Do you want to dig deeper into your love for God? Try our life lesson “Developing a Heart of Worship”

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6, NKJV)

In movies of the American Old West, it is common to see the rough and ready cowboy ambling down a wooden sidewalk, tipping his broad brimmed hat to passing ladies. The hat isn’t really lifted off his head, just slightly tilted as a show of respect, an acknowledgement. No relationship is initiated, nor is one intended.

It is this display of somewhat superficial acknowledgement that we often exhibit in our relationship with God. We “tip our hat to Him”each morning, before meals and at the end of the day. We mentally recognize His ?presence and promises, but we seldom stop long enough to “look full in His wonderful face.”

While the basic meaning of the word acknowledge as used in the book of Proverbs is “to see or know”, within the word lies the meaning of comprehension, perception and understanding. Another translator equates this with the word submission.

Am I sometimes guilty of passing God on the sidewalks of my life, giving mental assent to Him, but not truly submitting the circumstances of that moment into His care? Are my table prayers perfunctory instead of laced with heartfelt gratitude? Do I tip my spiritual hat to God instead of graciously recognizing His sovereignty and love? I ask for His direction; now I must grow in submission.

Questions: Are you spending enough quality time with God? How can you make room in your schedule for more time with God?

How do I live in God’s presence? How do I detect his unseen hand on my shoulder and his inaudible voice in my ear? A sheep grows familiar with the voice of the shepherd. How can you and I grow familiar with the voice of God? Here are a few ideas:

Give God your waking thoughts. Before you face the day, face the Father. Before you step out of bed, step into his presence. I have a friend who makes it a habit to roll out of his bed onto his knees and begin his day in prayer. Personally, I don’t get that far. With my head still on the pillow and my eyes still closed, I offer God the first seconds of my day. The prayer is not lengthy and far from formal. Depending on how much sleep I got, it may not even be intelligible. Often it’s nothing more than “Thank you for a night’s rest. I belong to you today.”

Give God your waiting thoughts. Spend time with him in silence. The mature married couple has learned the treasure of shared silence; they don’t need to fill the air with constant chatter. Just being together is sufficient. Try being silent with God. “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). Awareness of God is a fruit of stillness before God.

Give God your whispering thoughts. Through the centuries Christians have learned the value of brief sentence prayers, prayers that can be whispered anywhere, in any setting.

Imagine considering every moment as a potential time of communion with God. By giving God your whispering thoughts, the common becomes uncommon. Simple phrases such as “Thank you, Father,” “Be sovereign in this hour, O Lord,” “You are my resting place, Jesus” can turn a commute into a pilgrimage. You needn’t leave your office or kneel in your kitchen. Just pray where you are. Let the kitchen become a cathedral or the classroom a chapel. Give God your whispering thoughts.

And last, give God your waning thoughts. At the end of the day, let your mind settle on him. Conclude the day as you began it: talking to God. Thank him for the good parts. Question him about the hard parts. Seek his mercy. Seek his strength. And as you close your eyes, take assurance in the promise: “He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4). If you fall asleep as you pray, don’t worry. What better place to doze off than in the arms of your Father.

From Just Like Jesus
Copyright (W Publishing Group, 1998, 2001) Max Lucado
Used by permission

Questions: Have you given all you have over to God lately? What have you been holding back?

Originally written by Charles H. Spurgeon, published in “Mornings & Evenings,” entry for August 17th, AM.
Updated to modern English by Darren Hewer, 2009.

“I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.” Psalm 52:8 (KJV)

Meditate on the mercy of the Lord.

It is tender mercy. With His gentle, loving touch, He heals broken hearts and wraps up wounds. He is not only gracious in what He provides, but also in the gracious manner He provides it.

It is great mercy. There is nothing little about God, and His mercy is like Himself: infinite. You can’t measure it. His mercy is so great that it forgives even the most terrible sins to the most terrible sinners, and then proceeds to give great favors and great privileges. His mercy raises gives us great enjoyments in the great heaven of the great God.

It is undeserved mercy, as indeed all true mercy must be. Deserved mercy is only another name for justice, and we who are sinners have no right to the kind consideration of the Most High. As rebels, who were once doomed to the eternal fire we deserve, it is the sovereign love of God alone which saves us, for we have no such power ourselves.

It is rich mercy. God’s mercy is medicine to your sagging spirits; a golden ointment to your bleeding wounds; a heavenly bandage to your broken bones; a royal chariot for your weary feet.

It is diverse mercy. As Paul Bunyan said, “All the flowers in God’s garden are double.” There is no single mercy. You may think you have only one mercy, but you will find God’s mercy is multifaceted, reflecting and shining His glory.

It is plentiful mercy. Billions have received it, yet it is far from being exhausted. It is as fresh, as full, and as free as it has ever been.

And finally it is unfailing mercy. It will never leave you. If mercy is your friend, mercy will be with you in temptation. It will be with you in times of trouble to prevent you from sinking, with you to be the light and life of your life, and with you even in imminent death, to be the joy of your soul when earthly comfort is fading fast.

Question: As you meditate on how God has shown mercy to you, to whom that you know can you demonstrate mercy today in response?

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:21-23

What are your thoughts focused on today? What do you call to mind? Just prior to these verses in Lamentations, the prophet Jeremiah had been thinking about all the troubles he had experienced in his life. He remembered being mocked, being deprived of peace, being afflicted, and the bitterness that resulted.

“Yet this I call to mind.”

Then, the whole tone of the passage changes because Jeremiah does a remarkable thing. He deliberately decides to summon up from his memory examples of God’s compassion and faithfulness to him.

Hope emerged in the midst of his predicament, sparked by God’s compassion. The light of God’s love shone into the darkness of Jeremiah’s situation. Remembering God’s faithfulness strengthened Jeremiah’s resolve to cling to Him in the middle of a difficult situation.

“Yet this I call to mind.”

We too can become intentional about recalling God’s faithfulness in our lives. Remember the time you thought you couldn’t bear one more day, but then God gave you the strength? Remember when God miraculously intervened providing the finances needed, healing that relationship, giving you a fresh start?

Although I don’t know the details of you life, I know that God is faithful. That is why I can say with confidence, as Jeremiah did, “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.”

I urge you to call this to mind today.

Faithful God, thank you for Your great love and compassion! Remind me of all the times You have faithfully provided all that I need and help me to fix my attention on You, so that I don’t give in to despair. Amen.

Questions: Why are our thoughts so important to our outlook? What examples of God’s faithfulness do you call to mind?

Originally written by Charles H. Spurgeon, published in “Mornings & Evenings,” entry for June 4th, AM.
Updated to modern English by Darren Hewer, 2009.

“… the kindness and love of God our Savior …” Titus 3:4

How sweet it is to witness the Savior intimately connecting with His own beloved people! There can be nothing more delightful than being led into this fertile field of delight by the Holy Spirit. Let your mind, just for a moment, consider the history of the Redeemer’s love, and a multitude of winsome acts of God’s affection will come to mind. All of these acts of God’s love weave our hearts closer with Christ, and the intertwining of our thoughts and emotions with the mind of Jesus.

When we meditate on this amazing love, and see our glorious God granting His church all His ancient wealth, we should want to leap for joy. Who can endure such love? Even the partial sense of God’s love which the Holy Spirit is sometimes pleased to show us is more than we can contain. How incredible must it be to fully experience it! Someday we will be able to discern all the Savior’s gifts, and have wisdom to understand them, as well as time to meditate on them. We will commune with Jesus in an even closer way than we do now. But who can imagine the sweetness of such fellowship? It is one of the wonderful things that God has prepared for everyone who loves Him.

“Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.” (1 Corinthians 13:12) When we actually see heavenly things themselves, with our own eyes, the stream of fellowship in which we will bathe will be so incredibly deep! This will simply overwhelm us with love. Until then, our loudest sonnets will be reserved for our loving benefactor, Jesus Christ our Lord, whose love to us surpasses all other loves.

Question: How could you show God’s love to someone else today?

“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” Philippians 4:6 (NLT)

1. Don’t worry about anything. Worrying doesn’t change anything. It’s stewing without doing. There’s no such thing as born worriers; worry is a learned response. You learned it from your parents. You learned it from your peers. You learned it from experience. That’s good news. The fact that worry is learned means it can also be unlearned. Jesus says, “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today” (Matthew 6:34, NLT).

2. Pray about everything. Use the time you’ve spent worrying for praying. If you prayed as much as you worried, you’d have a whole lot less to worry about. Some people think God only cares about religious things, such as how many people I invite to church or my tithing. Is God interested in car payments? Yes. He’s interested in every detail of your life. That means you can take any problem you face to God.

3. Thank God in all things. Whenever you pray, you should always pray with thanksgiving. The healthiest human emotion is not love, but gratitude. It actually increases your immunities; it makes you more resistant to stress and less susceptible to illness. People who are grateful are happy. But people who are ungrateful are miserable because nothing makes them happy. They’re never satisfied; it’s never good enough. So if you cultivate the attitude of gratitude, of being thankful in everything, it reduces stress in your life.

4. Think about the right things. If you want to reduce the level of stress in your life, you must change the way you think. The way you think determines how you feel, and the way you feel determines how you act. So if you want to change your life, you need to change what you’re thinking about.

This involves a deliberate, conscious choice where you change the channels. You choose to think about the right things: focus on the positive and on God’s Word. Why? Because the root cause of stress is the way you choose to think.

When we no longer worry, when we pray about everything, when we give thanks, when we focus on the right things, the apostle Paul tells us the result is, “The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, NLT).

What a guarantee! He is guaranteeing peace of mind.

Question: What tough times have you been facing lately, and how can these steps help you to refocus your thoughts and energy?

“Lord, every morning you hear my voice. Every morning, I tell you what I need, and I wait for your answer.” Psalm 5:3 (NCV)

Any doctor will tell you the most important meal of the day is breakfast because the way you start your day influences the rest of your day. That’s true not just physically, but spiritually.

That’s why the most important part of your day is your time alone with God. Setting aside time in the morning to be alone with God will set the pattern of your attitude and response to every event and person for the rest of your day.

Whether it takes five minutes or thirty, there are four things you need to do in this time alone with God that will set your spiritual thermostat for the day.

1. Read God’s Word. You don’t have to read a lot, just enough until God speaks to you. It’s amazing how God will use his Word in your life. As the prophet Isaiah said, “The sovereign Lord has given me his words of wisdom” (Isaiah 50:4). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read something in my morning quiet time that was exactly what I needed to share with someone later in the day.

2. Be quiet before God. Noise is one of the major sources of stress in peoples’ lives. Your body needs a certain amount of quiet, and you need to carve out time in your life for this quietness. You will be less stressed if you start your day with quiet time before God.

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength” (Isaiah 30:15 NIV). The worst thing you can do in the morning is get up and immediately check your e-mail or turn on the news. You need time to meditate on God’s good news before you fill your mind with bad news.

3. Talk with God. Notice it says “talk with God,” not “talk to God.” Prayer is a conversation, not a one-way street. And it’s not the amount of words you say in prayer that make it effective. It’s about sharing what’s on your heart with God – your feelings, concerns, thoughts, and adoration. Just talk with God and then wait on him to respond.

4. Review your day and goals with God. Take time to go over your schedule, your goals and your day’s to-do list with God. There are dozens of verses in Proverbs that talk about planning with God and teaching you to number your days, which means looking at your time and pondering where you are going.

It’s easy to set goals, but if you don’t look at your goals every day, you will never accomplish them. Or as I like to say, “Without review, I lose my view.” Make sure you allocate part of your quiet time to review the vision God wants you to have.

Question: How has your “quiet time” with God been lately? How could you seek to let God improve it?

About the Author: Rick Warren

“It is written, Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Mathew 4:4

When Jesus fought the devil while in the wilderness for forty days, He used the word of God as His weapon. The word of God is our weapon too.  We can use it against all things that come against us from the enemy.

Isaiah 54:17 says, “No weapon that is formed against you will prosper; And every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, And their vindication is from Me,” declares the LORD.”

How do we condemn these words that rise against us? Every time you have a thought that rises up against the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the truth of who He is and of who He says you are; any time you have a negative word or curse that is spoken to you, resist it. Do not receive it even for a moment as truth, take it captive and it declare the word of God aloud over your life.

The tongue has the power of life and death and we have mouths given by God to speak aloud His Word over our homes, marriages, children, friends. There is something that happens when we release His word aloud.

God’s word is bread to us. It feeds us, replenishes us, and gives us energy to overcome and resist all that comes against us.  Not only is it important to read the Bible and feed off His Word through the scriptures, but it is vitally as important to hear His still small voice amidst our circumstances for that moment.

Jesus said in John 10:27 that His sheep listen to His voice and follow Him.

The Psalmist declares in Psalm 1:2 that the law of the Lord is our delight and that the righteous man will mediate day and night on it.  God told Joshua before going into the promised land that His Word should not depart from his mouth but he should mediate on it day and night.

1 Peter 1:25 says, “But the Word of the Lord endures forever.” This means that it is unmoved, fixed and permanent.

Isaiah 40:8 says that the grass withers and flowers fall, but the Word of the Lord remains forever.

God’s Word does not return void. Meditate on it!  Speak it!  Declare it!

TAKE THE NEXT STEP: Memorizing scripture will change your life

Questions: Which verses of scripture give you comfort in difficult times? Could you commit to memorizing some?

About the Author: Brigitte Straub

Originally written by Charles H. Spurgeon, published in “Mornings & Evenings,” entry for January 27th, PM.
Updated to modern English by Darren Hewer, 2008.

“But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2:19, KJV

Mary, mother of our Lord Jesus, is noted in Scripture as loving God in at least three ways: Her memory (she “kept all these things”), her affections (she kept them “in her heart”), and her intellect (she “pondered them”). Her memory, affection, and understanding were all intently fascinated with the things which she heard.

Friend, remember what you know about Jesus, and what He has done for you. Make your heart the golden pot of manna, so that you can gather the memories of the heavenly bread God has sustained you with in the past. Let your memory treasure everything about Christ which you have felt, or known, or believed, and then hold Him in your joyful heart forever.

Love your Lord! Bring forth your heart, even if it’s been broken, and let your affection come forth to God.

Let your intellect be excited concerning the Lord Jesus. Meditate upon what you read. Don’t stop at the surface; dive into the deep waters! Be like a fish that swims and explores the farthest depths!

The word “ponder” means to weigh. But where are the scales that can weigh the Lord Christ? Jesus, who “weighs the islands as though they were fine dust” (Isaiah 40:15) … who dares to take Him on? He who “weighed the mountains on the scales” (Isaiah 40:12) … in what scales will we weigh Him?

Even if your mind cannot fully comprehend all of this, let your affections apprehend fully. And even if your spirit cannot grasp the Lord Jesus in understanding, let it embrace Him in the arms of affection. Be with your Lord. He shouldn’t seem far away, because He is always with you. Hold Him, and do not let Him out of your thoughts. Remember Mary, who “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”

Question: Which of God’s promises, or verses from God’s Word, do you keep and ponder in your heart?

About the Author: Charles Spurgeon

Originally written by Charles H. Spurgeon, published in “Mornings & Evenings,” entry for October 12th, AM.

Updated to modern English by Darren Hewer, 2008.

“I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.” Psalm 119:15

There are times when solitude is better than community, and silence is wiser than speech. We will be better Christians if we take more time to be “alone” with God, and gathering spiritual strength through meditation on His Word, so that we will be refreshed to work in His service.

We should take time to ponder God’s word, because then we get real nourishment out of it. Truth is something like a cluster of grapes on the vine: if we want wine, we must work for it; we must press and squeeze it many times. The worker’s feet must come down joyfully upon the bunches, or else the juice will not flow. They must stomp the grapes well, or else much of the precious liquid will be wasted. So likewise we must, by meditation, work at God’s clusters of truth, if we really want to grow through God’s wisdom.

Our bodies are not sustained just by putting food into our mouths. The process which supplies our muscle, nerves, and bones is the process of digestion. By digestion the outward food becomes absorbed into our bodies. Likewise, our souls don’t become well-nourished merely by listening to this and that, to part here and there of divine truth. Hearing, reading, and learning require inwardly digesting to be useful, and this digesting of the truth requires meditating upon it.

We may wonder why some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make slow advances in their spiritual walk? It’s because they do not thoughtfully meditate on God’s Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it. They would eat the corn, but they will not go into the field to gather it. The fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it. The water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it.

Question: What’s one reason why many Christians are slow to progress on their “spiritual walk”?

About the Author: Charles Spurgeon