Category: Uncategorized

We . . . plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain —2 Corinthians 6:1 Our outreach team leaves tomorrow for Guatemala. Please have them in prayer. Let’s pray they will learn anew to draw freely on the grace of God this week. We have a constantly available source of power and support and we seldom use it. It is the grace of our Lord. Grace is more than forgiveness of sin. It is power to live today. The grace you had yesterday will not be sufficient for today. Grace is the overflowing favor of God, and you can always count on it being available to draw upon as needed. Are you failing to rely on the grace of God there? It is not a question of praying and asking God to help you— it is taking the grace of God now.  Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God. Draw on His grace now, not later. The primary word in the spiritual vocabulary is now.  Lord, bless and protect our team headed out tomorrow. Surround them with your angels and teach them by drawing them closer to you than ever before. […]

. . . what shall I say? ’Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. ’Father, glorify Your name’ —John 12:27-28 We ask God to “make us, mold us.” He does so in the fires of sorrow. We should not seek to avoid sorrow, but seek the protection of our Savior in sorrow. Our Lord received Himself, accepting His position and realizing His purpose, in the midst of the fire of sorrow. He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life, and there is no use in saying it should not be. Sin, sorrow, and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them. If we honestly trace our spiritual growth, we find the periods of true growth were periods of sorrow. When times are good, we assume they are so because of something we did. When times are ordinary, we do not see the forming hand of God at work. Oh Lord, we know in our life there will be sorrow. Bless us with the knowledge of your active […]

This is your hour, and the power of darkness —Luke 22:53 Once, years ago, I travelled to Jakarta, Indonesia, on business. I have at no other time felt such a sense of the existence of pure evil. I have felt it other times, in fact, often, but never like that. You don’t have to live too long in this world  or watch much tv to come to the conclusion that there are dark forces out there. We have to be careful not to give those forces too much credit but it would be foolish not to acknowledge they exist and have some affect. Failing to make that recognition and calling it what it is: sin. Is the cause of disaster. If we call it just “the devil” then we fail to recognize the personal nature of it and the possibility of it having affect in our lives. Not recognizing it in others can cause us to make disastrous mistakes in our personal relationships.  If we reconcile to the fact of sin, we can see sin and call it what it is. We can separate sin from sinner and hate the right one. We can be constantly reminded that a […]

He is . . . a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief —Isaiah 53:3 Most of us have “experienced” grief. We have lost a loved one or a job. We have been hurt by a word or a shun. However, we are not “acquainted with grief” in the same way our Lord was acquainted with it. We endure it and live through it, but we do not become intimate with it.  Real grief is associated with sin. We have to recognize that sin is a fact of life, not just a shortcoming. Sin is blatant mutiny against God, and either sin or God must die in my life. The New Testament brings us right down to this one issue— if sin rules in me, God’s life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is nothing more fundamental than that. The culmination of sin was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth will also be true in your history and in mine— that is, sin will kill the life of God in us. We must mentally bring ourselves to terms […]

With what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you —Matthew 7:2 We tend to treat this statement of the Lord as hyperbole., an exaggeration. Surely, He did not mean this literally. According to OC, He very much means it. “This statement is not some haphazard theory, but it is an eternal law of God.  We need to stop and think about this because we are, oh so quick to judge others. The sad thing is the things we judge others for are generally the things of which we ourselves are guilty. It is, after all, the reason we are so good at recognizing the fault in others: it’s all too familar. Our course is to be as humble as possible. To recognize that even the vilest thing we observe in others lurks in our hearts. If such vileness has not arisen in our lives is not thanks to us, but to the enduring grace of God.The greatest characteristic of a saint is humility, as evidenced by being able to say honestly and humbly, “Yes, all those, as well as other evils, would have been exhibited in […]

You are . . . a royal priesthood . . . —1 Peter 2:9 I am essentially a selfish creature. Selfishness is the basis of the sin which required my salvation in the first placed. But even after salvation, selfishness keeps arising. It is a continuing struggle to get my eyes off myself and onto my Lord and my brothers and sisters He loves. We become “a royal priesthood” by the atonement of the Cross of Christ that this has been accomplished. If we can move from our self focus we can launch out in reckless, unrestrained belief that the redemption is complete. The work of the priesthood is intercession.  Pray with the realization that you are perfect only in Christ Jesus, not on the basis of this argument: “Oh, Lord, I have done my best; please hear me now.” We must get to the point of being sick to death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God might tell us about ourselves. There is only one place where we are right with God, and that is in Christ Jesus. When we finally realize who we are in Christ; we can begin the work […]

The Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends —Job 42:10 We keep slipping back to a belief that we can purify ourselves. Even after coming to the Lord and accepting his forgiveness and the benefit of His atoning death, we can still slip back to a self-improvement program.  I cannot make myself right with God; I cannot make my life perfect. I can only be right with God if I accept the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift.  Satan wants to keep us focused on self, on improving and sanctifying ourselves. When we do so we are distracted for our real work and concern: others. If you are not now receiving the “hundredfold” which Jesus promised (see Matthew 19:29 ), and not getting insight into God’s Word, then start praying for your friends— enter into the ministry of the inner life. “The Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends.” As a saved soul, the real business of your life is intercessory prayer. Whatever circumstances God may place you in, always pray immediately that His atonement may be recognized and as fully understood in the lives of others as it has been […]

. . . do you love Me? . . . Tend My sheep —John 21:16 There is much confusion about love in today’s society. We kick the word around and use it to mean a variety of things. We associate it with feelings, emotions and passions; seldom with efforts on behalf of others. To care for another, is not just to be concerned about that person, but to do what it takes to ensure the well-being of another. One of my favorite things about Kairos is that it is operated by Christians from a variety of denominations.  We make no attempt to “convert” anyone to a particular way of thinking. We just show love by visiting, feeding and listening to persons who have lost all hope that anyone cares for them, loves them. Jesus did not say to make converts to your way of thinking, but He said to look after His sheep, to see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Him. Today we have substituted doctrinal belief for personal belief, and that is why so many people are devoted to causes and so few are devoted to Jesus Christ. People do not really want to be […]