Just wanted to share with everyone what the Lord taught me today. I found it to be very challenging and encouraging. Hope you find it to be the same!
STEPHEN
Acts 6:5 – “Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit…”
Acts 6:8 – “Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power…”
Acts 7:55 – “Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit”
What awesome tag lines Stephen has after his name. A man full of faith. A man full of the Holy Spirit. A man full of God’s grace and power. What would my tag line be? If someone were writing about me, would they say, “Jordan, a woman full of faith and of the Holy Spirit”?
Oh Lord, to have you as my label. I don’t want to just be “Jordan, a good Christian girl” or “Jordan, a really sweet girl.” I want to have a tag line that points directly to you.
But how do I get there?...
“May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen." Hebrews 13:20-21
Let’s simplify this verse…
“May the God of peace… equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him…”
May God equip you and may he work in us.
Father, I need you to equip me. I need you to work in me. Lord, equip me with everything good to do your will. I can’t do it on my own. I need you to work in my heart. I need you to crush this heart of stone. I need you to replace my fleshly desires with desires that match yours. I want to love what you love and hate what you hate. Lord, work in me what is pleasing to you. I want you to look down from your throne and say, “See her? See Jordan? She is my servant and she is full of faith and the Holy Spirit. She is full of my grace and power. And I love using her to bring me more glory.”
Father, I can’t do it on my own. Give me your eyes Lord. Come and change the way I see this world. Show me what is really important. I need you to invade my life supernaturally. Come and invade my whole body, from my fingers to my toes, my eyes, my brain, and my heart. Take it all Lord. I am a weak, sinful person. I want to desire you with all that I have. I want to find my joy in you. I know you are the best for me. I know that by being in your presence I will be ultimately satisfied and fulfilled. But my flesh can’t fully grasp or pursue after that.
Oh Lord, this is my prayer:
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27
“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.” 1 John 2:15-17
When Stephen was about to be stoned, he looked up to heaven and said, “Look, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” When he said this, the people covered their ears.
The people of this world don’t understand the things of God. They take offense at the things of God. Christ even said in John 15:19, “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”
As followers of Christ, we should be so set apart from this world that the world hates us. If the world loves us as its own, I think we should be questioning the way we live. As followers of Christ, we are called to a life of suffering for his name.
Stephen was a true, no-doubt-about-it, follower of Christ:
Stephen was full of faith.
Stephen was full of the Holy Spirit.
Stephen was full of God’s grace and power.
Stephen was clearly set apart from this world.
The world hated Stephen.
Stephen suffered for the name of Christ.
I bet God looked down from His throne and said, “See him? See Stephen? He is my servant and he is full of faith and the Holy Spirit. He is full of my grace and power. And I love using him to bring me more glory.”
Now, let us all “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Let us strive to live lives that separate us from this world and bring glory to our awesome God.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
To See Christ More Fully
So I recently realized that as of yesterday, I have exactly 7 weeks until my plane departs and I'm on my way to Niger! At first, this was a bit of a discouraging discovery because I thought I was down to 5 or 6 weeks, but no, 7 weeks it is. 7 weeks of waiting... waiting... and more waiting.
But the more I think about these 7 weeks, the more I realize that God has a reason, a divine purpose for this time of waiting. And I want to know what it is. I don't want these 7 weeks to be wasted. You see, these past couple of weeks I have really been struggling and fighting against myself more than I ever have before. I'm realizing more and more that I am my own worst enemy. This flesh I live in puts up a really strong fight. It will do anything to keep me from delighting in and seeking after the Lord. The thing is... That's all I want:
As I have been reading through a couple of John Piper's books - Let the Nations Be Glad and When I Don't Desire God - How to Fight for Joy - I am learning that God is ultimately glorified through the lives of those who are most satisfied in Him. It's this really cool cycle where God commands us to delight in Him. But we, as fallen, sinful beings, can't do that on our own. Only God can grant us delight in Him. So we get on our knees. We pray. We seek. One thing. Joy in Him. And when we receive that joy, He gets the glory for it. He gets the glory because He is the Giver of that joy (we can't take credit for it) and because it speaks volumes to the world when we treasure Christ above all things, even in the midst of suffering.
I was reading today in Piper's When I Don't Desire God and the name of the chapter is "The Fight for Joy is a Fight to See." I only made it through the first couple of pages before I had to quit and gather my thoughts. What I read was so simple (yet complex - it's John Piper...), and exactly what I needed. Basically the concept he presents is that in order to delight in God, it all starts with seeing the glory of God in the beauty of Christ. He says it like this:
And here is the part that sums up my goal for the next 7 weeks:
To see Christ more fully.
So this is where I now find myself. I have 7 weeks before I leave for Africa. 7 weeks to prepare. 7 weeks to ask you to join me in prayer that God would help me overcome this battle I fight against myself. I am struggling, and I need help.
To see Christ more fully. This is my prayer. It's all I want. I want to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. I want to run with perseverance the race marked out for me. I want to fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith, who for the joy set before him endured far more than I will ever have to endure. Please join me in this prayer.
But the more I think about these 7 weeks, the more I realize that God has a reason, a divine purpose for this time of waiting. And I want to know what it is. I don't want these 7 weeks to be wasted. You see, these past couple of weeks I have really been struggling and fighting against myself more than I ever have before. I'm realizing more and more that I am my own worst enemy. This flesh I live in puts up a really strong fight. It will do anything to keep me from delighting in and seeking after the Lord. The thing is... That's all I want:
One thing I ask of the Lord,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.
Psalm 27:4
As I have been reading through a couple of John Piper's books - Let the Nations Be Glad and When I Don't Desire God - How to Fight for Joy - I am learning that God is ultimately glorified through the lives of those who are most satisfied in Him. It's this really cool cycle where God commands us to delight in Him. But we, as fallen, sinful beings, can't do that on our own. Only God can grant us delight in Him. So we get on our knees. We pray. We seek. One thing. Joy in Him. And when we receive that joy, He gets the glory for it. He gets the glory because He is the Giver of that joy (we can't take credit for it) and because it speaks volumes to the world when we treasure Christ above all things, even in the midst of suffering.
I was reading today in Piper's When I Don't Desire God and the name of the chapter is "The Fight for Joy is a Fight to See." I only made it through the first couple of pages before I had to quit and gather my thoughts. What I read was so simple (yet complex - it's John Piper...), and exactly what I needed. Basically the concept he presents is that in order to delight in God, it all starts with seeing the glory of God in the beauty of Christ. He says it like this:
"Nothing in the universe is more central than the radiance of the glory of God revealed in Christ for the enjoyment of his people. Therefore, the importance of seeing it for what it really is can hardly be exaggerated. For seeing it is foundational to enjoying it. And that joy is foundational for showing the worth of Christ in the world. It is foundational for the life of love and sacrifice and suffering that it sustains.
And here is the part that sums up my goal for the next 7 weeks:
Therefore beneath the quest for satisfaction in Christ - which sustains the life of sacrifice for Christ - is always the quest to see the glory of Christ. All strategies in the fight for joy are directly or indirectly strategies to see Christ more fully.
To see Christ more fully.
So this is where I now find myself. I have 7 weeks before I leave for Africa. 7 weeks to prepare. 7 weeks to ask you to join me in prayer that God would help me overcome this battle I fight against myself. I am struggling, and I need help.
To see Christ more fully. This is my prayer. It's all I want. I want to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. I want to run with perseverance the race marked out for me. I want to fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith, who for the joy set before him endured far more than I will ever have to endure. Please join me in this prayer.
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