What Now?

We counted days prior to Christmas making sure everything was as prepared for that big day as possible. It came quickly and the day was over even faster. As we view these days after Christmas, we find:

• gifts given and received, mountains of torn up gift wrap stuffed in garbage bags,
• Christmas pageants finished after hours of work on music, costumes, special effects, etc.
• children occupied with everything from girl's baby dolls or boys sports equipment,
• company has come and gone,
• leftovers from Christmas dinner are stowed away in the refrigerator or freezer,
• Christmas tree is either already down or will be in a couple of days,
• holiday décor is back in boxes ready for the attic or garage,
• gifts have been returned to stores for exchange or for money back,
• holiday depression may be setting in by now.....SO...
• What now?

As I write, in just a few days we will be looking at a new year...2015. Christmas is probably the one really big holiday celebration of the year. More is done in preparation for this day than perhaps any other day. When it's over, folks may go through a time of let down little realizing that another special holiday is just around the corner...New Year's Day.

Many people I know make New Year resolutions. I don't care for the word “resolution” because to me, it says something I must determine to do with great resolve in looking at a new year. I know myself well and know many ways where I need to make changes in my life, especially in the spiritual area of “me.” I also think I know enough about me that for any spiritual change to take place, it takes God's conviction, direction and strengthening in my life for such changes to take place. So Christmas is a part of the past until next year, so “WHAT NOW” does God have in store for me in 2015?

I can read most places in God's Word and feel a conviction of a need for change or strengthening in my life. I've been spending some time in the book of Colossians and have had no problem seeing some places where God wants to work with me on some things. These don't have to apply to you but many of them do to me. Allow me to share a few of these things that I have simply written in a journal to keep me reminded that New Years day can be a day of real spiritual significance for me. I have underlined a few words in the verses listed that I view as things the Lord and I are going to have to work on. It won't work without my cooperation with Him.

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk in Him,
2:6

Set your mind on things above, not on
things on the earth.

3:2

And let the peace of God rule in your
hearts, to which also you were
called in one body, and be thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly in all wisdom...
3:15,16a

And whatever you do, do it heartily,
as to the Lord and not to men.
3:23

Continue earnestly in prayer, being
vigilant in it with thanksgiving.
4:2

Let your speech always be with grace,
seasoned with salt, that you may know
how you ought to answer each one.
4:6

I'm looking forward to 2015 even though I have no idea the things that may come my way. I do know that God will not allow anything to come into my life without His approval, Jesus continues to love me despite my flaws and the Holy Spirit is always near to teach and lead me. I want to be teachable and pliable in the hands of God and be more for Him than I've ever been in my life.

There are friends who know I select a Scripture verse for each year. This year my theme verse is Micah 6:8:

He hath showed thee, O man, what is
good: and what doth the Lord
require of thee, but to do justly, and
to love mercy, and to walk humbly
with thy God?

Dear Father, I'm not being prideful in wanting to be more for You this year than before. There is nothing of You I can be without Your power in my life. Help me to keep my focus on You and not on me and my personal desires. I love You and want to please You. In Jesus' precious name...Amen.

Praying For Others

Evening, and morning, and at noon,
will I pray, and cry aloud: and He
shall hear my voice.
Psalm 55:17

What a wonderful privilege it is to pray for others. Someone may ask for our prayers regarding something difficult they are going through and we agree to pray. Many churches have prayer lists they pass out to the congregation on a regular basis. Emergency needs may come to our attention and we feel strongly led to pray. The above verse is my emergency prayer verse. Some urgent situations call for a real dedication to praying for whatever the need may be. There are those times we feel led to pray when we don't have much information as to why we feel led to pray for someone or something but the leading is strong.

His name is Paul. I first came to know him through both of us being our church choir. I'm an alto, he a tenor so our sections sat next to each other in our choir practice room. For a long time, I didn't even know is name until I asked another alto. He appeared to be so kind, dedicated and with a great voice. From bits and pieces of conversations, I learned that he was a single young man. During one particular rehearsal, the Holy Spirit just put on my heart to pray that the Lord would bring a young lady into Paul's life that would be a good match for him. I didn't pray for anyone in particular but felt I should leave that up to the Lord. To this day, I doubt Paul and I have passed more than 50 words between us in person. I didn't have to know Paul well, but God did and I knew He would work on Paul's behalf. God did His work as only He can do. Paul is now married to a lovely young lady (who was also in the choir) and they now have two gorgeous little girls with another baby on the way in early summer 2015. I've not had the privilege of seeing their children in person but have seen pictures. Paul is a happy man and I'm so grateful that God entrusted me, and I'm sure others, to pray for Him.

I don't relate this incident to brag on me and my prayer life. (I'm bragging on God.) So often, I have mistakenly felt that in praying for others, I needed to just pray for the big stuff in their lives. However, no matter the need, small or great, people feel that all their needs are big ones. The Lord at times has led me to pray for someone's physical condition when that person didn't even know until later that they had a problem. I have awakened in the middle of the night when someone in particular came to my mind. I prayed for them not knowing what was going on in their life at the time, but God did.

Yesterday morning, in our church, a young 19-year-old man came forward during invitation time and was sweetly saved. I have noticed him sitting on a back row with his girlfriend and her family. With me being at the piano, especially at invitation time, I don't get to be out in the congregation meeting or talking with people. He has been right within my view as I look a little to my right. I could hardly contain myself as I saw those wonderful tears of joy coming down his cheeks. Right after the service, I went to the back of the room. I told him that I know he doesn't know me nor had I met him, but that the Lord had led me to pray for him in particular over a span of weeks. I gave him a big hug, rejoicing in his new relationship with Jesus.

For many Christians, prayer may mean just saying grace at the table, praying before bedtime, bowing heads when the preacher prays or lifting those personal SOS prayers to the Lord in times of personal need. Prayer can sometimes be a “have-to” process for many Christians, but it doesn't have to be like that. Even in our prayer life, we can realize joy and a sense of satisfaction as we work in tandem with the Lord and His will for those He leads us to pray for.

I'm not always faithful to pray, even when prompted by the Holy Spirit to do so. I've also committed the terrible sin of telling someone I will pray with them about something when I haven't been faithful to carry out a resolve to do so. Folks may never know if we are faithful or not to pray, but the Lord knows our faithfulness or failures when praying for someone else.

One of the hardest ways of praying is for secret things that no one will ever know anything about. There are a couple of things I'm praying about right now. I won't discuss those things and don't even have them written down on a prayer list. They are things between me and the Lord. I know He can deal with those things better than me and my mouth can and am leaving those things with Him.

There are so many facets to our prayer lives and God calls us to be in season and out of season to pray. We don't have to know the names of some on a prayer list or who sit two pews in front of us. In our troubled times, many are counting on our prayers and God can lay folks on our hearts for His own reasons. Be it night, morning or noon, we are to be alert and on duty to pray in sometimes the oddest of circumstances. What a privilege is ours....

Dear Father, thank You for the joy of prayer, be it personal or on behalf of others. Help me to be faithful to pray and never make promises to pray if I never intend to do so. Thank You for entrusting to me the privilege of praying for others. In Jesus precious name....Amen!

A Root of Bitterness

Pursue peace with all people
and holiness, without which no one
will see the Lord:
looking carefully lest anyone fall
short of the grace of God; lest any
root of bitterness spring up cause
trouble, and by this many become defiled.
Hebrews 12:14,15

I don't know if you've ever been around a person who is “eaten up” with bitterness. If you haven't, you are a very blessed person. The venom that swirls inside such a person can affect everyone they come in contact with. These are people who have been deeply hurt or offended and they carry it with no resolving of the issues. As Christians, we can easily take on the attitude that the problem of bitterness will never affect us, but it can and probably will at some point unless we take measures to deal with personal pain and anguish.

Perhaps you've been through a time of bitterness in your life...I know that I have. The writer of the book of Hebrews, through the Holy Spirit, gives three strong suggestions in the above verses.

1. Pursue peace...with ALL people.
   When we pursue something, we are chasing it down, running after it. The word speaks
   of an intensity. Any peace people pursue, however, is for nothing unless it is a peace
   that comes of God between two parties. Tear up all peace treaties for they will never
   work if both countries aren't people of God. We may want to choose who we will be at
   peace with, but God's mandate is that as His people, we are to live, first at peace on an
   individual basis with God. We are told to make every effort to be at peace with people, yes, the easiest or most difficult of people. The other person may n respond,
   but we aren't responsible for for the response or actions of the other person...only for obedience on our own part.

2. Pursue holiness
   We will never attain to the same holiness as God, but we are to lead a holy life through
   the power of the Holy Spirit. God never gives us a command we can't keep. He doesn't play jokes on us. He wants our lives to be pure and clean in every way.
   

Looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God.
We should be alert spiritually speaking so that we don't slip into sin and wrong doing. We can often fall short when we lose the initiative of staying on guard regarding our spiritual beings. Many Christians fall into the things of the world because they lost their spiritual “edge.”

LEST: (the prevention of something negative happening)
...lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble.

I don't know about you, but what little I know about plants or growing things, they started with a seed of some kind. Before roots can be formed, seeds must be planted. In verse 15 we read of “any root of bitterness.” No root, formed underground, just appears on it's own. There is a major event that brings any root about and that event is the planting of some kind of seed. My personal opinion regarding that root of bitterness is that the major event that takes place is that of the planting of a seed. I also believe that seed to be the seed of anger. From my experience as a social worker and just through life observation, it seems that bitterness is the end result of anger. Bitterness appears to be the big grand finale of an on-going angry spirit.

We must guard our hearts not from bitterness but from the anger that causes it. That small seed of anger grows and produces the roots and crops of bitterness. We must be on the alert when anger arises in our lives. Left to itself, anger will multiply creating the undergrowth of bitterness that can absolutely ruin life for anyone who doesn't get control of that part of their lives. So how do we proceed? Scripture is plain on the subject.

Let all bitterness, wrath, anger,
clamor, and evil speaking be put
away from you, with all malice.
And be kind to one another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one
another, even as God in Christ
forgave you.
Ephesians 4:31-32

Verse 31 tells us what to be rid of, and we are to be rid of it with all malice. Otherwise, we should hate all of those negative things that can be our downfall. Notice the backward order of the emotions leading to bitterness....evil speaking, clamor, anger, wrath, bitterness. Paul views bitterness and it's friends in a broader way. Many times, evil speaking can cause more hurt than can be imagined and it leads to the next thing and then to the next thing, etc. But notice that Paul says to PUT AWAY all of those things, indicating that we have a choice as to what to do with these things. God will empower us to be rid of any sin that besets us.

We are then told in verse 32 what to put in the place of all of those negative qualities that leads to bitterness. We are to be kind, tenderhearted and forgiving of one another. Why are we to do those positive things...simply because Jesus the supreme example for us to follow...forgiveness.

So we look at the trail from bitterness to forgiveness. Some may carry bitterness from earlier in their lives. Maybe those who hurt us has died or can't be contacted. We don't have to speak to our offender. We can always forgive, handing our hurts to the Lord to heal our lives as He sees fit. The other person doesn't have to apologize...we always forgive no matter the time that has passed or the continuing bad attitudes of others. I am in a position right now that involves a supposedly very mature Christian who is not speaking to me. I don't like that but right now, that person is unapproachable. However, in my heart I have forgiven that person despite the person's uncalled for behavior.

May I add an essential fact: bitterness can make one very ill. The physical systems of our body can be thrown into turmoil because of bitterness and all things associated with it. It is vital to leave those things with the Lord.

Dear Father, I don't want to be a bitter person. I must leave folks with you who have hurt me as I forgive them for their unkindnesses to me. Please help me to be anger-free and to do it for Your honor and glory. In Jesus' precious name....Amen!