Isaiah 2:12-17 (NASB)
12 For the LORD of hosts will have a day of reckoning Against everyone who is proud and lofty And against everyone who is lifted up, That he may be abased.
13 And it will be against all the cedars of Lebanon that are lofty and lifted up, Against all the oaks of Bashan,
14 Against all the lofty mountains, Against all the hills that are lifted up,
15 Against every high tower, Against every fortified wall,
16 Against all the ships of Tarshish And against all the beautiful craft.
17 The pride of man will be humbled And the loftiness of men will be abased; And the LORD alone will be exalted in that day,

Our prayer goals in the New Year can take many forms, but as I meditate on what God would want me to focus on, I keep coming back to the sin of pride. We all admit that we have pride in our lives, we even confess it in our prayers. The humility that is necessary to defeat that sin in our lives is probably the most difficult challenge in our walk as Christians.

Pride hides in our hearts and then manifests itself into what we believe is our righteousness. The Holy Spirit, if we listen closely can reveal that to us. But pride is the one thing that the world and Satan uses to convince us that we are walking in His way, when we are just walking in ours. Pride is one sin that often requires others to lovingly reveal to us.

For those that are mature in their faith, pride can easily become a substitute for the humility that God wants from us. It is particularly a challenge to those of us that are called into leadership. After all, don’t we know the scriptures, don’t we follow the path that God has given to us? How could someone less mature see any sin in our lives? And yet, God uses others to show us. When they do, it is easy for us to rebuke those attempts if our hidden (to us) pride takes over. Other Christians can’t be our Holy Spirit, but they can in love help us to open our hearts to the Spirit.

Do you have others or even just one someone in your life that will share your hidden sins? Do you know someone with a humble spirit that would speak truth to you if you asked? What a gift from God that is! I spent many years living in my own bubble, allowing pride to rule my thoughts. I’ve got a long way to go, but with the help of humble servants of God and the Spirit’s leading, I am working on it.

That and a lot of prayer to the only One that can change me.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Ephesians 3:20 (NASB)
20 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,

What is your New Year’s prayer resolution? If you believe the promise of Ephesians 3:20, then this resolution should be the most important one you make each year.

In years past, Cindy and I have set down at the end of the year and put together goals for the coming year. They always include spiritual goals, but after meditating on the scripture above, I’m pretty sure that I have never set high enough goals for my prayer life.

How big is your God? Is He bigger than anything that you can possibly ask or think? Do we pray the BIG prayers that allow the Holy Spirit to work within us and accomplish for His kingdom way beyond even what we can dream?

He is able. We have to trust. Only when we take off the restraints of our small goals can God do what we often think is the impossible. We call those miracles. Want some of those in your life in 2017? I do. Let’s pray and set some BIG goals for your personal prayer time and for our prayer ministry.

Come and join me.

Always praying for the glory of God,

John 17:3 (NASB)
3 “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

In John chapter 17, the high priestly prayer of Jesus, Jesus gives us a definition of eternal life that is probably different than how we normally think of it. Most of us, when we are asked “what is eternal life?”, we are more likely to respond to that question saying that eternal life is being in heaven with God.

But Jesus tells us that eternal life begins when we know God through Jesus Christ. Eternal life begins when we acknowledge that we are sinners, confess our sins and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. Eternal life begins when God justifies us and the Holy Spirit takes residence in our hearts.

I was thinking about how that might impact our prayer life. If we consider this very moment as part of our eternal life with God, does that change what we might petition God for in our requests to Him? Would our concerns for health, safety, and happiness even compare with the eternal life we are now living with Him? Wouldn’t our concern be more for others that aren’t living an eternal life with God? Would our prayers be more focused on revival, both here and elsewhere in the world? Would our prayers be focused on the salvation of those that don’t know Christ today?

There is an old saying that – “Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good”. I actually don’t agree with that. I think if we were more eternally focused, that it would change the eternal part of our life here on earth into what God wants it to be for us. I pray that I will keep my eyes on my eternal life with God and that my prayers will stay focused on the kingdom of God.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Everyone, by the time they reach being an adult, have asked themselves some important, eternal questions. Philosophers label these questions as being about origin, meaning, and destiny. For most of us they boil down to three simple, but profound questions.

Is there a God?
Why do I exist or what is my purpose?
What happens after I die or is there life after death?

It is interesting that in order to answer the last two questions, you have to come up with an answer for the first one. Is there a God? This question has been on the lips of mankind from the beginning. Every people group that has existed has struggled with it and in some way has come up with answers. That is what we call religion.

If we come to the conclusion that the answer to the first question is no, then we are left with trying to answer how everything has come into existence. No matter how we approach that answer, it requires a huge level of faith. Faith that this is all an accident; that it all started out of nothing; that everything that happens is by chance.

If we start out with premise that God does exist, then it gets interesting. There have been many religions that have existed over time that believe in a creator. If we are serious about understanding something about God (which helps us answer the other two questions), then this requires some significant investigation. We think nothing of spending multiple years learning our vocation, but many of us leave the answer to who God is as something that isn’t even studied. We either don’t investigate it at all, or we go to church on Sundays and really don’t think about it otherwise.

You have a lot of choices out there, so here are some things to consider about the nature of God and what religion makes the most sense.

1. All religions that have existed (except one), requires the worshiper to achieve a standing with God through trying to please Him with what you do in your life.
2. All religions that have existed (except one), were developed by a people based upon what they think God might be.
3. That one, Christianity is based upon a person (Jesus), who claimed to be God. He demonstrated that during His life by:
a. Living a life predicted by prophets of God (In the Old Testament, a true prophet had to be 100% correct in their prophesies). Many witnesses saw the miracles that He performed.
b. Dying on a Cross (again predicted by prophesy)
c. Raising from the dead (proving that He was God), which was witnessed by 100’s of people.
4. C.S. Lewis, a famous English theologian, started out as an atheist, but as an adult decided to seriously consider whether God existed or not. He looked at all of the religions and decided that Christianity was the only one that made sense. He once said that many people try to dismiss Jesus’ claim that He is God, by saying that He was just a good man, just like any other. Lewis said that this cannot be right. Jesus was one of three things – a liar, a lunatic, or really God. But he could not just be a good man.
5. Others have said that if Jesus was a liar, then the disciples of Jesus would never have gone to their death proclaiming that Jesus was God. People don’t die for liars.
6. If He was a lunatic, then how was He able to perform miracles, how was He able to raise Himself from the dead.

Even with all of the evidence placed before us, it still takes faith to believe. The level of faith required to believe that this is all an accident, in my mind, is significantly greater than the level of faith required to believe that Jesus is God.

If then, you believe that Jesus is God, the answers to those other two questions become something that is possible to answer, because He gave us those answers in the Bible. If you believe there is no God, then those other questions don’t really matter.

If you haven’t already seriously considered these questions, I’ll leave you to ponder them. What do you believe?