A life lived apart from God is a life of quiet desperation. Many spend their lives just trying to keep their noses above water, to keep from sinking under the quagmire of the world. The burden of the things of the world and the affairs of life will keep us suffocating in sin and iniquity. Without other godly men, we are sinking in life’s alarms. You are most like those with whom you associate. Who is your band of brothers? With whom would you rather spend the moments of your precious life? Many men die on the vine because of discouragement and disappointment. Where is your heart? Courage means to take heart. To keep my heart aligned with the heart of my big brother Jesus Christ, I must surround myself with my band of brothers in Christ.
When Jesus was nailed to the cross, he could have called twelve legions of angels to rescue him from a shameful and humiliating death. However, it was not the nails that kept him hanging on the cross. Rather, it was for the joy that was set before him that he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God. The joy before him was my life and your life. We are alive because of the love he had for those would follow him. For the great love wherewith he loved us, even while we were yet sinners, he shed his innocent blood as the supreme sacrifice in full payment for our sin and iniquity.
Sometimes God calls us to push the stones in our life. However, he doesn’t always call us to move them. In the midst of the unmovable stones of life, God’s blessing is often in the pushing and not in the moving. The goal is to not to allow God to move the circumstances, but to allow him to move my heart… not in my strength, but in his strength alone. God said that my ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts. Often what we think of as failures, God sees as successes. Our success is when we allow God to work in our lives to will and to do of His good pleasure. We must learn to define our success in terms of his success. We must align our hearts with his heart in order to become disciplined followers of Jesus Christ. Wisdom, patience and endurance is the result of enduring trial and tribulation as a good foot soldier of our commander in chief. In the midst of the spiritual battle, God will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on him.
As Americans, we pride ourselves on the inalienable right of the pursuit of happiness. What is the key to happiness? Most Americans have no idea. They have subscribed to the secular doctrines of this world that define happiness as a fleeting feeling. The job of the devil is to rain on our parade. One negative barb of a comment can burst your balloon of happiness. We stumble in many was. The devil always shows up in the midst of grumbling and stumbling. According to the book of James, the tongue is a fire and a world of evil, corrupting the body and is set on fire by hell itself. The tongue is an evil unto itself full of deadly poison. Therefore guard thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. If garbage is in your heart, it will come out of your mouth. We must also keep our eye gate pure before God. The key to happiness is casting down imaginations and every high thing that exaulteth itself against the truth of the knowledge of the word of God, bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
It’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking that we are righteous in our own minds. However, as the psalmist said, search my heart O God. Create in me a new heart… a heart that belongs to you and not to my selfish self. Man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh upon the heart.
Many men have died on the vine for lack of encouragement. However, God has called us to let no corrupt communication proceed out of our mouths, but that which is good for the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. He has called us to glory and virtue. He has called us to take heart, and to guard our hearts with all diligence, for out of the heart are the issues of life. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable unto thee, O Lord my strength and my redeemer.
For many people the spiritual battle will not be won in this life. It is appointed for all men once to die and the last enemy to be destroyed is death. As Jesus said, he who finds his life shall loose it for my sake. For I was crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me. In God’s hall of faith in Hebrews 11, there is an inflection point, a change of direction in verse 36. The passage starts with those who defeated the adversary and the powers of darkness… stories of those who stopped the mouths of lions, overcame great armies, defied death and destruction in the midst of the battle. However in verse 36, some were torn asunder, they suffered wrongs and were beaten and humiliated and stoned for their stand for their faith. These also were examples of success in the eyes of our Heavenly father. Justice and success will be in this life or the next. Success is always in God’s eternal perspective. Therefore take heart for the word says that we are pressed on every side but not in despair. We are intimidated but never loose hope. Cast down on every side but always bearing in our lives the marks of our Lord Jesus Christ. For we have this treasure in an earthen vessel that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us… that his life may be manifest in the mortality of our own bodies… that our life may be hid in Christ in God.
In the midst of the tribulations of this world, God is the rescuer, the deliverer, and the savior. Therefore, Lord, help yourself to my life. Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee.
May God richly bless you!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael