There is one thing that is imperative if you are desiring to live and experience the Cross Life. You must have a devotional life. It is impossible to follow the Lord Jesus daily, if you don't spend time with Him daily. The devotional life of too many believers is anemic, if not actually dead. From the time we are young believers we are taught the importance of a "quiet time" with God. But in a very noisy and, as I wrote about a few weeks ago, distracting world, it sometimes seems next to impossible to have a quiet time with God. But beginning today, and for a few weeks, I would like to try to share some things that will hopefully help anyone reading this blog have a more productive and consistent devotional life.
First, a consistent and fruitful devotional life will require a commitment. It will not happen unless you make it happen. That means your daily time with the Lord must take priority over other things in your life. Again, it is so easy for us, and I speak from personal experience, to be distracted by the world and neglect our time with God. We have good intentions, but find ourselves easily drawn away from the Lord by other demands. What can you do? Surrender it to the Lord and ask Him to enable you by His power to begin to be consistent in your time with Him. Your devotional life needs to grow out of a desire you have for a closer walk with the Lord. Don't make it into something you "have" to do, but it needs to be something that you "want" to do. If time with the Lord is seen as a duty or an burden, then you will never become consistent and will gain nothing from it. But when it is a joy and a blessing, it will become something that you look forward to daily. That is where we want to be.
In the coming weeks I want to delve into the devotional life further. To do so I will be referring to a small booklet on prayer which impacted my devotional life powerfully a number of years ago. It is available as a free download from the Chapel Library of Mt. Zion Bible Church. It is entitled "The Hidden Life of Prayer", and deals specifically with the prayer aspect of the devotional life. Following are two links you can use to download it. The second link is for the Spanish version.
http://www.chapellibrary.org/files/archive/pdf-english/hlop.pdf
http://www.chapellibrary.org/files/archive/pdf-english/hlops.pdf
Begin reading this little booklet and we will use it as a resource to guide us as we learn more about a devotional life in the weeks ahead. I pray the Lord will bless it to your hearts and use it in your lives to draw you closer to Lord that you may begin to experience and walk in the Cross Life.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Saturday, September 15, 2012
The Distracted Life
Our world is constantly seeking to seduce us away from the Lord. If we can be lured away from full surrender to our Lord then the world wins. If you and I are simply distracted from the things of God by the things of the world we will be like "salt that has lost its savor", salt which has been rendered useless for its intended purpose by becoming contaminated by impurities.
“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.”
What are you distracted by? Many times good things distract us from the best things. For me one of the greatest distractions is technology. I love computers of all kinds; desktop, laptop, tablet, etc. I also love the convenience of having a smartphone and the world, literally, at your fingertips. But for me the danger is that I am allowing technology, which is a good thing, to distract me in my relationship and fellowship with the Lord, which is the best thing. Watch the following clip from John Piper.
Think about your life this week. How much time do you spend daily with technology; FaceBook, Twitter, texting, etc.? Compare it to how much time do you spend daily with the Lord; Scripture reading, Scripture study, Scripture meditation, prayer, etc.? Then ask yourself, "Am I living a distracted life or a surrendered life?"
“And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.
For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?”
“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.”
Matthew 5:13, NASB
What are you distracted by? Many times good things distract us from the best things. For me one of the greatest distractions is technology. I love computers of all kinds; desktop, laptop, tablet, etc. I also love the convenience of having a smartphone and the world, literally, at your fingertips. But for me the danger is that I am allowing technology, which is a good thing, to distract me in my relationship and fellowship with the Lord, which is the best thing. Watch the following clip from John Piper.
“And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.
For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?”
Luke 9:23-25, NASB
Monday, September 3, 2012
The Life Of The Cross
I set this blog up many months ago, but have never written an entry till today. At the time the title of the blog was "Fruit From The Vine", referring to the passage in John 15 when the Lord Jesus teaches on the vine and the branches. We, as the branches, are to abide in the Lord Jesus, the true Vine, to bear fruit. A wonderful passage of Scripture, but I truly believe that the key to Christian discipleship is found in our Lord's words in Luke 9.
“...If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.” Luke 9:23, 24, NASB
The child of God must daily; deny themselves, take up their cross (die to self, sin, and the world), and follow Jesus Christ as Lord of their life. It is a life of complete and total surrender to Christ's Lordship. His will is to be our will. His life is to be our life. This past week this was brought to me vividly through a song and a story from church history. The story which I first heard many years ago in a church history class, has now come back to bring great conviction to my heart. A story of two Moravian men in 1732 who literally sold themselves into slavery that they might share the Gospel of Christ with others. As they set sail, sacrificing their lives that others might hear, they shouted, "MAY THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN RECEIVE THE REWARD OF HIS SUFFERINGS!"
This past week I heard this story again as I listened to Matt Papa's newest song, "The Reward Of His Suffering." Watch the video, listen to the song and ask yourself the question, are you truly taking up your cross daily and following Jesus as Lord?
“...If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.” Luke 9:23, 24, NASB
The child of God must daily; deny themselves, take up their cross (die to self, sin, and the world), and follow Jesus Christ as Lord of their life. It is a life of complete and total surrender to Christ's Lordship. His will is to be our will. His life is to be our life. This past week this was brought to me vividly through a song and a story from church history. The story which I first heard many years ago in a church history class, has now come back to bring great conviction to my heart. A story of two Moravian men in 1732 who literally sold themselves into slavery that they might share the Gospel of Christ with others. As they set sail, sacrificing their lives that others might hear, they shouted, "MAY THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN RECEIVE THE REWARD OF HIS SUFFERINGS!"
This past week I heard this story again as I listened to Matt Papa's newest song, "The Reward Of His Suffering." Watch the video, listen to the song and ask yourself the question, are you truly taking up your cross daily and following Jesus as Lord?
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