Streams in the Desert.....

 Streams in the Desert

Nevertheless afterward (Heb. 12:11).

There is a legend that tells of a German baron who, at his castle on the Rhine, stretched wires from tower to tower, that the winds might convert them into an Aeolian harp. And the soft breezes played about the castle, but no music was born.

But one night there arose a great tempest, and hill and castle were smitten by the fury of the mighty winds. The baron went to the threshold to look out upon the terror of the storm, and the Aeolian harp was filling the air with strains that rang out even above the clamor of the tempest. It needed the tempest to bring out the music!

And have we not known men whose lives have not given out any entrancing music in the day of a calm prosperity, but who, when the tempest drove against them have astonished their fellows by the power and strength of their music?

"Rain, rain
Beating against the pane!
How endlessly it pours
Out of doors
From the blackened sky
I wonder why!
Flowers, flowers,
Upspringing after showers,
Blossoming fresh and fair,
Everywhere!
Ah, God has explained
Why it rained!"

You can always count on God to make the "afterward" of difficulties, if rightly overcome, a thousand times richer and fairer than the forward. "No chastening... seemeth joyous, nevertheless afterward..." What a yield!

3 Ways to Fine-Tune Your Heart..... by Lynette Kittle

 3 Ways to Fine-Tune Your Heart

by Lynette Kittle

How’s your spiritual heart condition? Has it been tuning you into the things of God or has it become hardened or broken to where it’s not working properly anymore?

Like a physical heart affects the rest of your body when it’s in a weakened or broken condition, so will your spiritual heart. The well being of your entire physical body depends on your heart functioning properly, just like the state of your spiritual heart affects your relationship with God and with others.

Below are three questions to help you evaluate your present heart condition, along with three ways to bring it back in tune.

1. What words are coming out of your mouth? Luke 6:35 explains how the heart is where the words of your lips originate. If you’re speaking fear, anger, bitterness and more, it’s rooted in your heart.

If so, how do you treat it? James 5:16 directs you to confess your sins to each other and pray for each other. After confessing your sin, Proverbs 4:23 urges you to “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

When you turn your heart towards God, He will respond. Ezekiel 11:19 describes how God does this stating, “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”

2. How is your prayer life? If you can’t remember the last time you sought out God to speak with Him, your heart is most likely out of tune with His will and ways.

To get back in sync with God, ask Him to “Create a pure heart within you, and to renew a steadfast spirit in you (Psalm 51:10).

3. Are you choosing God’s ways over your own? Disobedience is a sure sign of a hard heart. Zechariah 7:12 describes the symptoms of a hardened heart stating, “They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets.”

If you find yourself living in disobedience, ask God to help you to turn away from your wayward behavior. Repent from any sin you’ve been participating in and look to God’s Word to direct your steps.

Psalm 51:10 explains how when you submit to God, He will put His Spirit within you and move you to follow His decrees.

Take time to fine tune your spiritual heart because like your physical heart, your life depends upon it.

Saying "Yes" to God..... by Debbie Holloway

 Saying "Yes" to God

by Debbie Holloway

It seems like every day one hears about all kinds of troubling behavior from people who ought to know better. A family friend leaves his wife and children for his secretary. A pastor resigns from his parish after his drug addiction is discovered. A CEO is caught with his hands on company money. We see it in the news. We hear about it from friends. It invades our households. Destructive, self-centered, sin. And so often the guilty party seems completely blind to his error, or unable to fathom how he ever made such a huge mistake.

As a recent member of what most would consider the “adult” world, I have often pondered how seemingly well-adjusted, often God-fearing members of society can justify such actions in their minds. In fact, in my more panicky moments, I have had a fear of suddenly lapsing into some dreaded sin myself – like these perfectly capable people I see all around me.

After all, does my righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees? How can I claim to have more wisdom than my parents or my pastor? Do I know more about the world than my professors? Could I possibly have a better understanding of morals and truth than my government leaders? If I watch them stumble into seemingly obvious moral blunders, how could I possibly escape the same fate?

After recently confiding this dread to a loved one, I was reminded that drastic sin or extreme lifestyle choices don’t just appear out of nowhere. Adultery doesn’t just happen. Divorce doesn’t just happen. Heartless slander and libel don’t just happen. Sin must begin as a small seed, creep in, take root, and grow. We can choose to feed it …or starve it.

The hard part is that often our sin nature is just as appealing as the prompting of Holy Spirit. Far too often we know right away what the godly course of action would be. Humility. Purity. Hard work. Compassion. Faithfulness. But we still get tired, exasperated, lustful, and proud. So we start making decisions which violate our consciences. Tiny decisions that seem meaningless. But those tiny choices grow and grow. Eventually, our life becomes a messy sin explosion and we cry out, “Where did I lose control?”

The comforting part is that it’s a process. I won’t wake up one morning and all of a sudden think it’s totally OK to steal someone’s car or send nasty, gossipy emails about people I don’t like. 1 John 1:7 says that,

“If we walk in the light, as [God] is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

If I say “yes” to God when he shows me how I can remain faithful to him in my lifestyle, in the little things, that will strengthen me to say “no” to life-wrecking choices.

Intersecting Faith and Life: Don’t live in fear of becoming something you hate. Just make conscious choices to be like Christ.

Further Reading

Proverbs 28:13
Luke 17:3

A Prayer for a Discontented Heart..... By: Chelsey DeMatteis

 A Prayer for a Discontented Heart

By: Chelsey DeMatteis

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. - Romans 12:12

Discontentment isn’t a feeling we freely usher in. No, discontentment, like many other negative feelings, seems to sneak in the back door of our hearts. What began as a day of simple frustrations turns into the theme for the week, which somehow snowballs into a seemingly long season of our life. If I’m being honest, I think we may be the most discontented, disappointed people I’ve seen in my generation. We’ve allowed the back door feelings to take the stage of our lives and start fighting for the throne of our hearts.

This takes me straight to Eve, in the garden, when discontentment plagued the heart of man. Satan came to Eve, questioning “Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?” (Genesis 3:1).

Here we have it, the inkling of discontentment shuffled in the back door of her heart, the same way it does for you and me. Something that has always struck me when reading the Bible, especially the New Testament, is how often we are reminded that tribulation and trials will occur. It’s a promise that we will endure hard things, but we won't endure them alone.

Just like Eve’s moment of discontentment, I think of Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee. He sought out Jesus, our Savior, in the middle of the night to answer the questions he was wrestling with.

What a picture that is for us. A man running to Jesus with his heart full of questions. Instead of turning to converse with the enemy, Nicodemus ran to the loving heart of our Savior. We see two beautiful, encouraging things happen here. First, Jesus met Nicodemus right where he was, and He shared the Good News, which is what we find in John 3:16.

Second, we see that the Lord is always willing to come alongside us in our seasons of struggle, discontentment, and failure. The Lord wants to heal the discontentment in our lives because a heart left unattended in this sin will turn into spiritual heart failure: dry, weary, and distant.

As we grow in learning God’s Word, we begin to see His heart more clearly. We see that He is the cure for our discontented hearts. He stands ready to guard the back door of our hearts from this sin that so easily entangles us. Though this area may be one we battle more often than we would like, we now know how we can pray when it comes.

Pray to feel the Lord’s presence where we are, trust in the truth that God is guarding our hearts, and remember that trials will come but we never endure them alone when we are in Christ.

Pray with me...

Lord,

As I walk through life’s disappointments, I pray for a hedge of protection around my heart. Discontentment sneaks in to steal and kill the joy you have in my life and I rebuke it. Help me live in the posture of readiness to stand firm against attacks and gird myself in your promised grace over my life. Help me cultivate a habit of thanksgiving, help my eyes be quick to see your grace, help my tongue be quick to praise you.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

An Advent Prayer to Our Prince of Peace..... by Lisa Appelo

An Advent Prayer to Our Prince of Peace
by Lisa Appelo

“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him -- the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD.” Isaiah 11:1-2 [NIV]

This passage talks about stumps and shoots. We have several big oak trees in our yard and when one of them started endangering the house, we had it cut all the way down to a stump. A few months later? New green shoots with glossy green leaves began growing right out of that stump. 

 That’s the picture that the prophet Isaiah uses. Seven hundred years before Jesus was ever born, Isaiah prophesied that a Messiah would come from the root of Jesse. Jesse was the father of King David, an ancestor of both Mary and Joseph. While nearly all of King David’s royal line would be wiped out, God promised a Messiah would come from the stump of Jesse.  

Out of what looked like a dead royal line -- when a pagan, Roman government rather than a Hebrew king ruled over Israel -- God brought about that new shoot: the Messiah – Jesus.

Jesus, didn’t rule like King David with an earthly palace or majestic throne or royal robes conquering enemy nations through a mighty army. Instead, Jesus came in poverty and humility, to reveal a heavenly kingdom and to conquer the curse of sin through his own death.

Advent Prayer:

O Father, we praise you that before the foundation of the world You chose Jesus, our Messiah, to come to earth and show us the Way to the heavenly kingdom and to be the Way to the heavenly kingdom. We thank you for making room for us who are redeemed in Your heavenly Kingdom.

Jesus, we worship you as King of Kings and Lord of lords. You are my King. You have rule over my heart and my life, my thoughts and time and goals. I bow to You only and give you full and free reign over my life. Help me not to grip anything so tightly that I am unwilling to release it to You. You are a just King; our Prince of Peace. Help me to desire Your kingdom above that of my own making and bow to Your will above my own.

Holy Spirit, lead me in the ways of the heavenly kingdom. Teach me wisdom from above and guide me in truth. Help me to have eyes that see and ears that hear all that God has for me. Help me to know the Lord, to fully understand His might, to fear turning away from Him and to know His grace.

We love you Lord. With all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind and all of our strength we love you. We lavish you with our worship. We come to adore You today. Amen.

Then let us all with one accord
Sing praises to our heavenly Lord
That hath made Heaven and earth of nought
And with his blood mankind has bought.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel
Born is the King of Israel!

Still Thankful..... Greg Laurie

 Still Thankful

Greg Laurie

“For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’” (1 Corinthians 11:23–24 nkjv)

If you knew bad things were about to happen, would you still give thanks?

Jesus did. He gave thanks, knowing that He was about to look into the throat of Hell and bear the sins of the world.

The Bible tells us, “The Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me’” (1 Corinthians 11:23–24 nkjv).

Jesus knew the future. He knew what lay ahead for Him would not be easy or pleasurable.

He knew that no one would deliver Him from the cross. In fact, He even knew that one of His own handpicked disciples, Judas Iscariot, would betray Him. He knew the others would go into hiding. And He knew that Simon Peter would openly deny Him.

Jesus knew the whole story. That’s because Jesus is God, and He is omniscient—all-knowing.

Then why did Jesus give thanks? It’s because He knew what His suffering would accomplish. The greatest good of all time came from the worst travesty of justice.

So if someone says they lost their faith because of a certain crisis, then I would say that’s good, because they need to get rid of that faith. It’s worthless. The faith that cannot be tested is a faith that cannot be trusted.

Anyone can praise God when the sky is blue and the sun is shining. But if you can praise God when the roof caves in, when the bottom drops out, and when things go wrong, it says to me that you’re a true follower of Jesus Christ.

We must remember that despite our immediate circumstances, God is always at work. And that’s a great reason to give thanks.