“While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and
pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue him from
death” (Heb. 5:7).
Of Andrew Bonar, a Scottish minister used mightily of God during the
great Revival of 1839-1840, it is said, he cared, wept and prayed like Jesus.
In the 17th century, Samuel Rutherford, said, “A bed watered with tears, a throat dry with praying, eyes a fountain of tears for the sins of the land are rarely to be found among us.”
Recently, David Smithers of the “Awake and Go Prayer
Global Network,” wrote, “Far too often our own eyes are dry because we are blind
to the needs around us... blinded by the temporal, we
can no longer see the holiness of heaven and horrors of
hell.” (edited)
I recently read “If you can
see where you are going, you are not walking by faith.” That definition fits me: I am presently waiting for the Lord to give me new direction. Having finished my cancer treatments, I am now officially in
remission, though I will, however, be receiving quarterly CT scans and blood
work that will alert me to cancer's return. That said, what is better than an unknown
future to foster a life of faith?
Yesterday I told a friend that God has graced me with ‘blinders.’ The word just popped into my head. So I
searched Google and asked ‘why do they put ‘blinders’ on a horse?’
I learned that the main reason for blinders is to help a
horse stay focused on what is in front of him and oblivious to the rear. Blinders also encourage the horse to pay attention to the race rather
than other distractions, such as other horses, or boisterous crowds that might
spook him. Little did I know how appropriate it was when I told my friend that God
had graced me with blinders.
There is a cold front moving in to the North East, and Nor'easters are being warned to get read for a snowy Thanksgiving. Did you know that Jesus warned of a cold front in the last days: the love of many will grow cold (Matt. 24:12)? The last letter written to the churches in Revelation
3 is Laodicea, characterized as a lukewarm
church. Today, the number of passionate believers in Jesus is decreasing
while lukewarm-ness accelerates to near apostasy.
Do you know that the Bible prophecies a strong
delusion (2 Thess. 2:11), like a freezing wind, will numb out everyone (including lukewarm believers) in the last days. And then, when the Holy Spirit is removed from the earth, this freeze will move in and make everyone so cold they no longer feel the love of God. Is this why Jude says, Keep yourselves in the love of God
(Jude 21), and Paul, Be on fire with the Spirit (Rom. 12:11)? When you see this cold front moving in, watch your heart. Don't be left out in the cold!
Over my 20+ years of employment with the Federal government,
I had many co-workers from different regions of the U.S. One time a co-worker from the South, said: “I
miss magnolia trees; there are none in California.” Of course that’s false—we had a magnolia tree in our yard at home. Another time, a co-worker told me there were no drive-up banks in California. Both of these ‘foreigners’ had come to false conclusions based on a small vantage point. They were short-sighted.
Short-sightedness began with Adam, who, at Eve's beckoning, succumbed to the wiles of forbidden fruit (symbol of desires that claim our immediate attention) and concluded
it was a better offer than God’s long-term plans. In hindsight, you and I ask astonishingly, ‘how
could anyone be so short-sighted?’
But are we really any less so?’
Whether by ignorance or willful neglect of God’s truth, all of us have a propensity for short-sightedness, “falling short
of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). After reminding his readers they have inherited God’s
divine nature, whose qualities include moral excellence, self-control,
perseverance, godliness, love, etc., Peter tells them if we were not growing
in these, they must be either blind or shortsighted” (2 Pet 1:9). Let us examine, honestly, our own short-sightedness. “Open our eyes so we may behold these wonderful
things” (Ps. 119:18).
Altha and I went to see the movie “Blind Side” this weekend. As I reflected on its box office success ($150 million in the U.S. so far), I recognized this "Cinderella" story is just what hope-deprived people are needing right now. We want something/someone to believe in. Perhaps one of the warmest “feel-good” stories of this last year was that of Susan Boyle, a matronly middle-aged Scottish woman who rose to international stardom from her audacious performance on “Britain’s Got Talent.”
This last decade was full of the moral failures of those we looked up to—a decade of disappointment in our heroes and celebrities, of cover-up and deceit. From politicians to pastors, pop celebrities to sports champions, the media reveled in scandal and sensation, leaving many disillusioned.
People invested in this world can easily fall into despair. And so will we unless we keep a right perspective. Despair results whenever we replace God with someone else. Of course we don’t do it intentionally, but our disappointment reveals the truth about whom and what we are invested in. Hope is one of the godly virtues (1 Cor. 13:13): it is a looking forward to eternity. It is not wishful thinking, but finds its substance in the reality of unseen things (Heb. 11:1). The Bible is replete with stories of men and women who left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. And because they put their hope in God they were not disappointed (Psalm 43:5; Romans 5:5). If you were disappointed to the point of despair this last year, maybe your ‘hope’ was in the wrong place.
