I’m studying the Sermon on the Mount again to gain perspective and help extinguish my entitlement mentality.
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Waiting is a crucible. Almost nothing causes your flesh to burn like waiting on the Lord. Bob Sorge recently tweeted, “There is no hotter flame than waiting on God. That’s why God calls you to wait—He’s refining you.” Bob knows what He’s talking about, having walked a path of waiting few of us have ever experienced.
When we understand that God uses waiting as a means to purify our hearts it gives us courage to persevere, though we may wait long. We know that the outcome of the waiting is ultimately for our good and blessing, though the pain of the waiting can be excruciating.
When the bible talks about waiting on the Lord, what exactly is it talking about? Waiting is quieting yourself in stillness with hopeful expectation of the Lord’s leadership and action in your life. It’s ceasing for your own ways to allow the Lord to accomplish His will through your life in His way. Waiting is not idleness nor laziness. It’s not in opposition to work. It is actively choosing to pause, maybe for an extended period of time, in order to allow the Lord to show Himself strong on your behalf.
Waiting and Hoping are synonymous. Consider Psalm 130:5, “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, And in His word I do hope.” When we wait on the Lord we position ourselves in hopeful expectation of His activity in our lives.
There are multiple components to waiting on the Lord. Here are a few that helped give me clarity as to what waiting on the Lord is really about. Continue Reading…
One of the chief story lines of Scripture is the struggle between the arm of the flesh and the arm of the Lord. The arm of the flesh speaks of the strength of man while the arm of the Lord speaks of the strength of God. The struggle between the two is a repetitive theme throughout the entire bible – humankind’s unwillingness to hear and obey God’s voice and God’s answer with power to show humanity his utter and complete need of God. Mankind tries to prove, albeit horribly ineffectively, how much he can establish without God, while God shows humanity that without Him we can do nothing.
It’s ultimately rebellion in the heart of man that causes him to attempt to assert himself against God. Fallen humanity loves to try to prove that he doesn’t need God, that he can take care of himself and accomplish all he wants without God.
Daniel chapter 9 is a critical chapter in understanding God’s plan at the end of the age. This chapter takes place near the end of Daniel’s life. In it Daniel makes intercession for the sin of Israel and asks the Lord to have mercy and restore Israel. A major key to understanding Daniel 9 is recognizing that Daniel had been reading Jeremiah’s prophecies which served as an impetus for his intercessions. In this blog we’ll take a brief look at Jeremiah 25 to get a better understanding of what Daniel may have been thinking when He prayed for Jerusalem’s restoration. Continue Reading…
When Daniel shows up in Babylon he’s sixteen and a stranger in a strange land. During his young life he had seen Judah in its worst of times. As early as he could remember he’d heard stories of God’s impending judgment coming to Judah. The threat of the Babylonians had been very real for the last several years and now they had sieged Jerusalem, fettered the king, and taken many precious articles from the temple of God. Not to mention they had taken Daniel and many of his friends, young people of the aristocracy of Judah, captive to Babylon. The nightmare had become reality. Continue Reading…
Over the last week as I have been studying Daniel, God has highlighted a few things I haven’t noticed before. I’m impressed by Daniel’s incredible boldness in the face of great intimidation to faithfully declare the word of the Lord. He was a young man in the most threatening of circumstances and proved to be a faithful witness. I believe His situation mirrors the circumstances the church is facing right now. The question is: will the Church be a faithful witness, like Daniel, in the face of great intimidation and the threat of suffering?
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