We have been working through our series on the Book of Ephesians, and I am so excited to share the speaking responsibilities with Tom Kaastra. Tom pastored a church in the Detroit area for nearly 40 years, and he is bringing such a richness of knowledge to this series!
“If you had one son in whom you found unspeakable delight, would it not be normal as a father to want many more? It is exactly so with the Eternal Father, Who by nature and choice, has desired and purposed to have a vast family of human-divine sons who are just like His Only Begotten Son.” —DeVern Fromke
The opening section of Ephesians 1 is just loaded with words of God’s delight:
What is this thing in which God is so delighted, and for which we should be so filled with praise?
It is quite simply this: God has revealed Himself to us as a loving Father, His Son has made it possible for us to come into God’s family, and the Holy Spirit has given us the assurance that we have been adopted by our Heavenly Father.
That’s right … God’s plan was to adopt you into His family. When did He come up with this idea?
God loves YOU so much that He had a plan frombefore the beginning of time to adopt YOU into His family. That’s what Jesus made possible through His death on the Cross, and what the Holy Spirit is constantly trying to reveal to YOU!! WOW!!
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.
Symphonizing In Prayer
Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. (Matthew 18:19)
We need to know this simple, direct truth about praying in public. It is perilously easy to make public prayer the mere fringe of devotion to what we are pleased to think of as the real center of the meeting. Agreement in purpose on earth must not be taken to mean a predetermination to agree together to storm God’s fort doggedly till He yields. It is far from right to agree beforehand over what we want, and then go to God and wait, not until He gives us His mind about the matter, but until we extort from Him permission to do what we had made up our minds to do before we prayed; we should rather agree to ask God to convey His mind and meaning to us in regard to the matter.
Agreement in purpose on earth is not a public presentation of persistent begging which knows no limit, but a prayer which is conscious that it is limited through the moral nature of the Holy Spirit. It is really “symphonizing” on earth with our Father Who is in Heaven.
From Christian Disciplines
When Jesus taught us to pray He said we should say, “Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” God has a perfect plan in mind, and He wants us to be a part of that plan. So before we make up our mind to pray a certain way, and rally others around us to “agree in prayer” with us, we need to find out what God’s mind is on the matter. Our agreement needs to be with God, not with others.
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.
Our Broken Treasures
It is a revelation of pure joyousness in which the child of God pours into the Father’s bosom the cares which give pain and anxiety that He may solve the difficulties. Too often we imagine that God lives in a place where He only repairs our broken treasures, but Jesus reveals that it is quite otherwise; He discerns all our difficulties and solves them before us.
We are not beggars on the one hand or spiritual customers on the other; we are God’s children, and we just stay before Him with our broken treasures or our pain and watch Him mend or heal in such a way that we understand Him better.
From Christian Disciplines
I think we sometimes forget the infinite capacity of our Heavenly Father. He is All-Loving: no one has ever—or can ever—love more completely and deeply than He does. He is also All-Powerful: there isn’t anything that limits His potency. What an amazing combination! If God were only loving but not powerful, we couldn’t be sure He was able to answer our prayer. If God were only powerful but not loving, we wouldn’t be comfortable about bringing our concerns to Him.
But He is Both! And as such, we should have such rock-solid confidence that He not only can answer prayer, but that He wants to answer prayer. He answers, as Oswald Chambers says, in ways that reveal more of His nature to us, so that we can understand Him better and better through each answered prayer.
“Oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”
His heavens shall drop down dew (Deuteronomy 33:28).
“What the dew in the East is to the world of nature, that is the influence of the Spirit in the realm of grace. How greatly do I need it! Without the Spirit of God I am a dry and withered thing. I droop, I fade, I die. How sweetly does this dew refresh me!” (Charles Spurgeon)
May you find the refreshment of the dew of God’s Holy Spirit today!
A nice touch I appreciated in Andrew Murray’s book Raising Your Child To Love God was the prayers he included at the end of each of the 52 chapters of this book. Below are some of the lines of prayer which I found noteworthy. If you would like to read some other quotes from this book, click here. If you would like to read my book review of this book, click here.
“Give us a deep sense of our holy calling to train their immortal souls for You and for our glory.”
“By my life, by my words, by my prayers, by gentleness and love, by authority and instruction, I would lead them in the way of the Lord. Be my helper, Lord.”
“As we see the power of sin and the world threatening our children, may we plead for them as for our own life.”
“O Father, open the eyes of all Your people, that in each little one You give them their faith may see an extraordinary child.”
“I acknowledge, Lord, that I do not sufficiently realize the value of my children or the danger to which they are exposed from the prince and the spirit of this world. Lord, teach me fully to recognize the danger and yet never to fear the commandment of the King. Open my eyes to see that in the light of heaven each child is a special child, entrusted to my keeping and training for your work and kingdom. Help me in the humility and watchfulness and boldness of faith to keep him sheltered, to hide him from the power of the world and of sin. May my own life be the life of faith, hid with Christ in God, that my child may know no other dwelling place.”
“O God, teach us to feel deeply that You have need of our children. For the building up of Your temple, in the struggle of Your kingdom with the powers of darkness, in the gathering of Your people from the millions of lost, You have need of our children. We give them to You. We will train them for You. We will wait in prayer and faith, and we beseech You to inspire them with a holy enthusiasm for the kingdom and its conquests.”
“Grant that I may always live worthy of all honor. And may the holy power to train young souls to keep Your commandments, to honor and serve You, be the fruit of Your own Spirit’s work in me.”
“Make our home a blessing to others, encouraging them to take a stand for You.”
“Teach me always to speak to him of Your love so that his heart will early be won to You. May my whole life be an inspiration, guiding him to what is pure and lovely, to what is holy and well pleasing to You.”
“Dear God, help me to teach my children the fear of the Lord by instruction, example, and the spirit of my own life. May thoughtfulness, truthfulness, and lovingkindness mark the conversation of my home. May the life of all in my care by holy unto the Lord. Daily I would show them, through Your grace, how departing from every evil, doing every good, and following after peace and holiness is what true fear of the Lord produces.”
“I am weak, but I know Your almighty power is working in me to keep me humble yet hopeful, conscious of my weakness yet confident in You.”
“O Lord, we draw nigh to You to claim the fulfillment of this promise on behalf of our beloved children. Lord, may they from their very youth have Your Spirit poured out upon them that even in the simplicity of childhood they may say, ‘I belong to the Lord.’”
“Because our child has been presented to You as Jesus was, may this be the beginning of a likeness that will take possession of his whole life. Give grace to Your servants. May we be worthy parents, guardians, and guides of this child who has been given to the Lord. For Your name’s sake. Amen.”
“May my daily experience of the way in which Your shepherd-love does its work be a lesson that teaches me how to feed my little flock. … Let Your holy love in my heart be the inspiring power of all my communion with You and with them. And let me so prove how wonderfully You are my Shepherd and blessed I am to be their shepherd.”
“O God, how we bless You for the promise that our home is to be Your home, the abode of Your Holy Spirit, and that in the happy life of love between parents and children, the Spirit of Your divine love is to be the link that binds us together.”
“Set me apart as a parent so to live as one baptized into Christ’s death that first my life and later my teaching may lead my child to experience this blessed life in Christ.”
“I come to You humbly confessing my sin. Often misbehavior in my children has been met by sinful response on my part. I know that this only discourages them. I want to be a parent who models patient love, helping them in their weakness, and by my example encouraging them with the assurance that they, too, can overcome difficulty.”
So Isaac called for Jacob and he blessed him… (Genesis 28:11).
Isaac blessed Jacob once when he was deceived by Rebekah and Jacob, but here he blesses him again knowing full well that it is Jacob that he is blessing. He starts his blessing with these words: “May God Almighty bless you.”
Later God Himself appears to Jacob to affirm this blessing that Isaac has asked for. Notice how God says He will be the One pouring out the blessing: “I am the Lord … I will give you this land … I will be with you … I will bring you back … I will not leave you” (vv. 13-15).
The blessing by Jacob’s Heavenly Father was initiated by the blessing of his earthly father.
It is important for fathers to bless their children, as this puts them in a place to receive God’s blessing. In the Greek, the word bless means “good words.” So Dad,
Say good words to your children
Say good words about your children to others
Say good words about your children to their Heavenly Father
Don’t ever let your children wonder what God’s blessings are like. Let them know from your blessings what sort of blessings God wants to pour out on them.
In the feeding of the vast multitude, Jesus had very little in the way of natural resources: five loaves of bread and two fish. He also had the skepticism of His closest followers.
But all three synoptic gospels record a very telling phrase—Jesus looked up to heaven.
Jesus didn’t look at what He didn’t have; He looked up to His Father in heaven.
Jesus took His eyes off the limited and put them on the Limitless.
Then Jesus taught us to pray: “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Are you looking at your poverty, or the Provider?
Are you looking at your sickness, or the Healer?
Are you looking at the skeptics, or the Promise?
Are you looking at your confusion, or the All-Knowing?
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
We have become a numbed culture: we try to soften every blow, water down each negative report, ask only surface questions in the hopes that no one will really tell us how much they’re hurting, and then medicate away every symptom. But these symptoms are screaming to be noticed!
Dr. Paul Brand the renown hand surgeon and missionary to leprosy patients in India, wrote:
“Pain contributes daily to a normal person’s quality of life…. Every normal person limps occasionally. Sadly, leprosy patients do not limp. Their injured legs never get the rest needed for healing…. This inability to ‘hear’ pain can cause permanent damage because the body’s careful responses to danger will break down. … A body only possesses unity to the degree that it possesses pain…. We must develop a lower threshold of pain by listening, truly listening, to those who suffer. … The body protects poorly what it does not feel.” —Dr. Paul Brand & Philip Yancey, In His Image
The Gospels often talk of the compassion of Jesus. His compassion led Him to teach the confused, feed the hungry, and heal the sick. The phrase usually used in the NKJV is descriptive: Jesus was moved with compassion. In other words His feelings moved Him to action.
The Old English way of describing compassion was to say someone was “moved in his bowels.” This is because when someone else is suffering it should be like a kick in my gut too.
Jesus gravitated toward the hurting, but in one story He told, Jesus related something different about His Father’s compassion. It’s the story we now call the story of the prodigal son. In this story Jesus said His Father watched the horizons every day to see if His wayward child would return. When He saw this child coming into view, God saw his slumped shoulders, He could detect his heavy heart and worn-out body. Then Jesus says something amazing, “The Father was moved with compassion and He RAN TO HIS SON!”
If our Heavenly Father runs TO another’s pain, what right do we have to ever run AWAY from it?
If we are to be God-honoring in our interaction with others, we need to—as Dr. Brand says—lower our threshold of pain. We need to feel what others feel, to feel it like a kick in our own gut, and then move toward the pain with help and healing and restoration.
Christians—if we are truly Christ-like—should be known as the most compassionate people of anyone.
So we need to always be asking: What am I doing to let this compassion be seen in my life?
Check out all of the other messages in our series Live Togetherby clicking here.
The Day of Atonement was a very special day for the Jewish people. It was called by some the Sabbath’s Sabbath, as it was the most holy day of the year. It was the day everyone looked forward to, because finally they could have forgiveness for their sins.
The word atonement in the Hebrew meant that a payment was made that was equivalent to the offense that was committed. The offense was huge: Sin was open rebellion against Almighty God, it was to spit in the face of our Heavenly Father, it was to slap away His hands that were reaching out to embrace us. Nothing short of a death could atone for that sort of offense!
So the high priest would go through an elaborate ceremony of washing himself and putting on special garments that were only to be worn on this Day of Atonement. Because the high priest was also a sinner himself, his first sacrifice was a bull. The blood from this sacrifice was taken by the high priest into the Most Holy Place of the temple to cover his own sins, before he could even approach God to ask for the forgiveness of the sins of anyone else.
After having completed this step, the high priest could then proceed. He would sacrifice a goat as a sin offering for the people. As he did with the bull’s blood, he would take the goat’s blood back into the Most Holy Place to ask God to show mercy toward people who had sinned, to turn away His holy wrath against their rebellion. Then the priest would lay his hands on a second goat, one that was still alive, and confess all of the sins of the people. This goat (called the scapegoat) was then taken out into the desert. This symbolized the removal of the people’s guilt, making it possible for them to be in relationship with God once again.
This was repeated year after year after year. It was repeated because the people continued to sin. It was repeated because these rituals were only a shadow of what God really wanted to accomplish. David wrote about the futility of these sacrifices—
Sacrifice and offering You did not desire—but a body You have given me—burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not require.Then I said, “Here I am, I have come—it is written about me in the scroll.I desire to do Your will, my God; Your law is within my heart.” (Psalm 40:6-8)
A beautiful thing happened through the ministry of Jesus on earth. Jesus came to be both the perfect high priest (one without sin, who did not need to purify Himself), and the perfect sacrifice. Jesus is called the once for all sacrifice of atonement for us, as He embodied the cry David made nearly 1000 years earlier. Hebrews 10:5-7 says that the words uttered by David prophetically were repeated by Jesus: “Here I am, I have come—it is written about me in the scroll.I desire to do Your will, my God; Your law is within my heart. I will be the once for all sacrifice.”
When Jesus told us the the new covenant was in His shed blood on Calvary’s Cross, He was saying that no longer would we have to wait until the Day of Atonement to find forgiveness; no longer would we have to wait upon an imperfect earthly priest to offer a sacrifice for us; no longer would we have to carry around the guilt of our sin and feel separated from God’s presence while waiting for a special ceremony. AT LAST! We can have immediate forgiveness, eternal redemption, and an everlasting relationship with God because of what Jesus did for us once for all!
As you celebrate Holy Week, be thrilled with the truth that Jesus’ death on the Cross makes it possible for you to have complete atonement. Our Savior has redeemed usAT LAST!
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Intercession is prayer for others. How it must please our Heavenly Father when we long for—and pray for—the advancement of others.
Since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. (Colossians 1:9)
The apostle Paul prayed that the Colossians would grow in the knowledge of God’s will, in spiritual wisdom, and in godly understanding. He knew that with these tools they would be able to live a life worthy of the Lord and [be able to] please Him in every way (v. 10). The outward signs of this worthy life, Paul explains, are:
Doing good works
Knowing God more intimately
Developing greater endurance, patience, and empathy
Did you catch that last point: building up other saints. One of the “other saints” would be Paul himself!
So when my prayers shift from petition (praying for what I need) to intercession (praying for what others need), as other people grow in God, they build me up!
What an amazing thought:
The way I get what I need from God is to stop thinking about myself and praying for myself, and to start interceding for others.
That is the power and the blessing of intercessory prayer!
We have been working through our series on the Book of Ephesians, and I am so excited to share the speaking responsibilities with Tom Kaastra. Tom pastored a church in the Detroit area for nearly 40 years, and he is bringing such a richness of knowledge to this series!
Craig T. Owens 