Prayer, Thanksgiving, Praise

Php 4:6  Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
 
Php 4:7  And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
 
No care but all prayer. No anxiety but much joyful communion with GOD. Carry your desires to the LORD of your life, the guardian of your soul.

Go to Him with two portions of prayer and one of fragrant praise. Do not pray doubtfully but thankfully.

Consider that you have your petitions, and therefore thank GOD for His grace. He is giving you grace; give Him thanks, Hide nothing.

Allow no want to lie rankling in your bosom; "make known your requests."

Run not to man. Go only to your GOD, the Father of Jesus, who loves you in Him.

This shall bring you GOD'S own peace. You shall not be able to understand the peace which you shall enjoy.

It will enfold you in its infinite embrace. Heart and mind through Christ Jesus shall be steeped in a sea of rest.

Come life or death, poverty, pain, slander, you shall dwell in Jesus above every rolling wind or darkening cloud.

Will you not obey this dear command?
Yes, LORD, I do believe thee; but, I beseech thee, help mine unbelief.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Without Holiness NO Man Shall See The LORD

Heb 12:14  Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

Belief, Not Understanding

John 11:40  Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?

Mary and Martha could not understand what their LORD was doing. Both of them said to Him, LORD, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died."

Back of it all, we seem to read their thought: "LORD, we do not understand why you have stayed away so long. We do not understand how you could let death come to the man whom you loved. We do not understand how you could let sorrow and suffering ravage our lives when your presence might have stayed it all. Why did you not come? It is too late now, for already he has been dead four days!"

And to it all Jesus had but one great truth: "You may not understand; but I tell you if you believe, you will see."

Abraham could not understand why GOD should ask the sacrifice of the boy; but he trusted. And he saw the glory of GOD in his restoration and his love. 

Moses could not understand why GOD should keep him forty years in the wilderness, but he trusted; and he saw when GOD called him to lead forth Israel from bondage.

Joseph could not understand the cruelty of his brethren, the false witness of a perfidious woman, and the long years of an unjust imprisonment; but he trusted, and he saw at last the glory of GOD in it all.

Jacob could not understand the strange providence which permitted the same Joseph to be torn from his father's love, but he saw the glory of GOD when he looked into the face of that same Joseph as the viceroy of a great king, and the preserver of his own life and the lives of a great nation.

And so, perhaps in your life. You say, "I do not understand why GOD let my dear one be taken. I do not understand why affliction has been permitted to smite me.

I do not understand the devious paths by which the LORD is leading me. 

I do not understand why plans and purposes that seemed good to my eyes should be baffled. 

I do not understand why blessings I so much need are so long delayed.

Friend, you do not have to understand all GOD'S ways with you. GOD does not expect you to understand them. You do not expect your child to understand, only believe.

Some day you will see the glory of GOD in the things which you do not understand.

~J. H. McC

If we could push ajar the gates of life, And stand within, and all GOD'S workings see, We might interpret all this doubt and strife, And for each mystery could find a key.

But not today. Then be content, poor heart; GOD'S plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold.

We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart...Time will reveal the calyxes of gold.

And if, through patient toil, we reach the land Where tired feet, with sandals loosed, may rest, When we shall clearly know and understand, I think that we shall say, 'GOD knew best."'

Continue Upright

Pro 15:8  The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight.

This is as good as a promise, for it declares a present fact, which will be the same throughout all ages. 

GOD takes great pleasure in the prayers of upright men; He even calls them His delight.

Our first concern is to be upright. Neither bending this way nor that, continue upright; not crooked with policy, nor prostrate by yielding to evil, be you upright in strict integrity and straightforwardness.

If we begin to shuffle and shift, we shall be left to shift for ourselves.

If we try crooked ways, we shall find that we cannot pray, and if we pretend to do so, we shall find our prayers shut out of heaven.

Are we acting in a straight line and thus following out the LORD's revealed will?

Then let us pray much and pray in faith.

If our prayer is GOD'S delight, let us not stint Him in that which gives Him pleasure. He does not consider the grammar of it, nor the metaphysics of it, nor the rhetoric of it; in all these men might despise it.

He, as a Father, takes pleasure in the lispings of His own babes, the stammerings of His newborn sons and daughters.

Should we not delight in prayer since the LORD delights in it? Let us make errands to the throne. 

The LORD finds us enough reasons for prayer, and we ought to thank Him that it is so.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Understanding Our Sufferings

We are a part of a Body. Many of our sufferings are not on our own account at all.                                        

Many of the sufferings of the children of GOD have nothing whatever to do with their own faults or their own failing.

They are suffering in a related way, they are suffering for the Body’s sake, they are entering into the battle; the conflict of this one great testimony.

Sometimes it is almost uncanny when the LORD has something in view in relation to His testimony of Life, how for no reason whatever, on no account at all, we discover that we are involved and ours is not an isolated experience. 

All sorts of people all over the place are having the same kind of experience - a terrific sense of pressure, upset, annoyance, anything to frustrate...

It is happening all round, testifying that in the spiritual realm, in the realm of the Spirit, there is a fine, sensitive oneness which matters to the LORD, and therefore matters to the enemy.

Do not always take your sufferings as some controversy that the LORD has with you.

That is the twist the enemy often gives.

Be open to the LORD to be checked up on anything, but do not always take it that the things which are happening to you and causing you trouble and suffering are due to your own failure or wrong.

You are involved in something very much more than that.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Mortified Eyes

The first request is for the removing of impediments to obedience; the other request is for addition of new degrees of grace.

These two are fitly joined, for they have a natural influence upon one another.

Unless we turn away our eyes from vanity we shall soon contract a deadness of heart.

When our affections are alive to worldly things they are dead to GOD.

Therefore the less we let loose our hearts to these things - the more lively and cheerful the work of obedience.

On the other side, the more the vigor of grace is renewed, and the habits of it quickened into actual exercise - the more is sin mortified and subdued.

1. It therefore concerns those that would walk with GOD to have their eyes turned away from worldly things.

He who would be quickened, carried out with life and vigor in the ways of GOD, must first be mortified, die unto sin.

Speaking of the fruits of Christ's death, the Apostle mentioned death unto sin—before life unto righteousness (1 Peter 2:25).

If any would live with Christ-first they must learn to die unto sin.

It is impossible for sin and grace to thrive in the same subject.

2. One great means of mortification is guarding the senses-eyes and ears, taste and touch...that they may not betray the heart into sin.

I put it so general, because the man of GOD who is so solicitous about his eyes would not be careless of his ears and other senses.

We must watch on all sides.

When an assault is made on a city-if one gate is open it is as good as if all were.

The inlet and outlet of sin is by the senses, and much of our danger lies there.

There are many objects that agree with our dispositions, and by them insinuate themselves into the soul, and therefore things long since seemingly dead will soon revive again and recover life and strength.

There are no means to keep the heart-unless we keep the eye.

In every creature Satan has laid a snare for us...to steal away our hearts and affections from GOD.

The senses are so ready to receive these objects from without to wound the heart, for they are as the heart is.

If the heart is poisoned with sin, and became a servant to it-so are the senses of our bodies "weapons of unrighteousness" (Romans 6:13).
 
Earthly objects have an impression upon them answerable to the temper and affections of the soul-and what the soul desires-the senses pitch upon; and therefore if we let the senses wander, the heart will take fire.

3. Above all senses, the eye must be guarded. First, because it is the noblest sense, given us for high uses.

There is not only a natural eye to inform us of things profitable and hurtful for the natural man-but a spiritual use to set before us those objects which may stir us and raise our minds to heavenly meditations.

By beholding the perfection of the creature—we may admire the more eminent perfection of Him that made them: "the heavens declare the glory of God—and the firmament shows His handiwork" (Psalm 19:1).

Rom 1:20  For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

The perfections of the creature are to draw us to GOD—and its defects to drive us from themselves.

The eye, as it is used, will either be a help or a snare: either it will let in the sparks of temptation—or enkindle the fire of true devotion.

These are the windows which GOD has placed in the top of the building, that man from there may contemplate GOD'S works and take a prospect of Heaven.

Second, because the eyes have a great influence upon the heart either to good or evil—but chiefly to evil.

In this corrupt state of man, by looking—we come to liking, and are brought inordinately to love what we behold.

Seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you used to go a whoring. Num. 15:39.

If my step has turned out of the way, and my heart walk after my eyes (Job 31:7).

These are the spies of the heart-agents to bring it and the temptation together;

The eye sees, and then by gazing—the heart lusts, and the body acts the transgression.

It is more dangerous to see evil than to hear it.

~Thomas Manton~

Noah's FAITH

While he sat at rest in his house, pursuing a life of devotion, and mourning over the abounding wickedness of the times, he heard a voice - a voice declaring that the end of all flesh was at hand - a voice which fixed the event and the manner, but concealed the time.

The voice assured him that the wicked would be destroyed, and that the only safety for him was in an ark, which he must at once set about preparing.

All this was strange, and different from anything he had experienced. Yet the patriarch believed God.

He did not doubt because he had never seen such a thing before, nor because the events predicted might be at a considerable distance.

He admitted a realizing belief that the wicked would be destroyed, and that his only safety was in an ark.

His faith was sufficient to influence his conduct and to lead him to the labor of 120 years.

Not knowing how near the deluge might be, and contemplating so vast a work before him, he saw that he had no time to lose.

He felt the urgent call for haste, apprehending that if he delayed, the deluge might come before he was ready; at the same time trusting in God that if he was diligent, that the judgment would be deferred until he was prepared.

Here were all the trials of faith which good men experience now.

O that they could as fully believe the threats and promises of God; and while they feel the pressing need of haste, could trust in him to connect their diligence with the promised salvation.

Let them not doubt because the events foretold differ from their past experience, nor because they are many years distant.

Noah believed God, because his mind was not blinded by sin; but his contemporaries were blinded.

This was the difference between them. He believed God's threatenings and promises, and they believed not.

Hence he could consume the labor of 120 years in building an ark, and they could spend that solemn time in mocking at his sacred toil.

They could not have acted thus, had they really believed that a flood was coming on the world.

This is the difficulty with sinners now. Though God has foretold the destruction of the wicked - they do not really believe it.

Did they truly believe that the destruction would come, and that there is no safety but in the spiritual ark - they could not thus reject a Savior, and sleep out life in worldliness and vain security!

~Edward Griffin~