Category: Daily Walk with Christ

Taking A Walk With God

July 10, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

I read a great deal. I love books, but I nearly displaced my wife with them, so I no longer collect them. Instead, I now read eBooks and listen to audio books and podcasts. I read a great deal of theology books and some that are inspirational, but I recently learned that reading about the Bible is not the same as reading the Bible.

Reading the Bible alone, though, is not enough if you are seeking a deeper relationship with God. There needs to be equal parts Bible study and prayer. You see, that relationship – like any other – is a two way street.

Prayer, carrying on a conversation with God, allows you to get to know His heart. Prayer is also instrumental in allowing God to search your heart.

Learning God’s Word helps you understand the nature of God and His deepest desires for your life. The Bible is more than just a guideline for life. It is a standard by which to judge your own actions, thoughts, and dreams.

More than prayer and Bible study there is an even deeper practice: Christian meditation. Read a passage from the Bible every morning (use the same passage for multiple days if you wish), and every second that you spend idle – between tasks at work, while driving, while going to sleep, while taking a walk, or whenever you have a few seconds or a few minutes down time – ponder that passage or verse. If you cannot memorize verses, or even commit it to short-term memory, then write it down or put it in your phone, or text it to yourself. Read it, reread it, and reread it again. Pray on it, and remember: God is with you. There is no leaving Him behind.

Pray, read the Bible, mediate, and remember God is with you always. Take a walk with God. Hang on to His hand. Only He can keep you from falling.

To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. – Jude 24-25 NIV

An Oddball

July 9, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

Have you ever known an oddball? Someone who just cannot fit in? The harder they try the less they fit? I was one of those as a boy. I was the one brother of four that looked different. I was the only kid that my eccentric uncle told me was not really blood kin. I was always chosen last in sports, yet I wasn’t smart enough to be a nerd or geek. I was just an oddball.

So, when I first read this passage in 1 Peter (at about the age of 13), I thought I had figured out my place in this world:

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own peculiar* people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. – 1 Peter 2:9-10 NKJV *the word peculiar is used in the KJV

I was convinced that the Gospel was for losers, and that this loser was made for spreading the Gospel.

I was, however, mistaken about the meaning of these verses. While God does choose messengers and workers based on qualities that may not be evident to others, this paragraph from 1 Peter does not address that issue.

In context, Peter tells us that the holiness of Christ trips up most people, those who can neither fathom or duplicate the example that Christ sets. We, though, are not chosen because we are peculiar. We, Christians, are to be peculiar because they are chosen.

What makes us peculiar?

We are peculiar because we are chosen. That is especially true of our generation, Early 21st Century Christians. No generation has ever had so easy and ready access to God’s Word and study material (we can never claim we don’t know God because His Word was not available).

We are to be a royal priesthood, witnessing to the lost, interceding for our nation, and living as an example to one and all.

We are peculiar in that He has set us aside to be holy vessels filed with His love… because He calls us His own. We are God’s children, His people, nomenclature that once applied only to the Jews.

Because He has chosen us – me and you – we should surrender all that we are and all that we have to Him in love.

Because He has chosen us…

– before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. – Ephesians 1:4-6 NKJV

Now we can have…

redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace – Ephesians 1:7 NKJV

In return – out of love for Christ -we should…

abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. 1 Peter 2:11-12 NKJV

No one has ever accused me of being holy, or perfect, because I am not. Sanctification is a work of the Holy Spirit. Discipleship – living like Christ – is something we do because our heart is filled with the love of Christ.

Do You Feel Like You Are Drowning?

July 8, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

My two youngest boys are grown and have families of their own. When they were ten and twelve, we took them to the beach on an uninhabited island at a Texas State Park. At one point, I looked up and they gone. I found them far from the beach; they were to my eyes but specs in the water. They had been wandered far from shore. When I called, they struggled to return, fighting a riptide. I swam towards deeper water, yelling for them to swim at an angle towards me, instead of straight to the beach.

In the Bible water is often synonymous with chaos, sin, or evil. In the beginning, the earth was formless, void, and full of darkness… Chaotic.

When the nation of Israel escapes Egypt, God not only defeats Pharaoh, he defeats the waters. For Christians, the next generation crossing of the Jordan symbolizes the passing of life and entering life eternal.

Baptism took on new meaning for us with the resurrection of Christ. It came to symbolize our death and burial with He who saves us and our subsequent resurrection.

In the psalms, water represents our enemies, physical or spiritual. In the Psalm 69, the enemy is represented as deep waters, mire or muck, a raging flood, and an abyss. David has come to an end of himself. He is helpless, powerless, outnumbered, accused, and (vs. 19) guilty.

We too must come to the end of ourselves before God may act in His fullness. Paul says it best in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Do you feel like you are drowning, like you are ready to die? Give it up. Surrender to Christ, and He will make you alive. For when you are weak, He will be strong for you.

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