Month: April 2023

I don’t have a mansion just over the hillside, but from the cottage below, this house intrigues me. There are tons of folks building mansions on top of North Mountain. Now that the trees are leaved, they are a little less conspicuous, but there is one that makes me curious. First of all, it looks pretty big, maybe several stories high. I can only imagine the views from atop. But the thing that really sticks out to me is that the house is sort of sideways on the mountain. It’s crookedish.

I mentioned the crookedness of the house to Tony one day and he said they built it facing south for the sunlight — solar power. Who knew? How smart is that? So, the front of this house is pointing due south. If you have a glass front house, building in the right direction to make use of the sun, to receive its warming rays and collect all that solar power just makes sense. Between the power of the sun and the great ventilation up there, that house is positioned correctly.

That led me to the thought — am I positioned correctly? Am I positioned to receive the most direct Sonlight, to absorb the solar power of the Son? Have I oriented myself to gain the most power from my Most High?

Just like these folks had to consciously decide to position their house in the most beneficial direction, we must do the same. Yes, if we know Jesus as our Lord and Savior and are obedient to His Word we have the same power that rose Jesus from the grave. Too, just like that mansion on the hill, we have the solar battery pack (our hearts) but if we are not pointed to the Son, being fed by the Son, absorbing His rays, positioned correctly, those power packs won’t be any use. In fact, if they are being used and fed, corrosion will cause what’s inside that battery to become hard, lifeless and useless. The Son Light gives power which converts the packs into useable energy. Another word for energy? Spirit. Hmmm. If the packs are not charged, they will be lifeless, without energy, without power. We all know that dreaded sound of a dying battery winding down.

If we are not oriented correctly, if we do not put ourselves in the right position, we will not be able to receive all the power He has to offer. Spending time with Jesus, spending time in His Word, spending time talking to Him, spending time encouraging and being encouraged by other Jesus People are all ways the Son shines His Light — all those things generate, each a ray of the Son, the power we must have in order to be energized for Him. There’s only one way to be energized by Him, to get the power directly from Him. Not in our strength but in His.

As we know Jesus better, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life. He has called us t receive his own glory and goodness! And by that same mighty power, he has given us all of his rich and wonderful promises. He has promised that you will escape the decadence all around you caused by evil desires and that you will share in his divine nature. 2 Peter 1:3-4

So, are you position correctly to receive all that He has to offer His Children?

I made a statement at work a couple of weeks ago that I spent more time on my knees in 2020 then I think I have my entire life combined.  True, but sad, but convicting.  Thirteen days in, 2021 doesn’t look to be any different. In fact, my knee time in 2021 could quite possibly surpass my knee time in 2020, and it should.

Each passing year, despite the circumstances of the world, the happenings in our country, the motion of our own little tiny universes, our knee time should increase.  As we grow in our relationship with Jesus and persist in living in His presence, our communication with Him should increase exponentially.  Frankly, He should at some point be all consuming.  In fact, I(we) should have the consciousness of His Presence even when I(we) don’t hear His voice.  Chew on that a minute. We don’t need to hear His voice to know He is present, to sense His presence, to experience His presence, to be in His presence.  We need only persist.

One day Jesus told His disciples a story to illustrate their need for constant prayer and to show them that they must never give up.  Luke 18:1

How much clearer could it be?  The need for constant prayer is so important that Jesus told them a story to convince them.  Read it in Luke 18, it’s a beautiful illustration of persistence in prayer.  We know, of course, that we are to persist in all our prayers, but the way in which it is used here is prayer for deliverance, rescue, salvation, in times of trial.  It means simply, as 1 Thessalonians tells us  “Keep on praying.”  It doesn’t mean we have to pray harder or pray longer, it means we keep our requests before God continually, confident that He will answer.

Some of you may have read the other day in Jesus Calling:

When you bring Me prayer requests, lay out your concerns before Me.  Speak to Me candidly; pour out your heart.  Then thank Me for the answer that I have set into motion long before you can discern the results.  When your requests come to mind again, continue to thank Me for the answers that are on the way.  If you keep on stating your concerns to Me, you will live in a state of tension.  When you thank me for how I am answering your prayers, your mind-set becomes much more positive.  Thankful prayers keep your focus on My Presence and My promises.

Sarah Young

So, in 2021 we pray for deliverance from the times of trial – physical, mental and mostly spiritual — knowing that Jesus will surely answer, because He said He would, and in this day and age, as in days and ages past, His Word is the only thing we can count on as true.

Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.

Colossians 4:2

So with persistence we devote ourselves to prayer, and enter into the sweet presence continually, with a thankful heart, a heart of praise.  We know that praise always precedes the miracle, and answered prayers are miracles – salvation, healing, comforting – miracles because they are only answers that God can give.  For that we are thankful.

Sweet hour of prayer
Sweet hour of prayer
That calls me from a world of care
And bids me at my Father’s throne
Make all my wants and wishes known
In seasons of distress and grief
My soul has often found relief
And oft escaped the tempter’s snare
By Thy return, sweet hour of prayer

Sweet hour of prayer
Sweet hour of prayer
The joys I feel, the bliss I share
Of those whose anxious spirits burn
With strong desires for Thy return
With such I hasten to the place
Where God my Savior shows His face
And gladly take my station there
And wait for Thee, sweet hour of prayer

Sweet hour of prayer
Sweet hour of prayer
And wait for Thee
Sweet hour of prayer

I know not why God’s wondrous grace

To me He hath made known,

Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love

Redeemed me for His own.

I know not how this saving faith

To me He did impart,

Nor how believing in His Word

Wrought peace within my heart.

I know not how the Spirit moves,

Convincing men of sin,

Revealing Jesus through the Word,

Creating faith in Him.

I know not what of good or ill

May be reserved for me,

Of weary ways or golden days,

Before His face I see.

I know not when my Lord may come,

At night or noonday fair,

Nor if I walk the vale with Him,

Or meet Him in the air.

Ah…the thoughts of man.  It is some slight comfort to know that Major Daniel Whittle had some of the same thoughts I’ve rolled around in my brain, 136 years ago.  You know what I mean, right?  Of course you do, the I know nots…I know not why…I know not how…I know not what…I know not when…

Guess who else did?  Father Abraham!  You see, God made a promise to him.  What was that promise?  That Abraham’s offspring would be as numerous as the stars. 

“This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.”

Genesis 15:4

What was Abraham’s response to the covenant, to the promise?

Abraham believed the Lord and he credited it to him as righteousness.

Genesis 15:6

Did you see that?  He didn’t miss a beat.  Abraham didn’t know the why, the how, the what, the when.  The only thing he did know was the promise.  Look how Brother Paul recites it for us:

Abraham, when hope was dead within him, went on hoping in faith, believing that he would become “the father of many nations”. He relied on the word of God which definitely referred to “they seed”. With undaunted faith he looked at the facts–his own impotence (he was practically a hundred years old at the time) and his wife Sarah’s apparent barrenness. Yet he refused to allow any distrust of a definite pronouncement of God to make him waver. He drew strength from his faith, and, while giving the glory to God, remained absolutely convinced that God was able to implement his own promise.

Romans 4:19-21

Oh sure, of course he had faith, we’re talking about the Big A here, Mr. Faithful.  We can say we don’t have that kind of faith, we can talk about the I know nots…why, how, what, when?  But I am so encouraged.  You see, God used Abraham, just an ordinary man, he was far from perfect – remember that Sarah’s my sister thing?  But I’m far from perfect too!  Hey, you too!  I love this verse.  What sets Abraham apart is not his perfection, it’s  his unwavering faith.  You see, Abraham believed that God would do what He said He would do.  He didn’t waver through unbelief regarding the promises of God.  See what it says?  He was strengthened in his faith.  Abraham was fully persuaded, completely convinced that God had the power to do what He promised and that He would do what He promised.

Now glory be to God!  By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to do infinitely more than we could ever dare to ask or imagine.

Ephesians 3:20

He is able to accomplish anything!  That’s the key.  He is.  Abraham believed the promise because of the promiser – God!

Here’s the zinger – Do I believe the promises He has made?  Do you believe the promises He has made?  Work that out in your mind.  It just might be time to reclaim the promises of the Promiser. 

Major Whittle did.  Abraham did.  Paul did.  Countless other names in the Bible did. 

But “I know Whom I have believed,

And am persuaded that He is able

To keep that which I’ve committed Unto Him against that day.”

The deliverance of the Israelites, God’s chosen people, from the Egyptians was not only a physical deliverance, it was a spiritual deliverance as well.  The Israelites were not only delivered from pagan influences but the deliverance also consecrated the Israelites to the service of God.

For the Jews, this physical and spiritual deliverance is a deeply Holy, significant observance.  And while Passover begins today for our Jewish friends, it should be no less important and given no less significance in the life of Christians.

The Exodus from Egypt was not only one of the greatest events and epochs in the history of the Jews, but one of the greatest events and epochs in the history of the world.  To that successful escape, Europe, America, and Australia are as much indebted as the Jews themselves.  And the men of Europe, the men of America, and the men of Australia might join with us Jews in celebrating that feast of the Passover.  C.G. Montefiore

We all know well the story of the first Passover.  The details given in Exodus 12, the Word from God to the people of God, tells of the significance.  I marvel at the step-by-step instructions given by God to His people for their deliverance and protection.  Instructions and commandments that are still reverently observed today.  Does that not speak to their importance?  But, that’s not just in Exodus, is it?  It is the theme of the entire Word of God.  Our Deliverer is coming.  Our Deliverer has come.  Our Deliverer will come again.  Hallelujah!

The first Passover and the Passover roughly 3400 years later, are strikingly similar.  These two separate events in history allegorically, metaphorically and symbolically, rival Revelation.  That should really come as no surprise to us Word of God people as the entire Holy Book points to Jesus’s coming, arrival, and returning. The Alpha and the Omega from the alpha to the omega.

In the tenth day of this month they shall take until to them every man a lamb…Your lamb will be without blemish, a male of the first year; ye shall take it from the sheep or the goats; and ye shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation shall kill it at dusk.  And they shall take of the blood, and put it on the two side-posts and on the lintel, upon the houses wherein they shall eat it.  And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire…Eat, not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; its head with its legs and with the inwards thereof…And thus shall you eat it: with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and you staff in your hand; and shall eat it in haste—it is the Lord’s Passover.  For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will smite all the first-born, in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments:  I am the Lord.  Exodus 12:1-12 (Hebrew Text English Translation of the Pentateuch)

I encourage you to take your own plunge into the profound, there are mirrors upon mirrors in the Passovers. Here are a couple of my own aha’s from this text.

First, the cooking instructions for the lamb.  They were told to prepare the meat by roasting.  That would not necessarily be how we prepare roast lamb today.  They would have prepared the roast lamb, out of doors, on a spit over an open fire.  The profound plunge for me was that the spit most likely would have been made of a perpendicular and transverse pole.  Two poles in the shape of a cross.  Think about that.

The second aha moment came with the two side-posts and the lintel.  The text does not say doorway or door jam. It specifically describes the structure.  Two side-posts supported the lintel, which is a load-bearing construction element designed to support openings.  A lintel is also described as a horizontal beam, a crosspiece, or headpiece that spans (a stringer) an opening.  Wow!  The importance of the lintel is that it carries the weight of the structure!  Wow, again!

My visual is that I’m the left doorpost (sin), God is the right doorpost (Righteousness), and Jesus is the crossbeam (the mediator, the joiner).  Because God and I could not coexist due to my sin, Jesus bore the load, took on my burden, spanned the opening.  The only way God could get to me was for Jesus to die for me.  Outrageous as it sounds, it is Truth.  Don’t let anyone tell you different.  The blood on the lentil and door-posts of the first Passover is the same blood that bridges the span between God and me.  The blood of the first Passover lamb delivered the Israelites.  The blood of the second Passover Lamb delivers us all.  Think about that as we head into the Christian Passover.

God sent His son
They called Him Jesus
He came to love
Heal and forgive
He bled and died
To buy my pardon
An empty grave
Is there to prove
My savior lives

And because He lives
I can face tomorrow
Because He lives
All fear is gone
Because I know
He holds the future
And life is worth the living
Just because He lives