"Knock and it shall be opened unto you.”
The text above is a promise that Jesus gave about prayer. If we will persist in prayer , the Lord will open up to us. I had a thought this morning that the word “open” is an important word in the Christian faith. The Lord wants to open up things for us and He wants us to open up to Him and to His word. It is about the latter that I want to write today. As the Lord opens up to us, we need to be open to what He wants in our lives. Following are my thoughts on this subject: We need to open our hearts to the Lord and to His word. Jesus speaks to our hearts through the Holy Spirit. This is one of the reasons that I am writing on this subject today, because the thought about being open caught my imagination and I knew that I had to write about it. I’m as sure about that as I am about anything in my life. There is a hymn that says: “Speak to my heart, O speak to my heart, Speak to my heart Lord Jesus…” We need to open our hearts to what the Lord wants of us. Open up your heart today, for the Lord wants to speak to your heart. We need to open our ears to hear what people are saying to us. Jesus saved us to be His ambassadors on this earth, and that includes hearing what people say to us. Some of our greatest opportunities to minister to people come from what they say to us. We need to make our ears sensitive to cries for help. Unfortunately, there have been times when I have walked away from a conversation, and realized that my ears had not been open to an opportunity for ministry. We need to open our eyes to see the needs of people around us. Of course, we need to keep our eyes open to opportunities to tell others about Jesus. I believe that the Lord prepares people’s hearts for us to talk to them about the Savior, and we need to be aware of the opportunity. Here is Jesus' advice to His disciples: “Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest.” (John 4:35b) Jesus gave this command after His encounter with the sinful woman at the well of Siloam. Perhaps, Jesus was pointing to that encounter as an example for His disciples. Our own fields are “white already to harvest.” The county in which I live is 80% unreached for Christ. And this is in the middle of the so-called “Bible Belt.” We need to open our eyes to the opportunities all around us for witness and ministry. We need to open our lips and speak a word for the Lord whenever we have an opportunity. In David’s prayer of repentance in Psalm 51:15, he saw the need for opening his lips: “O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall show thy praise.” We need to be careful when we talk, that what we say is “showing forth God’s praise.” We need to talk to people about the Lord, and we also need to be careful what we say when we talk to people under any circumstances. We need to pray daily that God will open our lips that we may “share gladly His warm news everywhere….” We need to open our hands in order to serve the Lord. We need to open our hands to give to the work of the Lord through our churches. We need to open our hands to serve other people who need a helping hand of some sort from us. Jesus set the example for His disciples in John 13 when He washed His disciple’s feet. There are many other areas of our lives that we need to open up the Lord, but opening up to these that I have shared should keep us busy “opening up” for a while. Open up your life to the Lord and to the people around you. Bro. Joe
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“And it came to pass that, while they communed together, and reasoned, Jesus Himself drew near, and went with them.”
If you are at all acquainted with the New Testament, you probably guessed from the title what this article is about. After His resurrection, Jesus encountered two of His followers on the road to Emmaus, and they communed, or walked and talked with Him. They were not aware who Jesus was until they had eaten a meal with Him. Then we are told that their eyes were opened and they knew who He was. (You can read the whole story in Luke 24:13-35) Their walk with Jesus can tell us what it means to “take a walk with Jesus.” When we take a walk with Jesus, we have a new level of biblical knowledge. While they were on the road, Jesus explained the Old Testament scriptures concerning Himself. Verse 27: "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself.” If we want to understand the Bible, and understand the ministry of Jesus, we need to spend time with Him in His word. He promised that the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth, but that guidance will not take place if we are not in close fellowship with Jesus. Jesus wants us to know His word, and He wants to teach it to us through the Spirit. We cannot separate our fellowship with Jesus, from reading, studying and digesting His word. When we take a walk with Jesus, we have a new level of spiritual fervor. We learn this from what the men said after Jesus expounded the scriptures concerning Himself to them and after they recognized Him: “And they said to one another, Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the scriptures.” I have often wished as I read this that I could have had Bible study with Jesus while He was still on earth. Imagine the thrill in the hearts of these men when they realized that God Incarnate Himself had explained His mission from His scriptures. If we do not spend time in fellowship with Jesus in prayer and Bible study, we will not know the meaning of having “our hearts burn within us.” Too many people are spiritually dead because they spend more time reading things other than the Bible. They wonder why they don’t have spiritual victory. It is because they have not taken a walk with Jesus – so to speak. I can think back on periods in my ministry sojourn over the last sixty years, and remember that I was not spiritually “burning” because I was neglecting walking with Jesus through prayer and His word. There, you have my confession, now make yours and draw closer to Him. When we take a walk with Jesus, we have an obligation to tell others what we have experienced. In fact, people will know that you have walked with Jesus, and will want to know about it because it will make a difference in your life. Verses 33-35 tell us: “And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, 34. Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon. 35. And they told what things were done in the way, and how He was known of them in breaking of bread.” They were quick to tell about their walk with Jesus. When we walk with Jesus, there will always be a compulsion to tell others about Him. When you read this, consider your own walk with Jesus and walk with Him. It will change and enrich your life! Bro. Joe “But I will tarry in Ephesus until Pentecost. For a great door and effective is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries.”
Though there were “many adversaries,” Paul saw a great opportunity to witness and minister in Ephesus. We should also recognize the great opportunities that we have to serve the Lord regardless of the circumstances. In fact, we should see each new day as an opportunity for some kind of service for the Lord. We need to see life as an opportunity to serve the Lord. We should seize every opportunity for service. We need to look back over our lives and think of the opportunities for service that we overlooked and ignored. There was the person to whom we should have witnessed – but didn’t. There was the lonely person that we should have visited and given a few minutes of our time – but didn’t. There was the depressed neighbor that we could have cheered up with a visit, and maybe a pie or cake, - but didn’t . Starting today, all of these opportunities are open to us. All of the things that I wrote about are simply opportunities for what I call witness and ministry. There will always be people who will need something from us, and we need to see them as opportunities of service for our master. We need to be careful not to close our lives off from other people. Christ saved us to serve Him. Service for Christ is not complicated. We don’t really need training to do it. All we need to do is to keep our eyes and hearts open for opportunities. We should see each new day as an opportunity for service. Today is the day of opportunity. Each new day affords opportunities to serve Jesus. As Shakespeare had Brutus say: “We must take the current when it serves, or lose our venture.” Another way to look at it is “to strike while the iron is hot.” Opportunities for service come and go, and if we are not careful we will miss them. As we wake up each new day, we can see it as an opportunity to be of service to the Lord and for our fellowman. In order to do this, we must develop what I call “a habit of service.” Habit is probably not the best word, but it does tell us that we need to ingrain Christian service into our hearts and minds. How can we develop such a habit? Determine that when we see an opportunity for Christian service, whether witness or ministry, we will do it then, or make plans to get it done. Staying with Paul’s commitment, we also need to know that there will always be many adversaries. “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” Paul was eager to take advantage of this door of opportunity in Ephesus even though he had opposition. Not everyone will “rise up and call us blessed” if we try to minister to them. Not everyone wants to be witnessed to or ministered to in the name of Jesus. If people do not oppose us, we can always depend on Satan to do his part. He will oppose any attempt that we make to serve the Lord. But we don’t go through these doors of opportunity just to please people. We go through them because this is God’s will for our lives. He didn’t call anyone to salvation to just crawl through life and do only what suits our fancy. When you see the door open – enter it! Bro. Joe "And Jesus looking upon them said, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible."
To put this verse in context, after the "rich young man" refused to give up his riches to follow Jesus, Jesus told his disciples how difficult it is for a person who trusts in riches to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples asked, "Who then can be saved?" This is when Jesus gave His reply in verse 27. I want to concentrate in this article on the underlined words above: "For with God all things are possible." He is, after all, God. This is a difficult concept for many people to accept, for they can't conceive such a Being. I will admit that this concept goes way beyond human philosophies and scientific theories, but it is, nevertheless, true. Jesus demonstrated this truth while He was here on earth. He had control of the weather, for he told a stormy Sea of Galilee to be still, and it immediately became still. This is power over nature. You probably remember the occasion when Jesus turned water into wine. Now this cannot be done. Water has none of the qualities of the grape that can make it into wine. Impossible! Yet Jesus did it. Are you aware that any time it is mentioned in the New Testament that Jesus attended a funeral, the corpse walked away from it? This is power over death. Anytime Jesus encountered demons in the New Testament, His power over them was complete. He simply told them what to do, and they did it. (As they say on television, if you are not prayed up, "don't try this at home." lol) Only Jesus can exorcise demons. This is power over the devil. On another occasion Jesus walked on water. Have you ever tried this? A friend of mine once told me that the only way we could do that would be to wear "pontoon shoes." Or as one joke I heard surmised, you can walk on water if you know where the rocks, or stumps, are. Jesus even had control of the sea. What does this mean for your life or mine? It does not mean that if we trust in Jesus, He will magically pave the way for us. Jesus turns impossibilities into possibilities when it will serve His purpose for us and for the world. Nevertheless it is a great comfort to me to know that I serve One who has no impossible obstacles before Him. I know this because He has helped me over many impossible obstacles. He didn't do this because I deserved it, but because of His grace, and as I mentioned above, His purpose for my life. Furthermore, He has helped me through many impossible obstacles. This means that He did not magically make my difficulties disappear, but, because of Him, I survived and became a better person because of it. I know this: I had rather believe in and serve the One for Whom there are no impossibilities, than to just ignore Him and go on about my life. I hope you feel this way too. Turn your life over to Jesus. Bro. Joe “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6. to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7. to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.”
First, I need to explain what “this very reason” is all about. In the preceding verses, Peter assured the recipients of his letter that because of Jesus, and because of His presence in their lives, they were “partakers of the divine nature.” Which in our vernacular means that they were saved. Because they were saved, they needed to add these things to their lives. Keep in mind these things were not added to make them saved, they should be added because they were saved, and because adding these things in verses 5-7 would make them more effective servants of Jesus Christ. Virtue was to be added to faith. Virtue is defined by obviously living the Christian life by our deeds and our words. It is also sometimes translated as power. It means to utilize the faith that we have in Jesus, to live the life that He wants us to live, and to use the spiritual power that this brings into our lives. To virtue knowledge was to be added. This knowledge is revealed knowledge that we get from scripture and from the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. To knowledge self-control was to be added. Our faith, virtue and knowledge should enable us to refrain from what we should not do, and to do what we should do. In a nutshell, that is self-control. To these should be added perseverance, which means to keep on keeping on in spite of all of the pitfalls of life. All of the above qualities should result in godliness. Godliness means to live a Christ like life. True godliness does not make us self-righteous, but humbles us because we know that we do not deserve the life that Christ has given us by grace. The next two things to be added will show the result of adding virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance and godliness. To all of the above, we are to add brotherly kindness. The things added to our lives will not make us self-righteous and mean like the Pharisees; rather they will make us kind. We will have brotherly love towards people. This brotherly kindness will be extended to our fellow Christians. Anyone who has ever been a member a church knows that brotherly kindness needs to be shared among Christians. All too often, it is the missing ingredient in a church. If we are not kind to each other, people who are in not in church will not be attracted to us. But this brotherly kindness should extend beyond the borders of the church and reach out into the world. This means that we should be kind at home, at work, at play, at the places where we shop; which means that we will practice brotherly kindness wherever we are. Ask yourself if you are a kind person. You might really be working on adding virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance and godliness, but if these do not result in brotherly kindness, you have more work to do to show genuine Christian faith. Brotherly kindness leads to Christ like living. Sometimes brotherly kindness will lead us to confront negative things in people’s lives in order to help them do better. Brotherly kindness will certainly make us more effective in this area. To brotherly kindness, we should add love. Here is that word again that regular readers of this blog will be familiar with, that is agape (ah-gah-pay). We are to practice brotherly love in order to be kind, and we are to practice Christ like love in order to effectively lead the Christian life. All of the things that we should add should result in the kind of love that God showed in John 3:16. Lost people will not be attracted to our virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance and godliness without brotherly kindness and love. These two things are often the missing ingredients that take away from our witness to the world. We need to take stock of our lives and be sure that we are adding the things to our lives that will make us more effective servants and more effective witnesses of Jesus Christ. Bro. Joe “And Moses called unto Joshua and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of good courage: for you must go with this people unto the land which the Lord has sworn unto their fathers to give them; and you shall cause them to inherit it. 8. And the Lord, He it is that goes before you; He will be with you, He will not fail you, neither forsake you: fear not neither be dismayed."
The occasion of this text is about the culmination of Moses’ leadership of Israel, and the start of Joshua’s leadership. The verse that caught my attention was verse 8. Moses made a promise to Joshua that he knew from his own experience over the last forty years. As I meditated on this verse, I realized that the promises given are not just for Joshua, but looking at the totality of the Bible, they are for all of God’s people. They are promises that transcend time and reach out to all of us. Promise one: “He it is that goes before you…” God had gone out before Israel from the beginning of their journey from Egypt. He led them with a “pillar of cloud by day” and a “pillar of fire by night.” They never had to doubt that God was leading and guiding them in their journey. Though some did doubt and did not trust God, that did not make His leadership void. It is a promise that we can take to our hearts. God is out there before us through the Holy Spirit. God has gone before us and knows what we will have to face. We just need to trust that this is true. Nothing that happens to you will surprise God, for He has gone before you. The future belongs to God and you belong to God; therefore, there is no need to fear the future. If you do not know Him, you can know Him today by putting your faith in Him. Promise two: “He will be with you…” David claimed this promise in Psalm 23:4: “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me.” Joshua needed to know that God was with Him each day that he led the Israelites to the end of their quest for the Promised Land. Like Moses before him, Joshua had to deal with the rebellious Israelites and with all of the other problems involved in taking the Promised Land. He needed to know that God was with him. We can claim this promise for ourselves. God is with us in all that we face in this life. Promise three: “He will not fail you, neither forsake you…” This doesn't mean that Joshua would never fail, because he certainly did – and we will as well. But we can depend on the fact that God will not fail us. It might seem sometimes like He has, but when this appears to be the case; we need to remember that our loving Lord has gone before us, knows what is there, and will not forsake us. If we ever feel that God has forsaken us, we need to realize that we might have moved away from Him, but He has not moved away from us. Get this down in your heart, mind and soul: God will not forsake you!!!!” Claim this promise for yourself each day. The results of the promises: “Fear not, neither be dismayed…” If we will realize that God goes before us, that He is with us, and that He will neither fail us nor forsake us, we will not need to fear or be dismayed. There have been times in my life, and no doubt in your life as well, that I have been afraid and dismayed. It is in these times that we need to recall these promises to Joshua and to us. These promises are as sure today as they were when Moses made them, for they are illustrated and proven throughout the Bible. Bro. Joe “And (Abraham) believed in the Lord, and it was counted unto him as righteousness.”
Genesis 15:6 is famously referred to in Galatians 3:6. Abraham is a central Bible character, because he became the father of the Jews. In fact, the whole Old Testament after Genesis 12 is a history of the descendants of Abraham. In fact Jews, Christians and Muslims claim Abraham as their ancestral father. We can learn a lot from this man of God. The first thing that needs to be pointed out is that Abraham was a regular human being. He was not an angel. What I love about the Bible is when it shows us the “heroes of the faith” it shows warts and all. When we read the account of Abraham we discover that when he obeyed God and went into Canaan, when a famine came he went to Egypt out of the will of God. While there he lied and called his wife Sarai, his sister. He was half right because she was his half sister. Another example is his relationship with his wife’s handmaiden, Hagar. He was given permission by Sarai but he didn’t have to do it. All of this, and other things, point out that the father of our faith was a human being. But even considering all of that, the Bible shows us that he was a great man of God. Despite our humanness, we can be servants of God. To be sure, Abraham was forgiven for his sins, as we can be too. Genesis 15:6 and Galatians 3:6 tell us that Abraham was a man of faith. In Genesis 12:1ff, Abraham was called by God to leave his home in Ur and go to Canaan, which he eventually did after his father’s death in Haran. It took faith for Abraham to leave everything that he knew in his homeland to take a trip to a country that he had never seen, and would never claim as his own country. In Hebrews 11:8-10, we read this about Abraham: “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go into a place which he would after recieve for an inheritance, he obeyed; and went out, not knowing where he went. 9. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country; dwelling in tabernacles (tents) with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. 10. For he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” This is the same Abraham that I wrote about in the first paragraph. I did not do that to put Abraham down; rather, I did it to encourage you to see that no matter what you have done in the past, if you will turn to God and seek His forgiveness, He can use you. The only perfect person that ever lived on this earth was Jesus Christ – period. In Isaiah 41:8, Abraham was given a great compliment: “But you Israel, are my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham, my friend." If you go by that verse too quickly you will miss the compliment. God told His prophet, Isaiah, that Abraham was His friend. To be called anybody’s friend is a compliment, but when God calls you His friend that is more than a compliment, it is a cause for rejoicing. What made Abraham a friend of God? Among other things, when God called him to go to Canaan, He went. We call this obedience. It is important that we obey God in our lives. We need to obey Him in our daily lives in all of the little things that we do in life. We need to obey Him when He calls us to special service as He did Abraham. What if God called you to be a missionary in some foreign country? You might say, “Who me?” You are as qualified as Abraham was if God has called you to this special service. I hope you get my point here. God calls people to do what He knows they can do, and He qualifies them to do whatever it is that He has called them to do. The point is that even if Abraham had not been qualified to do as God told him to do, God would have qualified him to do it. Whatever service God calls us to, from the most menial in the eyes of the world, to the most important, God qualifies us to do it and it is important because it is of God. Bro. Joe |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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