Peace as a gift from Jesus

Good Morning, Blogger Friends!
I hope that you are doing well this morning.  In the world where I am, it snowed enough yesterday that we did not get out to church.  I like that sometimes, because hubby and I will do church together at home.  It was wonderful watching the snow fall for it was a real mountain snow with beautiful snowflakes floating down like feathers. 

I love to watch it snow.  I don’t know what there is about that but one of my favorite places of peace that I call to mind when my heart needs quieting is of being in the den down home looking out through the Atrium doors and watching it snow.  It is even better if I happen to have a little fire in the fireplace and a pot of something warm and hearty simmering on the back burner of the stove and it is all quiet and peaceful because that is how snow makes it feel outside. 

SELAH!  Stop and think about that scene for a minute.  Where is there such a place for you?  Is it at a beach watching the waves roll in and out or on a mountain viewing the beautiful colored leaves or somewhere that you have experienced great peace before.  In relaxation exercises I learned that I can calm and quiet my own body by going to that place in my mind and allowing myself to experience it in my imagination.  Try it!

Jesus wanted us to have peace.  He said “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”  (John 14:27) Knowing God’s Word can bring us peace too, even when it is not snowing outside and the world is banging at our door wanting something from us that we do not have to give from within ourselves.

Jesus made it clear that “in this world we would have tribulation”, but we could be of good cheer because He had overcome the world and made it possible for us to do the same.  He told us these things so that “in Him we might have peace.”  (John 16:33)  My problem is that I often expect peace to come from somewhere besides from Him.  It makes me unhappy to have unrealistic expectations. (Ps. 62:5) So, it is better for me if I expect what Jesus Himself said would be the case.

In these times in which we live it seems to be increasingly more difficult to have peace, but I believe we can if it depends on what God says and not what the world is saying.  So, for today, when I feel my peace leaving me, I will call out to the Prince of Peace and ask Him to restore to me His peace, first to me, and then to any other place where it is needed.  (Isaiah 9:6, 7)

That is also my prayer for you today!  May the Son of God who is the Prince of Peace be shining His full strength into your hearts and releasing His peace into your life today!  Just as the warmth of the sun would be melting away that snow, let the warmth of the Son be imparting His peace to you even in the midst of tribulation!

Prayer as Relationship

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, He responded with what is known as The Lord’s Prayer.  I’ve heard it said that it would more appropriately called the disciple’s prayer.  No matter what we call it, it appears that it is the first lesson Jesus taught on how to pray.  Many books have been written about using this prayer as an outline.  I choose to start with this scripture because it is the direction of Jesus. He said,

“In this manner, therefore, pray:  Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.  Your kingdom come.  Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.  And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.  For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”  (Matthew 6:9-13)

As I said in the last blog, it is all about relationship with the Father!  For some, this throws up a red flag since Father has a derogatory connotation for them.  I pray for these because this is a very real problem.  I pray for them to be able by the power of the Holy Spirit to have a revelation that the Father in heaven is not to be compared to any Father, perfect or imperfect, who ever lived in the flesh!  There is no comparison.

 

(James 1:16-18) “Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of all that gives light, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. And it was of His own free will that He gave us birth as children by His Word of Truth, so that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures—a sample of what He created to be consecrated to Himself.”   It is about a Father and child relationship.

There is so much that could be said at this point, but I think the main thought is that prayer is about relating to God as a Father from the position of His child.  I have heard so many people say they just have a hard time praying or “doing devotions.”  Devotions are great tools to help people get into the way of prayer, but sometimes they stand in the way of us just bowing our head and beginning with “Daddy, here I am today and I come to tell you that it is my desire for honor to brought to your name through my life."  For many, it becomes a rule to do devotions rather than a way into that precious relationship meant for us.

I love the scripture that says we must become childlike to enter the kingdom of heaven because how could it be simpler than that?  Unfortunately, that is a difficult saying for some who were never really allowed to be children or had negative experiences as children.  Again, I pray for healing for them.  I know this because I was such a one with an experience of an absent father who could not be trusted to do much of anything for me.  I needed a healing of the mind and heart to come to the place where I could believe that my heavenly Father was not like that at all.

I have found my heavenly Father to be almost exactly opposite of the earthly father to whom I was born.  My Father in heaven, to whom I refer as my Daddy Shammah (means the God who is always present) is always excited to see me when I come into His presence, I find Him waiting and ready for me.  I even learned along the way that it was alright to just jump up into His lap and settle in for a warm visit.  I have found that I could come to Him with anything and everything that was of concern to me and He would really care.  In time, my love for Him has grown to immense proportions and, along with it, my trust.

I guess the sweetest thing that has happened over the years is that I have found Him to be that ever present One to whom I can always bound boldly into the throne room to find help in time of need, or to Whom I can come just to spend time with Him in His healing presence.  Sometimes, I come now just to be with Him and tell Him how wonderful I think He is and to give Him my praise and adoration.  It has been a considerably long journey for me to this place of trust but it has been one in which I have found Him always faithful to do His part..

I guess the conclusion for today is prayer must begin like any other conversation with someone you love.  When I say good morning to my beloved husband it is never out of duty but out of the joy of seeing him each day and knowing that we have another day to spend together.  It is with great anticipation that I greet him each morning and, quite simply, it is the same with my heavenly Father.

I pray for those of you who need a fresh revelation of the part relationship plays in prayer.  I ask the Son of God to reveal the Father to you today.  I encourage you to sit down, bow your head, and invite Him to come to you.  He will be there.  Just talk to Him, and then quietly listen for awhile.  Write down what you hear.

May the Son be shining in His full strength upon you today as you seek the Father of us all.  It is the will of Jesus and the will of the Father for us to have such a relationship through the power of His Holy Spirit.  May it be so for you today!

Prayer:  is it talking, listening or both?

Here we are at the first of the year in January 2013.  2012 has come and gone and I barely know what happened to the days and hours that made up the year.  I know I have a desire to write this blog, but there are so many other demands on my time, I hardly know how that will possibly happen outside of the intervention of the Lord.  Today I commit my works and my way into the hands of the Lord, and ask Him to establish the thoughts of my heart in line with His will for me.

Psalm 37:5 “Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass!”   And, Proverbs 16:3 “Commit your works to the Lord and your thoughts will be established.”  Our way and our works!  Isn’t that all there is to our lives?  The way we choose to go is the most important decision we will ever make.  I choose to go in the way of the Lord.  Then I believe that my works and thoughts will be established.

I remember once studying out the word established.  It has so much rich meaning.  For instance, it means to be established on a firm foundation from which one cannot be shaken.  If my first choice is to live in His way and to have Him be Lord of my life, how can I miss?  He and His word will be my firm foundation and then all else will flow from there.  The Amplified Version of Proverbs 16:3 says “Roll your works upon the Lord, commit and trust them wholly to Him.  He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will and so your plans will be established and succeed.”  WOW!

So my word for this year is “Commit”.  I choose for my life and time to be committed to His will and plans and purposes and I will trust that if I will just daily do such committing I can trust Him to guide my thoughts into the place He would have me to be for that day.  It may be a day of prayer and Bible study leading to an inspirational blog.  Or, it may be a day of being present to the ones God has given me to love and to cover in prayer.

Of this I am certain, there are two very important things in this life of mine.  One is my love relationship with Him including listening to Him and talking to Him in an exercise that most of us call prayer.  The second is like it, it is to love my neighbor as myself and that is those persons to whom I am connected in my world. (Matthew 22:36-40) Scripture indicates that if I am doing these two, I will stand a good chance of fulfilling everything else important.

To my blogger friends, I apologize for my absence for the past month.  First, of course, there were the holidays during which we are all so busy we don’t know if we are coming or going.   Ours culminated in a celebration of the birth of Jesus with our family now known as the “second annual Biltmore Family Christmas”.  It was delightful and worth every effort spent to bring us together in such a way.  Soon after that, I succumbed to one of the bugs that have been flying around and I have been under the weather up til now.  Still not completely out of the woods so I would covet your prayers for complete healing, please.

Let me just state that I do truly believe it is the will of my Lord for me to write and now that I have the direction to “commit” each day and all of my way and my works to Him, we will see what comes forth from this computer.  I have come to the conclusion that both listening and talking are very important to the exercise of effective prayer and so I pray for a way to communicate that in an intelligible fashion that might aid those who would be looking for direction in those areas.

I received words of encouragement from many of you who agreed with me that prayer is the most important thing we can do and that it is one of the most opposed efforts we will ever try to accomplish.  I think the conclusion I came to is that it must issue from a living and vital relationship with Him, the One who answers those prayers because that is what He has been after since the dawn of creation.  It is relationship with us that He desires!  Difficult as that is for us to believe sometimes, it is really true.  He created us for relationship to Him!  There, with Him,  is where we will find our place of rest and fulfillment, meaning and purpose.

I pray the Son of God is shining brightly into your world today and that you will be challenged to commit your way and your works unto the Lord today and every day forthcoming.  Many blessings to you all,

Brainstorming About Prayer

Luke 18:1 Jesus taught quite a bit on prayer and this scripture tells us "men ought always to pray and not faint".  Does that make you feel good or guilty?

Let’s do some brainstorming about prayer!  I’d like to pose some questions and I’d love to hear from some of you with regard to how you would answer such questions personally.  I will share with you my own personal thoughts.

First question, how important is prayer anyway?  Well, most people would say pretty important.  I say it is life and death to the experience of a believer.

Second question, why then does it seem sometimes to be the most natural thing in the world to do and at other times, the most unnatural and the thing we seem least inclined to do?

Third question, why is it that most people can only give you a few times in their lives when they felt that they really got a clear answer to their prayers?

Fourth question, and this is one that I heard over and over again as a Christian therapist, if there is a good God who answers prayer, why are there still starving children in Africa?

Fifth question, is it possible that what we have is a major misunderstanding about what prayer is and what it is not?  Or, could it be that we have not been educated or trained in the life-changing art of prayer?

These questions were triggered within me after reading the following quote from Andrew Murray’s With Christ in the School of Prayer:

“Though in its beginnings prayer is so simple that the feeblest child can pray, yet it is at the same time the highest and holiest work to which man can rise.  It is fellowship with the Unseen and Most Holy One.  The powers of the eternal world have been placed at its disposal.  It is the very essence of true religion, the channel of all blessings, the secret of power and life…It is on prayer that the promises wait for their fulfillment, the kingdom for its coming, the glory of God for its full revelation… (For) true prayer, that takes hold of God’s strength, that availeth much, to which the gates of heaven are really opened wide—who would not cry, Oh for someone to teach me thus to pray? pps.8,9.

Last question, does your prayer life fit in the description of Andrew Murray above?  If not, please do not feel condemned.  You are not alone!  In my experience, there are more of us who would say,  I wish!!!  But, for many of us, we would say he had something that we do not.

For today, let me say that I do not believe that has to be the response of the majority of us to his experience of prayer.  I believe that we have been under educated in the whole concept of prayer and we have not matured in what we have been taught.

So, let’s address the first question in the next blog.  How important is prayer anyway?  I’d love to hear from some of you.  If you have a difficult time posting to the blog, email your responses to me at sonshine38@carolina.rr.com . 

Meanwhile, I pray that the Son of God is shining brightly into your world today.  He wants to brighten our world with the light of His great love, so turn your face upward and allow Him to fill you with His warmth!

Face to Face with God?

Oh, what a beautiful morning!  Oh what a beautiful day!  The sun is shining where I am down-home today and the Son is also shining in my heart!  I hope the same is true of you!

My Honeypot (my husband) and I were having devotions together this morning as we do most mornings.  It was about having a “face to face” moment with God.  He asked me if I had times like this. We began to share around those times in our lives.

One of his most memorable times was when he was scheduled to be the morning speaker at his church and he had nothing to share.  It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried, mind you; he had!  Alas, it had been to no avail and two hours before the service he was dry as a bone.  He said he went out to the woods and sat down on a felled log.  He simply bowed his head and asked for help.

Suddenly, God was with him, and He gave him a most interesting message that he calls his snake bite sermon.  Perhaps, with his permission, I will share that with you someday, but today’s blog is about those times of God’s intense presence and how do those come about?

For him, it was a time of being at the end of his own efforts and surrendering himself to God to receive something beyond him.  In that surrender, God revealed Himself in a mighty way.  My husband’s eyes tear up and I can literally see the Holy Spirit on him when he shares this story with me.

I shared with him a time when I was just beginning to “practice the presence”. I had been informed earlier in the evening of the death of my stepfather.  I was in a quandary regarding whether to drop everything and travel to my hometown to attend the funeral.  At that time, I was involved in full time ministry which meant that I could not get away easily.

I went to bed with that on my mind.  Sometime in the night I was awakened and went to my spot where I was learning to meet with God.  I sat down with pencil and paper in hand and wrote down what I heard.  It was something like this.  “Go about your Father’s business; the man who died is not now nor was he ever your father.  I am and always have been your only Father.  Let the dead bury the dead”.  I did not go to the funeral and later realized that was a very wise decision.  I was able to do so in great peace as I had heard from heaven.

That night God the Father’s presence was so real, I can still feel it now as I share this with you and every time I think of it.  Something changed inside of me as a result of that encounter.  I moved from being a fatherless child to being a child of the most powerful and loving Father ever!  Now I had been a Christian about twenty four years at that time and I knew that I was a child of God, the Bible told me so.  But, that night I experienced Him in a way different from any other and I KNEW that He was my Daddy.  It changed the way I felt about myself forever.

There are many other times when God has been so near, I could feel His presence more real than I can feel any one else’s.  I will share some of those in the days to come, but right now let me ask you…have you ever had a face to face encounter with the Living God?  Do you KNOW you are His child?  Do you have a felt sense of Him being your Father or is it just head knowledge?

Do you even know that you can have such an encounter or have you been brainwashed into believing that is not possible?  The scripture reference for the reading today was Genesis 22 where Abraham had one of those God moments.  In obedience to the voice of God, he had taken the thing most dear to him in all the world and gone to Mt. Moriah, a place of sacrifice.  In that moment of surrender, God met him face to face! Do you think Abraham was ever the same?

There are multitudinous times in scripture when people met with God face to face, but we are sometimes told that is no longer possible for those of us living today.  I say that is a lie straight out of the pit of hell.  I have met Him myself so many times now that I would be hard pressed to ever share all of them with anyone.  Believe it or not!  It is true!

If you have never had an experience like this one, may I encourage you to seek His face.  He is waiting and eager to meet with anyone who will come to Him.   Psalm 27 is a beautiful one in which the psalmist cries out “When you said, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto Thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek.”  (Hebrews 11:6)  Expect Him to show up!

May I suggest that you take a moment at the first opportunity that presents itself, get quiet before Him and read this Psalm in its entirety? Pray as you read; that is, dialogue with Him.  This means that you say what’s in your heart and then you listen for Him to speak to you by His Spirit in your spirit.  I find that I do not hear His voice in my head but somewhere from the center of my inmost being.  One thing I can tell you, I always KNOW the times when I have met with Him and the times when the voice has had some other source.  I will share sometime how anyone can know the difference.  

Happy Seeking!

Why it is hard to pay attention to God

Yesterday’s blog was about paying attention to God or "practicing the presence of God"!  I continued to peruse this concept throughout the day.  What does it mean to pay attention?  I would love to be able to throw that question out to all of you and brainstorm some answers.

One thought I had is that we pay attention to what we love!  I love my husband; my husband loves me!  We have each other’s attention.  It is not work for me nor is it work for him.  It is a very natural thing that comes out of our love for each other.  For instance, if my phone rings and I see that it is him calling, I will drop all else to respond.  I know that he does the same with me.

Now think of that in the context of our Lord.   Does He have our attention like that?  We have his attention like that although most of us remain pretty unaware of that truth.  And Truth it is! 

(Ps.139:17,18) “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!  How great is the sum of them!  If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with You.”  This entire psalm has been a life changing one for me and many others with whom I have shared its contents.

Really! God? the God of the whole universe, who created heaven and earth and all that is within them…He is constantly thinking of me?  In a positive way?  Astounding!  How long has it been since you’ve been to the beach and counted the grains of sand?  These good thoughts our heavenly Father has toward us are more in number than all the grains of sand on the earth.  Selah..stop and think calmly about that!!!

Oh, I know some of us have been taught that God is everywhere and He sees everything we do and, therefore, we better not pout and we better not cry because He won’t like us if we act like that.  I know the song is about Santa but some people even have that mixed up, right?  To them, prayer is reciting their wish list or making up a todo list for God.  What’s sad about that is then we don’t understand why those prayers don’t get answered.

More people have the concept of God as a “gotcha god” than you would imagine.   This idea is fostered in order to cause people to be good, or else.  And people do fear Him, but they do not love Him.  Who could love a parent who was constantly watching every move looking for an opportunity to hit the child over the head with a two by four?  Not me!  And not many of you either.

When I worked at a treatment center for depression and anxiety, my duty was to teach about “distorted views of God.”  I loved that job.  I would tell people they ought to fire such a God and get a new one because their idea of God was not the God that Jesus came to reveal at all.  When they wrote a job description of the God they wanted it was more like the true God of the bible!  I saw many people set free in amazing ways.

Imagine with me for a moment a parent who is constantly thinking of the little one that they love so that they can raise it up to be the very best person possible.  Can you imagine that same parent saying something like, “OK, go on and put your hand on that stove and then you will learn a lesson not to touch the stove”?   No, and neither can any other person who has been raised by a loving parent.

Our heavenly Father is a good parent to His children!  (Matthew 7:7-11)  He is not a Father that would give a serpent to a child who asks for a fish, or stones to one who needs bread.  He is One who gives good things to those who ask Him!  He is the same Father to us that He was to Jesus. (John 20:17)  His heart’s desire is for us to be children to Him as Jesus was, totally dependent!  Who wouldn’t do that if we knew Him as He really is?  No one!

It is our enemy, the Devil, who tells such lies about God and, I believe, even inspires the kind of parenting that keeps people from being able to relate to God as a good and loving Father.  (John 8:41-44)  He is a liar and the father of lies.  It grieves me to hear the kind of thoughts that he has been able to sow in the hearts of people about our one true God! 

So let me ask you today…what is your view of the heavenly Father?  Unless you have done some work in the area of healing, it is not far from the parents who raised you.  If they were loving and devoted, then you see God in this way.  If they were anything but that, from cold and distant to harsh and tyrannical, then your way of relating to God will be similar to your response to them.  Hear me, I am not blaming; I am trying to explain how this happens.

May I encourage you to read the gospel of John with an eye toward this thought…what kind of a Father was God to Jesus?  Jesus said that He came to reveal the real Father to us.  (John 14:7-9)  He said if we knew that Father, we could love Him and it would be a joy to practice the presence of such a loving Father.  We would bound boldly into His throne room and jump up into His lap and look up into His face to receive His life changing look of love!

May the Son of God be shining on you today!

I pray that is your experience today!  If not, I ask the Spirit of God to reveal to you the truth of which I speak today and bring healing to your heart and mind as needed.  And, in the meantime, I pray the Son of God to be shining into the dark and cold places of your heart warming it up toward Him!

Paying Attention to the Lord

He is worthy of our attention!  And He is waiting to meet with you at your Well to spend time with you today!  Psalm 16:ll He will show us the path to life; In His presence is fullness of joy; At His right hand are pleasures forevermore!

Good morning, blogger friends.  I know it has been some time since I have shared anything with you and I apologize to those of you who might have missed me.  This has been a very busy time for me as my granddaughter has started college in a town very nearby our home and her mother has moved here as well.  I guess one could say there has been a lot of moving and shaking going on. 

This morning I was reading in a prayer book about the importance of continually walking in a sense of worship.  Now many people are natural born worshippers and they would say, Oh yes, I can relate to this and this I can do.  Then there are people like me who didn’t really learn to “worship” until I had been a Christian many, many years.  In fact, I am still learning.

As I stopped and pondered that thought another one came to me.  I read one time that the root of the word worship is a little like “His Worth Ship” like His Lordship, indicating that He is worthy of our time and attention.  Now this is something that I can relate to very well and I will tell you why.

One of the most life changing concepts in my Christian life has been to learn to “practice the presence of God”.  At first, that did not compute with me either.  I tried and I tried to experience the actual presence of God with me.  I listened as some of my friends told of how glorious and healing it was for them to do so.

One day I was sitting beside a young man and I noticed that he had a ring with a cross on it.  I asked him about it.  He said it was a “rosary ring”.  I asked if he was a Catholic and he said no, but this ring helped him to remember to practice the presence.  It was comforting to hear that he needed a reminder.

Others responded in a similar fashion.  One lady told of how each morning she would put a dot of ink on the top of her hand and every time she would move her hands and notice the dot she would stop and remember that God was present with her.  Now I was beginning to get it.  So, I went downtown and looked for something to remind me of His presence.

I found what I call my cross stone.  It is a small white marble looking stone with a cross etched in it.  I began to carry it with me everywhere and, sure enough, every time I saw it I was reminded to stop and realize that God was present with me.  This was the beginning of a great healing for me.  I will share more about that in subsequent blogs.

But, let me ask you today.  Is it easy for you to think of God as with you, right here and right now.  Oh, you may have learned at some time that he is omnipresent, but is that real for you?  It was not for me until I began consciously remembering that He was and giving Him my attention.  For me, this is one important form of worship!

May I encourage you to find some little thing that might remind you today that God is with you!  it could be as simple as the dot of a pen or a rubber band on your arm, or even one of those colorful bands that are so popular today.  Anything will do, but do it.  It has been one of the most life changing habits for me.

I would love to hear from you about your thoughts on this idea.  Write and tell me if you tried it and, if so, how did it go?  Hopefully, I will be able to write some more very soon to tell you more about how I learned to experience His presence.

Meantime, I hope the Son is shining brightly into your world today and the warmth of His presence is changing your day!