I HAVE PRAYED FOR YOU!

 

Thursday, October 30, 2025

 

I HAVE PRAYED FOR YOU!

 

Luke 22:31-32

31 And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:

32 But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.

 

          As parents of adult children, we must learn to deliver them into the capable hands of God. I am as guilty as any of trying to buffer them from every harm and hurt.

 

          This is my prayer not only for my adult children and grandchildren but for my church family as well. “He knows you and your situation. I can't see far enough to guide you, I am too blind, so I will try to give that task to Him. I can't sustain you, I am too poor, so I have brought your debts to Him. I am too weak to protect you, so I have dispatched His angels to guard you. I have no balm to soothe your wounds, so I have appealed to the great physician. I love you but I have asked for His perfect love. May you be blessed today.”

 

          We can’t fully know the drama that is unseen when we pray! It is not weakness to pray – it is strength! It is our greatest treasure, our most renewable and inexhaustible resource. It never fails to bring God’s best. The answer may sometimes disappoint us, but only because we can’t know what God knows and see what God sees. All His ways are benevolent. He is not capricious but purposeful. Trust Him today!

 

Dan 10:11-12

11 And he [the angel] said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand upright: for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had spoken this word unto me, I stood trembling. 12 Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.

 

Dear Father, hear the prayers of your children today. Protect them from danger. Fight their battles for them and win. Give them their daily bread. Lead them in a plain path for Thy name’s sake. AMEN

 

MOVED WITH COMPASSON!

 

Wednesday, October 29, 2025

 

MOVED WITH COMPASSON!

 

Matt 14:14

14 And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.

 

Five times in the New Testament it is recorded that Jesus was “moved with compassion.” Matthew mentions three occasions and Mark points out two. The Greek word that requires an English phrase to translate is the word splagchnizomai and means “to have the bowels yearn” or to feel sympathy or pity. Certainly, we have all felt that knot in our belly that is somehow connected to strong emotions!

 

Jesus was able to see a person’s need and pain. It is amazing that he was not constantly weeping! He saw the multitude without direction or care. He saw the sick in need of healing. He saw the unpaid debt that needed to be forgiven and the leper that needed to be cleansed. He noticed it all and his “bowels” turned over and over in sympathy.

 

Several times Jesus asked His disciples to partner with him in relieving suffering. Once He told them to give the multitude something to eat. Yet another time He asked them to pray that laborers would be provided. What can we do when our sympathies overwhelm our resources?

 

There was never a situation that Jesus did not respond to with prayer no matter how large or small the problem. When he missed the fellowship of the Father and the comfort of heaven he prayed. When he was hungry and tired, he prayed. If he was tempted, he prayed. When criticized he prayed. When hanging on the cross he prayed. There was never an emergency that would not yield to prayer.

 

Dear Lord, I run to you this morning with a long list of needs and concerns. I am doing what you did when overwhelmed. Lord, please meet the needs of my friends today. AMEN

 

HE’S ALL I NEED!

 

Tuesday, October 28, 2025

 

HE’S ALL I NEED!

 

Isa 41:10-16

10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

11 Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish.

12 Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought.

13 For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.

14 Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

15 Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff.

16 Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the LORD, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel.

 

In these verses God promises…

 

1. His PRESENCE for the lonely!

 

One translation says: “Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.” (v.10) Anxiety is the companion of the lonely. When we are abandoned, we long for a companion either to challenge our opinions or to confirm them. Jesus promised to be that constantly abiding friend we need.

 

2. His POWER for the helpless!

 

I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. (v.10) He is our strength when we are weak – help when we are out of resources – and support when we fail and fall.

 

3. His PROTECTION for the vulnerable!

 

Children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable in this world. Those who would abuse them should pay close attention to what the Bible has to say about God’s love of widows and orphans!

 

Ps 68:5

5 A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.

 

4. His PURPOSE for those who feel useless!

 

I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. (v.15)

 

Dear Lord, thank you for being all that I need today. I bring to you my long list of deficiencies and you give to me your long list of supplies. AMEN

 

RECONCILED FULLY!

 

Monday, October 27, 2025

 

RECONCILED FULLY!

 

Col 1:19-22

19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;

20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled

22 In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:

 

          The Greek word used twice here is apokatallasso which means “to reconcile fully.” It also helps to define our English word since the word reconcile seems to be fading from us. Generally, the word “reconcile” and “reconciliation” means “to settle one's differences, make (one's) peace, make up, kiss and make up, bury the hatchet, declare a truce!” This is what God has done with and for us through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus.

 

          I’ve known parents and other “enablers” who try to reconcile others by paying their debts and repairing the damage done by them. This is not the true meaning of reconciliation. Reconciliation happens not only when the debt is paid but when the debtor is CHANGED. I can’t change the nature of a thief simply by repaying what he has stolen. That kind of change takes place internally.

 

          Jesus first paid our debt “in the body of his flesh through death” and then began a lifelong program of change through the working of the Holy Spirit. The ultimate goal is “to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight.”

 

Dear Jesus, thank you for doing what I never could have done on my own! AMEN

 

ALL MY FRIENDS ARE SINNERS!

 

Sunday, October 26, 2025

 

ALL MY FRIENDS ARE SINNERS!

 

Luke 7:37-38

37 And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,

38 And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

 

            The woman is only described by Luke as “a sinner.” Her sins are not named but we get the impression that she was what we might call a “street walker” with quite a reputation. Her tears, her humble attitude, and her expensive gift all spoke of a changed heart. We are not told when or how this woman came to repentance. Perhaps it was when Jesus gave the invitation to the weary to “come unto me … and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

 

          When our sins become so heavy that we can no longer carry them, we must find a place to lay them down. When our rebellion is found to be more painful than returning to divine authority, we will return. When the grief for what we have done far outweighs the pleasure we had sought, we will cry.

 

          All my friends are sinners! Every one of them. I’ve seen many of them at the altar weeping.  As their pastor, I am both glad and sad to see these tears. I am glad because I know that God welcomes the humble and resists the stubborn. (1 Peter 5:5) I am sad because I know the pain they are going through. I have been there many times myself.

 

          Michael Trimble, a British professor at the Institute of Neurology in London, tells us, humans are the only creatures who cry for emotional reasons. I have no reason to challenge his research. Humans cry while other animals do not. It makes one wonder just what it is that God placed inside of man that makes him different. I think it is our capacity for knowing and responding to God.

 

O Hope Of Every Contrite Heart

 

O hope of every contrite heart,
O joy of all the meek,
To those who fall, how kind Thou art!
How good to those who seek!

 

Dear Lord, How I remember, in my struggles against your will, the day I could not sustain my rebellion. I surrendered and you took me in. O the tears that fell in that precious hour – that hour when you smiled upon me in forgiveness. Thank you, Lord. AMEN

 

PURE RELIGION

 

Friday, October 24, 2025

 

PURE RELIGION

 

James 1:22-27  But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 

For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: 

For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. 

But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. 

If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. 

James 1:27  Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. 

 

          Verse 27 is a summary of verses 22-26. Verse 26 offers a clue as to the point James constantly presses home. Religion and true faith are two different things. “Seem to be. —Imagine himself to be religious; a difficult term, because its meanings have been subject to change. “The Greek adjective is one which expresses the outward, ritual side of religion, answering to ‘godliness’ as the inward.” [Preacher’s Homiletic Commentary]

 

          In the contest of denominations and doctrines, nothing beats pure religion as described by James. It has two focuses. One is outward because it ministers where there can be no profit, gain, or hope of reimbursement. It is costly and is done in obscurity. It produces no applause or reward. The other is inward and very difficult to perform. “Unspotted” is the Greek aspilos (as-pee-los) and means “morally unblemished.” This part of pure religion will prohibit the throwing of stones! (See John 8:7).

 

          Pure religion is not PRODUCED it is RECEIVED. “And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? Rev 7:13 

And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Rev 7:14 

 

Dear Lord, let me not be self-deceived regarding my faith. Thank you for the rich and pure gift of salvation. AMEN

 

LOOK FOR ME!

 

Thursday, October 23, 2025

 

LOOK FOR ME!

 

Gen 32:10

10 I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands.

 

Rev 22:3-4

3 And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:

4 And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.

 

          God often wakes me up with a single thought, or some phrase, or a song. This morning it was and still is an old gospel quartet song. “Look for me, for I will be there too.”

 

          Eventually we learn to live without those who have gone because their sweet memory lingers in our hearts and minds. Mother and Dad are gone. Dear friends are gone and one day I too will be gone. Gone to that blessed land described by John where God sits on his throne. The half of that has never been told.

 

Look For Me

Writer: Rusty Goodman

 

When you finally make your entrance to that City

Of jasper walls and

bright golden avenues

When you behold all its beauty and its splendor

Remember there’s just one request I make of you

 

Chorus 

Look for me, for I will be there too

I realize when you arrive

 there’ll be so much to view

After you’ve been there ten thousand years,

a million, maybe two

Look for me, for I will be there too

 

Dear Lord, the gravitational pull of this old world is heavy. Its corruption torments, but one day we will be with you. We will bow in worship with new bodies and cleansed hearts. Thank you, Lord, for I will be there too. AMEN

 

HOW TO MAKE MONEY

 

Wednesday, October 22, 2025

 

HOW TO MAKE MONEY

 

Luke 6:38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

 

                This is not so much a promise as it is a principle. Some resent giving material wealth to an invisible God but it seems clear to me that the giving referred to here is giving to relieve the need of others for so it is indicated in the context.

 

Luke 6:35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. 

Luke 6:36 Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. 

 

                Generosity does not make one poor. The Bible indicates that the opposite is true instead. Pro 11:24  “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.” Another translation puts it this way: “There is the one who [generously] scatters [abroad], and yet increases all the more; And there is the one who withholds what is justly due, but it results only in want and poverty.” Amplified Bible

 

Lord, I have been the recipient of much. Let me give without fear and without reservation. AMEN