Let us have another word of prayer.
Lord, we thank You that we can know You because, out of Your great love, You have made Yourself known unto us. Lord, as we have taken of this table this morning, as we have remembered You, You had a desire to make Yourself known to us. That desire was so strong that it led You unto death, even the death of the cross.
Lord, as we come to Your Word this morning, we know, too, how You desire to make Yourself known to us. We give ourselves unto You for speaking and hearing, that through the enabling of Your Holy Spirit we could know You—not as merely a written word, but as the very living Word of God revealed unto us.
Lord, keep us from distractions. Keep us from thinking of things that would try to rob You of Your glory. We give ourselves unto You today, that You could speak what You desire, that we could hear, and that Your Word would have a place to work within our lives. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now, I have been thinking this week: do we ever really stop and count our blessings? There is an old song called “Count Your Blessings”: “Count them one by one, and see the wondrous things that God hath done.” We get so caught up in going through life that, quite often, we do not simply stop and count the blessings.
We, as the people of God, are tremendously blessed. Taking this table reminds us of salvation—so great a salvation, so great a love that our Lord had for us. Do we know the blessing of forgiven sins, or has it become common to us that, “Oh, my sins are forgiven”? There is a blessing there, brethren. When we reflect on the torment of unforgiven sins, we realize afresh the blessing of forgiveness.
There is the blessedness of fellowship, the joy of being together, and the blessing of being in the body of Christ. There is also the blessing of living in this country. I am not going to get all patriotic, but we are blessed. We are basically a safe people. We have a decent education system, freedom to gather and worship, and freedom to meet in homes. What a blessing it is.
We have freedom of choice in education. Ones who want to homeschool can do so; ones who want to attend public school can do so. There are so many blessings that we have in the Lord. We are blessed with physical things—nice homes and clothes.
But what do these blessings do to us? As we consider all the blessings we have, do they bring forth within us a heart of worship, adoration, and thanksgiving to the Blesser? Or do we subtly take them for granted and almost begin to expect them?
Throughout Scripture, there is a tendency within us to forget the Blesser and focus on the blessing. This is nothing new. Who was one of the most blessed of all created beings? Beautiful in all his splendor, leading the angels in worship and adoration, the anointed cherub in the very presence of God—the son of the morning. We cannot begin to comprehend the blessing that he had.
But he became distracted by his blessing. Lucifer turned himself into Satan and the devil. Consider Adam and Eve in the garden. Talk about a blessing—we call it paradise. It was the blessing of the Lord, but they got their eyes off the Blesser.
This is what I want us to stop and consider this morning: in light of all the blessings that we have, are they leading us to the Lord, or are they distracting us from the Lord? We could call this teaching “The Challenge of Living in the Lord’s Blessing.”
At first, that may sound odd. We might say, “It is great to live in the blessing. There is no problem there.” But when we look at Scripture, ones who lived in blessing often got off a little. The blessing itself became a stumbling block because their eyes were taken away from the Blesser.
I would like us to look at one story in the New Testament. It is repeated in the three historical Gospels, but I would like us to consider it in the Gospel of Mark. The disciples encountered a tremendous blessing in the story of the transfiguration.
And He was saying to them, Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste of death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.
And six days later, Jesus took with Him Peter, James, and John, and brought them up to a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them;
And His garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth could whiten them.
And Elijah appeared to them along with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus.
And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tabernacles, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.
For he did not know what to answer; for they became terrified.
Then a cloud formed, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud, This is My beloved Son; listen to Him.
And at once they looked around and saw no one with them anymore, except Jesus only.
It is hard for us to imagine the glory and blessing these three disciples encountered. The Lord took them up on the mountain, and we are not going to consider the meaning of the transfiguration itself this morning. Rather, we want to look at the disciples’ response—how they handled this blessing.
They were drawn apart unto the Lord, and they saw Him transfigured. His glory, majesty, and power came forth. This event impacted their entire lives and ministries. John began his Gospel with the testimony:
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John had beheld His glory. At the very end of Peter’s life, in 2 Peter, he wrote of the splendor and majesty of that prophetic word made sure. James went on to become a martyr. This experience grasped them, and they lived their lives unto Him.
It is difficult even to comprehend the glory of that mount. It was as though the Lord removed the earthly shell, and all the glory and splendor came forth. The whiteness was beyond description. Then Peter spoke those infamous words: “Lord, it is good for us to be here.”
Peter was living in the challenge of the Lord’s blessing. As usual, he opened his mouth a little too soon. But Peter learned from this, as we see in his life. He did not handle the situation rightly, but praise the Lord, brothers and sisters, we may not handle situations rightly either. Yet He always wants us to learn from them.
I think we often learn more from our mistakes, blunders, and foot-in-mouth disease than from protecting ourselves and trying to appear holy and spiritual. I love Peter because he was not afraid to make a fool of himself. The problem with many of us—and I know this in my own life—is that we are self-protective. We are not willing to be vulnerable or to be fools for Christ. But the Lord says, “That is how you learn of Me.”
There are a couple of interesting things in this story. First, the enemy is not mentioned. The devil is not mentioned. What is displayed is a response of self—self-action coming forth.
If we think about self within our lives, self is the number-one enemy of God. We give the devil too much credit at times. Self is the greatest enemy. It is the uncrucified flesh that gives the devil an avenue to come in and attack us. The devil is not mentioned here, but we see the work of self.
Second, evil is not mentioned. Only good things are present. All the distractions here are good. This is a story of good becoming the enemy of better. Peter was distracted by Moses and Elijah, and they were good. But the way he handled the situation distracted him from the Lord, and God had to intervene and say, “Behold My Son.”
The central point is the challenge of living in the blessing of the Lord. Look at Peter’s first words: “It is good for us to be here.” It was good for him to be there, and it was wonderful that the Lord wanted him there. But Peter had it turned around.
He was a Jew, and among the Jews the most honored ones in the Old Testament were Moses and Elijah. Peter must have thought, “Wow, here I am—not only with Jesus, but with Moses and Elijah.” He lost sight of the fact that the Lord had brought them there to teach and show them something. Peter turned it around merely to be the recipient.
When the Lord blesses us, yes, we are to receive those blessings and thank Him for every one of them. Do not go away thinking that I am saying we should not thank the Lord for blessings. I will take every blessing the Lord has, and I want more and more of them. But that is not the end.
Why are we blessed? We are blessed so that His life can live within us and do a transforming work. We are also blessed so that we can be a blessing to others. What we receive from the Lord works within us, but then it flows out to others in an ever-flowing stream of life.
Too often, when we are blessed, we take our little treasure home, focus on it, and have a good time with our little blessing. But the Lord says, “Yes, I want you to be blessed, but I want that blessing to flow through you to others.”
I was listening to a brother last year, and he spoke of how the Word of the Lord works in our lives. When His presence is with us and we receive the blessing of the Lord, we receive it; then we respond to it. We allow it to do the work within our lives that it was intended to do. Then we release it to others by allowing them to see it in our lives.
We can be recipients of so much. We can receive the blessing and allow it to work within us, but then it must be released. We are to be light. The light of the testimony is to shine forth. The Lord is doing a work of transformation within us so that we may be a testimony in the world today.
What is the most effective gospel tool? In the book of Acts, people who did not know the Lord saw something in believers and said, “I want that.” It is a tragedy in Christianity today that when people look at us, they often do not see anything they want. That is sad. It breaks my heart how little of the Lord’s life I admit to those around me. There is not that attraction.
Would the Lord set us free in a greater way to transmit His life? It comes through responding to what He has done and allowing the cross to work within us.
There is a beautiful little chorus that ends, “I am changed in the presence of the holy God.” I love that, but it made me think: is that really true? Is it scriptural?
Are we changed simply by being in the presence of the living God? If we look through Scripture, can we name one person changed merely by being in His presence? I could not find anybody changed simply by being there.
Lucifer was in His presence. Adam and Eve were in His presence. Judas was in His presence. Even those who fell down before Him were not necessarily changed. John fell down in worship and adoration in Revelation, but the guards who came to arrest the Lord also fell down when He said, “I am He.” Were they changed? It is not recorded.
Merely being in His presence does not change us. There must be a transaction as we are in His presence. His presence is the environment in which the transaction of change can begin to occur, as we allow His life to work within us and respond to His life.
We may think, “If I can just be in His presence, how wonderful it will be. I can be in a meeting.” Meetings are good, and we should be in meetings. But merely being in a meeting, merely being in a Christian home, or merely visiting another believer’s house will not change us unless we respond to His life—the life calling us to be conformed to His image.
The presence is the blessing, but the blessing is not the end. It is there with purpose: the presence of God working within our lives to change us and conform us to His image. This is what He is after in a people today—not merely knowing about Him or experiencing Him, but allowing that experience to work within us.
What does Peter do? He says, “Lord, this is so great. Let us make three tents.” Again, this was Peter initiating something. The Lord had not asked him to do it.
What is a tent for? A tent means you want to settle down. Peter was saying, in effect, “We have arrived. This is so precious. I am going to settle here. I am not going to be a stranger and sojourner anymore. We have found the place to be.”
So often, brothers and sisters, when we experience the blessing of the Lord, we think that is the end and we stop there.
If you have ever gone camping for a long period of time—or spent time in a tent in the military—you realize that a tent becomes stale. You have the tent to keep valuable things in and other things out, such as mosquitoes. But stay in a tent day after day in the hot sun, and it begins to stink. It becomes smelly and stale.
It is tragic that within Christianity today we have many stale, smelly Christians. We had an experience, put our tent down, and began living in it. It may be a thirty-year-old tent, a twenty-year-old tent, or a three-month-old tent. We camped out there, saying, “This was it,” and we settled down. We are not going on in the freshness and dailiness of the Lord.
We appreciate Peter’s heart. He said, “Wow, this is good. I want to be here.” Of course he did. But Paul gives us a beautiful example of another response. Consider Paul’s testimony in Philippians 3.
Paul experienced many blessings of the Lord: spiritual blessings, being taken up, seeing the Lord, knowing His great salvation, and being physically delivered many times. But did Paul plant his tent and settle down? No. In Philippians 3, he was pressing on to know more.
The more the Lord blessed Paul, the more Paul wanted of Christ. He was never satisfied. The worst thing within Christianity is satisfied Christians. Positionally, we are satisfied, and thank the Lord for that. But our satisfaction should press us on to know more of Him in a fuller and greater way.
Think of the church in Jerusalem. They experienced tremendous blessing, but they were not meant to remain in Jerusalem. They were to go into Judea, Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Yet they had put down their tents in Jerusalem and settled there.
But the God of mercy blessed them with persecution and scattered them to accomplish His purpose. Sometimes, if we do not hear the Lord the first time, He uses difficult circumstances to get His point across and get us moving in the direction He desires.
We may stand against the enemy, while it is not the enemy at all. It is our own self. We are self-satisfied, seeking self-comfort and self-interest, enjoying the blessing rather than allowing the blessing to lead us on to more of Him.
We have difficult days ahead. I am fifty-eight years old, and it would be good to settle down sometimes. I am a settler. But I thank the Lord for His holy right foot that keeps booting me on. He will not let me settle.
If it were up to Mac, I would have my tent somewhere with all my books around me, just reading away. But the Lord will not let us settle. He wants us to engage and press on to know Him more and more. I thank the Lord for that.
When the Lord gives us teaching and revelation, our first thought is often, “This is it. We have arrived.” But brethren, we never arrive. The Lord may say, “This is where you are today, but I have tomorrow. Keep pressing on to know Me more and more.”
Paul had written 1 Corinthians, with its marvelous chapter on resurrection. He had written many letters about the greatness of the Lord and had experienced so much, yet he still said there was more. May the blessing of the Lord press us on rather than make us settlers.
Peter wanted to make three tents. What was the issue? He was putting Moses and Elijah on the same level as the Lord.
Certainly, we should honor Moses and Elijah. We should honor servants of the Lord who have gone before us. But we do not put them on the same level as the Lord. Peter was either elevating Moses and Elijah to the Lord’s level or bringing the Lord down to theirs. Either way, he was devaluing the Lord.
Do we consciously or unconsciously do this? Do we elevate men? We may never say it, but we can unconsciously elevate people to that level. Or, tragically, we can bring the Lord down. In much of Christianity today, the Lord is being devalued, and we are losing much of His preciousness.
The Lord desires to be known as the supreme One, the Lord of lords and King of kings. So many things compete with Him in our lives. We elevate things to be alongside the Lord.
We go to a Bible study and say, “So-and-so said this, and so-and-so says that.” But the question is, “What does the Lord say about it?” It is good to read commentaries. Anybody who knows me knows that I have a million commentaries. I am not against them. But do the blessings of those who have gone before us—the books and teachings—end up distracting us from the Lord?
There is a desperate need within Christianity today for each of us to know the Lord personally and intimately. There is a desperate need to hear His voice. Do we really know the voice of the Lord? As we read His Word, do we allow that Word to speak within our lives?
Amos speaks of a famine—not a famine of the speaking of the Word, but a famine of hearing the Word. Brethren, there is a famine of hearing the Word of God among believers today. We hear much about the Lord, but our ears are not trained to hear the very Word of God and His voice.
I am not talking about some mystical experience. I am talking about daily life. Does that still, small voice speak within us? As we read His Word, does it become living and real within us? Can we discern the voice of the Lord when brothers and sisters share in fellowship?
There is a desperate need to recognize life as we live together as the body of Christ. We can go on living in outward form, but we need to recognize life, hear His voice, and know His voice.
When was the last time you or I really heard the voice of the Lord? I am not talking about the heavens opening and a voice saying, “This is My beloved Son.” I mean in daily life: as you read the Word, as you have fellowship with a brother or sister. How desperately we need that.
I appreciated Mari’s encouragement last week about engaging and being with all the saints. The precious thing about being with all the saints is that we hear the voice of the Lord. Yet we are hindered because we are prejudiced and have favorites.
One brother stands up and says something, and we question it without even listening. Another brother stands up, and we eat it all in without question. We have our favorites. We may have five ministries before us and say, “I want to listen to this one.” But would our prejudice hinder us from hearing the voice of the Lord?
Would our prejudice hinder us from receiving from one another within the body of Christ? We see this in Scripture. After the Lord arose, Mary told the disciples, “I have seen the Lord. He is risen.” They did not believe her. The two disciples on the road also returned and told the others they had seen the Lord, but they were not believed.
The Lord rebuked them for their unbelief because they were not able to receive from brothers and sisters. They believed only when they saw Him. Blessed are those who believe without seeing Him.
This is the precious thing about the body of Christ. Yes, we receive from the Lord directly, but we also receive from one another the blessedness of His Word and encouragement as we go on together.
One of my great characteristics is laziness. We can think, “I do not need to hear; somebody else will hear for me.” Proverbs speaks much of the slothful and the sluggard. But the Lord wants each one of us to get up, dig, hear His voice, learn, and have our ears opened to know that wonderful voice.
What is our attitude as we go to a work group or gathering? Do we think, “Somebody else will have something to open. I do not have time; somebody else will do it”? Mr. Somebody Else will always have it. But the Lord wants us individually to hear, come prepared, and allow Him to work within us.
We should not think that we have arrived, nor should we depend upon somebody else. Because of His blessing, we should be pressed on to know Him more and more.
Consider the Bereans in Acts. They did not simply accept Paul’s word; they searched the Scriptures. Do we go back and search the Scriptures, allowing the Lord to speak and confirm what has been shared? How precious that is.
Moses represents the law, and Elijah represents the prophets. The Lord Jesus is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. We thank the Lord for teachers; teaching is a gift to the church. But we have a tendency to elevate teachers, teachings, and truths too highly.
We all have favorite teachings. Some enjoy the grace of God; others focus on the holiness of God. Some emphasize free will and human responsibility; others emphasize the sovereignty of God. Some emphasize individual life; others corporate life. Some emphasize the love of God; others the fear of God.
All these things are in the truth, but we tend to go one way or another. Perhaps the Lord shows us something of His marvelous grace. Then we make our tent of grace and judge everything by that one truth. But the Lord wants us to see more.
We may focus so much on individual life that we neglect His desire to build us together with all the saints. Or we may focus so much on corporate life that we forget the individual. We set up our little tents because the Lord has shown us something.
But brothers and sisters, when we focus on a teaching or a truth, we can miss the Teacher and the Truth. We need to focus upon the Teacher, not merely the teaching, and upon the Truth, not merely a truth within Him.
Lord, what little tents am I setting up within my life that hinder the fullness of the truth from coming in?
We have been blessed with teaching concerning the church. But here is a challenge for us and for groups that meet like us: do we allow the teaching of the church to take the place of the life of the church?
Do we allow the teaching of the church to take the place of the life of the church? Only the Holy Spirit can work this out. We need to ask Him, “Lord, we do not want to fall into this. We do not want to take Christ out of the church, because then it becomes a cult.”
Some dear believers may be living more of the life of the church than those of us who have heard much teaching concerning the church. We have been blessed with teaching, but we must not allow that blessing to distract us from entering into the life of the church.
We have heard much recently about the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God. But what is the kingdom? It is a Person. It is the personification of the lordship of Christ. If we separate the kingdom from Christ, we lose the whole lesson.
We also hear much about the Lord’s return, and we thank the Lord for that wonderful teaching. But how does it impact our lives? Do we merely study books about the end times and gain knowledge, or does the truth of His coming transform us?
Peter, writing concerning the end times, asked what manner of people we ought to be:
What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness,
Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God.
Holy conduct and godliness deal with character, brothers and sisters. They deal with the life of Christ living within us. This is not merely knowledge of how events will come about. It is the Holy One living within us and a godly character being formed within us. That godly character is what hastens the Lord’s return.
I am a mental person, and that is probably why I read many books. One of the traps into which I fall is becoming so mental about something. We may study the end times, search Scriptures, use computers, and read books, but we may simply be doing mental gymnastics.
Has it really captured my heart? That is the issue. When we hear that the Lord is returning and that the time is drawing near, what has it done to our lives? Has it changed us one iota, or have we simply gained knowledge that He is coming back soon?
What impact has it had upon our life and character? If it does not get within us and make us a people of holy conduct and godliness, then it remains merely a mental thing. The Lord wants it to become a heart issue within us.
I rejoice in the blessing of hearing teaching concerning the Lord’s coming and in how different ones expounded these things at the last conference. But what impact has it had on our lives? If it has not impacted our lives, Solomon had a word for it: “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”
Solomon tried many things, and in the end he concluded that we are to fear God and do what He wants us to do. Out of all he had experienced, he said that everything was vanity except doing what God desires. It is not complicated. It is a simple response to His life.
Elijah represents the prophets and the miraculous. We thank the Lord for the miraculous, because we find ourselves in impossible situations. The God of all glory intervenes—whether through healing, salvation, restoration of a relationship, or opening our eyes to see more of Him.
But do we allow the miraculous to take our eyes off the One who does the miraculous? That is the issue: keeping our eyes upon Him. Through church history, people have had marvelous experiences, but then those experiences become the focus and eventually become movements.
The Lord has raised up movements to bring people back from immorality, licentiousness, and spiritual compromise. But after a few generations, tents are set up. This becomes the only way. Whether it is pietism, Puritanism, charismatic movements, or any other movement, we have tents throughout church history, and the tents do not talk to one another. It is a tragedy.
The Lord wants us to keep our eyes and focus upon Him. When we focus on a miracle, we begin to say, “God acts this way.” Then we say, “God must act this way. If God does not act this way, it is not God.”
But that is contrary to Scripture. Consider the diverse ways the Lord healed people in the Gospels. Sometimes He put clay on someone’s eyes. Sometimes the person was miles away, and He simply spoke a word. Sometimes He touched someone twice. The Lord knew us well enough to show us repeatedly that He moves in diverse ways.
Yet our limitation is that we say, “God must act this way or it is not God.” We can confuse the practice of what we do with the principle and life behind what we do.
This is one blessing of being together with other saints at conferences and in other localities. I thank the Lord that our young people are in Beaver Falls, because we can unconsciously begin to think that the way we gather is the only way.
We take the Lord’s table in a certain way here. Other groups take it in other ways. Some of us have gone to the Far East, where they use spoons to take the Lord’s table. The first time, you might think, “This is strange. How can you take the Lord’s table with a spoon?” But then you realize that the Lord is there, and we are remembering Him.
The practice must not distract from the principle. The principle is remembering the Lord—His death and His resurrection. The practice may vary.
The same is true of prayer meetings. In some assemblies, people pray topic by topic. In others, people pray through lists of needs. There are different practices, but the principle is that we gather and pray. That is the issue.
Many divisions in church history have generally been over practices rather than principles: the practice of baptism, church government, the Lord’s table, or the way meetings are conducted. But we must not allow our practices and experiences to distract us into thinking, “This is the way God acts.”
As soon as we think that, God may move outside our tent. We will look out through our little peephole and say, “I wonder where they are going. I wonder what is happening there.” Meanwhile, the Lord has gone on by.
May we open our eyes and allow the Lord to work His way within our lives.
Peter had been going through all his sayings, and finally God intervened. May the Lord help us grasp this tremendous thing that He did.
This is My beloved Son; listen to Him.
A cloud came down and overshadowed them. This was not merely a little cumulus cloud floating in. This was the very glory of God—the Shekinah glory of God. Luke speaks of them entering that cloud. God Himself was there: God the Father.
Why did He intervene? Because God the Father is jealous for His Son. He saw Peter and the other disciples being distracted from the Son and focusing upon Moses and Elijah. The Father’s jealous heart would not stand for that.
Do we have the jealousy of God for the testimony of Jesus? When things compete with Jesus in our individual lives or in our corporate life, is there a jealousy that challenges it and says, “No. It is Jesus and Jesus only”?
When they opened their eyes, there was only Jesus. There was a fullness there. This is the jealousy of God that led Him to allow His Son to come to this earth. He loved the world so much that He allowed His Son to be crucified.
As David shared concerning the table today, consider the cost that was paid, that we might be called sons of God and enter into the blessing of God. There was a priceless cost paid, yet we can treat it so trivially.
May the Lord wake us up. When God came down, He was saying to Peter, in effect, “Be quiet. Hush. Listen. Focus upon My Son.”
Again, we are not talking about the enemy or evil. We are talking about things of the Lord within our lives: families, jobs, and the many ways He has blessed us. Yet even these can take us away from Him and hinder us from hearing Him speak.
The God of all glory wants us to behold His Son.
When we are born again, we are born into the school of Christ. As we live on this earth, we remain in the school of Christ.
I love this school because, unlike many other schools with thousands of courses, there is only one subject in the school of Christ. There is one course.
You may say, “Mac, wait a minute. I thought there was Prayer 101. I thought there was Gospel Sharing 101.” No. Do we want to learn to pray? Learn of Christ. Do we want to learn to share the gospel? Behold His Son. Do we want to learn to live together in the body of Christ? Behold His Son.
The school of Christ has one subject. We try to divide things up: “I am going to study this, and I am going to study that.” But as we behold our Lord and Savior, we learn about prayer. As we behold Him, we learn about sharing the gospel.
As we behold Him, we learn of His yearning and desire to return for His bride. As we behold Him, we learn to care for one another and not judge one another. We see how He poured out His life and washed Judas’s feet.
We will not even wash a good person’s feet, much less the feet of Judas. We may have a foot washing and first wash our own feet so that we arrive with clean feet. But He wants us to learn of Him.
There may be books about the school of prayer, and I appreciate them. But really, it is the school of Christ. If we want to learn to pray, we focus on Christ, and He teaches us. If we want to learn about the kingdom of God, we see the kingdom manifested in the Gospels through His life. If we want to learn about church life, we look upon Christ’s life, because that is the life of the church.
He is shouting to us today: “Behold My Son.” See Him only—not Christ plus something else, and not Christ plus any of the blessings of Christ. Behold His Son.
Do we really know how desperate we are? Do we know how we have allowed ourselves to be distracted by daily blessings? Again, I thank the Lord for every blessing, but may we not allow them to take our hearts.
Many say that we are living in the days of Laodicea. One characteristic of the church in Laodicea was that they thought they were rich.
In one sense, we are rich. We are rich, and I am thankful for the riches of Christ. But our riches are not ourselves. The riches we have are the life of Christ. The riches we have are the life of Christ in one another. The riches we have are Christ and Christ alone.
That is why I appreciated the hymn: “Christ alone.” Christ is all and in all.
May the ears of our hearts be opened to realize that we are living in the blessing of God. We know that believers in many places, such as Russia and other parts of the earth, face poverty, sickness, illness, and persecution. Outwardly, they may not appear to be living in the blessing of God.
Yet we here can be characterized outwardly as those living in the blessing of God. What is that doing to our hearts? What is it doing to our hearts?
Are we merely allowing it to build up within us? In the Old Testament, one word associated with blessing was “fat.” That was a good word then. Nowadays, most of us do not think of it as a good word.
Blessing and abundance can produce excess. We take Lipitor and blood-pressure medicine because of physical excess. But as believers, do we need a Christian Lipitor? Are we merely limping along, or are we allowing the purifying work of the Holy Spirit to cleanse us from all the excess things that distract us from Him?
Do we know our desperateness, brothers and sisters? May we not delude ourselves into thinking that because we have the Lord’s blessing, we have the Lord’s approval. We may have the Lord’s blessing, but that does not necessarily mean we have the Lord’s approval. He is merciful and longsuffering.
May we allow the Holy Spirit to work within us and draw our hearts back to Him. Where we have built tents within our lives, may the Holy Spirit help us tear them down. May we allow the blood of the Lamb to cleanse us and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit to open our ears.
When the voice speaks, “Behold My Son,” may we ask, “What is distracting me from beholding Your Son?” May we have ears to hear.
As we said earlier, Amos spoke of a famine of hearing. The Lord has made provision for that famine to be done away with. Over and over He says:
He that hath an ear, let him hear.
May we hear what the Spirit is saying to us in these days, that we would not allow ourselves to self-destruct in the blessing of God.
Let us pray.
Lord, I thank You for Your longsuffering, Your mercy, and Your patience with me. Lord, each one of us stands as a testimony of Your blessing, and we are so thankful for it.
But Lord, You have given us the Scriptures and history so that we could learn lessons. We see that there is a tendency for ones who are greatly blessed to go astray. Lord, we cry out for mercy.
We pray that Your Holy Spirit would have freedom within each one of our lives to work and speak to us in those areas. When You speak, may we take the grace You have provided to respond to You. In Jesus’ name, amen.