Prepare for Life

Weekly Devotional

Jesus didn’t stop Mary; he stopped the biting criticism and shaming of Mary. “Leave her alone. She has done a good deed to Me. She has done what she could, she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. Wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done shall also be spoken of in memory of her.”

I found a treasure this week and I want to share it with you. A friend of mine sent me the questions that John Wesley and his band of fellow believers used for reflection. You may remember John Wesley. As a young man in 1738 Wesley had a radical encounter with Jesus Christ. He went on to form “classes and bands” for study and accountability and eventually founded what became the Methodist denomination. I am not a Methodist, but I think these questions are great! They get to the main point of our faith, where the rubber meets the road— how we live out our faith each day. These questions are simple and to the point. Your answers will help you evaluate how you are walking with the Lord and where you may need a course correction.

Genesis shines like a bright beacon showing us where we came from, where we are going, who it is who created us, who we are to honor and thank and worship. Genesis delineates what our problem is, how God deals with it and in the meantime how we are to live in a way that pleases God, how to walk with Him, how to trust Him.

There is a discipline of the heart that is missing from most of the lists found in books about spiritual disciplines. It is essential to the practice of our faith. It needs to be put into our lives every single day. It is a lifestyle of wholehearted obedience to the word of God.

Do you need some encouragement about now? Do you feel like you are in an undertow with all the bad reports in the news? Is there a situation in your personal life that has you down? I understand. Sometimes we get so discouraged we just want to crawl under a rock and give up on following Jesus.

Recently a verse from Hebrews has been rolling through my mind, “Do not forsake assembling yourselves together, and all the more as you see the day appearing.” Hebrews 10:25. I think this verse is important for us at this point in time. “Do not forsake assembling yourselves together”…. Or put in a positive command, “Keep on getting together with other believers!” This literally means meeting face to face with fellow believers on a regular basis. Meeting in this way becomes part of our life-style as we walk on the ancient paths with the Lord.

If I could go back in time and do only one discipline of the heart differently it would be to practice meditating on the Scriptures earlier in my walk with the Lord. Meditation has been a game changer in my spiritual life.

We are not talking about meditation in the sense of eastern religions or new age practices where we empty our minds and repeat a mantra. Meditating on the word of God is filling your mind with the Scripture, saturating yourself in a small portion of the Bible, savoring every word. It is listening to the Lord and then putting what He says into your life. The end result of Biblical meditation is not more information about God but communion with God through His living word.

Prayer makes a difference. Yes, God is sovereign. Yes, He can do whatever He wants to do. Yet somehow in His sovereignty He often limits Himself to acting in response to the prayers of His people. He is waiting for His people to pray. Our prayers move God’s heart to action. Our prayers carry great significance.

In the words of James, “You have not because you ask not.” James was not promising that everything we can dream up to pray for will be glowingly answered, but that we will definitely not see answers to prayers if we never pray them!

Life can get mundane. We can work hard and get into ruts. We can take things, including ourselves, very seriously, maybe too seriously. Even in our pursuit of the Lord we can fast, pray, meditate, and work so hard that we miss the joy of knowing the Lord. At some point the Lord knows we need to lighten up. He wants to disrupt our calendars. He wants us to embrace and enjoy times of celebration.

Is the Lord tugging on your heart to intentionally set aside a day of the week for rest? Read these words of Isaiah as you consider this invitation, “If because of the Sabbath you turn your foot from doing your own pleasure on My holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable. And shall honor it desisting from your own pleasure, and speaking your own word. Then you will take delight in the Lord and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Isaiah 58:13-14.

Today I want to talk about the discipline of fasting, not because I love to fast but because of its value and importance.

First of all I am not an expert on fasting. I have tried and failed so many times. I have also tried and by the grace of God been able to hold fast! I find it very humbling because when I fast from food, I realize how much of my life revolves around food and how often my flesh wants to eat! Fasting is essentially an exercise in dying to self. It is not my favorite discipline of the heart but I do appreciate its worth and I commend it to you.