Tuesday, October 30, 2012

The Mercy of God, that it wasn't worse.

Thank you, Dear Lord, for your mercy to grant us all that we need for the deliverance in times such as these. Thank you for the wonderful and consciencious leadership of the government officials; Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Cuomo, Governor Christie and others who directed with a steady hand the goings on of the recent and continued storm crisis that we are enduring. We pray for continued assistance to their hearts and minds for strength and peace and help that they would have the continued help to present a committed leadership picture to us that will help the city and the country keep a level head in a crisis. This is truly from Your hand, Dearest Lord. You calmed the disciples in the boat and had the entire storm in Your predisposing, we see in Scripture. Still, You were sensitive to the plights of the weak. Give peace and a sense of Your presence to those men who must act in strength before a people whose emotions are at the brink. Thank You for helping and guiding them. God, please give grace to the grieving and disturbed at this time. Thank You that Your mercy was evident and we pray for more mercy in the clean up. In the name of the Savior of Sinners and the King of Kings, Jesus, Amen.

Monday, October 29, 2012

He will beautify the meek with salvation" A prayer for bending the knee under the Sovereign Hand of a Mighty God of the

Universe.
Hurricane Sandy has come with force winds. We city dwellers have, for generations laughed in the face of such storms. Unwittingly laughing at the reminders that God gives us of His sovereignty. These storms have provoked our pagan pride and we repent at this time, Dear Lord. In the light of the humility we see in the North Carolinian submission to Your divine intervention in creation. We bow our heads and we bow our knees in repentance and faith that You have every right to level our city in this storm and in any way that You see fit. We beg, in wrath that You remember mercy! We know that we have provoked You to Your face, mimimizing Your great power in the winds and in the waves. We have seen it as a challenge to build against Your forces, as though we were competing with Your wrath. We have sent souls to their doom, in airplanes and boats and laughed that they and we had not bowed at Your fierce wrath, exhibitted in the storm. We repent dear Lord. We glory not in our stocks of animals to the demise of the souls given to our care. We glory not in the bucklers that we have built with our own hands to stand against Your fury. We know that they are matchsticks against Your true and just fury against our sins. We submit and confess to You that we are learning to bow under Your just judgments against us. We have no power against Your wrath and we have no reason to glory except that we know that the Lord Jesus paid it all for our souls' salvation, at the cross of Calvary. God, You are our God. You said to Abraham that if there would have been 10 in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah you would not have demolished them. We have sinned against light and deserve far worse than they received, except for Your love and mercy that has been showered upon us. We must learn from more humble peoples not to provoke You as we have made a habit of doing in our unbelief. Your storms are reminders to care for the less fortunate. The people who have no wall of protection and the people who are incapable of finding a shelter in the storm, give us grace to see this in the fierceness of Your exhibitions of power. We know that You are sovereign and we pray that You will use this to draw us to Yourself and to give us grace to grow and learn to emulate Your mercy as we have emulated Your power and strength in our cities. Hold us and guide us to the humble path as our sins make us rise in sinful pride. We love You Lord and pray for mercy and grace to learn and grow, In Jesus Name. Amen.

Monday, October 15, 2012

What happens when we are overexposed?

Years ago, there used to be camera film to process, in nearly everyone's home. You kept these precious memories in a dark place, lest the overexposure to the sun make them useless remembrances of days and events. Exposure to light would darken the image and no photograph could be produced from the film. I have sat in the sun and played in the sun, until my own skin has been so black that I could be nearly invisible for the blackness. Soon, with less exposure, my complexion would return to normal and I was myself again. Only Grandma would castigate my heedless exposure to the sun. Skin is limited, she would warn. There is only so much sunshine that the skin can endure without skin cancer developing. I kept these warnings in my heart and took care, although ever so incredulously, to try to keep my skin from so much sun. Sometimes, I fear that those whose job it is to handle the Word of Truth may suffer from overexposure to the attributes of God. What are the symptoms of this malady? I know that in my own soul there have been seasons of overexposure and overuse of one specific attribute of God, or means of grace that I have stumbled over and suffered dearly. The clouds of vicisitude roll in and all you have of faith, is like a lightning ball in your hand. It has no power to direct your path. It is simply light and heat as a posession. Perhaps, you do not altogether lose your assurance of salvation, but it does little in your life to preserve from sin and keep from insecurity and draw closer to the God of all Glory. Thank God that He is the author and the finisher of our faith. He is the tender and keeper of our hearts and minds and not we, ourselves. I see Him, {in my mind's eye} preparing a cat of ninetails for my soul to turn over the fallowness of my moneychangers self remnants. In eternal love, He removes the self-preserved unholy uses of holy ambitions. Sometimes, it is in meeting someone whose struggle is completely opposite of my own. Sometimes, it is the darkness of griefs that roll in like the tide that turns me on my ear and remind me of the need to hold onto God and not my ambitions for God or for myself in God. Somedays my heart feels like the chaff, crushed and scattered, for aching. Is that what you meant is the fruit of unbelief, when my broken heart is unable to be gathered for the dissimulation? God reminds me that He is greater than my heart. Some preach and teach from such a guarded heart that they are always the predator of hearts and never the preyed upon. Jesus stated that He sends us forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. The predator of hearts is a state that is in danger of perhaps having been seared.
Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly...
Where are you God, when I am overexposed? When I am feeling my heart, like chaff flitting and broken and hardened and preyed upon and a predator? Even then, God has the remedy. Even then, it is not unto us to find or be the remedy. It is God who will fashion the instruments of right exposure and right sensitivity to sin and to unrighteousness. God is growing us up into Christ in all things. Service and challenge can be a jarring element to shake us from this fatal ease. Decorum can be a curtain of hiding our impurities until we are dealt with by God's Word, in discipline and restoration. We know when we are in the danger of making shipwreck of our faith. Those closest to the light and heat of the power of God are the most in danger of really being deceived by demons. Satan, himself sits as an angel of light. Help us Lord, who know You and feel that we love You, be submitted to Your word in truth and not for our own glory. Desensitize our overexposure and restore our skin from the burns that we have inflicted upon ourselves. Disect our intentions to us that we may be true to You and not deceived by our own lusts. We will glorify Your name for Your faithfulness to our souls. In Jesus name, Amen.