Be Still

“God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, Even though the earth be removed, And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though its waters roar and be troubled, Though the mountains shake with its swelling. Selah

There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God, The holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God shall help her, just at the break of dawn. The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved; He uttered His voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

Come, behold the works of the Lord, Who has made desolations in the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; He burns the chariot in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! The Lord of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our refuge.” Selah

Psalms 46:1-11 NKJV 

If you recall, I talked a couple of weeks ago about my fitness commitment and how the principles involved can be applied to our spiritual fitness as well.  One of the ways I have chosen to incorporate both at the same time revolves around my morning routine and the very first thing I do upon waking.  Actually it would be the second thing because I am one of those people who needs his cup of coffee first thing in the morning.  After that, however, I take my morning walk which takes about an hour or so. Because I am such an early riser, one of the most beautiful things I get to witness is the sunrise over the mountains where I live.

“I rise before the dawning of the morning, And cry for help; I hope in Your word.”   Psalms 119:147. NKJV

I have mentioned often that Psalms is one of my favorite books in the Bible and the reasons for that are many.  One of those reasons is that I get the impression David was an early riser just as I am and one of the first things he always seemed to do is start his day by talking with God.  Just as my morning walk sets me up physically for the rest of the day, being alone with God and talking with Him sets me up spiritually for the rest of the day as well so I use the time I spend walking as an opportunity to converse with my Father.

“To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge.There is no speech nor language Where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world. In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, And rejoices like a strong man to run its race. Its rising is from one end of heaven, And its circuit to the other end; And there is nothing hidden from its heat. The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, Yea, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them Your servant is warned, And in keeping them there is great reward. Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, And I shall be innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.”   Psalms 19:1-14. NKJV

It was in my teens when I first memorized the entirety of Psalms 19, and it became my habit to recite it every morning when I walk and talk with the Lord.  It seems evident to me that David not only understood the importance of talking with God, but also realized he needed God’s guidance to live according to His precepts.  Asking God for help every day is something I not only want to do but something I need to do in order to try and avoid the trials and temptations I face on a daily basis.

“My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD; In the morning I will direct it to You, And I will look up.”   Psalms 55:3. NKJV

Another of the reasons that I enjoy my early morning walk is the stillness and quiet one enjoys at that time of day.  I find it amazing that I can hear sounds that I know originate miles and miles away.  One of those sounds is God’s voice as He talks with me, and I can hear Him much clearer in the stillness and quiet of the morning when there are no other sounds and distractions to interfere with our conversation.

“But to You I have cried out, O LORD, And in the morning my prayer comes before You.”  Psalms 88:13. NKJV

So all this said, if I were to give anyone advice on starting a personal spiritual fitness plan I would suggest they include the following three steps.

1. Alone.  Find a time each day where you can be alone with God without any outside distractions interfering with your conversation.  One on one time is the best way to discover what God wants you to know about your own journey and meaningful conversation between just the two of you is the key to understanding what that might be. 

2. Speak.  Did you notice how important it was to David to speak with God?  Acknowledging the importance of personal communication with our Father is the first step to growing our spiritual muscles.  As I said previously, my first action on my morning walk is to quote scripture and thank Him for another day of life.  It’s only then that I move on to what is on my mind and asking what wisdom He can share with me.

3. Listen. Now some might think this is what many would call a “no brainer”, yet believe it or not, all too many simply tell God what is on their mind but never listen to His response.  My personal revelation about listening to God is just how often He tells me something I did not expect.  Remember, what is on our minds is not necessarily what is on God’s mind and being quiet and listening is the only way to discover what that might be. God doesn’t yell, He speaks. “Be still, and know that I am God.”

“Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning, For in You do I trust; Cause me to know the way in which I should walk, For I lift up my soul to You.”   Psalms 143:8. NKJV

As I see the signs that this world is fast approaching its time of judgment this passage from Psalms 46 is a comfort to me.  Knowing I can run to God for “refuge and strength” is a comfort that nothing in this world could replace.  If I could sum up everything about my daily morning conversation with God it would be this, “Be still, and know that I am God”.  What a comfort knowing that is.

“Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not.They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.”   Lamentations 3;22-23. NKJV

It is important to note, however, that in order to enjoy all that God has promised us, it is necessary first to have a personal relationship with Him. If you are reading this and have never made the decision to accept Jesus Christ into your heart and accept the free gift of eternal life He has offered you, I urge you to do so right now. You can do that by praying this prayer and accepting the gift of eternal life God has offered you by the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ.

Father, I know I am a sinner in need of salvation. I believe you sent your Son Jesus to die on the cross for my sin, and I ask you now to forgive me of my sins. I want to receive your gift of salvation so please come into my heart and help me to live and follow you as my Lord and Savior. In Jesus' name, Amen. 

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Be Like Sheep

“A Psalm of David. THE LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever.”    Psalms 23 NKJV

Have you ever really stopped to think of how nice a life sheep have? It may seem strange to consider, but since the Bible is full of verses telling us that we are like sheep, are compared to sheep, should be like sheep, and best of all God is our shepherd, I think it appropriate that we should spend a little time examining sheep. If I were to write a book titled “your best life now”, it would be pretty short because after all, according to the Bible all we have to do is be like sheep! This Psalm by David certainly appears to support that idea by stating first of all that the Lord is our shepherd.

David is just one of the figures in the Bible who, like us, experienced many trials in his life. Yet he also had a habit of writing Psalms about what he was feeling when going through hardships,  much like many of us keep a diary or journal. The book of Psalms is a window to David's feelings about God during different times in his life, and it is from one of his most famous Psalms that we find all we need to know about being comforted during trials. Even though most people, both believers and non-believers, are familiar with the 23rd Psalm I think many have never really looked at it point by point and really thought about what David is telling us. So allow me to share just a few of my thoughts about this passage for your consideration, and you too spend this week thinking and praying about what God might want you to learn from His words.

“THE LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” 

So we get the best one first; God will provide all our needs. Since I'm sure most of us spend a considerable amount of our daily lives worrying about tomorrow, God has already promised to take care of our needs. If so, why do we worry? Is it because we don't believe God, or is it because what we think we need is somewhat different than what God thinks we need?

“He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul.”

Ever lie down in a pasture and just stare up at the clouds? It may sound funny but I did that a lot as a kid, and let me tell you from experience that there is nothing so peaceful as doing that. The word for restore in the Hebrew means to return or go back, and I often find myself looking up at the clouds today and thinking back to those times when I had not a care in this world. Why still waters? Did you know that sheep won't drink from a running stream? They need still waters in order to drink. God says He will lead us to green pastures and still waters but the real question is do we follow where He leads or do we insist in going our own way?

“He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me.”

The Hebrew word for paths is “ruts” or a very well worn path. If you have ever driven on a dirt road with ruts you know what it is like to try and turn out of them. It's pretty difficult and takes some effort to get the wheels to turn and then get enough grip to ride up and out of them. On the other hand, if they are well worn and deep you can actually take your hands off of the wheel and just let the car go and the wheels will stay straight and follow wherever the road takes you. Here we are told that the paths of righteousness are like that. It should be easy for us to do what is right, and hard to turn towards evil. Even though we might be tempted to turn because we see ourselves being led towards what appears to be the “valley of the shadow of death”, remember two things. One, we are being led by God and two, it is just the “shadow” and not the real thing. If we keep our eyes on God He promises us we will walk “through”, which means we come out the other side!

“Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”

Now here is the part we are all interested in. In times of trouble we all have one thing in common, and that is looking for something to comfort us. Here we are told by David that in these situations we can be comforted by God's rod and staff. If you look closely into the life of a shepherd, you will find that he normally carries two things with him at all times when leading his flock, a rod and staff. The staff of course, is the long branch with the hook on the end which the shepherd uses to direct those sheep who tend to want to wander, in the direction he wishes to take them. The rod, on the other hand, is used to defend the sheep from anything that might seek to do them harm.

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over.” 

God wants our enemies to see how He chooses to take care of us, so He blesses us in such a way as for others to see that He is providing for us. The Hebrew phrase to anoint literally means to grow fat or prosper, so the picture here is that God goes out of His way to make sure that those who might wish us harm see that He is providing us with all that we need. So much so that He uses the picture of a cup running over to illustrate His generosity.

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life.”

I have often heard mercy defined as not getting what we deserve, so when I read this part of the Psalm I get the feeling that we are being told that getting what we don't deserve, "goodness", and not getting what we do deserve, "mercy", follows us all our lives if we but choose to allow God to direct our path. I think the reason this verse says “follow” is that these two benefits are a result of making the right choice, and not trying to go our own way and pursue things that God already says He will provide us. 

“And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever.” 

Are you familiar with the song that says “better is one day in Your house than thousands elsewhere”? Our promise is that we will spend eternity with God in His house, and that promise is one that should give us all the comfort we need when the going gets tough. Eternity with God is the very best gift we could ever receive, and it is available to anyone who chooses to allow God to come into their lives. If you are reading this and have never made the decision to accept Jesus Christ into your heart and accept the free gift of eternal life He has offered you, I urge you to do so right now. You can do that by praying this prayer and accepting the gift of eternal life God has offered you by the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ.

Father, I know I am a sinner in need of salvation. I believe you sent your Son Jesus to die on the cross for my sin, and I ask you now to forgive me of my sins. I want to receive your gift of salvation so please come into my heart and help me to live and follow you as my Lord and Savior. In Jesus' name, Amen. 

These are but just a few of my thoughts on this Psalm, and my hope is that you spend your week considering these verses and enjoy the comfort God promises us when we follow after Him, the Great Shepherd. Be like sheep, it's a great life.

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Slow and Steady

"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."  Isaiah 40:31  NKJV

I have mentioned more than once that I participated in athletics from a very early age.  Physical fitness has always been a priority in my life and in one way or another I have kept that commitment throughout my lifetime.  Yet as anyone of a certain age will tell you, growing older presents challenges that in all honesty, most do not anticipate.  The body I now possess simply bears little resemblance to the one I had in my youth.  Although I have never abandoned working out, it seems that change is inevitable.  This past January I embraced a new approach to my personal fitness that while relatively simple, has produced some very encouraging results.  I do, however, have one complaint and that is that this program can best be described as “slow and steady”.

I am happy that I have begun to lose weight but having to wait 6 months to see results is hard for someone as impatient as I am. Lose 10 pounds in 10 days!  Truthfully, how many times have you seen an ad like that and looked to see what the miracle method might be?  The unfortunate reality most of us have found in life is that just about any endeavor we embark on will take time to accomplish if we want the final product to last.  Trying to speed up the process or looking for shortcuts only serves to either weaken the end result or cause us to give up because of our impatience to see results.

According to the author of my fitness program, the only way to not only achieve, but maintain the progress I am making is to think long term and be satisfied with slow and steady progress. If we choose to apply this approach to spiritual fitness, I would have to say that I believe this advice to be very appropriate.  In order for believers to grow and maintain their level of spiritual gains and to become the strong disciples the Father wishes us to be, choosing a method that uses the slow and steady approach will produce the lasting results we desire.

I have posted the following study a couple of times in the past, and truthfully have taught it often during my ministry because it contains what I believe to be the basic principles of spiritual growth necessary for all of us.  Any exercise program that promises to transform your look will contain certain steps that they believe are necessary to insure you get the results you are looking for.  Believe it or not, the Word of God does the exact same thing by teaching us the steps we need to follow to transform our spiritual bodies into the shape God has intended them to be.

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."     Romans 12:1-2  NKJV

So we choose to give our bodies to God as a gift, and as Paul tells us, it needs to be holy and acceptable. But just how do we accomplish that? Well according to Paul, it is by transforming. The Greek word for "transformed" used here is "metamorphoō", from where we get the word "metamorphosis", which means “to change into another form, to transform, to transfigure”.  I thought today we might look at how transforming our spiritual bodies could follow some of the same principles as transforming the physical.

One of my favorite memories of raising daughters was the time one of them looked at some pictures of me taken when I was an athlete in college. Rather than saying how good I looked or what a fine example of physical fitness I was, her comment was; "why don't you look like that anymore?"  So it was at that tender moment I decided maybe I should pay a little more attention to my personal exercise and fitness program. Of course, coincidently at the same time this happened I was busy teaching about Paul's advice to new believers and as I began to lay out my own fitness program, I couldn't help but notice that the rules I came up with for physical fitness were very applicable for spiritual fitness. So let me share with you my three steps to getting in shape, spiritually first of course, but then the physical as well.

Desire. Now I know this might seem to be at first glance a simple, if not entirely logical first step, but I would like to make the point that it depends entirely on how you define desire. I rather like the biblical definition myself.

"as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,"       1 Peter 2:2  NKJV

The word used here for "desire" is "epipotheo" which is translated “to long for, or to pursue with love”. Most importantly, however, is the fact that it is a verb. Now I would be the first to admit I have forgotten most of what I learned in English class, but I do remember what a verb is. It means action, doing something. To desire something in the biblical sense is not to just sit on the couch and wish for it, but to act upon that desire and pursue it. You have to make the effort. This is our first step to spiritual fitness; to truly desire to transform ourselves. What is it that we should desire? Paul says it is the "milk of the word", which to us as believers is knowledge of the scriptures, the word of God. This brings us to the second step.

Acquire. In order to begin to grow spiritually, we need the raw material which will make us strong. Just as our physical bodies need protein as part of our diet, our spiritual muscles need the protein we get from the word of God.

"Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding."   Proverbs 4:7  NKJV

Solomon tells us that as believers we need to "acquire" wisdom and "understanding". The Hebrew word used here for "get" is the verb "qanah", which means “to get, acquire, obtain”. Anyone who has ever tried to get in better physical shape understands the need to carefully monitor what we take in for nutrition. Certain things will help us grow the way we want, just as certain foods will help us grow as we don't want. The Bible makes it clear that in order to get in spiritual shape we need to acquire the knowledge and wisdom to be found in the word of God in order to become stronger believers.

Taking in the right spiritual food, though, won't help us accomplish our goal without the third and most important part of our program.

Perspire. Unfortunately this is the part of the program most people fail at when trying to transform their appearance. It starts out with exercise every day, then three days a week, then one, then "I just don't have the time". Exercise is an absolute when trying to get into shape, and it is no different when it comes to spiritual fitness.

"Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;"     Philippians 2:12  NKJV

You will never guess just how hard I had to look to find the words "work" and "out" used together in the Bible, not to mention the fact that they are two words and not one? Believe it or not, in the Bible it is one word translated as two and it is the Greek word "katergazomai", which means “to work out”, or “to do that from which something results.” When Paul tells the Philippians they need to "workout" their salvation, he is simply telling them that as believers, it is time for them to stop relying on his (Paul's) help since he has left them, and to begin to rely on God's help through the power of the Holy Spirit to live their lives in such a way as to glorify God. And, as you should have expected by now, the word “workout” in the Greek is also a verb.

In order to transform our lives into a gift to God which He will find pleasing, we must embrace the concept of action. The Christian life is a life of doing, not wishing. I looked at a number of different programs to get in physical shape before settling on the one I now use, and my primary criteria was answering the question, can I do this without burning out?  When embarking on your personal spiritual fitness journey I believe it important to ask the same question.  Set achievable goals and choose a program you will stay with over the long haul.

Desire, acquire, and perspire. Three verbs, three steps to becoming the believer God expects us to be. I will admit that my own spiritual fitness journey has been a long one yet without question it has been rewarding and well worth the effort I have put in to it.  Although there have been times when it became more difficult, the slow and steady progress has always been there thanks to the encouragement I received from God along the way.  

“Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.   1 Corinthians 9:24-25 NKJV

God made the choice to save us, but it is up to us to make the choice to accept it. My prayer for you today is that if you have never made the decision to believe that Jesus Christ died and rose again for you, you would choose to do it right now. Invite Jesus to come into your life and forgive your sins, and begin to experience the joy that comes from having a relationship with a living God, and the knowledge that He has promised us eternal life with Him in Heaven if we only believe.  Pray this prayer and accept the gift of eternal life God has offered you by the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ.

Dear Father in heaven, I believe in your son Jesus. I believe that He died on the cross for my sins, that He rose up from the grave, and that my sins are forgiven.  Forgive me of my sin, help me to walk with you, and thank you for saving me. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

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