Matthew 11:28-30 (NASB)
28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

James 4:6 (NASB)
6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

My pride masks the fact that humility is not a conscious act of the will. True humility starts with a belief that any good deed that we do is the result of God working in us. That true belief then becomes an unconscious reflex controlled by the Holy Spirit, so that we no longer consider any opinion of ourselves as worthy of thought. We don’t expect to find virtue in ourselves because there is none, only the virtue that comes from Christ within us.

Trying to make ourselves good will only lead to frustration and failure. It is often the action of a Christian who forgets that our very faith is a gift from God and not something that we created in ourselves. Jesus is humble and only He can transform our hearts into that likeness.

We can become humble only when we release our will and submit to God. We can’t work at being a Christian; only by responding to the leading of the Holy Spirit. It can be a most difficult attitude to adopt, yet it frees us to let God direct us in all that we do. When we do, our opinion of ourselves becomes unimportant and pride dies.

Heavenly Father, I pray that would fully submit to You, follow You, and forget about my opinion of myself or what others may have of me. I am weary and want Your rest for my soul. I pray that pride would die and that only your Holy Spirit would live in me. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Always praying for the glory of God,

John 14:1-3 (KJV)
1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

It was the summer of 2013. I was headed to my 45th High School class reunion, to a rural farming town in southeast Kansas. I was looking forward to catching up with former classmates, but I also planned to stay over one more day and attend services at the church I grew up in. I entered the church that Sunday morning. The church seemed much smaller than I remembered. There were no sounds of children laughing like it was when I was young. The average age of the congregation looked to be older than me and there were at most 30-40 people attending. The church was like the town; worn down. As I took my seat in a pew near the front of the church waiting for the service to start, I prayed that Jesus would be there and it would be a great worship time.

A couple of older ladies were sitting behind me. One of them asked me if I was new to town. I explained that I had attended my class reunion and wanted to come back to the church that morning. They asked me my name and I told them. Several rows back, a man asked if I was related to Morris and Arlene. I said that they were my parents. What happened next was so unexpected. My mother had died in 1980 and my father had moved from our home town to live the rest of his days in Arizona about a year later. That was 33 years ago. Yet most of the people came up and told me how much my parents had meant to them. Many of the women had attended bible study with my mother. Other stories were told about the kindness and help that they had been to them over the years. Jesus was there that day and it was a great worship time.

Fast forward to the summer of 2018. I was headed to my 50th reunion and I planned to attend church that Sunday as I had done 5 years before. On Friday when I arrived in town, I ran into a classmate and her husband. Cheri had attended the same church growing up and so I told her about my experience 5 years before. I could tell something was wrong when she said that I probably had not heard. It turns out a couple of years before that, the church had a 50 year celebration following the building addition that was done when I was a young teen. They opened up and shared the contents of a time capsule that had been buried in the cornerstone of the church. But it was also announced that the 3 churches of the same denomination would be consolidating into one church, a different building on the other side of town. The three churches simply didn’t have enough attendance to support three pastors. That was the last time services were held there.

The verses in John 14 above were favorites of my mother. It reminded me that this earth will not last, but that Jesus has a place already prepared for us. A mansion ready for us. And that He will come again to bring us there. Even as the physical churches of old worn out towns close down, He brings us to mansions that will never perish.

Father, thank You for that one last worship time in my hometown church. Thank You for the many blessings that you provide on this earth, but most of all the amazing blessings that we have to look forward to. I pray this in the matchless name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Psalm 19:14 (NASB)
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.

It’s Your breath in our lungs
So we pour out our praise.
Chorus from the Praise Song, “Great Are You Lord”

A.W. Tozer once said that the gospel is received by someone in only two ways – either the word without power, or the word with power. It has nothing to do with the person that shares the gospel, how they share it, how great the technique, or the eloquence of the speaker. It only has to do with the person receiving it and whether God has prepared their heart to hear it with power.

I have come to realize that whether you use an evangelism technique taught in books, whether you share a pamphlet or not, or especially if you are an eloquent speaker or not makes no difference. In fact, if you focus on those things rather than just pleasing God with your words and thoughts, you run the risk of beginning to believe that you had a hand in the outcome. Keeping a tally of “our” success in winning over others is sinful pride.

It is God’s breath that is in our lungs and we use that to form words from our thoughts. If we only focus on pleasing Him, then that is all we need to consider. Sharing the gospel doesn’t need to be a specific task we do, but rather how we live our lives for Christ and interact with others.

Father, forgive me for taking your command to share the gospel and expecting favor from You for what I have done. Believing only comes through Your grace and the faith that You provide. Help me to use Your breath in my lungs to speak words that honor and please You. Holy Spirit, whisper to me thoughts that I will meditate on day and night. Use my words only in a way that brings You glory. Amen.

Always praying for the glory of God,