Quickening

In his psalms, David often asks God to “revive” him, or to “give him life”.  The King James version uses the beautiful phrase “to quicken.”  The fact that repeatedly in Psalm 119 and in other psalms, believers ask God to “quicken” them should make us realize how great our need is for this blessing.  It is David’s way of asking God for grace to meet every day’s needs.  It is equivalent in the New Testament to going to God’s throne of grace, for renewed spiritual strength.  Believers have always desperately needed God’s grace every day to live as will please Him.  May God mercifully “quicken” each of us today.  May He give us the strenghth to obey Him, regardless of the cost or consequences.

The Effect of Faith

If we exercise faith in trials, we give honor to God and find favor and acceptance with Him.  Faith teaches us how to value and properly judge the worth of invisible and spiritual things.  It teaches us to value and cherish God’s favor above all earthly treasures, even above life itself (Psalm 63:3).  Life without the Lord’s merciful love is empty.  Faith gives us priceless knowledge and wisdom that human reason is powerless to obtain by itself.  Without faith we are ignorant and foolish (Luke 24:25).  Faith makes us willing to part with anything that hinders our relationship with God.  Faith in great adversity with the least enjoyment of God is better than the greatest enjoyment of the pleasures of the world.  Faith knows that it is always a good bargain to lose things for the Lord’s sake.  Those who have seen something of the glory of God by faith will be able to relinquish worldly things that no longer appear so attractive to them.    

God's Presence and Our Faith

Faith is vitally important in everything we do as Christians because it values all our circumstances and conditions by the presence of God.  It values all things by how they impact our relationship with our Lord, by the degree we enjoy Him in them.  The Christian sees the world in a fundamentally different way than the unbeliever, because faith sees God in the world.  Any book or movie, no matter how benign its subject matter may appear to be, is presenting a false view of reality if it leaves God out.  Even the most family-friendly stories, if they ignore the reality of God, are presenting the very evil idea that people can find happiness without God.  Faith sees that God is intimately concerned with and involved in every aspect of our lives.  In heaven we will behold God face to face (1 John 3:2).  For the present we are made aware of God’s presence with us only by faith, while we are engaged in acts of obedience to His will.  

If You Lack—Ask God

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously without reproach, and it will be given to Him.”  James 1:5

This verse tells us that God will respond to sincere prayer  with mercy.  What is it in this verse that gives rise to prayer?  Clearly, it is our sense of need or lack.  We go to God in prayer to give us what we cannot get from anyone or anything else.  The more aware we are of what we lack, the more frequently and fervently will we go to God as the all-sufficient source of all good.  God is merciful in pouring out His undeserved blessings upon us.  Many of God’s tender mercies come to us by virtue of a promise.  We must recognize those mercies that come in answer to prayers motivated by God’s promises.  The sweetest blessings are those that we know we do not merit, but are poured out by virtue of a promise.  Such blessings strengthen our faith and fill us with gratitude to God.  Over time, such experiences of God’s mercy will greatly increase our trust and invite others to do the same. 

John Piper—Holding Fast to the Word

I consider John Piper the best teacher of this generation.  I have been reading his books and listening to his sermons for years, and it has always been richly rewarding.  John has opened up to my understanding many verses with soaring enthusiasm and unmatched clarity.  I can’t tell you how many times one of His sermons has given me sorely needed encouragement in the midst of affliction.  All of his sermons are available at his Desiring God websight without cost.  What a blessing!  A recent sermon is a stirring exhortation to hold fast to God’s word.  John starts by taking the first fifteen minutes to dramatically recite the entire book of Philippians by memory.  This is a great example for all of us to follow.  The balance of the sermon is a powerful plea to hold on to the word of life.  It doesn’t get any better than this!  The sermon is available at:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2010/4465_Holding_Fast_the_Word_of_Life_in_2010/

Faith is not Positive Thinking

Today a word of warning.  Beware of spiritual counterfeits that promise or guarantee you the power of God if you just follow their formula.  There are many so-called “Christian” books and ministries that claim to be biblical, but are in reality nothing but positive thinking.  These books will guarantee you a certain amount of blessing if you will engage in a certain amount of Bible reading or memorization.  They assert that an hour of prayer will guarantee you a determined result.  If you “believe God for” a set amount and are really convinced it will be given, you cannot fail.  Just believe hard enough, desire it supremely, and it will happen. This is not faith in God, it is faith in the power of positive thinking.  This involves your imagination, not trust in God’s promises. Bible reading is not magic.  These people can guarantee you nothing.  They can promise you nothing.  They are not God.  The Spirit of God sovereignly blows where He wishes (John 3:8);  He determines when and how much of His power will be poured out upon believers.  God imparts His divine influences through the means of the Bible and our faith, but He retains His sovereignty in dispensing His blessings.  

The Power of Creation—Part 3

God’s mighty power is at work in our hearts (Ephesians 3:20).  There is no more reason to not believe in creation than in God’s power at work in us. 

Another yardstick of the power He exerts on the hearts of Christians is that involved in the resurrection of Christ (Ephesians 1:17-20).  The focus of the apostle’s prayer here is that the power that raised Christ from the dead is the same power at work in every believer.  Paul exhorts us to make this comparison.  This should give us some comprehension of the awesome power that was necessary to save us!  Just as His almighty power created the universe, and raised the Lord Jesus from the grave, even so that same divine power is at work in the lives of every Christian.  If this power is working in you through faith, there will be clear evidence of its reality in your life.  The blast of an atomic bomb cannot be hidden; neither can the influence of God’s power on every part of a believer’s life leave no imprint.  The almighty working that breaks into your life through saving faith must demonstrate its reality.  God’s power will most easily be seen in afflictions; a backdrop of human weakness most clearly highlights divine power (2 Corinthians 12:10).  Thomas Manton wrote, “Confidence in the resurrection would make us go to the grave as cheerfully as we go to our beds.”