One Minute For God

“There is no one who calls on Your name, who arouses himself to take hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us and delivered us into the power of our iniquities.” Isaiah 64:7

A few days ago, my sister and I were strolling through our Christian bookstore (trying very hard not to spend too much money), when my eyes fell on a book about one minute prayers for women. As my mind wrapped around this book’s concept, my heart slowly felt a deep conviction. Is one minute really all the time we have for God?

Unfortunately, my conviction didn’t end there. I began to stumble upon more and more books on scheduling God in a few minutes of our day.

I want to clarify myself a little. I am not saying that we shouldn’t buy or read these books on ‘one minute prayers’ or ‘five minutes with God’ devotionals. I am only asking you and myself a serious question: is that really all the time we can give God out of our day?

I wonder what we would think if God suddenly said He could only spare ten minutes (and that’s being generous!) to fit you in, so we better make it quick. That would be terrible! We have confidence in Him that He will always at any moment be there for us and with us. Could our ever-present God say the same about us, His servants and very own children?

Think about what we are doing! We are holding up our tiny little wrist watches to God - the God who gave you this day, who allows your heart to beat, who saved us from eternal hell, who formed you in the womb, who created us for His glory and pleasure, who holds time in His hands - and saying we are just too busy and have too many important things planned in our day to spend precious time on earth with Him; pursuing Him with our time and energy, seeking to know Him more, and passionately living every hour for Him and not ourselves. (2 Cor. 5:14-15)

How His heart must break...

If we could just let go of our schedules and plans and desperately grab hold of our great God, the only One that will satisfy our deepest longings and desires, and slow us down enough to really learn and enjoy what life is all about.

Oh that we would live for Christ! And arouse ourselves and call on His blessed name, sitting at His feet in complete humility and adoration. What if we scheduled our days around HIM. How our lives would change…how the world would change.

Well, my friend, He has given us this day, this hour, this breath.

Let’s make time for Him.

You Are Our Potter

“Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker - an earthenware vessel among the vessels of the earth! Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing’, or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’?” Isaiah 45:9

Oh how I have been guilty of quarreling with my Maker! Countless times I have looked in the mirror and sighed of discontent, wishing I looked like someone else. My nose is bigger than so and so, and I don’t wear the same pants size as her. If I could only look just like her, then I would be perfect and happy. Why do I look this way? Who made my body that I have so many problems with?!

Oh…God did.

When I was reading the verse above, God allowed the scales to fall off my eyes and see my discontent for what it really was (and is). A quarrel with God Almighty.

Before, I thought I was just having a quarrel with myself, thinking it’s just my problem that I don’t like my knees, weight, ears, etc., but God showed me that when I detest the body He made, I am detesting Him as my Creator.

And my Creator began to teach me more.

1) I am made in the image of God. “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Gen. 1:27 If I read this and look at myself and say that there’s no way God created this, I am believing a lie, and that will effect every part of my life. The first thing God tells us about Himself is that He is the Creator of all things, including you and me. If I don’t believe that, I can’t believe anything else He says.

2) I am God’s workmanship. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Eph.2:10 Remembering that I am a work of art by God makes me careful about what I say about myself and others. Also, I should focus on what my hands are doing for God, not what they look like.

3) I am the clay, and God is the Potter. “But now, O Lord, You are our Father, we are the clay, and You are our potter; and all of us are the work of Your hands.” Isaiah 64:8 Clay can’t mold itself, it needs a potter. And God is our Potter. When He started with me I was just a clump of mud, but in His hands, He has formed me into a vessel, a vessel for Him to use. Will I let Him use me or just complain about the outside of the jar?

One thing God has reminded me: I am a temple of the Holy Spirit and am not my own. (1Cor.6:19-20) I was bought with a price and my purpose is to glorify God in my body.

And what really matters? What the temple looks like or what is on the inside? So many times I am guilty of focusing on the outside of my body rather than the inside - the heart which God sees. Jesus’s words echo in my mind, “They are like white washed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matt. 23:25-28)

Psalms 100:3 “Know that the Lord Himself is God; it is He who made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.”

Unstained

“Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God is this: to visit the orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” James 1:27

We see it all the time: people who claim to believe in Christ but are numb and bored with Jesus, fading into the world with nothing that sets them apart.
Go and sit in a public place that collects young people and watch. Can you tell which ones are believers? Did you know that about 82% of high school teens claim to be Christians? Why don’t they stand out from among the rest? To be truthful, I can’t tell a difference between the lost and the saved. What’s wrong with us? We all look so…stained by the world.

Polluted and captivated by the world we are.

We have ruined our Christ given clothes of purity, righteousness, and truth, staining them with lust, wickedness, and a lie. Each compromise leaves us a little more dirty, and before we even realize it…we look just like the world. Yes, we fade right in.

But what has God called us to be?

To be separate and clean.

“Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord, and do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters to Me, says the Lord Almighty.” 2 Cor. 6:17-18

We need to come out of the worlds midst and repent of our dirty minds and hearts and be washed clean by God’s forgiveness and faithfulness. (1 John 1:9)

We need to look in the mirror and see if our hearts are stained by the world, and be transformed into the image of a holy and pure God. (2 Cor. 3:18)

We must check and examine our hearts, because the world stains us from the inside out, like a teabag placed in hot water; so slow is the infusion.

Make sure bitterness has not taken root in your heart, or gossip poured forth from it. Guard it at all times or Satan will take it captive.

Let us run to our Father and fall on our face and ask for an unstained life. Let us be separate, let us be clean.

“Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Ps. 51:7
O God give us a clean heart.
Let us be found unstained.

Here Is Love

“By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:9-10

Out of all the loves this world has to offer, no love is like the great love of God.

When earthly love fails, God’s love is unfailing. When earthly love fades, God’s love is everlasting. When earthly love leaves pain, God’s love heals. When earthly love forsakes, God’s love never lets go.

God’s love is not empty words, but demonstrated with action and sacrifice…yes, very great sacrifice. Love had it’s perfect expression among men in the Lord Jesus Christ. Actually, the first use of the word “love” in the Bible is in reference to a father and a son: Abraham and Issac in Genesis 22. In this chapter God is testing Abraham’s love and obedience to Him by asking Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son Issac. Abraham was obedient, and God in His great love and knowledge did not require Issac’s life, and greatly blessed Abraham for his love and obedience to God.

And what did God do to show His love for us?

He sacrificed His only Son and payed the price for our sins. Isn’t this a glorious picture? The thing God asked of Abraham to prove his love for God was to sacrifice his son, Issac. God proved His love for us by doing the exact same thing, except God did allow His Son to die - no ram was found caught in the thicket for a substitute, but the blood of the spotless Lamb was shed…for you and me. As Abraham and Issac climbed up Mount Moriah, and little Issac looked up to his father and asked,”Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”, Abraham answered, “God will provide for Himself the lamb of sacrifice, my son.”

And God did provide the Lamb. His name is Jesus.

Feast on God’s great love for you today.

(Romans 5:8, John 3:16, 15:13, Eph. 2:4-5, 5:2, 1 John 3:16)