Great Plans!

January 16, 2012 — Craig T. Owens

As Jesus was approaching Jerusalem just prior to His passion, He told His disciples, “Everything that is written about the Son of Man will be fulfilled” (Luke 18:31).

Nothing about Jesus Christ’s life was haphazard, or random, or coincidental. Everything was a part of a perfect plan. So in order for everything about His life to fulfill the prophesies, every word He spoke and every action He completed also had to be fulfilling. And they were (see John 12:49,50)!

Sadly, His followers “did not understand any of this” (Luke 18:34).

Sadly, many people today don’t understand their own life’s purpose.

Sadly, often times I don’t either.

But God has a perfect plan for you and me.

All the days ordered for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:16)

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

I don’t have to lack understanding in this (John 14:16).

I can pray for wisdom (James 1:5).

And Jesus Himself is praying for me to follow the Father’s plans (Hebrews 7:25).

God has great plans for my life — and for your life. Don’t be like the disciples that did not understand any of this. Pray … ask for God’s wisdom … ask for the Holy Spirit’s illumination … and trust in Christ’s interceding prayer for you.

May your words and actions today fulfill the plans God has for you!

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A Symphony Of Prayer

January 9, 2012 — Craig T. Owens

Here’s something amazing Jesus said about prayer:

Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth AGREE about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in My name, there am I with them. (Matthew 18:19,20)

The word for agree has an interesting definition. It literally means to be in harmonious agreement. If you’ve ever listened to a piece of music, I’m sure you know the difference between melody and harmony. Melody is typically the notes you sing along to; harmony is made by the accompanying notes which fill in the musical number.

So Jesus doesn’t tell us to simply pray the same words as someone else, but to be in harmony with them… fill in their prayer with complimenting notes.

But the Greek word itself is very suggestive too. The Greek word translated agree is symphōneō, from which we get our word for symphony.

Again, you probably know that one person is not a symphony, but a solo artist. But when other instruments are added, the music swells and builds and becomes a masterful piece of art!

So too with our prayers. How beautiful it is when we pray together. It is literally a symphony in God’s ears! And not only that, but He says “There I am with them.” God Himself stops to hear this beautiful sound.

I hope you have a prayer partner with whom you can harmonize and make beautiful music together.

And be sure to join me next week as we continue in our series The Danger Of Prayerlessness.

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What A Friend

January 6, 2012 — Craig T. Owens

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. (Joseph M. Scriven, 1855)

He’s the Friend that sticks closer than a brother.

He’s the Friend that’s always there.

He’s the Friend who knows what you need.

He’s the Friend who can provide what you need.

What a Friend!

How much we miss out when we don’t talk to our Best Friend!

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Pray Long

December 13, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

How long is a long prayer? Do you get tired (or bored!) after just a few minutes? Do you start to nod off to sleep if the prayer goes longer than expected? Does your mind wander? Are you too busy to pray more than just bullet-point prayers?

Jesus was about to make a huge decision. Of all of the people who called themselves His disciples (there were a lot of them), Jesus was going to choose twelve to be His apostles (Luke 6:13,17). These were the men who would spend the most time with Jesus; the ones who would hear His most explicit instructions; the ones who would be called upon to take the gospel to the four points of the globe after Christ’s ascension into Heaven.

How did Jesus choose The Twelve from the huge multitude?

“He spent the night praying to God” (Luke 6:12).

This Greek word for spent the night is unique in all of Scripture. Only Luke uses it here to describe how Jesus prayed. Doctor Luke — who would know better than most how the body craves sleep — uses this unique word. In essence Jesus was going to cease from all activity AND avoid any inactivity (like sleep) to pray about this important decision.

Principle: The bigger the issue = the longer the prayer.

  • How many times do I pray just one-and-done prayers?
  • How many times am I too distracted/tired/busy to pray more than a few minutes?
  • What wisdom am I robbing myself of by my short prayers?

Don’t get me wrong, God does answer the one word prayers (like HELP!). But there is something powerful about praying long.

I am trying to learn from this. How about you?

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Still So Much More To Learn

November 22, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

I was thinking about the disciples of Jesus. Can you imagine the things they heard and saw! With their own eyes they saw those jaw-dropping miracles. With their own ears they heard His profound teaching. They watched and heard Him pray. No one ever had the kind of access to Jesus than these men.

And yet, they were still so spiritually dull…

  • They couldn’t grasp what Jesus was teaching, even when He explained it to them privately.
  • Their faith was sorely lacking.
  • They argued among themselves over such petty things.

If these men — with their almost limitless access to Jesus — were still struggling in their faith, what would make me think I have ever “arrived”?

There is still so much more for me to learn about Jesus.

And I do want to learn more! I want to press in — closer and closer, deeper and deeper! I never want to stop learning my Savior’s heart and will!

What about you? Do you want more?

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Thursdays With Oswald—My God Came Down The Stairs

November 17, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

My God Came Down The Stairs

     It is not our earnestness that brings us into touch with God, nor our devotedness, nor our times of prayer, but our Lord Jesus Christ’s vitalizing death; and our times of prayer are evidences of reaction on the reality of Redemption, so we have confidence and boldness of access into the holiest. What an unspeakable joy it is to know that we each have the right of approach to God in confidence, that the place of the Ark is our place, “Having therefore, brethren, boldness.” What an awe and what a wonder of privilege, “to enter into the holiest,” in the perfectness of the Atonement, “by the blood of Jesus.”

Oh, long and dark the stairs I trod,
With stumbling feet to find my God:
Gaining a foothold bit by bit,
Then slipping back and losing it:
Never progressing, striving still,
With weakening gasp and fainting will,
Bleeding to climb a God: while He
Serenely smiled, unnoting me.
Then came a certain time when I
Loosened my hold and tell thereby.
Down to the lowest step my fall,
As if I had not climbed at all.
And while I lay despairing thereby.
I heard a footfall on the stair,
In the same path where I, dismayed,
Faltered and fell and lay afraid.
And lo! when hope had ceased to be,
My God came down the stairs to me.

From Christian Disciplines

I am so grateful my God came down the stairs to me!

I am so awed that I now can come into His presence with confidence!

I am so humbled that God would save a sinner such as me!

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Groaning

November 14, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

I’m a list kinda guy. I love making To Do lists, and shopping lists, and even prayer lists. These seem to work well for my temperament, helping me stay on task and feel like I am accomplishing something.

But I’ve noticed a danger built-in to these lists. I can use the lists to remove all emotion from my activities. I suppose that might be a good thing for my To Do lists and shopping lists, but it’s a bad thing for my prayer lists.

Many times when Jesus was moved to touch someone in need, the Bible says that Jesus groaned. Look at this:

  • Some people brought a man who could neither hear nor speak and asked Jesus to lay a healing hand on him. He took the man off by himself, put His fingers in the man’s ears and some spit on the man’s tongue. Then Jesus looked up in prayer, groaned mightily, and commanded, “Ephphatha!—Open up!” And it happened. (Mark 7:31-35)
  • When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled. (John 11:33)
  • Now Jesus, again sighing repeatedly and deeply disquieted, approached the tomb. (John 11:38)

I love the words of G. Morgan Campbell…

No man can pray for the world unless the Spirit interpret to him the world’s agony, and the Spirit cannot intercede the world’s agony to any man unless that man live in the midst of the world’s agony. Not by retirement from the world, not by hiding away within a monastic institution, not by seeking to develop my own spiritual life by removing myself from the agony of the world, can I ever pray for the world; but because I live every day in the midst of its busy life, am close to it and know it, and because the Spirit of God in me leads me into the secret deepest meaning of the world’s agony and pain so that I no longer treat it as a superficial disease that can be dealt with by the nostrums of humanity, but as a great heart trouble that needs blood and sacrifice to deal with it, am I able to pray. Out of that revelation of the meaning of the world’s agony created by the Spirit in the hearts of believing men they are able to pray. The Church of God in the economy of God was created an institute of prayer.

Are you close enough to lost and hurting humanity to hear them groan?

Are you moved by their groans?

Can you groan on their behalf? That’s how we should be praying, and then the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express (Romans 8:26).

Don’t just pray for the hurting around you; groan for them!

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Love For A Traitor

November 9, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

Just a couple of hours before He would be arrested and so cruelly mistreated, Jesus had one last meal with His disciples. The meal began after Jesus had assumed the lowest of all positions, and washed all of His disciples’ feet.

Then He took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you.” (Matthew 26:27)

Do you realize that this all of you included Judas the traitor? Judas, the betrayer of Jesus, was there. He ate the bread and drank the wine of the first Communion. Jesus washed Judas’ feet. The traitor was right there when Jesus said, “This is My Body broken for you. This is My blood spilled for you.”

But it’s even heavier to think that He also said, “Drink of this cup, Craig.”

For Jesus surely saw my sin and my betrayal before He went to the Cross. I was the traitor, and He washed my feet. I betrayed Him by my sin, and He told me to eat and drink the reminders of His suffering for me.

How can I ignore such wondrous love?

How could I ever treat lightly such a sacrifice?

How could I ever hang on to my betraying sins in light of the forgiveness He purchased for me?

Jesus loved me — the traitor, the betrayer — and died for me. What a beautiful Savior!

Dilip has already released a couple of singles from his debut project The Great Reversal (I hope you will buy this amazing CD). But I love the words of Beautiful Jesus —

All my words cannot describe just how beautiful You are
Earthly love cannot compare to the Perfect Love that bled and died
Beautiful Jesus, I stand in awe of You
Beautiful Jesus, I’m captivated by Your wondrous love
So I bow my knee, humbled by this mystery
How can it be? King of Majesty, You rescued me
You gave it all for me
More than I could ask for
All I ever need is You, Jesus, Lover of my soul
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Thursdays With Oswald—Publically Holy

November 3, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Publically Holy

Try and develop a holy life in private, and you find it cannot be done. Individuals can only live the true life when they are dependent on one another….

In the early Middle Ages people had the idea that Christianity meant living a holy life apart from the world and its sociability, apart from its work and citizenship. That type of holiness is foreign to the New Testament; it cannot be reconciled with the records of the life of Jesus. The people of His day called Him “the Friend of publicans and sinners” because He spent so much time with them.

From Biblical Ethics

Jesus never told us to stay, but to go.

He didn’t tell us to separate, but to season & shine.

We cannot influence people from a distance. We must live and work and interact where they are.

Jesus taught us: “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

Jesus prayed for us: “My prayer is not that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one. …As You sent Me into the world, I have sent them into the world. (John 17:15,18)

I must be around people who need to see The Light.

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Thursdays With Oswald—Not To Tell Us, But To Make Us

October 27, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Not To Tell Us, But To Make Us

Our righteousness has to be in excess of the righteousness of the man whose external conduct is blameless according to the law—what does that produce? despair straightaway. When we hear Jesus say “Blessed are the pure in heart,” our answer, if we are awake is, “My God, how am I going to be pure in heart? If ever I am to be blameless down to the deepest recesses of my intentions, You must do something mighty in me.” That is exactly what Jesus Christ came to do. He did not come to tell us to be holy, but to make us holy.

From Biblical Ethics

Does it ever bother you that Jesus tells us, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”? It bothers me, because it sounds too hard … unrealistic … impossible!

It is impossible. At least it is if I try to be perfectly righteous on my own. But the death and resurrection of Jesus paid for my atonement — my “at one-ment” with God. And Jesus has also asked the Father to send me the Holy Spirit. He is sanctifying me — making me into a holy, perfectly righteous saint in the eyes of my Heavenly Father.

I can’t do it. But I can surrender and let Him do it.

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