Take a rest and let the Lord work!
Let’s close our eyes a moment. No peeking now! Let’s clear our minds of everything except Jesus. Leave all of our concerns… for just a few moments… to focus on Jesus. Let nothing else come between your thoughts of Jesus. Block out all other thoughts… except those that focus on Jesus. Now let’s put our minds on what he did for us on the cross. Let’s ponder for a moment on how he took our sin burden on His own shoulders…our yoke…and carried it through the streets while being beaten, mocked and shamed. Let’s focus on how Jesus felt as He endured the jeering crowd while they humiliated Him…our God incarnate. Now, let’s wonder in awe on why He willingly, freely and happily suffered for us. Let’s cry about the way His life agonizingly ebbed from His sinless body….drip by painful drip as he hung suspended by nails hammered through His hands and His feet. He hung on that cross… for us. His love was so great that He assured one man who hung on a cross near Him that since He believed that this day he would be in paradise with Him. And when it was finished, the sky darkened, the earth shook and His work of saving each and every one of us personally was complete. Can you feel your burden being lifted off of your back or are you feeling unworthy of His sacrifice. Let’s remember on how He was raised on the third day and let everyone know without question that Jesus Christ is Lord and He is alive!
Let’s feel that warmth that He gives us when we have the Holy Spirit alight on our shoulders to be with us, personally, completely, with nothing to do other than to be with us, counseling us, comforting us, loving us.
Open your eyes now and feel that He is in this place; our hearts are ready for worship.
Now He can work with us. Now our hearts and minds are in the right place for praise and worship. Right now we are not focusing on ourselves but on Jesus our Savior. Worshipping Him, thanking Him, praising Him for who He is, what He is doing in our lives, what He has done in our lives and for what He has promised to do in our lives.
Right now with our hearts and minds focused on Him, let’s give Him praise, out loud without shame, give Him praise. Thank Him for providing for you and your family. Tell Him you love Him. Tell Him you are grateful. Tell Him you want Him to take charge in your life. Let’s shout to the Lord His magnificence. Let’s sing to the Lord His glory.
Clap, sing, laugh, cry, pray, dance, get down on your knees, make a joyful noise to the Lord, right now, because right now… you have His attention. However you want to praise the Lord, whatever is in your heart, Praise Him right now.
Right Now He is focused on you. Right now the Holy Spirit has filled this sanctuary and is among us. Right now the Lord is pleased because He finds your sacrifice of praise to be acceptable, without blemish because it comes from your heart.
Now try to wipe that smile from your face. Go ahead try it! You can’t. You can’t because, when you are in the Lord’s will it fills you up so completely that it has to come out someplace and that someplace is your face. The face of a spirit-filled Christian is joyful because we "rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice". Philippians 4:4.
We rejoice because we personally know what He has done for us. We alone can testify of the miracles that have happened in our lives. We alone can recount the pain that we went through, the desperation we experienced, the feelings of hopelessness in our condition, the loneliness we endured, the isolation we suffer, the shame of our guilt, the anxiety of life and the abandonment of youthful innocence.
And then we can tell of how in our darkest hour of anxiety, shame, loneliness and pain we went to our knees in prayer to the one who loved us first. We can tell of how we poured out the contents of our hearts that were mixed with our tears of our unworthiness. We came to Him with a broken spirit because we were tired of striving and never being successful. We were weary of the burden we were carrying. We were broken down in spirit. We looked around and we found no one who would help us and we knew in our hearts that they could not help us. So in our bone weariness we finally, in a last ditch attempt to ease our pain, laid down our burden at His feet and went to our knees in prayer acknowledging in our hearts that we were unable to live our lives without Him.
And we know what He did for us. We know He went to work on us immediately. He didn’t tell us that He would get to us when He had the time,…Take a number. Gracious NO! He said to us, "Be comforted My child. (Isaiah 12:1) I am with you to the end of the age. I will never leave you nor forsake you. (Deut 31:6, 1Kings 8:57, Psalm 94:14), You have asked and you shall receive, (. Your Father in Heaven loves you and knows what you need, (Matthew 6:8, James 1:5, 1John 3:22). Let not your heart be troubled. Be anxious for nothing. All things work together for good. Take your rest in Me".
He went to work on our problem before you were finished asking it. Now we can tell of how we were astounded at how He focused on our problems. We wondered why and how He did things and we wondered when our personal miracle would be accomplished. We were anxious to have our problem solved. But we also remembered His loving way of encouragement in that dark hour, and how we were calmed. And we trusted in His word, and He was faithful because we were faithful in our trust.
And when our personal miracle occurred we were grateful beyond measure and we now can sing praises to His name because He was faithful in His promises. We use our personal stories of victory in Christ to encourage others to gain victory in their lives, in their personal situations. We give them the hope of peace that surpasses all understanding. (Philippians 4:7).
We strive in another way now for we have been changed…we are a new creation. We strive in a different way. We are now striving to fulfill His commandment to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19). We work in the mission fields of Long Beach, which is more resistant to Christ than a soul who never heard His name before. And just like Paul we will suffer persecution in His name’s sake because that is what has been prophesied to happen. We will be scorned, called hate mongers, ostracized, made to be the butt of jokes on television because we believe in a risen Lord. Then We strive to live our lives in a way that is pleasing to God, doing our daily struggle against the flesh and the things of this world. We do this because that struggle is our right response to our personal experience of His miracles in our lives.
Since we have become a new creation our smiles are always there. If not always on our faces…they are in our hearts because as it is written in Romans 2:15, His word is written on our hearts.
