I’m stymied! I’m committed to memorizing Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount this year but I’m barely twenty verses in and I’ve hit a wall. Focusing on new verses interrupts my memory of the initial ones. I could use my age as an excuse or cite unrealistic expectations and simply give up but I have other options.
I can pray, asking for help. Abiding in God’s Word, hiding it in my heart, is a scriptural command. God has promised to be with me always, to never forsake me. He says when I ask anything according to His will, He hears and answers. Not only that, I know how He wired me to learn. I remember from high school and college. I will write it out long hand for as long as it takes. I am committed to the process, not so I that have bragging rights or for show, but because intimacy with God’s Word is intimacy with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
I got a deal this week on a playhouse I’ve been considering for the grandkids for a couple of years. It was delivered in the evening when I was spent after a full day. I decided it would be fun to assemble the next day with my granddaughter, Amelia. We laid out the pieces, glanced over the instructions and started step one. It was not going to be a quick snap into place puzzle as I’d hoped. On my third attempt at attaching the first side wall to the base, I peeled off my sweatshirt and donned a short sleeved tee shirt, my frustration bubbling just beneath the surface. I grabbed my half hammer, you know the short handled one I keep in the house for hanging pictures. Maybe a tap or two in the right places would do the trick. If not, it might at least make me feel better.
As I knelt beside Amelia, I said, “Yolly needs a little more strength. Let’s ask Jesus. Dear Jesus, please give me the strength I need to build the playhouse with Amelia. Amen.” I do this all the time. Jesus, please help me find my keys or my phone. Help me remember that person’s name before I approach to speak to them. You created me and you know I need to sleep. Help me, Jesus. I acknowledge His presence and strength throughout my day but how often do my grandchildren hear? How have they seen my reliance on Jesus today?
You already know what happened. A little tap here, two there, and the piece slid easily into place the same way the car seat buckle had clicked and tightened after I prayed following several failed attempts. Say what you want, God values my surrender. He wants me to trust Him, to come to Him with everything. Several steps along in the assembly, the screwdriver tip slipped, nearly puncturing my finger. I’d been starting the screws and then steadying the shaft of the screwdriver while Amelia turned them into place. I slid her over beside me to make another attempt at starting the screw when she said, “Yolly, let’s ask Jesus to help.” We did. And He did.
Often life seems to throw us into situations we can’t make sense of, situations we’d rather be rid of, avoid altogether, or simply forget. We remember Job with pity, praying we never have to live through what He did. God forbid. Job suffered a lot for a long time. He asked God the hard questions. He never really got a straight answer but he kept the conversation with God open. When his wife advised him to curse God and die, “Job answered, “You are talking nonsense! When God sends us something good, we welcome it. How can we complain when he sends us trouble?” Even in all this suffering Job said nothing against God.”
Job 2:10 GNT
https://bible.com/bible/68/job.2.10.GNT
Better yet, look to Jesus. Perfect Jesus, in whom no sin was found, suffered unjustly in my place. In His agony in the garden, His humanity surfaced.
““Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you.
Please take this cup of suffering away from me.
Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.””
Mark 14:36 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/mrk.14.36.NLT
Jesus said earlier, after washing the feet of His followers, “I have given you an example to follow.
Do as I have done to you.”
John 13:15 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.13.15.NLT
Everything about Jesus’s life, death and resurrection is for us. He is our Savior, Author and Perfecter of our faith. He is our Teacher and Lord. Only by abiding in Him and in His Word by the power of His indwelling Spirit can I walk in the Way. He is our resurrection and our life, both abundant and eternal. He originated the phrase practice what you preach. Ours is a living testimony.
“Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:19 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/mat.5.19.ESV
“So if you ignore the least commandment and teach others to do the same, you will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven.
But anyone who obeys God’s laws and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Matthew 5:19 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/mat.5.19.NLT
“But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God.
The night is about over, dawn is about to break.
Be up and awake to what God is doing!
God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed.
We can’t afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight.
Get out of bed and get dressed!
Don’t loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute.
Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about!”
Romans 13:11-14 MSG
https://bible.com/bible/97/rom.13.11-14.MSG
“The night is far gone and the day is almost here.
Let us then drop (fling away) the works and deeds of darkness and put on the [full] armor of light.”
Romans 13:12 AMPC
https://bible.com/bible/8/rom.13.12.AMPC
I helped my daughter clear a mulch bed behind her house so she could have grass along a hillside for her boys to play. We worked through several visits near the end of her pregnancy and shortly after the birth of her second son. I worried that she was overdoing it so I worked relentlessly to finish up before heading home. The mulch had spilled over into a corner of the small terraced fire pit after a rainstorm. I will never forget plunging my hands into that bank of mulch and tossing it toward the wheelbarrow. Thank God, I was wearing gloves because a snake sprang out and gratefully away from me! It hit the ground running, burrowing into the hole from whence it came faster than I could catch my breath and realize what had happened.
I laugh about it now, but in that moment, my heart beat out of my chest. Our enemy, the devil, cast as a serpent in Genesis is an opportunist. We only know the conversation he had with God before tormenting Job because God chose to reveal it. We also see the limitations God put on his dirty dealings. Rather than allow this knowledge to cause us to distrust our Creator, we should remember that Satan is consistent with what scripture reveals about him and he is still a force to be reckoned with for a time. We have been given this knowledge for a reason.
“Jesus provided far more God-revealing signs than are written down in this book.
These are written down so you will believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and in the act of believing, have real and eternal life in the way he personally revealed it.”
John 20:30-31 MSG
https://bible.com/bible/97/jhn.20.30-31.MSG
That is why we pray with the apostle Paul for God to open the eyes of those we love who are far from God, whose minds have been blinded by the evil one. “And that they may come to their senses [and] escape out of the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him, [henceforth] to do His [God’s] will.”
2 Timothy 2:26 AMPC
https://bible.com/bible/8/2ti.2.26.AMPC
“So humble yourselves before God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
James 4:7 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jas.4.7.NLT
“But God’s solid foundation stands firm.
Here is the message written on it. “The Lord knows who his own people are.” (Numbers 16:5)
Also, “All who say they believe in the Lord must turn away from evil.””
2 Timothy 2:19 NIRV
https://bible.com/bible/110/2ti.2.19.NIRV
My life is a testimony to the goodness and faithfulness of God in Jesus Christ. When people see me, when they hear my words, does Jesus shine through loud and clear? Are my conversations full of light? Am I speaking the Truth in love? Am I sharing the good news of Jesus at every opportunity in this evil age? Do I know the Gospel?
What is our message?
“God’s grace has saved you because of your faith in Christ.
Your salvation doesn’t come from anything you do.
It is God’s gift.
It is not based on anything you have done.
No one can brag about earning it.
We are God’s creation.
He created us to belong to Christ Jesus.
Now we can do good works.
Long ago God prepared these works for us to do.”
Ephesians 2:8-10 NIRV
https://bible.com/bible/110/eph.2.8-10.NIRV
God’s
Riches
At
Christ’s
Expense
“Christ arrives right on time to make this happen.
He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready.
He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready.
And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway.
We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice.
But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.
Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way.
If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life!
Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose.
We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!”
Romans 5:6-11 MSG
https://bible.com/bible/97/rom.5.6-11.MSG
“What it says is this: “God’s message is near you, on your lips and in your heart”—that is, the message of faith that we preach.
If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from death, you will be saved.
For it is by our faith that we are put right with God; it is by our confession that we are saved.
“Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.”
As the scripture says, “Everyone who calls out to the Lord for help will be saved.”
But how can they call to him for help if they have not believed?
And how can they believe if they have not heard the message?
And how can they hear if the message is not proclaimed?
And how can the message be proclaimed if the messengers are not sent out?
As the scripture says, “How wonderful is the coming of messengers who bring good news!””
Romans 10:8-10, 13-15 GNT
https://bible.com/bible/68/rom.10.8-15.GNT
(Matthew 10:32 NASB1995
https://bible.com/bible/100/mat.10.32.NASB1995)
Preach
Ryan Stevenson
Unashamed
Matthew West
A Fitting Reply 