March 14th, 2018 - Are You Experiencing It?

March 14th, 2018 - Thoughts for your Week

Scripture: Luke 5:3-6

“Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, He asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.”

Are You Experiencing It?

When Christ teaches you something about Himself, He implements it into your life through experience. As the crowds gathered around, Jesus chose to board Peter’s boat and teach the people from there. All day long Peter sat in the boat listening to Jesus teach the multitudes. At the close of His discourse, Jesus allowed Peter to experience the reality of what He had just been teaching the crowd. The crowd had heard the truth, but Peter was to experience it.

Jesus put His teaching into language a fisherman could understand. He told Peter to put out his nets into the deep water. Peter hesitated, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing.” Peter had been fishing all night, had washed and repaired his nets in the morning, and then listened to Jesus teach. He was tired. He probably was not expecting a dramatic encounter with God at a time like that. Yet, as Peter obeyed Jesus, he pulled in such a miraculous catch of fish that his boat almost sank! Peter was filled with amazement and recognized that he had just experienced the power of God (Luke 5:4-11).

Peter learned that with a command from Jesus, he could do anything. Thus, Jesus was able to reorder Peter’s priorities from catching fish to catching men (Luke 4:10). Peter’s obedience led to a dramatic new insight into the person of Jesus. This was an invitation to walk with Jesus in an even more intimate and powerful way.

God does not want you to merely gain intellectual knowledge of truth. He wants you to experience His truth. There are things about Jesus you will learn only as you obey Him. Your obedience will then lead to greater revelation and opportunities for service.

“For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.”

Romans 5:19

“Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

John 14:23

"The present aim of existence becomes single: to do the will of God: so long as He is pleased, nothing else really counts: to obey Him becomes the sole objective of life. It does not matter how he feels; what matters is obeying God. This is a pure walk."

Watchman Nee

"Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading."

- Oswald Chambers

(devotional taken from “Experiencing God Day by Day by Henry Blackaby)

February 14th, 2018 - Praying God's Word

February 14th, 2018 - Thoughts for your Week

Scripture: Hebrews 4:12

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Praying God’s Word

Do you ever feel like you want to pray, that you know deep down that prayer is so good for your soul, but you struggle to follow through and do it, because you often pray the same things and you’re afraid it’s going to be boring? If we’re honest, most of us struggle with prayer time. We tend to pray the same things over and over again. The problem isn’t that we pray for the same things – because let’s face it, we’re going to be continually praying for our family, future, finances, our work, etc. – it’s how we’re praying them.

Joni Eareckson Tada says; “I have learned to season my prayers with the word of God. It’s a way of talking to God in His language – speaking His dialect. When we bring God’s word directly into our praying, we are bringing God’s power into our praying.”

When we pray of our own accord, we will often use the same words. But what if we instead used a Psalm to pray our prayers? I’ve begun doing this and it’s amazing how different my prayer time is now. I am praying for the same things, but my prayers are totally different each time. And they feel different too. There’s more power to them, more healing in my own heart, and a greater understanding of God and what He wants me to pray.

 “If I try to pray for people or events without having the Word in front of me guiding my prayers, then several negative things happen. One is that I tend to be very repetitive…I just pray the same things all the time. Secondly, my mind tends to wander.”

-       John Piper

^“And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.”

-       1 John 5: 14-15

“For thirty centuries, God’s people have found in the Psalms an answer to the disciples’ plea; “Lord, teach us to pray.”

-       Ken Langley

Tonight, instead of our Lecto Divina scripture prayer, I encourage you to pray through a Psalm. I’ve selected a Psalm to pray but feel free to choose your own. After you’re finished, take a few moments to ponder how your prayer time has changed.

We have a whole bible full of scripture we can be praying through. Let’s challenge ourselves to memorize more of God’s word so that we can infuse it into our prayers with and for one another. Like Isaiah 55: 11 says; “So is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it out.”

“By praying the Psalms back to God, we learn to pray in tune with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

-       Ben Patterson”