fate. With my own ears I heard him say, ‘Many beautiful homes will stand deserted, the owners dead or gone'” (NLT). A person certainly sees palacious homes  on the Outer Banks. So often as Christians we ask the question, “Can I . . . ?” “Can I afford this?” But the more we reflect on Scripture, the real question becomes, “Should I . . . ?” Each Christian must prayerfully ask that question themselves. It isn’t a question one can answer for another. Isaiah 5 reminded me once again that our hope is not here. What we amass here will certainly be left behind. We look forward to an everlasting Kingdom with a Davidic King who reigns forever: Jesus Christ!

This little gem came from my father’s library. I just read it today. Wow! What a great read! Vernon Grounds, President Emeritus of Denver Seminary who passed away in 2010, penned an easy-to-read, concise explanation of how to be a committed disciple of Jesus. Only 124 pages and 10 short chapters, this is a book that even those who do not like reading will find valuable. Published by Multnomah Press in 1984, you can still buy it on Amazon. I am going to start buying used copies to give to people and am thinking about doing a sermon series with one sermon based on each chapter. A friend of mine recently said to me, “I just do not get how to live the every-day Christian life.” This book helps answer that question. Buy it. Read it. Give it away. All of us need to continually come back to the basics. This book does it!

In my 28 years of being a pastor I have found a constant reality: I let down people. I fall short. I say things or do things that disappoint, that hurt. Or I fail to meet expectations by not saying or doing what someone believes I should say or do. The vast majority of the time, this reality is unintentional, meaning I do not intend to let people down or hurt them. But the reality is still the reality: I let people down. I did it this week. I did not know that I had done it. I did not intend to do it. But the reality is this: I hurt someone with my words. Relationships with people come with pain and disappointment, including relationships within Jesus’ Church. But relationships also come with joy. Our joy, in the midst of the reality of disappointing people, comes in a person, the person of Jesus. In Him we find forgiveness. In Him we find it possible to forgive each other. Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (NASB).

Do you ever get down on yourself? It is easy to say things to ourselves like, “I should have done this better! I should have done this sooner! I should have . . . .” Feelings of inadequacy can weigh us down into a quagmire of inactivity. When I experience those thoughts, and I often do, I preach to myself this concept: It is true that I am not adequate. I need to recognize it and then come to the Lord in order to experience His adequacy in my inadequacy. I have to continually remind myself of Jesus’ words in John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (NASB). As a branch, I won’t reflect the beauty of Christ unless I recognize my complete need to depend on Him. “Lord, help me to seek Your adequacy in my inadequacy.”

A missionary friend of mine from Australia, John North, shared this simple way to pray with our church family. It is actually praying biblical prayers.We wrote this little guide to evangelistic prayer on our prayer wall at church. I have been praying this way. “Lord, please open a door for me to share the Gospel. Please open hearts of people to hear it. Please open my mouth to share it with boldness.”