Category: QuietTimes

“While the bridegroom lingered and was slow in coming, they all began nodding their heads, and they fell asleep.  But at midnight there was a shout, Behold, the bridegroom! Go out to meet him!  Then all those virgins got up and put their own lamps in order.” Matthew 25:5-7 ->me: This is the parable of the 10 virgins setting out to meet the Bridegroom; 5 of which went out foolishly without oil for their lamps and the other 5 were wise in taking oil in jars along with their lamps.  The story goes (after the verses above) that the Bridegroom came but the 5 foolish virgins had to go looking for oil to purchase and in doing so missed the Bridegroom altogether.  What really hit me about this story is that ALL of the virgins slept when the night got long and Bridegroom had not come. Sleep in this case, was no fault in itself.  Both ‘wise’ and ‘foolish’ did so; during the ‘delay’ life must go on, and we cannot live on constant alert. The difference was whether they had already prepared for the coming.  Here is the money question -> am I engaged in action appropriate to my professed status?  Am I carrying with me the oil of faith, witness, prayer, and forgiveness through grace, as I go out, prepared for when the Bridegroom comes?  Is my lamp of the Holy Spirit lit with this oil so that I may easily find my way when my King comes returns?

“Who then is the faithful, thoughtful, and wise servant, whom his master has put in charge of his household to give to the others the food and supplies at the proper time?  Blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied) is that servant whom, when his master comes, he will find so doing.  I solemnly declare to you, he will set him over all his possessions.” Matthew 24:45-47 [AMP] ->me: Today I spent the whole day praying over our church and the many people who came forward over the past 2 Sunday’s to be saved, recommit their lives, and to say ‘yes’ in obedience to baptism.  In my quiet time here this evening I reminded through this passage that time is soooo short and that the Lord could return any moment.  Would I be embarrassed by how I am living my life is Jesus returned right now?  I feel very good about where the Lord has me, but I have not even come close to living the sanctified life I am pursuing through God’s strength and will in my life.  Spending the time in prayer today and then reading this passage tonight has reinvigorated me to press/lean into all that God has to show me and be available for any way He needs to use me.  God give me the strength to choose you and your way at every turn.  Here my prayers for my church and the people who are starting a new walk in Your Name this year.

“For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory [beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!], Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting.” 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 ->me: This scripture has held me these last several days since transitioning Brooklyn.  The heaviness and void we feel is palpable, BUT GOD is here and we feel His presence and hand in our moments of grief and longing for this little bundle we miss so much.  God’s word is such a comfort and even more importantly I have found that lifting others up in prayer and leveraging every opportunity I can to share how God has held our family in His hand during this ordeal, has brought peace, comfort, solace, and confidence in God’s provision and almighty power.  Thank you all for your prayers – they have been felt and we know that through God’s touch, He is responding to your requests.

“Fear not [there is nothing to fear], for I am with you; do not look around you in terror and be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen and harden you to difficulties, yes, I will help you; yes, I will hold you up and retain you with My [victorious] right hand of rightness and justice.” Isaiah 41:10 ->me: Today was a very tough day. Saying goodbye to Brooklyn was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Her life verse above gave us strength as we honored God through obeying Him and trusting Him is this process. It is ONLY by His strength I made it through today. I don’t think I have ever spent a day in living prayer like I did today. This all happening before a day in His house was also a great provision.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, pretenders (hypocrites)! For you give a tenth of your mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected and omitted the weightier (more important) matters of the Law—right and justice and mercy and fidelity. These you ought [particularly] to have done, without neglecting the others.”  Matthew 23:23 ->me: This passage today really points at how damaging legalism can be to one’s faith.  I am currently reading through the “7 woe’s” and this one just reinforces that my heart has to be right and the motives behind my worship be true.  Reading through Matthew has been such a great time of my theology flowing together to help reinforce the heart behind how I follow God.  Jesus’ instruction, even on just one topic, can span multiple chapters.  Justice, mercy, and fidelity – these combined with “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind”…”love your neighbor as you yourself want to be loved”, is really poignant.  Remembering these throughout the day helps me stay on the right track!

“…you are not to be called rabbi (teacher), for you have one Teacher and you are all brothers.  And do not call anyone [in the church] on earth father, for you have one Father, Who is in heaven.  And you must not be called masters (leaders), for you have one Master (Leader), the Christ.” Matthew 23:8-10 ->me: This is Jesus talking to the disciples.  These are the men (witnesses of Jesus), including Peter, who would carry the gospel forward, be filled with the Holy Spirit, able to perform miracles, speak in tongues, and lead people into an eternal relationship with God….but, they would not be called ‘teacher’, ‘father’ (I wonder if catholic priests have read this passage), or ‘leader/master’.  These were personal monikers of status that the Pharisees sought to have – doing everything to raise themselves up and get the best seats in the synagogues.  The following verse Jesus says “the greatest among you will be your servant”.  With everything I have going on in my life right now, I can sometimes have a mind that seeks entitlement -> I worked hard for this….I have put up this treatment too long….I deserve better.  These thoughts are toxic and counter to the attitudes Jesus calls me to have.  I need this reminder today -> He is my Rabbi/Teacher, God is my Father, and Christ is my Master/Leader.  I have one role on this earth, to serve my brothers and sisters in Christ and to never seek a place status or position over them.

“If then David thus calls Him Lord, how is He his Son?  And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day did anyone venture or dare to question Him.” Matthew 22:45-46 ->me: To save room here in my text I am only going to include the last 2 verses of this passage of Jesus asking the Pharisee’s “That do you think of the Christ? Whose Son is He?”.  The Pharisees respond with “The Son of David”, to which Jesus recounts Psalms 110:1 -> “The Lord said to my Lord….”.  I read the accounts of Mark and Luke on this situation.  Jesus always poses these ‘unanswerable’ questions.  If they agree with Jesus then they must admit that Jesus is of higher authority than David.  They feared further debate and stopped asking questions.  What’s crazy is that this started when Jesus was 12 years old.  In Luke 2:46&47, after three days of Mary and Joseph missing him, they went looking for Him in the temple where it says -> “They found Him sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard Him were astonished and overwhelmed with bewildered wonder at His intelligence and understanding and His replies.”  I love how God in His word has given us these views into Jesus’ life that help us see the amazing humanness as well as His obvious divinity in knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.  Thank you God for the gift of your Word!

“…You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (intellect). This is the great (most important, principal) and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself. These two commandments sum up and upon them depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40 ->me: I feel like I need to sit and stew on these verses for hours.  I just continually find myself asking -> What does it mean to love God with ALL my heart?  Love God with my soul…what does that mean? Now…with all of my mind, I can wrap my brain around that.  After all, I am very logical thinker and this makes sense to me.  Loving my God is the most important and first commandment.  For the ‘love your neighbor’ verse (39), this is something that my cousin (Teague) and I are setting out to not only beseech God for ourselves, but also for each other.  We are spending the entire week reading over 1 Corinthians 13 (the preeminence of LOVE) and praying Colossians 1:9-14 over each other.  What a gift Teague is to me.  Loving God with all of my heart and all of my soul….this is going to require more time in the prayer closet to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal what this means in my daily life and application.

“”Show me [Jesus] the money used for the tribute [Tax to Caesar].” And they brought Him a denarius, and Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and title are these?” They said, “Caesar’s”. Then He said to them, “Pay therefore to Caesar the things that are due to Caesar, and pay to God the things that are due to God.”” Matthew 22:19-21 ->me: When I read this passage today it was the first time that I applied what Jesus said to all things I might need to ‘render’ to any organization or person.  Jesus did not see a conflict in paying taxes and giving God what is His.  Now you might take the comment that Jesus stated (give Caesar what is Caesar’s….) as being nonsense because God’s claim is that above Caesar; but Jesus, without reducing the demands of loyalty to God, indicates that political allegiance even to a pagan state is not incompatible with it. This is not a rigid division of life into the ‘sacred’ and the ‘secular’, but rather a recognition that the ‘secular’ finds its proper place within the overriding claim of the ‘sacred’.  I can work at Microsoft, a very worldly environment in which I render effort and get paid for the work I do there, but God owns my heart and that I give freely to Him.  I have been bought with a price.  Everything good in me has been created by God; my strengths, talents, patience, mercy, etc.  Anything I [the new man] have to bring to the table is God’s and should be rendered to Him.

“…when the king came in to view the guests, he looked intently at a man there who had on no wedding garment.  And he said, Friend, how did you come in here without putting on the [appropriate] wedding garment? And he was speechless (muzzled, gagged).  Then the king said to the attendants, “Tie him hand and foot, and throw him into the darkness outside; there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.”” Matthew 22:11-13 ->me: This sobering parable is a lesson to the self professing Christian who has not exhibited the ‘new creature-ness’ of their conversion; therefore calling into question the genuineness of their conversion in the first place.  They are the person who sits in Sunday services, sips coffee and talks about the goodness of God with others in the foyer…but then goes home to live a life steeped in sinful behaviors; void of the lifegiving water the fear of God brings.  My cousin Teague and I have a heart for these lost souls who will have this jarring experience at the Throne of God on Judgement Day.  Teague, let’s make it a goal this year to share our testimonies in such a way that these souls may be won for the Kingdom of Heaven!