Rev. Dan Safarik: What’s The Good Word For Today?
Did you hear about the man who was trying to impress his girlfriend? He hired a helicopter to dump 2,000 carnations on her front lawn. On top of that he dumped 10,000 love letters. Later he found out she had married someone else the week before. He was being charged with littering!
Though he failed, we have to admire the man because he spared no expense to try to get his message across. In a similar way God was willing to go all out to bring His message to earth.
God didn’t just shower us with gifts or send notes. God gave us a real live messenger. God sent his own son to us. The gospel of John put the whole message in a very interesting way. John called Jesus the ‘Word’ of God. I especially like the way John put it when he wrote, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)
A lot of people are asking the question, “Is there a word from the Lord for me?” People are asking that question when they come to church. They’re asking this in different ways when they come in for counseling. The answer is a resounding, “Yes!”
People are also reading…
There is a word, the word is Jesus. Jesus embodies the message of God to us.
When I worked in a filling station in Lyons years ago, a man came in one day and asked, “What’s the good word today?” I built up my courage and said, “Jesus.” He had to agree, that’s a good word.
Not only is it good, but it’s full of grace and truth, as the Bible verse said. Grace and truth are often words we need to hear. I thought of this when a lady asked me the other day what the Bible has to say about her situation. She was having struggles in many ways. I said the message of the Bible for her was “grace.”
Grace means we are accepted and loved by God as a gift. We can’t earn or deserve God’s acceptance. God’s grace helps us to accept ourselves and love ourselves when it seems like no one else does. The world tears us down, but God’s grace builds us up.
Someone put it this way: When we’re born we’re given a note card with these letters printed on it: IALAC. The letters stand for ‘I Am Lovable And Capable.’ As a baby we know we’re OK with the world. After a while people start tearing off little pieces of the card until by the time we’re in high school the card is in a shambles.
God spared no cost to let us know again that we are lovable and capable. God has a word for us. The word is sometimes grace, or truth, or love, or peace. The world tears us down but God’s word builds us up so we can go on.
Prayer: Our Lord, we ask for lots of physical things, but we’re glad you knew what we needed most was a message. Amen.
The Rev. Dan Safarik retired as a full-time pastor at St. Luke United Methodist Church in Lincoln and now serves part time at St. Mark’s UMC in Lincoln. Email him at dsafarik@stmarks.Org
Get local news delivered to your inbox!
5 Things That Hinder The Presence Of Christ
Most believers understand that God is everywhere, but the Bible is also clear that the power and presence of Christ can fill the heart of the believer who completely surrenders to Him. His presence changes everything! So it's no secret why the enemy of our soul wants to hinder His presence and power in our life.
Here are five things that will hinder the presence of Christ in your life and what you can do to get back on track:
1. Secret sin hinders His presence
Hidden sin deeply affects and quenches our relationship with our Savior. “When there’s no communion with God, our lives are spent in the darkness. We see nothing. We hear nothing. We have no answers. Spiritual death sets in” (Gene Easley).
Most of us can relate to spiritual death but be encouraged: Repentance opens the door for His presence to be restored.
Begin by acknowledging and turning from the sin that is pulling you down and you’ll find rest for your soul.
Acts 3:19 says, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”
Although the context of this verse is about those laying their sin at the foot of the cross and being “born-again” for the first time, believers can also experience times of renewal when repentance is genuine.
We must begin here.
2. The fullness of the flesh hinders His presence
Matthew 6:24 reminds us that, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other...” It’s impossible to be full of the world and full of Christ. We can’t be consumed with worldly pursuits as our main focusand be consumed with pursuing Christ — one or the other will prevail.
One HUGE benefit of prayer and fasting is that it empties us in order to be filled. It weakens the flesh in order to be strengthened by the Spirit.
The presence of Christ is attracted to weakness, and the practice of moderation strengthens spiritual discipline. This leads to the fullness of the Spirit.Andrew Murray once said, “Only in a life of moderation and self-denial will there be sufficient heart and strength to pray much.” I’m not promoting legalism, but I am promoting moderation.
In 1 Cor. 9:27, Paul said that he disciplined his body and brought it under control so that his work would not be hindered. In his Bible commentary, Matthew Henry wrote about the danger of yielding to fleshly desires, pampering the body, and its lusts and appetites.
Commit today to deny something that the flesh is always craving. In essence, you’re saying, “I’m so desperate to hear from God and to know Him that I’m willing to make this sacrifice.” This leads to the next point:
3. A lack of desperation hinders His presence
When we lack desperation about pursuing God, we are demonstrating that the pursuit is not important enough to make it a priority.
When Isaiah cried, “Oh, that You would rend the heavens!” He was desperate. When Ezra and Esther fasted and cried out to God, they were desperate. When Joel called a sacred assembly, he was desperate. When the early disciples waited in the upper room, they were desperate.
The sad reality is that the average Christian gets by with just enough to keep them lukewarm but not on fire.
4. A lack of fervency hinders His presence
Let’s be clear here: “The spiritual battle in which the Christian is engaged is fierce. Satan is intent upon destroying the presence of Christ from our lives. There are no vacations from spiritual warfare. “That is why the fire must be kept burning” (Fire Upon the Altar by Gene Easley).
Once God lights the fire of the Spirit in our hearts, we must do our part to keep Him burning through fervent prayer: “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” (Jas. 5:16).
William Gurnall once said,“Cold praying is no more prayer than a painting of fire is fire.” How can prayers that do not burden your heart move God’s hand?
Without desperation and fervency, prayer is like sitting in front of a picture of a fire. You see it but you don’t feel it! “He is a Rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6), and diligence takes work.
5. Being too busy hinders His presence
If you’re too busy to wait, too preoccupied to pursue God, and too wrapped up to worship Him, your relationship with Him will be hindered.“He acts for the one who waits for Him” (Is. 64:4), and waiting can’t be rushed.
Waiting is a great way to measure importance. We wait for things that are important to us. Jesus often waited to hear from the Father and went to places of solitude to wait.
Yes, waiting is difficult, but we can also rest in the fact that God is in control. Andrew Murray offers a great perspective here: “Once faith has taken its stand on God‘s Word and the name of Jesus, and has yielded itself to the leading of the Spirit to seek only God’s will and honor it in prayer, you need not be discouraged by delay.”
Just because God is delaying something doesn’t necessarily mean that He is denying it.
Feelings can’t be trusted
We must come to the point where we say, “Jesus, you’re a priority and I’m going to pursue You regardless of how I ‘feel’.”But always remember: “Pursuing” His presence doesn’t always mean “feeling” His presence.
Are you standing on God’s Word with a humble, broken, repentant heart?
Are you willing to yield to the direction of the Spirit?
Are you actively engaged in dealing with the things that hinder His presence in your life?
Then don’t be discouraged by “feelings” when things get tough. Rest in God’s sovereignty. He is our stability in unstable times.
Shane Idleman is the founder and lead pastor of Westside Christian Fellowship in Lancaster, California, just North of Los Angeles. Shane's sermons, articles, books, and radio program can all be found at shaneidleman.Com or wcfav.Org. He is the author of Feasting & Fasting, If My People, Desperate for More of God, and Help! I'm Addicted. Follow him on Facebook at: facebook.Com/confusedchurch. You can also follow Pastor Shane on the new free speech platform Parler https://parler.Com/profile/ShaneIdleman/posts.
Join thousands of others to get the FREEDOM POST newsletter for free, sent twice a week from The Christian Post.
DALLAS JONES: Receiving The Word Of God
One of the parables the Savior taught is referred to as the sower and is one of a small number of parables reported in all three of the synoptic Gospels.
“A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” (Luke 8: 5-8 in the Bible)
Matthew added this, “But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold …” (Matthew 13: 8-9 in the Bible)
The seed is the word or gospel of Jesus ChristIt is also one of an even smaller number of parables Jesus explained to His disciples. The seed that was sown was “the word of the kingdom” (Matthew 13: 19 in the Bible)), “the word” (Mark 4: 14 in the Bible), or “the word of God” (Luke 8: 11 in the Bible). In our language the Word is the teachings of Jesus Christ and His apostles and prophets, also referred to in the scriptures as the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The different soils on which the seeds fell represent different ways in which we receive and follow these teachings.
Some fell by the way sideThe seeds that “fell by the way side” (Mark 4: 4 in the Bible) have not reached soil where they might possibly grow. They are like teachings that fall upon a heart hardened or unprepared. We are all faced with the question, what do we do with the Savior’s teachings as we live our lives?
Some fell on stony groundSome seeds “fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: but when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away” (Mark 4: 5-6 in the Bible). Jesus explained that this describes those “who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness,” but because they “have no root in themselves, … when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word’s sake, immediately they are offended” (Mark 4: 16-17 in the Bible)
What causes hearers to “have no root in themselves”? Christians who are not completely converted to the teachings of the gospel and regular in its practices. Any one of us can develop a stony heart, which is stony ground for spiritual seeds. Spiritual food is necessary for spiritual survival, especially in a world that is moving away from belief in God and the absolutes of right and wrong. In an age dominated by the internet, which magnifies messages that menace faith, we must increase our exposure to spiritual truth in order to strengthen our faith and stay rooted in the gospel.
Some fell among thornsJesus taught that “some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit” (Mark 4: 7 in the Bible). He explained that these are “such as hear the word, and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful” (Mark 4: 18-19 in the Bible). What does it mean to be unfruitful? To not allow the gospel of Jesus Christ to change us from our worldly conduct to drawing near to our Savior by keeping His commandments.
This is surely a warning to all of us to allow the gospel teachings to help us become more righteous and fruitful.
Some fell in good groundThe parable of the sower ends with the Savior’s description of the seed that “fell into good ground, and according to Matthew brought forth fruit” in various measures. Jesus explained that “the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience” (Luke 8:15 in the Bible).
We have the seed of the gospel word. It is up to each of us to set the priorities and to do the things that make our soil good and our harvest plentiful. We must seek to be firmly rooted and converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:6–7 in the Bible). We achieve this conversion by praying, by scripture reading, by serving, and keeping the commandments of God. We must also seek that mighty change of heart (Alma 5:12–14 in the Book of Mormon) that replaces evil desires and selfish concerns with the love of God and the desire to serve Him and His children.
Dallas Jones is the local leader in the Church of Jesus ....
