Tag: God

What is Prayer?

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So I have been thinking recently on the meaning of prayer and the point of such an exercise. Let me first define prayer as ‘the communion and conversation between us and the Trinity.’ I realized that some people pray to the Father and some to the Son and some to the Holy Spirit. For the purpose of this conversation I refer to the Father to whom Jesus spoke.

Recall that Jesus said not to use a lot of words because God already knows what our needs are. And yet Jesus offered to his disciples the model of the Lord’s Prayer, which is a beautiful expression to God of our praise, our daily needs and desire for his will.

Conversation with God is an expression of love as conversation is in all human relationships and since we are created in the image of God it makes sense that God would want such fellowship with us. Prayer is how we express our most basic needs and how we find strength and comfort from God.

It seems from the bible that God wants our cooperation in his work in his world. Jesus teaches his disciples how to ask for anything in his name, that is, in his nature. And sometimes it seems that our relationship to God is like a child’s to a parent where the greatest thrill for a parent is to enjoy the relationship with his or her child and grow in that relationship of love, and trust. God asks for our trust just like a child’s. This is probably why Jesus said that unless we become like children we couldn’t enter the Kingdom of God. I believe Jesus means right now because the Kingdom of God is begun through Christ and when we place our confidence in God through prayer we are within that Kingdom life. Recall that Paul said the Kingdom is joy and righteousness. “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,” (Romans 14)

And there is no better place to know that life than in prayer, in communion, in love with God. Sometimes prayer can be in agony but that heartbreak is always surrounded with God’s love and assurance. This is why in Romans 8 Paul says that by the Spirit we call God ‘Abba’, the most intimate expression of loving address. You and I can tell God anything, anything. And we are assured that his listening to us is not in judgment but through Christ his love for us is filled with pardon, strength, healing and comfort. And if we listen carefully, which means being still, we will hear God speak to us, urge us, guide us and when we rise up from prayer we will know we have been with the Father, the Son and The Spirit.

That we can even pray is evidence of a loving God’s invitation into a relationship. So carve out a space and time for prayer. I remember when my children were young there was no greater joy than to have one of them climb up into my lap and just talk about anything, joys or troubles in the day. And at night what a thrill it was to lie in bed with one of them and recount the day’s events.

So may our hearts be given to God in prayer. If you know no other prayer then look at Matthew 6 for the Lord’s Prayer and let it soak into you. Just tell God you love him and let him love you. Reflect in these next weeks what Jesus did for you and me because of God’s great love. And may God bless richly that time you spend with him. I think I will go now and do what I have suggested.

 

Taking it for granted.

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So I have been thinking that the reason many folks, including myself, don’t get the whole ‘love of God’ thing is that we take for granted God’s love. That love thing is what God does, doesn’t he? What’s the big deal? But the big deal is that we have little idea of what God’s kind of love really means; that even while we turned our backs on him he still loved us enough to send his only Son, Jesus to die for us. He did that while we were his enemies.

Imagine in war where one soldier is taught to give up his life for his fellow soldier. That’s often the instinct of a soldier or maybe it is from the kindness of his heart that he throws himself on a grenade to protect his friend. That’s all well and good but would this same soldier give his life for his enemy? That’s what God does for you and me. Somehow we bought the idea a long time ago that we weren’t really that bad so it didn’t take much for God to love us. Listen I would break down and cry if a friend saved my life. But if I am somehow held hostage and one of my captors gave up his life so I could escape well I would be daily grateful, more than words can say, for that man. Do we not know that’s what God did for us when he grabbed us from the jaws of hell to rescue us and make us into his friends?

Imagine your spouse leaves you to be with another partner, cashes out your bank account, and pretty much ruins your life. And then down the road a few years later he or she comes back to you to ask for forgiveness. How easy would it be to love him or her? That’s what God did for us. Took us back. Read the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15. How grateful would that wayward spouse be upon being welcomed back and loved?

Suppose you are walking down the street and some guy comes up behind you and beats you half to death and steals your money. You end up in ICU in some downtown hospital. Later the guy  shows up at the door of your room and asks for forgiveness. You not only forgive him but you ask him to be your best friend and come and live with you. That’s the kind of love God showed his enemies, even the ones who beat his Son to death. I can only imagine the gratitude the aforementioned criminal might have each day for his earthly savior. Read how Isaac Watts, hymn writer and pastor from the 1700’s put it:

  1. When I survey the wondrous cross
    On which the Prince of glory died,
    My richest gain I count but loss,
    And pour contempt on all my pride.
  2. Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
    Save in the death of Christ my God!
    All the vain things that charm me most,
    I sacrifice them to His blood.
  3. See from His head, His hands, His feet,
    Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
    Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
    Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
  4. Were the whole realm of nature mine,
    That were a present far too small;
    Love so amazing, so divine,
    Demands my soul, my life, my all.

 

Those last two lines really impact me. I owe not only my praise but also my whole life to this God who loves me so. Actually you could read the whole hymn and discover the amazing reality of God’s love poured out for us and poured into our hearts. Let it stir up our hearts to service and praise for the Lord God who loves us so. Maybe it’s why people have crucifixes to be able to sit and gaze upon the figure of Christ (not an idol) and then contemplate what he did for us.

That’s what love is all about. Not that we loved God but that he loved us first when we were lost, in the abyss of sin and he threw us a lifeline. Every day I want to be amazed at this love and remember how much he loves me. Not just the world but also each and every one of us to the nth degree. Remember how the song goes HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW.

 

DIVINE MAESTRO

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Check out this quote by Dallas Willard. Confidence in Jesus as absolute Maestro of the universe is the first indication of regeneration. Is that great or what? And a divine maestro who is a master musician has one goal. He wants to bring about the most wonderful piece of music imaginable. He wants every instrument or voice in tune; every musician performing his or her best. That is the joy of the Master.

In this world Jesus is the Divine Maestro working with his Father to bring about the greatest good, the greatest artwork of creation imaginable. ‘God is good’ declares the Scripture. But, we often look at the world as a jumbled up batch of amateurish performers at their worst and the background of creation is a wreck in the eyes of many. How did the maestro even let some of the players into his orchestra? They seem downright evil.

Thomas Oden, a Methodist theologian, has written of this topic in his book called CLASSIC CHRISTIANITY. He says that we look at the fallen world, this messed up world, with cloudy eyesight at best. This world of all the worlds that might have been created is the best one.

Many of us who take a good look at the entire world throughout history will observe the goodness in this creation, and thus the goodness of God. God does not make anything badly insists the classic Christian writers. The creation has been skewed by our disobedience and still the creator, the Divine Maestro, is at work to take his creation and bring it back to harmony and perfection through his love for this world.

At the beginning everyone knew their notes, their parts and chose, from their own God given freedom, to distort the work, rebel against the maestro and this unfinished world is the result. And so are our unfinished lives.

But to have an accurate assessment of the whole situation you and I must read the score, the whole score. People who bash God and Christian faith have rarely done so.

Just read this account of the Maestro’s character and work from Colossians 1:

15-18 We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.

18-20 He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross. (MSG)

Let’s go back to Willard’s quote and see that indeed it is the beginning of faith to realize the goodness of our creator and our savior.

Now there are people like Bill Maher of T.V. fame who make their living denigrating God and Jesus and thus have no clue as to what is going on in this universe. To people like that religion is nonsense and even evil. But I suggest that they get to know the Maestro to understand God and his love for his creation and his desire both for our freedom and hopefully a redeemed responsibility to care as deeply as he does.

According to one of the smartest men who ever lived, St. Paul, this creation does indeed groan but God is working all things towards a good purpose, a good end that some of us see even now amidst the groans. (Romans 8)

The great Maestro of the Universe spent time with his creation, going to each student, one by one, to help him or her learn his or her parts to be able to perform the greatest masterpiece possible. And each student, apprentice will add his or her skill, talent, or new learning to the great work that was designed by the Maestro. Those who don’t want to be in the orchestra will have the choice to walk away. But in this masterpiece even the birds will want to sing, the flowers will bloom, and the trees will shout for joy to their Master.

I detest much that is happening on this earth, and make no mistake, evil abounds. It seems as though the devil secretly steals into the orchestra to create disharmony. But I don’t have the big picture. I see only a few pages at a time and trust that when it all comes together there will be a new heaven and a new earth whose brilliance will be unsurpassed by anything we can imagine. The final score is already written and we are invited to sit under the Maestro and learn the parts that have been assigned to us trusting that the music can be heard even now by those who have ears to hear.

 

Think Good Thoughts

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The world as it is, evil in the sense of being alienated against God, is against you and me. Let me explain. How do we see ourselves in the world? Usually we see ourselves as the world sees us and judges us; our looks, academic performance, power, wealth, sexual appeal and more. It’s a hard place to live when we feel the need to ‘measure up’.

And then there is the issue of faith. We are reluctant to follow Christ, believe in Christ, put our confidence in Christ because the world puts us down for being not intellectual, or for being too naïve or gullible or they mock us for the evil in the world or for the evil that believers have done over the years. No, it’s not easy living faithfully in this world among people who are living for themselves or for the material gods they have fashioned for themselves. So what to do? How to cope?

Let me suggest that Paul might have been on to something in Romans 12:1-2 where he gives advise to the earliest believers back in the first century where they were under severe pressure to conform to the Roman society, Roman gods and way of life.

This is how he puts it:

12 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, [a] by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.[b] 2 Do not be conformed to this world, [c] but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.(ESV)d

If you would like a modern paraphrase of this passage take a look at the MESSAGE

12 1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

If we choose the CULTURE as our worldview in life we are going to be beat up badly, squeezed into a way of life that may seem satisfying but will sap our energy from trying so hard to fit it. And it’s a deadly dead-end road that leads to nowhere, no purpose, and no life with God. Instead Paul invites, encourages, urges us to let ourselves be transformed by God, to start thinking differently aided of course the God’s Holy Spirit. Thinking in terms of what it means to belong to God, that Jesus is our Lord and friend and Savior. To understand what it means to be truly loved and to live out our lives in that love and not under judgment. And greatest of all when we give ourselves to God we begin to discern with our spirits and our minds what God’s will is. Sometimes we don’t even need to ask. It’s just ‘there’, right in front of us.

Now here’s the thing. The church can sometimes act like the world, all flesh and no heart, trying to squeeze us into this doctrine and that idea. I get real nervous going into a group of people who I think are sometimes judging me by the name of the church I attend or how I pray or even what I look like. I have more than a few quizzical stares at some of my tattoos or that cigar hanging out of my mouth.

Don’t let anyone SQUEEZE you into THEIR mold, the way of doing things. Sometimes you just have to stand up for yourself. But rather keep thinking on God, his goodness towards you and me. Think about what he did through his son Jesus …let your mind be soaked by that goodness and be very attracted to kind Christians who accept you and love you. When you are in such a situation you begin to see the will of God more clearly in your life because you are FREE to commune with God, not by the rules of anyone else.

The Bible talks a lot about freedom. Jesus said that the truth would set us free. The truth is the life of Jesus interacting with our life through the Holy Spirit. The truth on certain days allows us to look in the mirror and say, ‘why you most loved wretch, what is wrong with you?’ And you know the God who loves you forgives and loves you so much. Other days you may look in that same mirror and say, ‘my, aren’t I a good person.’ Then perhaps you need to blink your eyes and consider that the Christ who stands next to you is your measuring rod.

But here’s the thing. Fix your attention on God. Look at God’s through his holy word. Read the Psalms and the Gospels. Get it fixed in your mind whose you are, to whom you really belong. If God be for us who can be against us? That was not written to prepare for a military battle. It was written for us to know that no evil in this world has any real power over us. Oh they may take our lives but they will never take away our relationship with Christ.

When we get that firmly fixed in our minds then we can think about every person, every situation, every injustice in this world and we will have the good God sense to know how to live.

The world has no power to pressure you. And for the most part God won’t pressure. He will invited, he will nudge and once in a while a good kick in the rear from our loving God will get our minds right.

The world just doesn’t ‘get it’, never has but here’s the secret. The kingdom of God has landed in this world and you and I are blessed to see it. That’s what the whole born again thing means. We are given eyes to see what God is up to in us and in this world and then we join God. The world will put you down. Worldly Christians will do that too.

Look and long for Christian brothers and sisters who will build you up, who will stand against the ways of the world even those ways found within our own families. Seek fellowship that is challenging, and pray often with your Bible and heart wide open to what the spirit is saying to all of us. Amen

 

CRACKED POTS

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The author of the Cracked Pot story is unknown; yet the wisdom that it holds is displayed in our lives daily through God’s working in and through us!

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole, which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream.’I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.’

The old woman smiled, ‘Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side?’ ‘That’s because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them.’ For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.’

2Corinthians 4:7f (MSG paraphrase) “If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious message around in the adorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us….We’re not much to look at…but the life of Jesus is being revealed through us.”

Just so you know the context. Paul is writing about all the trials he faced. And it was through those trials and sometimes even the failures that the life of Christ shone through. I think that about us as Christians. We are not much to look at in the world’s standards. And sometimes it doesn’t look like we are all that righteous because if we did we might mistake shining the light on us instead of Christ. So we muddle along best as we can and discover that the precious life giving spirit is leaking through us into the lives of others.

I have a friend like that. She doesn’t always think much of herself and wonders at times about her righteousness but she always leaks out some of that wonderful Christ life into my life by her honest and her sincere desire for God.

So never discount that God is up to something in your life. Always, every moment, even while you are sleeping God is carrying your cracked pot and flowers are blooming somewhere.

 

cracked pot

 

WE’RE NOT FAITHFUL ENOUGH

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Somewhere along the way we have learned a mistaken concept. We think that it is by our faith that we are saved but not so. My suggestion here is not a new idea. It has been expounded by others. According to the Greek in Galatians 2:20 Paul is actually saying that he lives by the faithfulness of the Son of God.
It makes sense does it not that you and I can never attain to the faithfulness of Christ? There is only one person so free of sin and yet so in love with humanity that he was willing to surrender his life in faithfulness to God.
What we do is believe him, believe in him if you like. As Jesus said to his disciples in John 14, ‘you believe in God, believe in me.’ Trust what he is doing on our behalf.

Say you have an attorney defending you in a criminal trial. You pay this person and you trust that he or she will do the best for you. You believe that they can do this. It’s not you doing the defending. Your belief is not the same as the skill and the experience of the attorney. You might actually say that your life is being saved by the faithfulness of that particular attorney.
The reason this makes a difference is that sometimes we strain to ‘get enough faith’. Faith is not some mysterious power that we conjure up in our hearts or minds. It is simply believing Jesus, taking him at his word. In Romans 10:9 Paul writes that if we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead we will be saved. And that’s just the beginning but it’s a large, a monumental beginning to get to the place where we believe that the faithfulness of Jesus is enough to secure for us an eternal relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
It is not our strength or the strength of our faith that saves us but the faithfulness of the Son of God. And then we take a lifetime to live out that belief by following Jesus.

KING OF THE WORLD

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Let’s be clear. This world does not belong to Satan, the devil or any other powers and principalities. We may be fighting against their miserable terrorism (Ephesians 6) and they might be called the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2) and even ‘prince of the world’ (John 14) but make no mistake his princely crown is paper and the lie of his lips is that the world somehow belongs to him (Matthew 4- the temptation of Jesus.)

But King Jesus is the ruler of all empires of this world. In fact it’s why his disciples and Paul often got into trouble because they claimed there was another King, Jesus, and the Romans didn’t take kindly to such a proclamation. (Acts 17)

And the disciple John made it clear that greater is the Christ in you and me than any power in this world. (1John4)

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem to his own death he was coming on a donkey as a King, the King of the world, the universe, King to dethrone any powers that might think to be somehow rulers of this creation. He was taking his rightful place as King.

He tells his disciples in John 16 that though they will have tribulation in the world they don’t have to be afraid because he has overcome the world. And through faith in this same Christ we are the ‘overcomers’ with him. His faith given to us is our assurance of victory.

So when the day does not go well for you or the forces of darkness are surrounding your life you simply tell them in the most biblical sense, ‘go to hell’. ‘Be gone.’ We serve a risen King, a powerful Emperor, a sovereign God and nothing will separate us from his love. Nothing. Nada. Zip. No other ruler can make that claim or keep that promise.

And if you feel as if you life is falling apart at the moment you remember that just when the whole world seemed as though it was falling, at the crucifixion, God was doing his mightiest act of salvation and good for his own glory and to make sure that you and know that no matter what is going on we are his children.

So let’s take this day and celebrate what it means to be a child of God with joy and happiness.

And since mothers’ and fathers’ day is coming let’s rejoice that God who acts the most loving of both cradles us in his arms. You tell the devil that, or anybody who thinks to mess with you this or any other day. Amen.

TO PRAY OR NOT TO PRAY

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The idea of public education comes from the church, the Christian church. It was started back in the day of Martin Luther in Germany. Eventually that idea found its way to America through the Pilgrims.

And wouldn’t you know that with education came the idea of praying to the one who ultimately gives knowledge, even the God of all creation. And what a privilege you might think to be able in concert to offer a prayer of thanks to the God above an within through the name of his most wise son Jesus, in fact the wisest man who ever lived on this earth. Wise by almost all human evaluation.

I wonder if in our institutions of learning do teachers ever teach on the history of prayer. Jesus certainly did. He was forever telling his disciples, his apprentices the importance and the effects of prayer for the Kingdom of God on earth.

And while reading about the recent Supreme Court decision to allow forms of public prayer I couldn’t help but smile to think how the real SUPREME COURT regards all this mess. If I am not mistaken the original congress probably had a chaplain to lead in prayer.

I like how Benjamin Franklin put it back in 1787:

“I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that ‘except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel . . . I therefore beg leave to move— that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that Service.”

Make no mistake about it. Prayer if one of the highest forms of stewardship, the stewardship of God’s love, his daily grace and his wisdom so necessary in these days for all ages.

And it is through the Messiah Jesus that our prayers reach the ears of God to his glory and our good. So thank you Supreme Court for doing your duty. Let’s keep on praying.

 

 

GOD IS MY HELP

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Isaiah 50

The Lord GOD is my help,therefore I am not disgraced;I have set my face like flint,knowing that I shall not be put to shame. vs. 7

THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD I SHALL NOT WANT  Psalm 23

If I am at all conscious of God’s sovereignty and grace I pray to realize that I have no need for all my ego defenses or selfish desires because the Lord is all I need. Some translate that first verse of Psalm 23 as ‘the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything that I need.’

Truly God is good and gracious.

There is nothing anyone can do or say to me that can disgrace me or put me to shame. Look at the Passion of Christ in this Holy Week.  See how they tormented him, spit on him and tried their best to shame him but he well knew that his Father’s acceptance and love was all that he needed. Eternity belonged to him. The Kingdom was his and no one could take it away from him.

Why then these petty thoughts of mine about what people think of me or if I am being treated fairly? Why defensive about my rights? God is my help. I have no need of anything else do I?

I need to pray daily that the Christ who gave up everything might live in me with the same love that he knew from the Father.

My Lord is guiding every step I take. And even when I wander he is beside me and he will bring me back into his fold. What else do I need or need to know.  When Christians are mocked they sometimes become argumentative or defensive or even intimidated but I don’t need that. Jesus, it is said, never really made any argument or defense on his own behalf.  He knew he could call twelve legions of angels to help him.  He knew that the Kingdom he inaugurated on earth was his Father’s kingdom and there was no need for anything else.

Why must I attempt to build my own Kingdom at times and wall it off from those who might hurt me in some way? I have no need of my own castle. I belong to the Kingdom of God. That is the Kingdom I want to seek more than anything else.

God loves me….and everyone of you, more than we can understand. This week  is Passion Week, Holy Week and the celebration of Christ’s ultimate victory in which you and I stand forever. Offer your own prayer, or read the stories from the Gospels of his passion and ask that you and I may be able to say to our Father, no matter the circumstances, “Thy will be done.” Amen.

 

Heart Condition

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A Tree and its Fruit– from Luke 6:44,45  “For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush.  The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.”

Seems that if we get our hearts right with God, before the face of God, in this present moment then from inside of us, as it were, will good things come.

Meister Eckhart (a monk writing about 1300 A.D.) says that to God it matters little WHAT we do but what matters is the attitude of our hearts that leads us to our deeds. This is good news for those of us who feel like small contributors to the Kingdom life perhaps because of our circumstances or because we are so new to this life of faith.  Most people look on the external conditions but God looks on the heart even the heart that struggles to be faithful.

And let us not think that it is in outward performing of our deeds we somehow earn God’s love. No all our effort is to get our hearts in good condition and in the right place so that FROM such a heart good will naturally come to the glory and praise of our God. Amen