Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The Presence of God

As I was praying this morning, I got that feeling I sometimes get when I’m really into a prayer. The feeling of Jesus wrapping His arms around me, comforting me and letting me know that He hears me. As I was reflecting on that feeling throughout the day, I remembered something I said a couple of weeks ago. I was teaching on grace in discipleship training and made the comment about how when we are worshipping as we should sometimes you can feel Jesus standing behind you with His hand on your shoulder and it was interesting looking out and seeing some people nodding their heads knowingly and others that didn’t quite understand what I meant by that. I had a teacher while encouraging us to use expository preaching say that we should not go back to our study trying to figure out what to preach on next Sunday while waiting for something “spooky” to happen. I mentioned that to a friend and he said “spooky, like the Holy Spirit?”

I said that’s what I thought. So why do we find it so hard to believe that Jesus is still alive and there next to us giving us His word and presence.

I got to wondering why is it that sometimes it feels as if Jesus is right there in the middle of worship and sometimes he isn’t. As I thought about it the story of the two men on the road to Emmaus came to mind. (Luke 24:13-33) Here are two disciples, men who know Jesus, walking along discussing Jesus and all of a sudden Jesus shows up to discuss Himself with them. And they did not recognize Him! The very object of their discussion and they did not know He was there talking to them. Vs. 16 says there eyes were kept from recognizing Him. He even hints to them He is there in vs. 25 “You foolish people – how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!

These men did not realize their guest was Jesus until He prayed and then they thought to themselves how stupid can we be did not our hearts burn within us as we discussed (worshipped) with Him vs.32 . Even Mary Magdalene in John 20:14-16 did not realize that it was Jesus she spoke to. So why did Mary and these two men not realize that Jesus was present with them.

Because they did not expect Him to be! “You foolish people – how slow of heart to believe…” When we worship or pray do we truly expect Jesus to make Himself known to us. Most of the time we don’t, so when He does it surprises us. But it shouldn’t. We should always expect Jesus to make Himself known. After all that is what we are worshipping for. So why would He not be there. It’s funny to hear a pastor talking and they want to say they heard the voice of God, but they are scared that everyone will think they are crazy.

We tell people to pray and ask God to answer them, but if they tell us God spoke to them and answered. We ask “are you sure you heard God?” We don’t believe that God truly answered them. Let’s not be like the men walking with Jesus to Emmaus and missing out on the presence of God because they doubted. Let us go forward knowing that we will feel the presence of God.
MSW

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Providing From Nothing

As I was reading through 1 Kings 17 I noticed something interesting. Elijah prophecies a drought and God tells him to go to the brook of Cherith. There God feeds Elijah by ravens that bring him food and he drinks from the brook. Well eventually the brook dried up and God commands Elijah to go to Zarephath where a widow will take care of him.

Elijah arrives and finds the widow gathering wood for a cook fire. She is planning on making bread with the last bit of flour and oil she has. This is to be the special last meal she is preparing for her and her son and then she knows they will die of starvation. He asks her for water and then bread. Now look at what happens in 1 Kings 17:12-13

And she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.”
And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son

Now let’s look at what is going on. He tells the woman, first not to fear. Now remember she knows this is a man of God because God told Elijah He had already commanded her to feed the one He sent. She knows that she only has enough food for this one meal and now at God’s commandment she has to give it to Elijah. But he is comforting her and reminding her that the Lord is her God too and he will take care of her.

Many times God will ask us to do something and we feel fear. I’m not able we will say. I don’t have the money or the time or it is all I have. But God is telling us not to fear. He knows it is all we have. He knows we are not capable. Did God not know that Moses was a poor speaker when he called him or that Gideon was the weakest of a weak family? Yet God used both of those men to accomplish His goals. When God asks us to do something we should not fear for if God has planned it for us, it can’t fail.

Next he tells her take care of me first. He is saying everything is alright, you know what God expects you to do so go and do it. Sometimes it’s hard to put the needs of others ahead of our own needs. Sometimes we think that are problems are so big that we can’t worry about someone else’s. But God tells us to provide for others and he will provide for us. Just as this woman was providing for Elijah he provided for her because God’s blessing came through him.

And last he tells her to take the rest and make her and her son something. She just told him that she has only enough for one meal and he tells her make you something with the extra. When we take care of the needs of others God will make sure and take care of ours.

Just picture for a minute a stranger shows up and asks you to fix him a sandwich. You tell this stranger you only have enough bread for one sandwich and you and your son were about to eat it. The man tells you “That’s nice, but fix me mine first, then go and make you and your son a couple.”

You would look at the man like he was crazy. “Uh, excuse me. I said I have enough for one sandwich and there are three of us. Are you not listening?” So you go in the house grumbling and complaining and you take out two slices of bread and make a sandwich thinking to yourself great all that’s left in the bag of bread are the end pieces that I have to split. After giving the sandwich to the stranger you go back inside and pull out four slices of bread and notice that all that’s left now are the two end pieces. That’s when it occurs to you that those four pieces weren’t in there a minute ago.

God will always provide for those who serve him!

What gets me here is God took someone who had next to nothing and asked that they give it away so that He could provide for them. If the widow had chosen to ignore Elijah and cook her and her son their last meal they would have died, but her willingness to answer God’s call and sacrifice all that she had allowed her to live and provide for Elijah to live.


This is what happened with us. God chose to give up His only Son. His and the Son’s sacrifice allowed Jesus to live and provided for us to live. As we reflect on what Jesus did for us and see how God provided for this widow when she was willing to give all she had to someone else, we should be ready to sacrifice for the plans God has for us.
MSW