Greetings,
"But He turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind Me, Satan: thou art an offense unto Me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God; but those things that be of men"
and herein is our question, Have we savoured the things of God throughout this year? throughout this month? and are we longing to continue to savour the things of God right through the end of this year? So much is at stake in these days, weeks and months ahead. And too often I have learned and watched in my own self as well as in others of how fickle we are in spiritual disciplines. Never have I seen church, bible, prayer and evangelism so 'inconvenient and optional to Christians. Can they really say they savor the things of God when they turn from His ways to world, self and sin?
My greatest desire is to be filled in days and weeks with labors before Him, in Him and by Him. church, prayer, witnessing, instruction, time, calendar filled with activity about God and for God. How can we short-change Him our time and energies so much and still say we savour the things of God? Time must be invested in the eternal, spiritual, purposes of God. And if they are not, then it is temporal, carnal, selfish, and our own will and agendas. Let us look again at the 4 pillars of the faith in spiritual discipline for the close of this year and headed into the new year:
1. bible - its not an option for us; We have been entrusted in North America with access, freedom, education to glean, learn, apply and know the Word of God. How many nations, people would give to have what we have and cannot for persecution, limitations. Where much is given, much is required. and God will require of us what we did with His Word when He entrusted it to us to cover the world with it. Your daily time has to be in the Word, to know it, read it and let it speak to you. Sporadic, minimal readings are not sufficient for a healthy spiritual growth. Too many spend more time on facebook, social media watching TV than in the Word. This sin is rarely confessed or addressed by the body of Christ. Be much in the Word; give time to devour it for His work to be done in you.
2. prayer - how much I have craved to be more and more in prayer; To match the great praying saints is set before me. Not just to polly repeat them, but to emulate them in their patterns and times for the sake of what it means to the kingdom and to our Lord. In prayer, I have seen and do know that Satan hates this more than anything else. HE fights hardest against the soul resolved to pray more and learn to pray. In this I know that it is one of the most treasures of our day to be much in prayer. Examine this savour in the Lord and the things of God and follow Christ example of prayer.
3. Sharing the Gospel - how much this impacts me about the souls of men; how many will be graced before us on judgement day that we knew we were to tell them, talk to them, convey to them the Gospel truth and yet we allowed for other things to distract, rob and detour us away from this act of obedience in sharing the Gospel. Make it a priority to speak about eternity to one soul a week; and if doing that, then increase to fill 4 - 5 days a week. The harvest is white but the laborers are few, pray . . .
4. church - too many think of church services, buildings as the means of the church; yet in these buildings, services is where the body gathers to fulfill the Lord's work and desire; They view these services and buildings as optional, random. Yet, the church is the most important thing in the life of a Christian. Christ died for the church; Christ started the church and Christ is coming back for the church. don't tell me the church isn't important.
but the activity of the church is so sinful and vile that it grieves the Holy Ghost greatly. You see this in the attendance of church services. In the US we are now under 20% of our 330 million population that are in church on any given Sunday morning. This greatly lessens for Sunday night services; mid-week services; and the slim, rare to find prayer meetings are all less and less with faithful, steadfast stewards of the kingdom in the church. for most, what kind of Christian you are is found in your church attendance.
In these 4 areas I find, determine our savouring of the things of God or not. time given or time taken away from these things determines our savour of God. And the things of holiness, eternity, Spirit vs. carnality, temporal and self are clear evidences of what we savour in this life. And to the most part will determine our eternity with Him or away from Him. How important to live this life for Him, in Him and about Him. Strive to finish this year at the highest acts of obedience and reverence to the things that are savoring to God. eliminate and flee from the things that savor to me/men.
24/7 prayer chain -
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090945a4aa2da75-2471/58736439
This is by far the greatest need of the hour. A continual, prevailing, praying 24/7 chain that comes before the Lord for His purposes, His kingdom, His promises, His will in His people and for the nations. a labor of prayer offered up before Him is the greatest battle and warfare needed today against evil.
But I realize that to many such praying is not possible. An hour prayer times is a hard thing to find among the church body today. You would think a weekly corporate prayer times would be a good thing, yet that is also hard to find among the churches today. Most churches simply do not know how to pray an hour, nor do they pray an hour a week. And the individual prayer times are often filled with thoughts about people and things, yet not what we would consider offering up petitions, supplications, intercessions. Now God knows our thoughts and intents in prayer, but to many say they are praying, when really they are have mental thoughts. Make sure we are communicating to the Lord in prayer times.
Prayer Targets:
--Dec. 5 - it will be another day of infamy for the church and our age; few in the church are aware of this day of the oral arguments set to begin in the Supreme Court over business vs. LGBT agenda; Ruling will impact business and have huge implications to church.
--also more religious denominations setting trend to favor gender bias in stark contrast to Bible; erosion of our day into abominations being accepted and favored;
--murder-suicides - have abated this past week; thankful for this but this is a continual on-going battle against evil in the minds of men and homes;
--another police officer shot & killed in TX;
--drugs; on course for 70,000 deaths this year; huge implications on our society, generational, and continuance of this evil; entire generation being wiped out;
--holidays abound and take priority in churches and Christian lives; priorities are shifted to family, self, ease, etc. spiritual warfare takes a back seat during these 2 months into the new year; dangerous times;
--epidemic of teacher/student sex cases continue; someone should hypothesize where this will lead in laws, school, relationship etc. it is becoming a norm with less and less repercussions; no doubt children, along with sex trafficking will be targeted rather than adult abusers; age will be dropped to 12 for legal contact; perversion and lasciviousness abound; giving us over to reprobate mind;
Update:
--bible reading; last day, Revelation 12; should finish Saturday, 46th time through; word studies completed this time was 'Deliver' & 'Woe'; along with a few other 'PLEASE GOD"; and highlighted Sin, Iniquity, Evil, wicked, sinner, abomination in red highlighter
; I had done sin, sinner, before but now color coated;
--word/phrase study - up through Matthew 19; puts me under 300
pages to completion;
--sermon uploaded to youtube page;
--leaning to prayer emails to be posted on social media of twitter & facebook account and here on my blog danbiser.blogspot.com I may just eliminate mailchimp
--facebook live stream - I have been trying to do these once a week; such a hard thing to fit in, yet a quicker way to present prayer targets and updates; Use the social media to encourage, edify, teach, share and bring together for His business.
Until,
dan
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