I shared this quote with Calvary Assembly of God this morning to remind us that we shouldn’t settle. God wants us to pray BIG and to pray LONG. He wants us to claim His promises. He wants to be glorified by answering our prayers.
“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures…like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” —C.S. Lewis
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.
The Vices And Virtues Of Vowing
The vices of vowing outweigh the virtues, because vowing is built on a misconception of human nature as it really is. If a man had the power to will pure will it would be different, but he has not. There are certain things a man cannot do, not because he is bad, but because he is not constituted to do them. We make vows which are impossible of fulfillment because no man can remain master of himself always; there comes a time when the human will must yield allegiance to a force greater than itself, it must yield to God or to the devil.
Modern ethical teaching bases everything on the power of the will, but we need to recognize also the perils of the will. The man who has achieved a moral victory by the sheer force of his will is less likely to want to become a Christian than the man who has come to the moral frontier of his own need. It is the obstinate man who makes vows, and by the very fulfillment of his vow he may increase his inability to see things from Jesus Christ’s standpoint. …
It is not our vows before God that tell, but the coming to God exactly as we are, in all our weakness, and being held and kept by Him. Make no vows at this New Year time, but look to God and bank on the Reality of Jesus Christ.
When considering your New Year’s resolutions (or vows, as Chambers calls them), remember these sobering words: “It is the obstinate man who makes vows, and by the very fulfillment of his vow he may increase his inability to see things from Jesus Christ’s standpoint.”
Don’t let your resolutions blind you to seeing how Jesus Christ wants to work through your weaknesses.
The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
God’s Word is a living Word. They are not merely ink on a page. They are the very words of God.
God’s Word never stops working. God made a promise to Abraham 3000 years before Paul saw it being fulfilled in the Galatian believers. And now, another 2000 years after that, it’s still being fulfilled in ALL who come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ!
These words are not past tense—those who have faith ARE blessed. They apply to me, today, now, just as much as the day they were spoken by God 5000 years ago! And they apply to you too.
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Some time ago, when my wife Betsy and I were waiting for God to bring about something we believed He had promised us, Betsy taped this verse to our bathroom mirror—
At the time I have decided, My words will come true. You can trust what I say about the future. It may take a long time, but keep on waiting—it will happen! (Habakkuk 2:3)
Keep on waiting.
You might be able to relate to that statement. Perhaps you say, “I am waiting. And waiting, and waiting, and WAITING…!”
But let me ask you something: What are you doing while you’re waiting?
Did you know that the Hebrew word for “waiting” here can also mean to ambush? That means you need to be doing everything you can do now to capture God’s promised dream when it arrives. As John Wooden used to say, “When opportunity comes, it’s too late to prepare.”
What do you need to do to ambush and capture your dream?
Learn a skill?
Take a class?
Get a degree?
Forgive someone?
Get out of debt?
Find a partner?
Volunteer your time?
Improve your waiting skills?
How do you improve your waiting skills? Check out this well-known verse—
But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength…. (Isaiah 40:31)
Wait upon the Lord.
This is not a passive activity. This doesn’t mean to put your feet up, take it easy, and just lounge around until God finally decides to show up.
This word for “wait” has a different definition.
Have you ever dined at a really nice restaurant? In those high-priced restaurants, one of the things that makes the dining experience so nice is the staff who serves you. They anticipate your every need, they seem to be there just when you need them. They’re not late in arriving, nor are they rushing you along. They are WAITING on you!
This is what Isaiah is saying: When we wait on the Lord we are actively serving Him. We are trying to anticipate what He wants us to do. We’re not late and we’re not rushing Him along. We just want to give Him our very best service.
So if you are waiting (and waiting, and waiting!), make sure you’re making good use of your waiting time. Serve God with all you’ve got, and then make sure you’re ready to ambush your dream when God brings it to you in His perfect timing. God said it:
In my position as a pastor, you can probably imagine that many people come to me with pretty desperate situations. One of the common things I hear from these hurting people is something along the lines of, “I really thought God had directed me on this, but it seems like it’s not going to work out.”
In other words, their hope is wavering.
For a Christian, hope is not blind trust. It’s not a feeling that things might work out. It’s not even holding on tighter.
For a Christian, hope is about a promise and a Person.
It’s about what God said and Who God is.
It’s about believing that His Word is true and that He is trustworthy.
Let me stitch together a few phrases about Abraham—
Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed. …Without weakening his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead… yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised. (Romans 4:18-21)
Abraham didn’t deny the facts, but he trusted the promise and the One Who gave him the promise!
And then there’s this promise for us about hope—
And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:2-5)
Do you need hope? Get the promise from God’s Word, and then trust the One Who spoke that word. Hang on—God IS doing something great!
A couple of weeks ago a lady in our church asked me to pray for a need in her life. She is a single Mom, as well as a caregiver for her bed-bound grandmother, which means money is tight.
She knew her car needed some repairs, so she took the car to the mechanic on Thursday afternoon. His initial estimate was $400. On Sunday we prayed about this, and joined our faith that God would either provide the funds, or provide another way for her car to be repaired.
Here’s a powerful verse of Scripture—
…Your Father knows exactly what you need evenbefore you askHim! (Matthew 6:8)
This lady returned to her mechanic the next day, and he told her the repairs had been completed. But the repairs were not as extensive as he originally thought, so the bill was only $105.
Now, here’s the best part—on Thursday, this lady had looked at her financial situation and had set aside all the money she could afford for this repair: $125!
So not only did God provide for her even before she asked, but she even gave the mechanic a $20 tip!
I love the fact that God knows what we need even before we ask Him!
Have you ever heard someone that can pray really well? And then isn’t it a bit intimidating when you’re asked to pray right after that master pray-er?
Or maybe you hear about people that spend extended time praying. But you think, “I run out of things to say after just a few minutes,” or “I get so distracted when I’m trying to pray.”
Here’s a thought from Mark Batterson’s book The Circle Maker which may help you—
“Prayer was never meant to be a monologue; it was meant to be a dialogue. Think of Scripture as God’s part of the script; prayer is our part. Scripture is God’s way of initiating a conversation; prayer is our response. The paradigm shift happens when you realize that the Bible wasn’t meant to be read through; the Bible was meant to be prayed through. And if you pray through it, you’ll never run out of things to talk about.”
Think about it this way. If you are a parent, doesn’t it get your attention when your child says, “Dad, you said…”? I know that makes my ears perk up. It’s the same way when we use Scripture to pray. It’s like saying to God, “Dad, you said….”
Taking a Sabbath break from your work makes the rest of your workdays more effective (Exodus 20:8-11); so 6 > 7. For example, Chick-fil-A closes all of their stores on Sunday for the employees to take a Sabbath, and founder Truett Cathy frequently mentions how God continues to bless this decision.
Entering into marriage with another Christ-follower allows your life to be more productive together than either of you could be on your own (Genesis 2:24); so 1 > 1.
Stop looking at what you have (or don’t have), and start looking at what God has. His ways may seem to defy conventional wisdom, but He’s an unprecedented God. His promises are true. All you have to do is trust His ways and obey.
Just before Joshua’s farewell address to the Israelites, he makes one final comment to sum up the whole campaign that secured Israel’s borders—
Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.
Every one.
You can trust God! You can stand on His promises. They will not fail; they will all be fulfilled.
Dr. Robert Lockyear estimates that there are 7,457 promises of God in the Bible!
Which one are you standing on today? Get into God’s Word, and let His promises get into you. Write them down. Memorize them. Repeat them again and again. Believe that not one of all the Lord’s good promises will fail.
Here are a few you can stand on:
He forgets your forgiven sins.
He will give you abundant life now, and eternal life later.
Nothing can separate you from His love.
All things are working together for the good for those who love God.
He will never leave or forsake you.
He will continue to develop the best in you.
He will never place you in a situation where you cannot stand.
“We take away from this most precious promise, and, by refusing to take it in its fullness lose the fullness of its application and power. Then we limit God’s power to keep: we look at our frailty more than His omnipotence. Where is the line to be drawn, beyond which He is not ‘able’? Why should we pare down the promises of God to the level of what we have hitherto experienced of what God is ‘able to do,’ or even what we have thought He might be able to do for us? Why not receive God’s promises, nothing doubting, just as they stand?” —Frances Ridley Havergal
Last night I took some of my youth group leaders to a Speed The Light banquet. For those of you who don’t know, STL is missions giving from youth, with the funds going to help missionaries speed the light of the Gospel. Many times STL funds go for items like 4-wheel-drive vehicles, sound systems, video production equipment, and the like.
Understand that up until a month or so ago our group had never really been exposed to STL. Our grand total to STL last year was $0. That’s right, nothing.
So I took them to this banquet to help them get a better understanding of what STL is. I’m a huge fan, so I wanted them to catch the vision for STL too.
Knowing that we were going to be asked to make a faith promise for 2010, I had a dollar figure in mind. I figured this amount would be doable, but a stretch, for a youth group that hadn’t given anything to STL yet.
Our District Youth Director Jeff Kennedy asked us to huddle as a team to talk about our faith promise amount. He said, “Remember: if it’s truly a faith promise, your amount will make you sweat.”
So I asked my team, “What amount do you think we can do?” And they totally blew me away! They came up with an amountthree times LARGER than I had been thinking.
I joyfully wrote in that larger amount on our faith promise card. As I did, I heard the Holy Spirit chide me a bit, “O you of little faith.”
Thanks, team, for dreaming big—bigger than me. Thanks for having such big faith. Thanks for stretching my faith too.
I shared this quote with Calvary Assembly of God this morning to remind us that we shouldn’t settle. God wants us to pray BIG and to pray LONG. He wants us to claim His promises. He wants to be glorified by answering our prayers.
Craig T. Owens 