Archive for October, 2015
Prayer and Praise, Part 5
But I also wonder if sometimes, Christians who experience these healings (or medical “cures”) sometimes come to a point of starting to believe that God provided the healing because of their faith in the matter and not because He simply chose to heal according to His will and purposes? I see some whose cancers are in remission and who are living a full life because of it and I wonder if they are often tempted to think that their “faith” made them whole, or “allowed” God to “heal” them?
Prayer and Praise, Part 4
Yet, what do we Christians do all too often? We pray for specifics to a certain situation and often we do so before we even truly know what God’s will is and we rarely, if ever add the words, “yet, not mine, but thy will be done” to our prayers. We tend to think of those words as being “defeatist.” How can we really “believe” God will provide the answer we are looking for if we add those words to the mix? Answer: we can’t believe He will do what we ask, so we don’t add those words.
Prayer and Praise, Part 3
Notice in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus opens with “Our Father,” and then does not state any reference to Him again except for the use of the word “your.” He didn’t feel the need to insert the Father’s name or reference at the beginning or end of each statement. In fact, we know that God sees the depth of our own thoughts even though we may not actually know how to pray, (cf. Job 31:4; Jeremiah 23:24; Romans 8:26). God knows us! We need to drop the pretense, adopt reverence, and approach Him with awe and praise, understanding who He is, at least as He has chosen to reveal Himself to us in His Word.
Prophecies of Daniel 2, Part 4
We need to also remember that God chose to respond to Daniel’s prayers (and those of his friends) because of His (God’s) highest purposes. Daniel and his friends made themselves available to God and God chose to use them for His glory. In the process, these young men grew in wisdom and discernment before the Lord. Daniel himself was given the gift of interpreting dreams. These benefits came from God and were to be used to bring great glory to Him. These gifts were not to be used for selfish gain, but to highlight God’s purposes.
Continue Reading October 28, 2015 at 8:10 AM Leave a comment
Prophecies of Daniel 2, Part 3
It is extremely important to understand that it is in this particular chapter, Daniel 2, that God provided a very broad picture of prophetic content for the earth from that point in human history up to the time of the physical return of Jesus, or His second coming. Based on this, it is easy to understand it was very likely God Himself who prompted Nebuchadnezzar to make such a demand of his wise men as he did. It was essentially God proving Himself and His sovereignty through Nebuchadnezzar to the world. We have seen that time and time again, God’s Word has been proven to be true.
Prayer and Praise, Part 2
God wants us to be happy. He wants us to be filled with joy, even though we live in a world of sorrow, tainted and ruined by sin, sin that we – humanity – invited into this realm. However, it must be stated that God wants our happiness and joy to be on His terms, not ours.
We need to comprehend and understand that His will is all that matters. It’s not using prayer as though it was the greatest “tool” ever because apart from God, prayer is nothing. Prayer is our means of communicating with God, not giving Him our list of wants and demands.
Prayer and Praise, Part 1
It is almost becoming the new mantra among Christians today. You’ve heard it and so have I. That mantra – Prayer is a powerful tool! – is supposed to get us on our knees, to help us focus on the God of the universe. Prayer is supposed to put us in the mindset to ask of God and expect Him to respond to our requests in the way we want Him to respond. In some ways, it almost borders on the “name it, claim it” type of theology (poor as it is), that teaches people just that. We should focus on something that we want (or ostensibly believe God wants for us) and by continuing to pray about that situation, event, or item, we then “claim it” in Jesus’ Name. This, we are told, will bring that about because of the “laws of the universe” or some such theology that is so loosely built on the biblical pattern that it can actually be done without even referencing the Bible at all, except for a verse here or that one there.
Prophecies of Daniel 2, Part 2
If we stop to consider the fact that what God reveals information – some through the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar, some via angelic messengers, and some through Daniel’s own visions and/or dreams – to Daniel and ultimately, to us and all of it has to do with the future. Some of it was related to Daniel’s near future. Some of it pointed to the far future, even after Daniel was gone. Some of it pointed all the way to the time of Jesus and His Second Coming. It wasn’t for Daniel that God revealed these things, though certainly some of it applied to Daniel during his lifetime. Ultimately, the things that God revealed to Daniel were for the benefit of Israel and the world, long after Daniel would pass from this earth and it all started with these troubling dreams that robbed Nebuchadnezzar of his sleep.
Prophecies of Daniel 2, Part 1
Note that once Daniel provides the timeline (Nebuchadnezzar’s second year), he moves onto the reason for writing what becomes chapter two. Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that robs him of his sleep. The text notes that the king had more than one dream, that he had dreams (plural). It is likely that all the dreams – however many he had – were in a series but all had the same subject. Nebuchadnezzar was so troubled by these dreams that he could not maintain sleep for any real length of time.
Prophecies of Daniel 1, Part 6
In Daniel 1:8-14, we see Daniel’s desire to remain faithful to God. In Daniel 1:15-16, we see Daniel actually remaining faithful to God. His desire to remain faithful to God carried him through so that in reality, Daniel was faithful. It all starts with our desire. If we want to be or remain faithful to God, that is more than half the battle and wanting to be/remain faithful will help us get there.
Continue Reading October 20, 2015 at 2:24 PM Leave a comment
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