Twenty-three years ago today, February 13, 1992, Mustard Seeds and Mountains, Inc., became a Christian Community Development, non-profit organization duly incorporated in the State of West Virginia. This event took our family, by faith, across the country from southern California, via Georgia for three fruitful years, to West Virginia. What adventures! What stories we could tell, both of our work with people and the faithfulness of God. Today the ministry to the people of West Virginia continues under the care of the West Virginia Director and staff. More stories in the making!
Two and a half years ago God very clearly led Randy and me back across the country to settle in central California, extending the ministry of Mustard Seeds and Mountains, entering into new geographical areas and ventures of faith. It is exciting to us to be able to use our spiritual gifts as never before.
This summer we will be celebrating a Reunion of as many former staff of Mustard Seeds as we can contact. A Facebook page, Mustard Seeds and Mountains Reunion, has been set up to invite former staff, and other invitations will be sent out but we don’t have contact information for everyone. If you know of someone who was a summer college intern with Mustard Seeds, please tell them to check out that Facebook page or otherwise contact us (you can leave me a comment).
We rejoice in the opportunity to have served and to keep on serving the God above all God’s and our King, Jesus! Thanks to those of you who have ventured in faith with us. God’s blessing be on you.
“Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.” (Hebrews 4:11, ESV)
So just what is the “rest” of God? What is it we are talking about that is so important that we need “anxiously fear” that we might miss it and that we must strive, putting forth effort as believers, to enter it?
The writer of Hebrews was referring back to the word “rest” from Psalm 95: 11, which he had quoted: “Therefore I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” Of course, there is a whole story behind those words, a rationale for that harsh statement.
The story is found in Numbers 13 and 14 (worth taking a moment to read). God had made a promise. The Israelite majority, out of fear, rejected God’s offer. They rebelled against the “word,” the promise of God. Their unbelief, fueled by fear, made it impossible for God to give them what he had promised: the land of Canaan. They would not believe him, did not obey him, and therefore they could not receive from him.
God’s pronouncement against them: “They shall not enter my rest,” was the outcome of their unbelief and rebellion against God. God was not being unreasonable. They refused to enter the land, therefore God could not give it to them. When we refuse to believe and act on God’s word, we shut ourselves off from receiving the benefits of his word, his promises.
But God’s promise, his “rest,” is still open and available to whoever will believe it: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Psalm 95: 8a). Do not harden your hearts “as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, ‘They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways’” (Psalm 95: 8b-10; ref. Numbers 13, 14; my emphases).
“For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened” (Hebrews 4: 2).
Good news? Isn’t that a New Testament concept? What was the good news preached to the ancient Israelites that compares to the good news we have had passed down to us?
In a nutshell: the Kingdom of God; the rule of God in their lives and our lives. The Israelites of Moses’ day were given the Laws of God, mediated by angels, laws for life which were meant to be kept for the good, the welfare of the people. Tremendous blessings in this life would have accrued to them, had they obeyed from the heart those laws of God. One of the first steps of obedience was entering the land of Canaan. God had promised to give it to them. But they dug in their heels and revolted against God.
Those Laws given to Moses were fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, who preached, “Repent! For the Kingdom of God is near.” Jesus demonstrated the kingdom and power of God by his actions while here on earth. He was declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, after dying on the cross taking on himself the sins of the world (that world is you and me and everyone else).
Now we, two thousand years later, have heard the Gospel, the Good News that is good news indeed, that Jesus Christ has come and is setting up his kingdom in the hearts of those who will trust in and obey him.
Jesuit chapel door by TheBrassGlass http://mrg.bz/Hsznqd
But what about this strong admonition to believers to “fear” coming short of, and to “strive to enter,” God’s rest; how do we do this? As a friend of mine expressed, “I humbly and reverently understand (that) to walk in his word is to rest.”
It comes back to hearing God’s word with ears that hear, i.e., ears that obey those words to:
abide in him and in his words (John 15:7),
grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18),
continue in his words (John 8:31),
work out our own salvation with fear and trembling … (Philippians 2:12),
walk in the Light as he is in the light (I John 1:7),
live by the Spirit … walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:25),
diligently add to your faith … (2 Peter 2:3-11),
be doers of the word and not hearers only who deceive ourselves … (James 1:22).
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:12, 13).
Jesus so succinctly stated it in his grandly simple and simply grand invitation: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:28-29).
Come: Believe. Take my yoke upon you and learn of Me: live in and live out the Word of God.
“Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.” (NIV)
“Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” (KJV)
“Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.” (NASB)
I found it interesting that in this verse we are told to fear something. It got me to thinking about 1) what we are to fear, and 2) how often in scripture (well, at least the New Testament) we are told to fear something or someone. There are many passages where Jesus or the writers of scripture tell us not to fear, and I take courage from them to “not fear.” But there are also definite things we areto fear. One is here in Hebrews chapter four. There are others but you’ll have to look them up yourself. I’m going to focus on what we are to fear.
Since we are to fear something, what does that mean? Or more to the point, what did the writer, by inspiration of the Spirit of God, mean by the word used? Bottom line: What is God telling us? These are his words to us.
“Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.” (ESV)
In the first three chapters of the book the writer of Hebrews had been building an argument for taking heed to (hearing and doing) God’s Word, which had been spoken in the past by prophets and finally through his Son, Jesus Christ (Heb. 1: 1-3). He presents evidence that Jesus is greater than the angels, those spirit-servants of God, because Jesus is God (1: 4-14). So then we should anchor our lives to what we have heard so we do not slide away from the truth into sin and the penalty of disobedience (2:1-18).
Then the writer makes a comparison between the position of a servant in a household to that of the builder of the house who is, in fact, the builder of everything: God. Moses was a faithful servant in God’s house, but Jesus is greater because he is the faithful Son over God’s house. And we are that house of God over which the Son resides, “if it be that” we “hold fast or maintain our confidence and the hope of which we boast firm unto the end” (3:1-6).
So in light of that, and the fact that there is still a Rest of God open to us, we are not to be like the Israelites who refused to believe God’s word and therefore could not and did not enter that rest (3:7-19). (There is a whole study in itself on the Rest of God, but I can’t go there now; you’ll have to jump on that yourself.)
We are all too much like those Israelites; we have the same sinful, fallen nature they had. But we also, like them, have the freedom to choose to believe God—or not. They heard the words of God, we have heard the words of God. Will we believe and obey (for to believe is to obey)?
“Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.” (ESV)
The word “fear” in this verse carries the sense “to be fearfully anxious.” It is a strong admonition. This is not to be taken lightly! There are dire consequences to ignoring and disobeying the word of God. Look at the Israelites (Numbers 13-14).
How did the Israelites “hear,” and how are we expected and warned to “hear”? They didn’t believe God and live by what he said. They heard the same good news which has been handed down to us, and which we have now heard as well. Do we believe God? Do we believe and obey him in the hard times as well as the easy times of our lives?
This is how we are to differ from the Israelites in the way we “hear” the word of God: do not harden our hearts; hear with the intent of obeying. We must humble our hearts (3:12-19). We are to be fearfully anxious that we do not allow our hearts to become hard to the things God says. And miss out on his promised rest.
And not just for our individual selves, but we are to “encourage one another” (3:13).
Peter put it another way, a more positive way, as a command to action to intentionally add to what we already know and do (II Peter 1:3-11; 3:18). Paul said it another way as well: work out your salvation with fear (same root word) and trembling, for it is God who is working in us (do we know that?) to do his will and that which pleases him (Philippians 2—the whole chapter is gripping).
The more I think about it, the more I see the Spirit of God saying the same things throughout scripture. It is all of a piece.
Hebrews 4:1 is one of the Let-us commands: Let us fear. We are to be fearfully anxious that we not allow our hearts, individually and corporately, to become hard against God by lightly dismissing his word, by not being intentional to carve out time to read/hear and obey it, by ignoring it, by refusing to obey it.
I’ve only begun to scratch at the surface of the riches of this one verse. There is so much here in this book of Hebrews!
What will we do with the Word of God? Anchor our lives to it or cast off and drift away from it?
See also Interlinear for the rest of us: the reverse interlinear for New Testament word studies, by Wm. D. Mounce, published by Zondervan; and Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible by James Strong, published by Hendrickson Publishers.
Scriptures taken from Bible Gateway https://www.biblegateway.com/
“As a result of this (the hard words of Jesus) many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. So Jesus said to the twelve, ‘You do not want to go away also, do you?’ Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.’” (John 6:66-68, context John 6:26-68)
Recently I was asked to write the weekly blog for our women’s Abide prayer group. The women’s Bible study at church is going through the book of Hebrews and several of the women who receive the Abide blog also attend the Bible study. Hmmm. I decided to go for a walk in the garden, God’s Let-us garden.
Remember the Cabbage Patch kids? Yeah, a big fad of funny looking baby dolls. They were popular for a while, but didn’t endure.
Well, I believe we should be Let-us Ladies (and Men; remember this was originally addressed to women, but applies just as much to the guys). But unlike the quickly fading Cabbage Kids, we should endure. Not a flash in the pan but for the long haul.
What is a Let-us Lady (or Man), you ask? If you’ve ever studied the book of Hebrews you know; Hebrews is God’s Let-us garden.
There are twelve Let-us patches we should walk through and carefully observe. Observe-to-do the Let-us’s.
Ready? Then let us go for a walk in God’s Let-us garden.
Hebrews 4:1 “Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.”
Hebrews 4:11 “Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.”
Hebrews 4:14 “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.”
Hebrews 4:16 “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
Hebrews 6:1 “Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God.”
Hebrews 10:22 “… let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
Hebrews 10:23 “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful …”
Hebrews 10:24 “and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds”
Hebrews 12:1 “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us …”
Hebrews 12:28 “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe …”
Hebrews 13:13 “So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.”
Hebrews 13:15 “Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.”
The Let-us patches are, of course, nestled within a larger garden. Notice all the “Therefore’s”? Yeah. What went before is there for a reason. Reading the context is crucial.
Food for life is to be found in God’s garden and his Let-us’s are extremely beneficial. For now and forever.
“Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I have been called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts” (Jeremiah 15:16).
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.’” (Matthew 16: 24, 25)
“I don’t want to put my family at risk. That area of town is not safe. I hear about the crime on the news, so I don’t feel comfortable about bringing my kids and wife there to work on Saturday.”
We have heard comments like this one when we asked Christian parents to come with us and serve with their families to help build homes for the poor residents of inner city Atlanta. We had recently moved there from the West Coast with our youngest son, a junior in high school (our oldest was away in college), and while we raised support to enter Appalachia to work among the needy there, we jumped into ministry with existing organizations working among the poor in the greater Atlanta area.
I always felt sorry, and a little scared, for professing Christians who made those kinds of statements. Did they think their middle and upper-middle-class lifestyles in the ‘burbs was safer than the inner city? I’m talking soul-safe.
Research reveals the lie it is to assume safety in our North American middle and upper-middle class form of Christianity as lived by many in today’s churches. A huge percentage of young people who have grown up in church, Sunday school, and youth group with all their associated activities, leave home and also leave the church. Too many never return, except perhaps on the two big holidays: Easter and Christmas.[1]
Anyone who has been awake in church over the past decades knows this to be true. We love seeing young people and young families involved in our churches, but the truth is, too many stay away, living their lives and raising their children outside of the rule of God.
Frightening. Jesus knew what he was talking about: “whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.” Are we listening? Because Jesus is still speaking the same words to us today. Do we believe what he says?
I weep sometimes as I pray for my own children, and now, grandchildren. Giving up the people you love is not an easy, light matter. It is an every day matter, though.
It is the bedrock of following Jesus. Giving up first ourselves and then the ones we love. To love God supremely, over every other love, is what he demands (Matthew 23:37). And rightfully so (I Peter 1:17-19).
I believe him. I believe what he says. I do not want to be the loser, nor see my loved ones the losers, eternally, because we held onto our lives and loves now rather than letting God have them.
I believe these words of Jesus as well: “but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” Finders keepers.
This is the happy part! We see through a glass darkly now, but if we obey Jesus, because we know he is trustworthy, one day we will have overflowing joy in the Presence of our Lord. Everything we thought we were losing in this life, we were gaining forever.
And forever is a very long time.
This giving up to gain is the crux of discipleship, the core of discipleship, and to call ourselves disciples of Jesus, we must be living this truth. Jesus said so. It is something we must renew daily because it doesn’t come natural to us.
Right. So he gives us supernatural power to do it.
[1] Refer to The Barna Group https://www.barna.org/ ; Unchristian: what a new generation really thinks about Christianity … and why it matters by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, Baker Books, 2007; Almost Christian: what the faith of our teenagers is telling the American church by Kenda Creasy Dean, Oxford University Press, 2010.
“And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.’
And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.’” (Mark 8:31-38, NASB, companion passage to Matthew 16: 21-27)
So now we have determined the time we will set aside to intentionally read and study God’s word. That’s the first step in a “camp out” in the scriptures. You have to be reading the Word to experience a passage standing out, calling you to come aside and spend some time there.
I do not avoid the seemingly difficult or hard sections of scripture. I remember when I would sit in church and felt like I could go through the motions of the morning service half asleep and not miss a beat. Those were the days of the stirrings of a desire to know God and his Word, when I began to seek a challenge from what God said, to understand it and run with it. Surely there was more to Christianity than these boring formalities. Whatever that “more” was, it would be like a splash of cold water on a sweltering day. Refreshment. God’s Word would wake me up!
Now let me clarify, I was feeling frustrated and bored with church not so much because anyone else was doing something “wrong,” but because I was a baby Christian and God was bringing me from spiritual crawling to the point of beginning to stand and walk.
By AimeeLow
A baby has to want to walk and not be satisfied with crawling on all fours. That’s where I was, spiritually speaking; tired of the old, itching for the new. But I didn’t understand that yet; all I knew is that I was frustrated with the boredom of church as usual. God was nudging me to get up and walk.
In our women’s Bible study this week we were asked to write a prayer for ourselves as we begin the study of the book of Hebrews. My friend Betsy wrote: “Challenge me to be intent on my study in Hebrews, that I will grow spiritually during these weeks. Thank you for the gift of Your Word—may it become more alive for me daily.”
We should seek to be challenged by God’s words. When we are confronted with things too big for us to understand in our human finiteness, that is the very moment we have the opportunity to expand our faith in the God who spoke those difficult to understand words. We can choose to rise to the challenge.
Do we reject and turn away from something we cannot mentally grasp or a problem we can’t solve? If we all did that in ordinary life, we’d still be living in caves and gnawing on raw meat.
In the same way, we should not reject or avoid challenges in our spiritual lives or from God’s Word. God intends us to stand up and learn to walk, meeting the challenges to our ideas and interests and adopting God’s ideas and interests. This is one reason he sent his Spirit to be with us, to teach us.
Mastering our time and rising to the challenge set before us by God in his Word, learning to embrace God’s interests as we unwrap our arms from our own interests, this is what camping out in God’s Word can stir up in us.
“From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.’
But He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.’”
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds.’” (Matthew 16:21-27)
This passage is worthy of a campout, metaphorically speaking. We need to set up our camp chair, pitch our tent (ok, maybe an RV), build a fire pit and settle in for a stay.
If you are a fisherman you take your chair down to the lakeside and cast your line into the rippling waters. Let it sink down into the depths of the waters, into the world of the fish, a world quite different from our world of air. You sit in quietness patiently awaiting your prize, a big fish for dinner.
If you are a hiker and explorer, you put on your hiking boots and gather your supplies for a day hike into the surrounding countryside. Your eyes are keen to see every sight; you don’t want to miss the smallest plant or bird or animal. Your ears are alert to the call of an eagle, the delicate and joyful songs of the forest birds, the rushing of the river waters and the wind in the pines. You breathe in the fresh, invigorating scents of the out of doors. Rounding a bend or cresting a summit, you thrill at the vista before you. Your heart expands with the beauty and wonder of it all. These are the treasures you anticipate and spend your energies for.
Camping out in God’s Word can bring us panoramas and thrills and joys in a deeper, more profound way than even the most treasured moments of our favorite activities.
So how do you camp out in God’s Word, exactly? First of all, when you go camping anywhere, you have to carve out time to do it. The camping trip becomes a priority.
We must become the masters of our time, rather than Time being our master. It is a fact that we will do what we want to do. We will find a way to do whatever is important to us. We will: That is simply what it is all about, a matter of the will. Do we want to know God more deeply by spending time with him? And are we willing to do what it takes to make that happen?
I struggle with this very thing. I want to spend more time in God’s Word, really hearing him in the words so I can learn from him. Personally, I require solitude, or at least quiet, to do that well. That’s just how I am.
On the opposite pole is a dear pastor I know, a wonderful and gifted teacher of the Word, whose favorite place to write his sermons is the neighborhood McDonalds! I find that unbelievably funny because there is no way I could accomplish writing anything in a noisy, bustling McDonalds! Yet it works for him, and he is a witness for Christ to the patrons and workers while preparing spiritual food for those of us who come to church on Sunday.
I find it amazing and wonderful how God has made us all different. He is loving it too, I’m sure, when he sees us pursuing him in all our differing ways.
Anyway, back to our will to master our time in order to spend time with God, reading and studying his Word. We do what we want to do, when we want it badly enough.
Want to have more faith? Want it badly enough to make time to read? Because faith comes by hearing the Word (Romans 10:17). Need encouragement? That too is found in the Bible; encouragement comes from the scriptures (Romans 15:4). Need instruction for living and examples of what not to do and be and also what to do and be? Guess where to look: the Bible (I Corinthians 10:11).
I want to have time to write more, so on many mornings I get up earlier to be able to do so. I snatch times later in the day to focus my thoughts and energies on writing. I also want to read the scriptures more, so I make that a priority for my mornings. Somewhere time can be found. Somewhere in my own 24-hours-a-day allotment of time.
One of my friends listens to scripture on CD when she drives. Another listens to it when she is working around her home. Talk about multi-tasking! They are making time and technology serve them.
We can creatively make time our slave, rather than be a slave to time. We can use technology to serve us, furthering our goals to spend time in God’s Word.
There, in God’s Word, we can increase our faith. And find encouragement to press on. And gain instruction and examples for living in this world.
Master (your) Time. “‘For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds’” (Matthew 16: 27).
“Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts …” (Hebrews 3:13-15).
“When He went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to Him and said, ‘This place is desolate and the hour is already late; so send the crowds away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ But Jesus said to them, ‘They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat!’” (Matthew 14:14-16, NASB)
When we get the big picture, when we know what God is about (God’s purposes in the world, his kingdom agenda, a biblical worldview) it gives us Perspective and a compass with which to set our course for life, prayer and ministry. The more we live by faith, the better we understand God’s thinking.
What I mean is, as we continue to saturate our lives with God’s words and live our lives in obedience to him and his words, we are changed little by little. The more or less of the changes in us is probably in direct proportion to our faith in and obedience to God (John 14:21). And some of it could be related to how much we are paying attention to what we are experiencing, in other words, our intentionality in our lives with the Lord.
As an example, about the time they got the news of John’s beheading, the disciples had just concluded a mission trip of touring the cities and villages of Israel in teams of two. Not only did they preach, but Jesus had conferred on them the power to heal and cast out demons, obviously directed at big problems in the country. Jesus listened to their post-trip reports and advised they all go away for a while to rest. This had been exhausting work. Enter the needy crowds (Mark 6:7, 12-13, 27-29, 30-32, 33-34).
Now think of it, the disciples had been casting out demons and healing people! Jesus gave them that power. It was very specific. Yet it didn’t seem to occur to the disciples that he could, should he so desire, give them similar powers to meet other needs. They never thought of it to ask him.
I’ve seen God to amazing things in my own life, not to mention in others’ lives. I raise my hand and profess to believe with all my heart in the power of God to do the impossible. I’ve heard scores of wonderful believers quote their favorite passage: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,” (Ephesians 3:20), and believe with all their hearts that there is supernatural power “that works within us.”
I’ve seen this power at work, though it isn’t always as dramatic as what I envision the casting out of a demon would be. But it has been every bit as real and miraculous an act of God in answer to prayer.
However, that doesn’t mean I always transfer that knowledge to the next moment when I come up against an impassable wall, when I am stopped cold in my tracks by a gargantuan need I know I cannot meet. Just like the disciples didn’t connect their recent experience of God’s power given to them to heal and cast out demons, to the present moment when they saw thousands of hungry people who needed food.
So, having said all that (in my last three posts), what could have been the next “paragraph” in the disciples’ request to Jesus as they scrambled for a solution to the need of thousands of hungry people? By implication, what might be our next words to God in prayer as we encounter insurmountable needs?
Jesus had granted the disciples the ability to cast out demons and heal. Might he also grant them the power to feed thousands of people, especially when he told them to feed the crowd (Matt. 14:16)? It’s worth the asking.
“Jesus, um, we have a big problem. We’ve checked and we don’t have the money to buy enough food to feed all these people, and we don’t have the food on hand, only enough for one child. But we recall you have power to take care of big things and it seems to us this is not too big for you. In fact, you gave us power to heal and cast out demons just a while back so we were thinking, if you want to give us the power to somehow feed these thousands, we’re ready. We’re up for the challenge! Just say the word, Jesus, and we’ll do whatever you say.”
I will always ask God’s mind on an issue, and when I am certain it is something he approves, I want to have the boldness to say, “Jesus, um, we have a big problem … but I know you have the power to take care of big things … you have given us power to do “greater things” and I’m up for the challenge! Just say the word, Jesus, and I’ll do whatever you say.”
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20, 21).
“When He went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to Him and said, ‘This place is desolate and the hour is already late; so send the crowds away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ But Jesus said to them, ‘They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat!’” (Matthew 14:14-16, NASB)
I am involved in several prayer groups and I often pray for people I’ve never met. Most of the time I feel like I do not have enough information when it comes to requests for prayer from people, especially when I do not know them. It is imperative I seek God’s mind. Of consideration is that God may be at work in a person’s life using the very thing (struggles, suffering) that I am asked to pray against. I do not want to pray contrary to what God is doing in a person’s life, thwarting what he ultimately wants to accomplish. I don’t want to beat against that door God has closed.
The internal, heart issue God sees and is dealing with is much weightier than the surface or external issue, whether it is health or other problems, that we can see. These heart matters are much more important in light of eternity than temporal suffering (I Corinthians 4: 17, 18).
This is a hard one for us to embrace but we do have strong precedence in scripture for it. The most extreme example of this is found in Matthew 16: 21-23:
“From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.’ But He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.’”
I don’t want to be a stumbling block to the work of God! And an emissary of Satan, to boot, fighting on the wrong side! Seeking the mind of God in prayer, setting our minds on God’s interests, is of utmost importance.
None of us wants to suffer nor do we wish to see others suffer. At the same time we know that hard things can make us stronger in our faith and relationship with God. As believers in Jesus Christ, not only do we have peace with God and rejoice in our hope of a future with God for all eternity, but we can know with certainty that our trials here are working in us perseverance, character and hope (Romans 5:1-5). Or can if we allow it.
If we would set our mind on God’s interests as a follower of Jesus Christ we must take Jesus’ words deathly serious. They must become our life’s creed:
“‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it’” (Matthew 16: 24-25).
“‘For,’ indeed, ‘what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?’” (Matthew 16:25). There are some things more important than others. It is imperative I seek the mind of God when I pray! Too much is at stake. Eternally at stake.
We have to give up others’ lives to God as much as we give up our own as we seek God’s mind and will for them in prayer. There may be tears in the offering, but God will turn those tears to jewels of joy … one day.
We must begin to see things from God’s perspective, to have the right perspective for life and prayer.
“When He went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to Him and said, ‘This place is desolate and the hour is already late; so send the crowds away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ But Jesus said to them, ‘They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat!’ They said to Him, ’We have here only five loaves and two fish.’ And He said, ‘Bring them here to Me.’ Ordering the people to sit down on the grass, He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the food, and breaking the loaves He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds, and they all ate and were satisfied. They picked up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve full baskets. (Matthew 14:14-20, NASB)
When it comes to praying to God (likened to the disciples talking to Jesus) about a need you are aware of, I indicated that our initial approach to God should be to seek his mind in the matter. From there we can move to the next “paragraph” in our talk with God.
There are things we can be quite certain about as being God’s will, or not, and can speak to directly with confidence. When prayer requests or needs come to us, we may already either, 1) know it is God’s will based on scripture (e.g.: we can always pray for a person’s salvation, for God desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth: I Timothy 2:1-4), or 2) know it is not God’s will, again based on scripture, and therefore we cannot pray for it, even when a person makes a prayer request for such a thing (e.g.: I John 5:16,17). There are some things we can know without a doubt and pray accordingly, as we are growing in knowledge of God’s word and ways.
But then again, I’ve found there are many times when I do not have enough information, or “intelligence,” needed to pray about a certain issue. Here is where I try to be very careful so that my prayers do not end up beating against a door God himself has shut.
Photo by Schick
Even when to pray a certain way makes perfect sense to me (that the door should be opened, like the disciples believed they should send away the crowd to get their own dinner), it may not be at all what God has in mind. Because he has, so to speak, bigger fish to fry.
