Meditation: February 18

“Sit here while I pray.” Mark 14:32

When Jesus was facing the most agonizing moment in His life, He needed to be alone with the Father. He was away from the multitudes with pressing needs thus seeking Him out for assistance. Now He was with that small select group of disciples with whom He felt the liberty to be transparent. Yet His instruction to them was to sit as guards rather than participate with Him in that moment when He needed to talk to His Father. There are times when we need to pour out our hearts and express those deep feelings with God that only He is to hear. It is because only He is able to understand what we are not always able to fully articulate in words. On other occasions He would teach them to pray and corporately approach God as “our Father.” Now He wanted to speak to His as “My Father” because no other could understand the deep longings of His heart other than the One who knew Him best and love Him the most. We too need some alone time with God. Out of those times we are able to cultivate an intimate and personal relationship with Him.

Meditation: December 8

“We love Him because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19

Our passions are borrowed. They are like second-handed clothing worn by another. Someone else took the time and put forth the effort to carefully select what we use, misuse, and had grown accustomed to having. We cannot love with such depths, nor release such passions as to choose to love when there is no reason. Maybe with our children to some degree God gives us a glimpse of loving them because they belong to us. But even in this, we merely see the shadow of love displayed upon a planet of people going their own way doing their own thing. It is His love that changes lives and provides guidance to a misguided people. Our love often is left with feelings of abandonment because we lack the power to achieve all that we have set out in our own hearts to accomplish. God’s love is life-giving. He loves us into life. It is because of His love that we are now alive. It is His life that really matters. He chose to share His life with us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. This was a deliberate choice to love us without any reason. All we can do is accept His love by accepting His Word in keeping His commandments. This is the dearest and best expression of love made possible.

Meditation: November 3

“He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered.” Proverbs 28:26

It is too easy to feel that a particular thing is right and rely totally upon one’s feelings. Many place their confidence in the inclinations of the heart rather than the established truth of God’s word. Our hearts may guide us in the direction away from the things we despise, but will eventually crash against the jagged rocks of reality. The good is often despised if the heart remains unchanged. Nothing is within us to embrace the truth if all we have is an empty heart in search of significance. Nothing within fallen man is able to deliver him from perishing along with the weight of passions sinking him deeper into the quagmire of sin and rebellion. His feet are not established upon any solid substance enabling him to be upheld on shaky ground. He trusts in what is within him and around him. He foolishly stumbles along in life until he utterly falls. But the wise will walk wisely because he is steadied by the power that comes from on high. God is able to lift him above the traps set before him.  He is raised up while others are falling down. God sustains him through all that he may face because his heart is fixed on Jesus.