Prayer Can Accomplish Much

 

Is anyone among you suffering?  Then he must pray.  Is anyone cheerful?  He is to sing praises.

Is anyone among you sick?  Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.  The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. 

James 5:13-16 

We are doing this wrong. If we are suffering, we whine or complain or say nothing. If we are sick, we go around looking tortured. The right thing to do is to pray. And, we should have no qualms about calling on our Christian friends to come pray for our recovery and they should have no qualms about praying for us.

We are not islands, we are continents of Christian compassion and we need to act like it. So, the next time one of your friends is whining about oppression, rotten kids or a stomach ache, say, “Let me pray with you.” Then do it.

Prayer should not be our last resort.  Prayer should be our first choice.

Prayer can accomplish much.

Amen

 

Rain, Floods and Wind

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.”

“Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell – and great was the fall.”

When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teachings; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

Matthew 7:24-29

Jesus' teachings prepare us to live our best life.  We are equipped to love one another and treat one another with respect.  We are taught how to manage our business affairs.  And, most of all we are taught to care for and minister to each other.  We can rely on our brothers and sisters in the Lord to help us and to offer good advice when we face difficult times.  We are also given wisdom so we can  evaluate life's sticky situations.  

And, we have the power of prayer backing us up.  We pray and God hears us.  

When the rain, the floods and the winds of life come, we are prepared thanks be to God. 

 

Time, Time. Where Does It Go?

Therefore, be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.

Ephesians 5:15-16

Nobody has enough time. We run from one thing to another. We rush our kids. We rush our spouse. We rush our parents. We rush through dinner, if we have time for dinner. Everything thing is hurry, hurry, hurry. Why is this?

I think the key to this scripture is the word “walk.” Careful walking means that we consider what is important and make time for those things, and avoid being over scheduled with activities which pay us back with excessive stress and fatigue, and leave us cranky for the ones we love the best.

Slow things down, think about what serves you and your family best.  And, make some time to rest and sit around with your family and just be together.

What Is Good

 

“For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit. 

"For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. 

"The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.” 

Luke 6:43-45

Jesus said some things which can be hard for people to take, especially when what He said points out a fault they possess.

We also can read this as advice to us regarding how we are to evaluate those who we come into contact with.  Jesus is telling us that regardless how people may act, the true measure of whether or not they are good or evil is the words that come out of their mouths and their actions.

Jesus wants us to be aware that bad people do and say bad things and good people do and say good things.

Therefore, we should strive to do what is good.

Look For Opportunities To Show God's Love

 

But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?

1 John 3:17

In his writings John is affectionate toward us but he is also a tough task master.  He lets us know that if we say we are Christians, we need to behave in a Christ like manner and do what Jesus commanded us to do – love one another.  

One day in the 1960's, when I was a child, my mother sent me to the grocery store to buy a loaf of bread.  I saw Mike who was 7 years old and wearing a dirty undershirt, torn pants and no shoes; he was one of the poor kids.  His father died and he lived in a shack with his mother and siblings.  Mike was paying for a loaf of bread with deposit money from pop bottles he salvaged from an overgrown lot next to the store.  Mike was short six cents and the cashier sent him back outside to find three more bottles.  Bread was twenty cents a loaf then.  

 

Don’t you think someone standing in line could have paid the six cents?   Nobody did. 

It could be argued that it did not hurt Mike to dig through the weeds for pop bottles, but if someone would have said, “Let me get that for you,” and paid that six cents, Mike might have seen God’s love.

Look for opportunities to show God's love.

Sin Is A Sticky Trap

 

For we know that the Law is spiritual but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.

For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing that which I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.

So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh, for the willing is present in me, but the doing of good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.

But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.

For I joyfully concur with the law of God, in the inner man, but

I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.

Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other with my flesh the law of sin.

Romans 7:14-25

The Apostle Paul said it well, “I do not understand; for I am not practicing that which I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.”

Sin is a sticky trap which even the most devout and serious Christian cannot escape. Every day we face hundreds of temptations to do evil and every day we succumb to some of them. We cannot say we do not sin because if we even think evil things about others we have sinned.

So, what is the solution? The answer is in Jesus Christ who once and for all cleansed us from our sin. We sin, but we still serve God.

The ruler by which we measure our sin is far shorter than that of God. We say we are bad, God says we are forgiven.

So, let us strive to clean up our lives and to sin less, but let us remember that sin is sticky and it is only the swipe of forgiveness of God that can cleanse us.

When we ask, God forgives us. 

What Does The Lord Require?

 

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

 

Micah 6:8

This verse models Jesus’ ministry on earth.  When Jesus spoke or acted, He did so to show justice or kindness.  He was above all else, a humble man whose ambition was to please God, His Father. 

If we want to be Christ like, then we need to consider how we can live our lives to reflect justice, kindness and humility.