“Wednesday with Kevin” is an installment that I look forward to writing each week; God willing. The content of which will be based on discussions had by, myself and my good friend Kevin. Each week Kevin and I try and start our Sabbath day, Wednesday for he and I, with a hike up a local butte to seek the face of God. We spend our time conversing praying and reading. What follows and in future weeks will God willing bless you as I will be chronicling what God is teaching he and I through our talks and time before Him.
Today we spent our time taking some pictures, praying, reading, and talking about what God is doing as well as the struggles we face. By the way it was beautiful up there today. The peak was above the cloud level and you could see snow capped mountains in the distance, while the cloud blanket rolled aimlessly over the low-lying hills. I love that God is creator!!!!!!! Today was great spending time with Him.
We spent much time praying. God is teaching me much about praying. What does it mean to really pray? Prayer put simply is us talking with God. If we only knew what really happened when we prayed, we would pray continually, with out stopping, ever! I find it interesting that the only thing the apostles asked Jesus to specifically teach them was how to pray. I think they understood something that most of us fail to grasp. When we pray we come directly before the throne of God. The same God who created the heavens and the earth, the same God who parted the Red Sea, the same one who caused the walls of Jericho to fall is the one whom we come before when we pray. Prayer is all over in the Bible Paul again and again tells the Churches, Timothy, and Titus to pray when the Disciples were waiting for the Holy Spirit they were in prayer. God wants His saints to pray. I once heard it said that, “prayer on earth releases power from heaven.” We must pray prayer is one of our weapons Paul is referring to in II Cor. 10:3-6 that is able to pull down the strong holds of the enemy. Prayer enters another world we know little about if we allow them to. Donald G. McDougall wrote, “Paul’s prayers related to another sphere, because he understood that our real struggles are in that other sphere.” In this he was referring to Eph. 6:10-20. I pray that I will take hold of this insight and apply it to my life.
May God bless you and protect you as you come before His throne in prayer.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
God's Voice in Paul's hand II
As promised the second really cool thing God showed me through digging into the letter of Paul to the Church at Ephesus.
Eph. 5:18-6:9
Ok so here it goes, I love the way Paul writes, but most of you can probably tell that by now. Anyways Paul makes a command in verse 18 saying do not become drunk on wine but rather be filled with the Spirit. Now we can’t really go down to the store and buy some Holy Spirit and just pour it in, though some try this with coffee, but that’s another story for another day. So how do we do this? The answer is simple we don’t rather we have this done to us by God. When read in the original Greek this idea comes across much clearer, so I’m told (not a Greek scholar yet). Regardless the text says this that we are to allow ourselves to be filled with the Spirit. The following verses give us the result of this filling with the Spirit; we will sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to one another, be thankful, and then Paul writes also that we will, “be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.” From this verse through 6:9 Paul gives three examples of how this is worked out: from marriage, parenting, and working for an employer.
Each one of us ought to be filled with the Spirit because this is the only way we will be the united body of Christ that Paul talks about so many times in this book. As he writes in the start of Chapter 4, “there is one body and one Spirit… one God and Father who is over all and through all and in all.” I am so glad that my life does not rest on my own action but rather on the action of a perfect God.
Praise be to His name forever and ever amen!!!
In Him, TUCK
Eph. 5:18-6:9
Ok so here it goes, I love the way Paul writes, but most of you can probably tell that by now. Anyways Paul makes a command in verse 18 saying do not become drunk on wine but rather be filled with the Spirit. Now we can’t really go down to the store and buy some Holy Spirit and just pour it in, though some try this with coffee, but that’s another story for another day. So how do we do this? The answer is simple we don’t rather we have this done to us by God. When read in the original Greek this idea comes across much clearer, so I’m told (not a Greek scholar yet). Regardless the text says this that we are to allow ourselves to be filled with the Spirit. The following verses give us the result of this filling with the Spirit; we will sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to one another, be thankful, and then Paul writes also that we will, “be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.” From this verse through 6:9 Paul gives three examples of how this is worked out: from marriage, parenting, and working for an employer.
Each one of us ought to be filled with the Spirit because this is the only way we will be the united body of Christ that Paul talks about so many times in this book. As he writes in the start of Chapter 4, “there is one body and one Spirit… one God and Father who is over all and through all and in all.” I am so glad that my life does not rest on my own action but rather on the action of a perfect God.
Praise be to His name forever and ever amen!!!
In Him, TUCK
Saturday, January 10, 2009
God's Voice in Paul's hand
Recently I have been digging in a bit to the book of Ephesians. What I am finding is a great amount of insight into how the body of Christ is to function. Unity is one of the biggest, if not the biggest theme running through the book. Paul again and again encourages the people to be unified. Two passages that have been very exciting for me is Chapter 4 verses 11-16 and chapter 5 from verse 18 through chapter 6 verse 9.
First off chapter 4 Paul is talking about the different gifts of the Spirit, what some call the five-fold ministry. This is very key to understanding what I would like to share. If you keep reading and get to verse 16 you will find that it says, “from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” (NASB) Now what I find so cool about this is how much unity it calls for. You see right on the heals of describing the gifts of the Spirit Paul says that the body is, “fitted and held together by what every joint supplies,” in other words the body of Christ falls apart if each person along with their unique gift is not present serving the body as part of their service to Christ. Continuing on he says, “according to the proper working of each individual part,” This is great, he before says that we need all the different gifts of the Spirit and then goes on to make a very important stipulation, you might say. Each “part” must be working properly. So not only do we NEED every part but also we NEED them in proper working order. That proper working order is set forth in God’s Word as well. I don’t have time to go into each gift and how it should be used but one could read Paul’s letters alone and get a great idea of how each gift is to be used. I will even go as far to say that you could extend this beyond just Spiritual gifts and apply it to Spiritual well being in general. If a member of Christ is wayward it affects every member of the body because according to Paul we are all members of one another. I understand unity much more now having looked though this passage. Before I believed unity was a very good thing, what I failed to realize is that it is a necessity. For possibly the first time, or at least to this degree, God has reveled to me that I cannot do it on my own that I need other members of Christ in order to serve Him the way I was designed to. We really are a body that needs every part. If you look one verse higher you will find the object of the “whom” in verse 16 it is Christ! He is the head, far be it from any of us fingers and toes to determine the way things should run. Praise be to His name for what He is teaching me. I hope this blesses you.
You will have to wait for what I am learning from 5:18- 6:9 till later right now I am must go fellowship with the other members of Christ, because like I said I have learned I cant do it alone.
Be Blessed in Him!!!
First off chapter 4 Paul is talking about the different gifts of the Spirit, what some call the five-fold ministry. This is very key to understanding what I would like to share. If you keep reading and get to verse 16 you will find that it says, “from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” (NASB) Now what I find so cool about this is how much unity it calls for. You see right on the heals of describing the gifts of the Spirit Paul says that the body is, “fitted and held together by what every joint supplies,” in other words the body of Christ falls apart if each person along with their unique gift is not present serving the body as part of their service to Christ. Continuing on he says, “according to the proper working of each individual part,” This is great, he before says that we need all the different gifts of the Spirit and then goes on to make a very important stipulation, you might say. Each “part” must be working properly. So not only do we NEED every part but also we NEED them in proper working order. That proper working order is set forth in God’s Word as well. I don’t have time to go into each gift and how it should be used but one could read Paul’s letters alone and get a great idea of how each gift is to be used. I will even go as far to say that you could extend this beyond just Spiritual gifts and apply it to Spiritual well being in general. If a member of Christ is wayward it affects every member of the body because according to Paul we are all members of one another. I understand unity much more now having looked though this passage. Before I believed unity was a very good thing, what I failed to realize is that it is a necessity. For possibly the first time, or at least to this degree, God has reveled to me that I cannot do it on my own that I need other members of Christ in order to serve Him the way I was designed to. We really are a body that needs every part. If you look one verse higher you will find the object of the “whom” in verse 16 it is Christ! He is the head, far be it from any of us fingers and toes to determine the way things should run. Praise be to His name for what He is teaching me. I hope this blesses you.
You will have to wait for what I am learning from 5:18- 6:9 till later right now I am must go fellowship with the other members of Christ, because like I said I have learned I cant do it alone.
Be Blessed in Him!!!
Monday, January 5, 2009
Identification
Over a year ago now I had a conversation with a friend of mine and he told me some thing that has been very impactful for me in my life and I hope it will be like wise for you. He asked a question, " what is the first thing someone would say to me when they introduce me." So if I were the one being introduced a friend of mine might say, " Hey this is my friend Tucker, he is..." what comes next is so key. What am I most identified by? Where is my identity found, I have gone though life and not as much now but in the last few years my identifying mark has been wakeboarding. I would literally get introduced name first and then " he wakeboards" or a comment about a trick I could do. This while kind of enjoyable at the time began to bother me. My most distinguishing mark so to speak was insignificant. This friend of mine who is an excellent musician made the comment that he desired his mark to be Christ. Where when people thought of him though he is a great musician, they would think, "man I can really see Christ in him." this truly is the only make worth being defined by. The reason this is the only thing worth being defined by is this is the only stable thing. People identify themselves by many things: what school they attend, what their major is, what their career is or any number of things. What happens when the company goes out of business or you can’t afford school any more what then? What will you do then? Some people can't retire because they would not know what to do with their time because all they do is work. What I am proposing is that we find our identity in Christ alone, not in fading beauty or wealth but in Christ Alone. Solomon at the end of his life realizes the uselessness of wealth, work, beauty, all the fading things and writes the book of Ecclesiastes and at the end of the book he says essentially, " what is left except to fear God and Obey His commandments." that is worth identifying with if you ask me the only independent cause of all things!
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