“After a soul has been converted by God, that soul is nurtured and caressed by the Spirit. Like a loving mother, God cares for and comforts the infant soul by feeding it spiritual milk. Such souls will find great delight in this stage. They will begin praying with great urgency and perseverance; they will engage in all kinds of religious activities because of the joy they experience in them. But there will come a time when God will bid them to grow deeper. He will remove the previous consolation from the soul in order to teach it virtue and prevent it from developing vice.” —John of the Cross
God Wants Deeper Growth
February 29, 2012 — Craig T. OwensNot Playing It Safe
February 29, 2012 — Craig T. OwensListen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Sometimes I like to think about counterfactual history. That means thinking about the “What ifs” of historical events. What if George Washington had been killed in battle? What if a congressman had voted a different way? And so on.
Here’s one I was thinking about as I read the Book of Acts: What if Paul had prayed, “God, keep me safe”?
Over the last few chapters of Acts, Paul has the opportunity to share the gospel with…
- the Jewish Sanhedrin
- Claudius Lysias, a Roman garrison commander
- two Roman governors (Felix and Festus)
- Ananias, the high priest in Israel
- Tertullus, a noted attorney
- King Agrippa and his wife Bernice
- a Roman centurion named Julius
- Publius, the chief Roman official on Malta
- the leading Jews in Rome
- and the Roman Caesar
That’s quite an impressive list! But here’s the deal: Paul only got to speak to these high-ranking and influential people because he was a prisoner.
Paul could have prayed for a “safe life.” He could have run away. He could have disobeyed. Instead, he was willing to let God use him anytime, anyplace, anyway.
Isn’t that really the opening line of the Lord’s Prayer? Your Kingdom come, Your will be done.
Is that what I really want?
Or do I want to play it safe?
Phillips Brooks had another thought about how we should pray:
“Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle; but you shall be a miracle.”
I don’t want to play it safe. I want to be strong enough, obedient enough, and willing enough to let God use me anytime, anyplace, anyway. I hope you will join me in that prayer.
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The Perfection Of The Universe
February 28, 2012 — Craig T. OwensListen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. (Psalm 19:1)
I find it somewhat ironic that the scientists who study our universe, and constantly tell us how perfectly everything works, are the same men and women who claim that God is non-existent!
To look at the absolute intricacy of the universe … to ponder how everything works together just so … to study how the massive and the microscopic coordinate activities to create perfect balance … these things all seem to show the glory of God and the work of His hands.
How absolutely ludicrous to think that something so perfectly formed came about by accident. In fact, C.S. Lewis wrote this:
If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts—i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy—are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.
I have already written about God’s Big Hands, but also consider God’s amazing and perfect Creation:
- Gravity: if the force or pull of gravity were to change by one quadrillionth of a percentage (that’s 0.00000000000001), the universe would cease to function the way it does now.
- Electromagnetism: neutrons are 1.001 times the mass of the proton. If this weren’t so, all protons would decay into neutrons. Positive electromagnetism would be gone, leaving only negative. Again the universe would cease to function as it does now.
The more I study our universe, the more praise I give to our Creator!
His wisdom created this amazing world in which we live, and all of His creation is joining together in contant praise. I don’t know about you, but I choose to join creation in its praise of our Creator.
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I-Have-To-Have-It Attitude
February 27, 2012 — Craig T. Owens
In our Live Dead series, we have been talking about different areas we need to allow to die, so that we might truly live for Christ as His disciples.
One of the things that often gets in the way of our pursuit of Christ is our cravings. This word—which the dictionary defines as a longing or an eager desire—has an interesting origin. The root word in both Latin and Old English means to lay claim to or to demand by right.
In other words, a craving is when something that was originally a want has now become a need in my mind. So I lay claim to it, saying that it’s something that is owed to me.
The Apostle Paul talks about cravings that we all had before we came to know Christ as Savior when he wrote, “All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts” (Ephesians 2:3).
This same Greek word shows up in Christ’s parable of the sower when He talks about the seed that falls among the weeds. These people, He explains, allow the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the Word (Mark 4:19).
Gratifying my cravings = Choking out the life of Christ in me
The problem is that this craving or desire for things other than Christ is often an unconscious habit. We have allowed them to become cravings—laying our claim to them as needs—without even realizing it.
The antidote: fasting. When we give up something, the Holy Spirit can show us if that thing has created an I-Have-To-Have-It attitude in our hearts. This spiritual discipline is hard because our bodies will rebel against having to give up “a right.” But when we press through with this discipline of fasting, God describes the results:
Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and He will say: Here am I. (Isaiah 58:8-9)
That’s how I want to live! So I must live dead to my cravings. I can only do this when I allow a time of fasting to open my heart to hear the Holy Spirit point out all my I-Have-To-Have-It attitudes.
To check out all of the messages in our Live Dead series, please click here.
Prayer… Is The Act Of Dying
February 26, 2012 — Craig T. Owens
“We want to move closer to God, the source and goal of our existence, but at the same time we realize that the closer we come to God the stronger will be His demand to let go of the many ‘safe’ structures we have built around ourselves. Prayer is such a radical act because it requires us to criticize our world’s way of being in the world, to lay down our old selves and accept our new self, which is Christ. … Prayer therefore is the act of dying to all that we consider to be our own and of being born to a new existence which is not of this world.” —Henri Nouwen
Life In What You Have
February 24, 2012 — Craig T. Owens
Pastors, these two quotes from Charles Spurgeon have really been working on me. This is not intended to be a pastor-bashing message. Instead, it’s more of a wake-up call.
“We too often flog the church when the whip should be laid on our own shoulders. We should always remember that we are a part of the church, and that our own lack of revival is in some measure the cause of the lack of revival in the church at large. I will lay the charge before us; we ministers need a revival of piety in our lives.”
“You don’t need a new preacher, another kind of worship, another type of preaching, new ways of doing things or even new people. You need life in what you have.”
If I’m going to pray, “Start a revival, Lord,” the prayer needs to begin with, “Start it with me!”
Thursdays With Oswald—Desperate For The Holy Spirit
February 23, 2012 — Craig T. OwensThis 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.
Desperate For The Holy Spirit
We have to learn to rely on the Holy Spirit because He alone give the Word of God life. All our efforts to pump up faith in the Word of God is without quickening, without illumination. …
If you are without the control of the Spirit of God, devotional emotion and religious excitement always end in sensuality. …
‘Be filled with the Spirit’; it is as impossible to be filled with the Spirit and be free from emotion as it is for a man to be filled with wine and not show it. … Be ‘being filled with the Spirit,’ and as we walk in the light the life of God is worked out moment by moment—a life of glorious discipline and steady obedience.
From Biblical Ethics
Oh, how I need the Holy Spirit moment by moment!
Without His counsel, the Word of God doesn’t make any sense.
Without His anointing, I only speak meaningless words.
Without His discipline, my emotions are all over the place.
Without His instruction, my life is purposeless.
May I keep on being filled with You, Spirit of God!
All That I Am, All That I Have
February 22, 2012 — Craig T. OwensWow, what a prayer by Charles Spurgeon. I hope you will join me in making this our prayer too.
“Lord, help me to glorify You; I am poor, help me to glorify You by contentment; I am sick, help me to give You honor by patience; I have talents, help me to extol You by spending them for You; I have time, Lord, help me to redeem it, that I may serve You; I have a heart to feel, Lord, let that heart feel no love but Yours, and glow with no flame but affection for You; I have a head to think, Lord, help me to think of You and for You; You have put me in this world for something, Lord, show me what that is, and help me to work out my life-purpose: I cannot do much, but as the widow put in her two mites, which were all her living, so, Lord, I cast my time and eternity too into Your treasury; I am all Yours; take me, and enable me to glorify You now, in all that I say, in all that I do, and with all that I have.”
Present Tense
February 21, 2012 — Craig T. OwensListen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
I never want my best days to be in my past.
I don’t want things I’ve learned to become old.
I don’t want nostalgia for God’s moving and provision in my life to be greater than my current joy in His moving and provision.
I don’t want to live in the past tense, but always in the present tense.
For Christians there is a danger in reflecting more on the past than on the present. God says He is the I AM, not the I WAS. He wants to do something new in you and I today—present tense.
I love what Smith Wigglesworth said:
“Beloved, don’t forget that every day must be a day of advancement. If you have not made any advancement since yesterday, in a measure you are a backslider. There is only one way for you between Calvary and the glory, and it is forward. It is every day forward. It is no day back. It is advancement with God. It is cooperation with Him in the Spirit. … If we live on the same plane day after day, the vision is stale; the principles lose their earnestness. But we must be like those who are catching the vision of the Master day by day.”
This is my prayer: Jesus, let me catch the vision of You again today. Let my vision always be present tense.
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Craig T. Owens 