Spirit Filled Expectant Living

December 17, 2019

Spirit Filled Expectant Living

“You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected”

Luke 12:40

Do you expect the Holy Spirit to move in your life today? Just as our faith teaches us to expect the return of Christ at any moment, so also the followers of Jesus live expecting the Holy Spirit to guide, to inform and to inspire us, moment by moment, each and every day. To live so expectantly is a very difficult spiritual discipline to master. Living expectantly is complicated because we cannot predict just how, when, or where the Holy Spirit will move: “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8).

In my quest for spiritual growth in Spirit-filled expectant living, the Holy Spirit is teaching me to accept surprises. This is a biggie for me because I don’t particularly like surprises. I like to know where I am going, I like to know how I am going to get there, and I like to know what I am going to do when I get there. The Holy Spirit ignores my “I like to knows”, and delights to throw his surprises into the mix. Very slowly, I am getting better at just laying aside my need to be in control, and flow with the wind of the Holy Spirit. Along the way the Holy Spirit often reminds me to “Be still, and know that I am God!” (Psalm 46:10a).

In my quest, I am also finding it very helpful to practice the tenants of contemplative prayer as I am out and about each day. If just for a moment, I quiet my breathing and make scripture sentences my prayers of expectation . . .

·       “Be still, and know that I am God!” (Psalm 46:10a).

·       “I fear no evil; for you are with me” (Psalm 23:4).

·       Abba, no one can take me from your hand (John 10:29)

·       Abba, Father, I am your beloved child. (Romans 8:15-16)

·       Nothing can separate me from your love. (Romans 8:39)

And my most common sentence prayer, “I love you Lord.”

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.

Copyright © 2019 by Alex M. Knight

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.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Sound of Silence

December 16, 2019

The Sound of Silence

“And you, my little son,

will be called the prophet of the Most High,

because you will prepare the way for the Lord.

Luke 1:76

The day of the big football game had come. The preview show on TV was showing the teams arriving at the stadium. Ninety percent of the players had ear buds or headphones connected to an iPod or similar device. Most of the people walking or waiting at bus stops are also plugged into listening devices. There is not much silence in our world.

In Zachariah’s world, silence abounded. Not just because for nine months Zachariah could not talk, but because there were no electronic devices filling the air with sounds. There were no newspapers or other publications either. News would travel by word of mouth, and after conversations with neighbors and friends, the people were left to ponder the events of their times.

In Zachariah’s world, the people of Israel had been over-run by foreigners for hundreds of years. Oppression and brutality by invading forces had become their way of life. Many of Zachariah’s countrymen, in the silence of their own thoughts, produced a harvest of hatred for both the foreigners and the leaders of their own country. Both John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth were born into a culture of angry people, but there were still sparks of an eternal hope within the people. Why else would they travel through barren wilderness to hear these two mighty men of God proclaim God’s righteousness?

We too, in this present age, are living in a culture of angry people. The approval ratings of our national leaders reach new lows each week. However, unlike Zachariah, we are not surrounded by the sounds of silence. In print and electronic mediums, we are bombarded with angry messages telling us what to think.

Zachariah’s story is inspiration for me to seek the sound of silence during Advent and Christmas. Will you join me in carving out abundant time from our schedules to rest in silence? In our quiet place, away from all the distractions of our culture, let us become counter-cultural and embrace Zachariah’s faith in the ultimate victory of God.

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.

Copyright © 2019 by Alex M. Knight

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.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Lion and the Lamb Inside of Us

December 13, 2019

The Lion and the Lamb Inside of Us

In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together;

the leopard will lie down with the baby goat.

The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion,

and a little child will lead them all.

Isaiah 11:6

The birth of Jesus is the ground of our hope in the return of Jesus, as He comes again in final victory over sin and death. The prophet Isaiah points to that hope when he sees a kingdom where the lion and lamb will lie down together. Too often Christians think of heaven as our ultimate destination. Isaiah reminds us that the new heaven and the new earth, where Jesus will reign as our King and where the lion and the lamb lie down together, is our ultimate destination.

Can you suspend for a minute your vision of all the Christmas cards with images of a lion and lamb lying together? Instead, can you identify with me that sometimes we can be as cantankerous as a wounded lion, and sometimes we can be as gentle as a lamb? How do we reconcile these two realities within us? Can it be that the lion and lamb within us will lie down together in peace?

Actually, that is the whole point of the birth of Jesus – to bring the peace of God into our lives now as we build together for the coming Kingdom of God. The continuing invitation in the New Testament letters of the Apostle Paul is for the followers of Jesus to accept the truth that “anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). As we embrace our new life in Christ, we willingly die to our old self- interest: “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

Our sanctification into the reality of the life in Christ as our way of life is a lifelong calling. The seasons of Advent and Christmas are excellent times to renew our hope in Christ for peace within, where the lion and lamb within us are friends.

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.

Copyright © 2019 by Alex M. Knight

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.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Contemplative at Christmas

December 12, 2019

Contemplative at Christmas

And this is the way to have eternal life –

to know you, the only true God,

and Jesus Christ,

the one you sent to earth.

John 17:3

The very center, the very heart of the Christian life is Jesus. All that we are as Christians, all that we hope to be as the children of God is hidden within the person of Jesus. As Christian mystics, that is, persons who have experienced something of Christ, people who have tasted the grace of God, we are now people who are ruled by thirst: our thirst for more of Christ.

Thomas Merton, a mystic who has gone before us, said that we learn to pray, by praying. The very center, the very heart of prayer for a mystic, is in responding to the call of our Abba, “Be still, and know that I am God!” (Psalm 46:10a). As we still ourselves before our Abba, we can immerse ourselves in His forgiveness, reconciliation and love that flow from Jesus. As we surrender our lives to the one who loved us and gave himself for us, we can accept our acceptance.

“Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.’ If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience, we may not be better than before, we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed" (Paul Tillich).

I invite you to make time for two devotional journeys this Advent season. First, come quietly before “The light (that) shines in the darkness” (John 1:5) and accept that you have been accepted by that which is greater than you. Open your heart, and let this truth embed himself deeply within you.

Secondly, on another day, as you draw still before your Abba, read Colossians 1:15-20, and contemplate the supremacy of the one you thirst for, the one who desperately wants you to affirm:  “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me” (Song of Solomon 7:10 NRSV).

Enjoy being contemplative at Christmas; everything will be transformed!

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.

Copyright © 2019 by Alex M. Knight

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.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.