Give Me One Pure And Holy Passion

August 25, 2015

Give Me One Pure And Holy Passion

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

Philippians 2:3-4 (NRSV)

When I retired three years ago, my idea of the perfect home site was forty acres with my house right smack dab in the middle! I knew in such a place, with Cheryl and my two Springers, Buster Brown and Hershey, I would be satisfied and at peace. And God chuckled.

God and my wife had other ideas. Cheryl wanted neighbors, so here we are in a planned development with a clubhouse, socials, supper club and lunch bunch, and countless gatherings for golf, tennis, hiking and all manner of hobbies and interests. I moved here because of the mountain view! But the neighbors and social interactions have grown on me. Thank God!

God created us to be in community. Sometimes community can get messy and become intrusive. However, it is almost always within community that God shows us where we need to grow. Do you remember the last line from Teresa of Avila’s prayer from yesterday? “Grant me the grace I need to change those areas that do not please you.” It has been my experience that my awareness of the areas that God wants to change in my life comes through my interaction with others. Seldom, very seldom, does such awareness come living in isolation from other people. Perhaps people seek isolation so they can hide from their faults.

God has been calling me to learn more about contemplative spirituality. I know the foundations of contemplative prayer are solitude, silence and stillness. Even so, it is within my solitude, silence and stillness, after I have been in community with others, that I can clearly hear the Lord share with me areas of life that do not please Him. For me, quite often those areas involve me doing things from selfish ambition or conceit. They reveal my lack of humility to regard others as better than me. Those revelations from God reveal that I am looking to my own interests, not to the interests of others.

I don’t want to scare you away from contemplative prayer. Most often, in my experience, my time alone with my Abba is a love fest with Him affirming that indeed I am His beloved child, with whom He is delighted and upon whom His favor rests. Those precious moments prepare my heart to be willing and able to receive His correction and to sing,

Give me one pure and holy passion

Give me one magnificent obsession

Give me one glorious ambition for my life

To know and follow hard after You

One Pure And Holy Passion

Candi Pearson

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.

I Need Thee Every Hour

August 24, 2015

I Need Thee Every Hour

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor.”

James 4: 6b, 10

Between these two verses James challenges the church to acknowledge that our loyalty is divided between God and the world. James issues a call for repentance with the assurance that if we will come close to God, God will come close to us. This passage from James’ epistle reminds me of Saint Teresa of Avila’s prayer, “Help me, Lord, not to care so much about how others see me as how you see me. Grant me the grace I need to change those areas that do not please you.”

I have known people who seemingly do not care what others think of them. Although they appear to be traversing through life independent of the cares of the world and the opinions of others, I am not convinced they are as aloof from society as they may want others to think. More importantly there is no evidence that humility is their close traveling companion. Rather, cynicism seems to accompany them.

For me, the key to grasping Teresa’s prayer is in the phrase, “not to care so much about how others see me as how you see me.” Teresa may have been a mystic, but she was also a realist. We are called by God to be in community with one another, and to love others as we love ourselves. It is impossible to be in loving relationships with others without making ourselves vulnerable, and in so doing, we certainly care about how others receive us. So Teresa didn’t say not to care about how others see us; she said not to care as much as we care about how Jesus sees us. Seeking God first and foremost, above all others and all things will cause humility to blossom in our lives.

I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord;

No tender voice like Thine can peace afford.

I need Thee, oh, I need Thee;

Every hour I need Thee;

Oh, bless me now, my Savior,

I come to Thee.

Annie S. Hawks, 1872

Sē’lah

<><  <><  <><  <><

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.

When The Cool Evening Breezes Were Blowing

August 21, 2015

When The Cool Evening Breezes Were Blowing

The Lord will guide you continually,

    giving you water when you are dry

    and restoring your strength.

You will be like a well-watered garden,

    like an ever-flowing spring.

Isaiah 58:11

One of my favorite images of God is in Genesis 3: “When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden” (Genesis 3:8a). I love the idea of God walking through the garden in the cool of the evening to have fellowship with His children. I see this same implication in the words of Isaiah. Our right-standing relationship with God is explained as our being in Christ and Christ being in us. Through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the very presence of God is within us; and thus we can experience God’s Spirit joining with our spirit to affirm that we are His children. (Romans 8:16)

This image of God walking in the garden of our soul raises the question: “Lord, what do you see – weeds or brambles? Or a well-tended garden? (Teresa of Avila) The property behind our house slopes down into a stand of trees that is common area of our homeowner’s association. For our first couple of years here, I tended to it and kept it clear of weeds and leaves and planted plants and flowers to enhance our view from our sun room. This year I have pretty much neglected it, and it shows!

As much as I love the image of God walking through the garden in the cool of the evening to have fellowship with me, I cringe at the thought of what the garden of my soul must look like when I neglect it. Part of the answer is to proactively seek to nurture Christian virtues. Another part is to make sure I am watering and fertilizing my soul with the things that matter. Again, Paul’s words have what I need:

     

“Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse” (Philippians 4:8 MSG).

Sē’lah

<><  <><  <><  <><

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.

Meditate On Your Conversations of the Last Several Days

August 20, 2015

Meditate On Your Conversations of the Last Several Days

“And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight.”

2 Peter 3:14

Peter’s counsel quoted above follows his affirmation: “But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13). What would it look like in your life if you were to truly live in anticipation of the Second Coming of Christ to establish his Kingdom on earth?

First, we want to remember that Peter’s call to a pure and blameless life is not a call to works righteousness. The Apostle Paul affirms that our right standing with God is the work of God in Christ, not our own self efforts: “God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin. Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord”” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31).

I believe Peter’s call to live pure and blameless lives is a call to make the life in Christ your way of life. As followers of Jesus, one of our core understandings is that the world has told us a pack of lies about who we are, who God is and who are neighbors are. The corresponding understanding is that God in Christ Jesus is telling us the truth. Living the Christ-life is a matter of making choices. Do we follow the teachings, the norms and values of the world’s culture, or do we follow the teachings of Jesus and the leading of the Holy Spirit?

Take time to meditate on your conversations of the last several days. As you have expressed your opinions, your observations on the issues of the day and on the concerns affecting your life, are your opinions and observations more aligned with the prevailing sentiment of the world culture, or are they aligned with Jesus?

We need to ever keep before us the counsel of the Apostle Paul:

“Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse”

Philippians 4:8 MSG

Sē’lah

<><  <><  <><  <><

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.