Happiness

O LORD,

Help me never to expect any happiness from the world, but only in thee.

Let me not think that I shall be more happy by living to myself,

for I can only be happy if employed for thee,

and if I desire to live in this world

only to do and suffer what thou dost allot me.

Teach me

that if I do not live a life that satisfies thee,

I shall not live a life that will satisfy myself.

Help me to desire the spirit and temper of angels

who willingly come down to this lower world

to perform thy will,

though their desires are heavenly,

and not set in the least upon earthly things;

then I shall be of that temper I ought to have.

Help me not to think of living to thee in my own strength,

but always to look to and rely on thee for assistance.

Teach me that there is no greater truth than this,

that I can do nothing of myself.

Lord, this is the life that no unconverted man can live,

yet it is an end that every godly soul presses after;

Let it be then my concern to devote myself and all to thee.

Make me more fruitful and more spiritual,

for barrenness is my daily affliction and load.

How precious is time, and how painful to see it fly

with little done to good purpose!

I need thy help:

O may my soul sensibly depend upon thee

for all sanctification,

and every accomplishment of thy purposes

for me, for the world

and for thy kingdom.

Holiness v. Hardness Towards God

Last Sunday night we studied through the story of Hannah, Elkanah, Penninah and Samuel in the book of I Samuel.  It is a story fraught with many different aspects of what Christians can and do struggle with in their lives.  Fear, anger, disappointment, insults, trials, pain, confusion and on and on and on the list goes.  Hannah goes through some extremely difficult and painful situations which last for years.  She desires a son but cannot bear children.  She suffers the pain of her husband marrying another woman, that woman taunts her and causes her much grief.  Her husband does not try to empathize with her pain and says something which causes her more pain.  Hannah turns to the Lord and cries out to Him in prayer.  Now, I am not trying to say that Hannah was sinless in this process, but she did exhibit a prayer full of worship and dependence upon her Lord.  This is what the following passage I introduce reminded me of.  Prayer that is not a laundry list of demands.

From Oswald Chambers book, My Utmost for His Highest, this entry is about the type of prayer we too often engage in.  I know prayer is a weak area in my spiritual life, and this entry spurred me to continue actively working on it. 

“And He…wondered that there was no intercessor.” (Isaiah 59:16)                                  

   The reason many of us leave off praying and become hard towards God is because we have only a sentimental interest in prayer.  It sounds right to say that we pray; we read books on prayer which tell us that prayer is beneficial, that our minds are quieted and our souls uplifted when we pray; but Isaiah implies that God is amazed at such thoughts of prayer.

   Worship and intercession must go together, the one is impossible without the other.  Intercession means that we rouse ourselves up to get the mind of Christ about the one for whom we pray.  Too often instead of worshipping God, we construct statements as to how prayer works.  Are we worshipping or are we in dispute with God–”I don’t see how You are going to do it.”  This is a sure sign that we are not worshipping.  When we lose sight of God we become hard and dogmatic.  We hurl our own petitions at God’s throne and dictate to Him as to what we wish Him to do.  We do not worship God, nor do we seek to form the mind of Christ.  If we are hard towards God, we will become hard towards other people.

   “But there is no one interceding properly”–then be that one yourself, be the one who worships God and who lives in holy relationship to Him.  Get into the real work of intercession, and remember it is a work, a work that taxes every power; but a work which has no snare.  Preaching the gospel has a snare; intercessory prayer has none.

In class, Pastor Jay has been encouraging us to retrain our prayer habits towards one which is focused on God and worshipping Him.  Not that requests are wrong, but prayer is about us becoming more like Christ, developing the mind of Christ within ourselves and forming our desires/will to that of Christ’s.  We may want something or want a certain situation to go a certain way, but prayer should be focused on desiring/requesting God’s will be our first and foremost desire and that His will be accomplished and God be glorified by the results.  Prayer also is significant in the process of our desires being granted which is something God mentions several times in the Bible.  But what about when we desire something, we ask, we may ask for it–several times even, and it never comes about.  So, what does this say about God?  Is He a liar, can He be trusted?  No and Yes!  He knows what is best for me and what will bring Him the most glory.  These two principles go hand-in-hand, even if it does’t feel best to me at times.  When I pray about things I desire, if I pray to worship Him, to transform my mind to be like His, I will desire what He desires.  When this occurs, I will see my life through His eyes and be content with His answers and will.  What could be more honoring to Him than to be content in His provision or “lack thereof” and worshipful in my daily communication with Him?

Marissa

The Infinite and the Finite

“Thou great I AM,

Fill my mind with elevation and grandeur at the thought of a Being whith whom one day is as a thousand years, and one thousand years as one day,

A mighty God who, amidst the lapse of worlds, and the revolutions of empires, feels no variableness, but is glorious in immortality.

May I rejoice that, while men die, the Lord lives; that, while all creatures are broken reeds, empty cisterns, fading flowers, withering grass, He is the rock of ages, the fountain of living waters.

Turn my heart from vanity, from dissatisfactions, from uncertainties of the present state, to an eternal interest in Christ.

Let me remember that life is short and unforeseen, and is only an opportunity for usefulness;

Give me a holy avarice to redeem the time, to awake at every call to charity and piety, so that I may feed the hungry, clothe the naked, instruct the ignorant, reclaim the vicious, forgive the offender, diffuse the gospel, show neighbourly love to all.

Let me live a life of self-distrust, dependence on Thyself, mortification, crucifixion, prayer.”

(from Valley of Vision)

Have You Not Heard?

I wrote a post a couple of days ago inspired by a book I am reading, Cries of the Heart.  In one of the chapters, the author – Ravi Zacharias, is discussing the revelation of who God is to humanity.  The Scripture passage he uses in describing how God reveals Himself to us is one of my favorites, so I wanted toshare it with you.  There never is a bad time to focus on the person of God.  It helps keep our perspective correct and our reverence of His character fresh.

“Do you not know?  Have you not heard?  Has it not been told you from the beginning?  Have you not understood since the earth was founded?  He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.  He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.  He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.  No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.”

“To whom will you compare me?  Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.  Lift your eyes and look to the heavens:  Who created all these?  He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name.  Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing…”

“Do you not know?  Have you not heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.  He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.  Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”  (Isaiah 40:21-26, 28-31 NIV)

Have a wonderful day and make time to spend with the One who sacrificed so much because of His unending love for you.

Marissa

Rescue Mission Activity Update

Our activity for tonight has been cancelled and will be rescheduled for a later date.  It is for a good reason though!  The mission did not have enough spots for us to serve.  We will post an update when it is rescheduled.  But don’t think that you need wait to for this formal activity to serve.  You can find many opportunities in your everyday life in which to serve those around you.  Pick up your spouse’s socks and put them in the laundry basket without complaining.  Wash the dishes in the sink and don’t brag about it, empty the dishwasher, clean the bathroom, do the laundry, send a note of encouragement, etc.

 Look around, there are opportunities aplenty!

Have a wonderful weekend.

The Cries All Around Us

I am reading a book entitled Cries of the Heart by Ravi Zacharias. In this book he outlines God’s answers to the cries of the human heart. Those things which sidetrack us or drive us off course, those things which cause us private pain which we may never share or even let on we feel like we are dying from on the inside. I am not very far into the book, but there was a passage which caught my attention. I wanted to share it with you because it ties in with something I have been thinking about recently. What do you do when you feel like giving up? What do you do when you feel completely overwhelmed and see no sunlight or way of escape? Have you even ever felt that way?

We all have questions which are difficult to answer. “Why do I not feel God to be near when I have done all that I know to be right? Who are You, God? Why is there suffering? Why am I suffering?” “If anything unites our cultures today it is the unanswered questions we face that have a felt reality. The loneliness of an unloved life is the same in Bombay as it is in Barcelona. The life tormented by guilty is the same for a movie icon in Hollywood as it is for a schoolteacher in Havana. How do I chooose a life that has pleasure without living a life that is immoral?

These gnawing questions were underscored by a grim and dreadful incident that took place in New York City some years ago, the culmination of a series of almost indescribable events that had befallen a young woman. The story is too heartrending to repeat. Feeling the silent pain of a whole city, a state senator agonized, ‘How can so much go wrong in one life and nobody be aware of it?’ After days of pondering that obvious question, a city councilman gave the only plausible answer. He said, ‘Life is too busy and complicated for me to hear the cry of every person in my community. As a matter of fact, I struggle to find time to even hear the cries of my own family. If I had to listen to the cry of everyone in New York City, you may as well ask me to listen to the sound of every blade of grass growing and to the heartbeat of every squirrel. The noise would be deafening on the other side of silence.’ I doubt he overstated his point. If the cries of the heart in any community were to be cumulatively sounded, the noise would indeed be deafening.

Where, then, can we go?

There is a place where there is an aggregate of human suffering and questioning. That place is the heart of God.”

I found the answer of the councilman saddening. I don’t know that he meant he didn’t care, or wouldn’t take the time, but I think this is the attitude of too many people in our world today. I think this includes Christians as well. I don’t disclude myself from this statement. I know I am guilty of it. The answer to the problem may seem obvious, but it isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Our old nature gets in the way. Satan knows our weaknesses and knows exactly what fear to feed, thought to place in our mind or doubt to cultivate in our heart. I see in my mind the picture painted in Pilgrim’s Progress when Christian is being bombarded with flaming arrows. Are you in that kind of a situation right now? Do you know someone who might be drowning silently in their own private nightmare? It is hard to reach out for help. It is hard to admit you need something outside yourself to take the next step.

So what am I getting at? Pick your head up out of your PDA, cellphone, book, etc. and see who is around you and what they need. Ask God to lay someone on your heart who He knows needs a lifeline. God wants to use you in His plans. He doesn’t need you to accomplish His purposes, but He does want to use you. Is someone around you in need?

Need of Jesus

LORD JESUS,

I am blind, be thou my light,

ignorant, be thou my wisdom,

self-willed, be thou my mind.

Open my ear to grasp quickly thy Spirit’s voice,

and delightfully run after his beckoning hand;

Melt my conscience that no hardness remain,

make it alive to evil’s slightest touch;

When Satan approaches may I flee to thy wounds,

and there cease to tremble at all alarms.

Be my good shepherd to lead me into the green pastures of thy Word,

and cause me to lie down beside the rivers of its comforts.

Fill me with peace, that no disquieting worldly gales

may ruffle the calm surface of my soul.

Thy cross was upraised to be my refuge,

Thy blood streamed forth to wash me clean,

Thy death occurred to give me a surety,

Thy name is my property to save me,

By thee all heaven is poured into my heart,

but it is too narrow to comprehend thy love.

I was a stranger, an outcast, a slave, a rebel,

but thy cross has brought me near,

has softened my heart,

has made me thy Father’s child,

has admitted me to thy family,

has made me joint-heir with thyself.

O that I may love thee as thou lovest me,

that I may walk worthy of thee, my Lord,

that I may reflect the image of heaven’s first-born.

May I always see thy beauty with the clear eye of faith,

and feel the power of thy Spirit in my heart,

for unless he move mightily in me

no inward fire will be kindled.

(Taken from Valley of Vision)

Christian Youth Challenge YouTube Blasphemy

By Lillian Kwon

Christian Post Reporter

Wed, Jan. 24 2007 11:37 AM ET

More than a month ago, atheists began to blaspheme the existence of God on the popular YouTube network. Today, Christians are turning the tables and taking up the challenge to stand up to their faith in Jesus Christ publicly.

“I’d like to personally praise the Lord for all He does for me,” said one young participant in the newly launched “Praise the Lord Challenge” on YouTube. “He’s done so much for me and I’ve only known him a few years.”

The Praise the Lord Challenge counters a $25,000 campaign launched before Christmas where atheists, many of whom are young students, videotape their blasphemy, denying the existence of the trinity. “The Blasphemy Challenge” is giving away 1,001 DVDs of the documentary “The God Who Wasn’t There” to participants. The only price, the campaign states, is “your soul.”

One respondent departed from religion six years ago, he said in his YouTube taping. His grandfather is a preacher and everyone he is related to is “very Christian.” Yet ever since his “freedom from religion,” he has not looked back, he said as he renounced his belief in God.

With YouTube drawing millions of teens and young adults, the Blasphemy Challenge – launched initially as part of the Rational Response Squad’s war on Christmas – is aimed at young people. The main target audience is the same for the campaign’s opposing side.

Mid-January, Michael Mickey launched his own war against the blasphemy challenge on YouTube. Mickey’s campaign is appropriately called “The Challenge Blasphemy Project” and under it, the “Praise the Lord Challenge.”

“What happens when we take a stand for the Lord?” Mickey said on YouTube, encouraging believers to videotape their love for Christ. “The word of God will bring people to faith in Jesus Christ.”

“When we fail to stand,” he added, “no good thing comes.”

Mickey called Christians to take a stand for the Word of God.

Only a week has passed since the launch of the Praise the Lord Challenge and several Christians have already posted their testimonies, most of them young students.

“I believe every word that’s in [the Bible],” said one young respondent as she held the Bible up close to the camera. “Praise God.”

“Blasphemy Challenge has seemed to reach a lot of young people, so our hope is we can get youth leaders and pastors … to try to get young people [particularly] to reach out to that young audience that visits YouTube and demonstrate their faith in the Lord Jesus,” said Mickey, according to One News Now.

And the young Christians say they want to make an impact with their message.

“My purpose is to spread the Word and worship Him with every part of me,” said one Praise the Lord Challenge respondent. “I’ve given Him my life, my heart, my very soul. I will never deny my Lord, my Father, my very reason to live.”

This article was originally posted on www.christianpost.com

The Geese

There was once a man who didn’t believe that Jesus was God, and he didn’t hesitate to let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays. His wife, however, did believe, and she raised their children to also have faith in God and Jesus, despite his disparaging comments. One snowy Christmas Eve, his wife was taking their children to a service in the farm community in which they lived. They were to talk about Jesus’ birth. She asked him to come, but he refused, as he had done many times in the past. “That story is nonsense!” he said. “Why would God lower Himself to come to Earth as a man? That’s ridiculous!” So she and the children left, and he stayed home.A while later, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blizzard. As the man looked out the window, all he saw was a blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening. Then he heard a loud thump. Something had hit the window. He looked out, but couldn’t see more than a few feet. When the snow let up a little, he ventured outside to see what could have crashed into his window. In the field across the street from his house he saw a flock of wild geese. Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got caught in the snowstorm and couldn’t go on. They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter. They just flapped their wings and flew around the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly. That must have been what crashed into my window, he thought. The man felt sorry for the geese and wanted to help them. The barn would be a great place for them to stay while the storm blew over. It’s warm and safe; surely they could spend the night and wait out the storm. So he walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and waited, hoping they would notice the open barn was open and go inside. But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn’t seem to notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them.

The man tried to get their attention, but that just seemed to scare them, and they moved further away. He went into the house and came with some bread, broke it up, and made a bread crumb trail leading all the way to the barn. They still didn’t catch on. Now he was getting frustrated. He got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more scared and scattered in every direction except towards the barn. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe. “Why don’t they follow me?!” he exclaimed. “Can’t they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?!” He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn’t follow a human. “If only I were a goose, then I could save them,” he said out loud. Then he had an idea. He went into barn, got one of his own geese, and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild geese. He then released it. His goose flew through the flock and straight into the barn…and one-by-one, the other geese followed it to safety.

He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed in his mind: “If only I were a goose, then I could save them!” Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier. “Why would God want to be like us? That’s ridiculous!” Suddenly it all made sense. That is what God had done. We were like the geese…blind, lost and perishing. God had His Son Jesus, become like us so He could show us the way and save us. As the winds and blinding snow died down, his soul became quiet and he pondered this wonderful thought. Suddenly he understood why Christ had come. Years of doubt and disbelief vanished with the passing storm. He fell to his knees in the snow, and prayed his first prayer: “Thank you God Almighty for coming in human form to save me from the raging storm! “

Baby Steps

Guten Morgen to all! The week is more than half over, and with the end of this week January is also half over.  Can you believe that?  I hope it has been a good week for you so far. If your life is like mine, you notice the calendar is starting to fill up again after the “lull” we sometimes experience during the season between Thanksgiving and New Years. Weekends are packed and weeknights seem to fill up quite quickly as well. Most of these activities are focused on our needs and the needs of our families. There is nothing inherently wrong with taking care of these needs, but when they become our sole focus, this is where the problem begins. We tend to develop tunnel vision and forget there is a big world out there full of people who need something from us. They need to know what has created “the hope which lies within” us. They need to know what Christ has done in our heart to make us a new creature. We need to pick our head up out of our own “fishbowl” of a life and look around at the needs which exist around us. When you do look around you and see the plethora of needs, it can be very daunting and somewhat discouraging. Where do I start? Does my one little act really make a difference? What is the best form of giving for my lifestyle, financial ability, etc. Here is one way to attack the issue without feeling overwhelmed. Take a baby step, acclimate to that and then take another step. Before you know it, it won’t seem so overwhelming, and it will become a normal part of your everyday life. Keeping our eyes focused on Christ will help develop the desire and keep it from becoming just another “to do” on our long list. It will become a fulfilling part of your walk with Christ. Demonstrating the love of Him, who loved us first and reached out to us first.

One of our main purposes at Pathfinders, besides helping individuals become more like Christ, is to minister to the community. The adage “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” really does hold true. “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2:15-17 NIV) We demonstrate the reality and vitality of our faith by our actions! People will not want to hear about the life changing relationship available through Christ if they do not see a real difference in you from the other hundred people who pass them by.

So, in an effort to help each of us develop this area of our lives, we have developed a ministry team which will schedule opportunities for our class to put this principle into action. Pam Austin has been communicating with the Denver Rescue Mission to schedule a time for us to go down there and help serve. Below are the specifics of the activity for February. Please block off some time to come and put your faith into action! I encourage you to not wait just for these “formal” activities, but to look for what you can do on your own time.

We have an opportunity to serve meals at the Denver Rescue Mission on Saturday, February 3rd from 7:30pm-9:00pm. I need to give them an estimated headcount so please let me know if you’re a “definite-yes” or a “maybe-yes” no later than Jan 25th. You can reach me at 303-503-6894 or npaustin@msn.com . For more information on the Denver Rescue Mission you may visit: www.denverrescuemission.orgThanks!Pam AustinBlessings to you, and have a great rest of the week!

Marissa