Day 193

May 12: Isaiah 1-8

Finally on Isaiah! I've been waiting to get to this book because I know how much there's going on in it. Reading psalms, proverbs, song of solomons was great and all but I need to get back to some old testament stories.

Something we all think about, something that a lot of people struggle with these days is vision, purpose and ultimately our calling from God. As Christians, we all want to know how we can serve God with our lives and sometimes it drives us crazy when we don't feel that this is revealed to us. I think this is ok initially, after all, what is more important than our calling through Christ? Sooner or later though, we must turn our attention away from ourselves and onto God. In Chapter 6 of Isaiah, God shows us how we can get our calling.

King Uzziah, a good king has just died, and Isaiah is worrying about the future of his country when God reveals Himself to him in a vision, "seated on a throne, high and exalted." At the sight of this, Isaiah immediately cries out, "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips." An angel then comes down, touches his mouth with a live coal and says, "your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." Then the famous verse comes when God asks, "Whom shall I send?" and Isaiah owns up to the call saying "Here am I. Send me!"

Pastor Jae has preached on this passage a few times and it's awesome. Our calling comes through 3 simple steps. First, God reveals Himself to us. Then, we see who we are, and finally God heals us and gives us our calling. Isaiah sees God in his vision, immediately realizes he's a sinner, an angel of God heals him, and finally God anoints him as one of the most influential prophets of the old testament.

Another example that shows this exact sequence is found in Luke chapter 5. Peter, as a professional fisherman, had been fishing all night and didn't catch a thing. Jesus comes along, tells him to toss his nets a different direction and Peter ends up catching so many fish that his nets started to break. Peter kneels down and says, "Go away from me, LORD, I am a sinful man." Then Jesus says to Peter, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men." Peter sees who God is first, sees himself as a sinner, and then Jesus gives him calling, just as he did for Isaiah.

It's amazing that everything we do, still needs to be about God. For us to know OUR calling, we must know GOD first. I think a lot of us, including myself, have directed this attention to ourselves first. We ask God what we can do, instead of asking what HE wants us to do. We still have our own selfish agendas and convince ourselves that God wants to use us in the areas that we want to be used instead of being open to His will first. When will we learn that even our own calling is really dependent on God?

I have been trying to be open to this area of my life more and my trip to Cali to see Dr. Kim reinforced what I thought God had been revealing to me lately. Dr. Kim repeatedly told me to serve the church wholeheartedly to start, quoting Ephesians 5:25 also which states, "Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." I am gaining more and more faith that future visions and purpose will be revealed to me while I am serving the church. I pray that I may just continue to seek after Him and know Him first and trust that all else will be given to me.

Day 178

Apr 27: Proverbs 1-3

My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you,

turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding,

and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding,

and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure,

then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.

For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

I want to be hungry for this God given wisdom, I want to understand the fear of God and find the knowledge of God. As Christians, we should be so desperate for this type of understanding that only God can reveal to us, yet we're so consumed by this world and all the distractions that we have. We live in this worldly mentality that brainwashes us into seeking stability, status, and power that we forget about our infinitely more important Christian virtues such as humility and love. How do we hear powerful testimonies and powerful sermons of how God is working, yet fail to remove ourselves from this world's grasp, unable to break the chains that hinder us? A lot of us get comfortable living this double standard of life where we come to church on Sundays and agree and nod our heads to the sermons but throughout the week nothing changes. It's like we're stuck in this cycle and we're so numb to what's being preached to us. We need to ask God to break our worlds apart. There should only be one mentality and one culture that we live in. A mentality that is driven by God, a mentality that does not compromise to this world's desires, and a mentality that only seeks God and his wisdom.

Day 172

Apr 21: Psalm 104-118

How amazing is it that we have a personal God that listens to us, speaks to us, shows love, mercy and grace to us? A sovereign God that is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, yet is willing to have a personal relationship with us. It's overwhelming at times but this is our God.

Psalm 116

vs 1 I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy.

2 Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live.

We have a God that listens to us and turns his ears to us, he deserves everything we have, and it still wouldn't be enough. Lately I've been trying to live out 1 Thessalonians 5:19 "Do not put out the Spirit's fire," and it's amazing the things the Spirit does through you when you let it flow. You feel in tune with God and what He wants out of you, what your purpose is and the Spirit just dictates your life. The Spirit then keeps you passionate, inspires and encourages you to be obedient to God's calling in your life and you can be sustained in this way, not by your own humanistic strengths or desires, but by the Spirits.

On the contrary, what we need to avoid is this: Galatians 5:7 "You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough." The analogy is profound. All it takes is something small, something minor to throw you completely off track and persuade you to neglect the Spirit in your life. What does this mean for us? We need to be sensitive and watchful of the Spirit in our lives, protecting that relationship at all times. We must let the Spirit do its job.

Day 171

Apr 20: Psalm 95-103

Psalm 101

vs 2 I will be careful to lead a blameless life - when will you come to me? I will walk in my house with blameless heart.

3 I will set before my eyes no vile thing. The deeds of faithless men I hate; they will not cling to me.

4 Men of perverse heart shall be far from me; I will have nothing to do with evil.

Day 170

Apr 19: Psalm 84

vs 8 Hear my prayer, O Lord, God Almighty; listen to me, O God of Jacob.

After listening to Pastor Jason's sermon today online, I was convicted of praying so much more specifically than I have been. The power of those testimonies from Bergen are amazing and show how much God can do with intentional and heart felt prayers.

I think I thought my prayers were specific, but I realize that there's so much room for improvement there. By asking God for specifics, we almost take a leap of faith that He can do it, just by asking Him to. If our hearts are pure and our prayers are for His kingdom, would He not have the power and love to answer us? I don't think so...we need to look inward first and wonder why our prayers aren't being answered. We lack faith and specificity in what we want from God in our lives. We'll make such general prayers not meditating enough on what we want and just expect God to take care of everything when we're not putting in the effort up front.

After thinking about the prayers that have been consistent in my life these days, I realize how much more robust I can make them. I can add SO much detail to these prayers and make them that much more meaningful. One of my prayer requests lately has been for God to make my prayers more powerful and God has sent Pastor Jason to remind me of how I can do that. This is the start, the catalyst, to so many more of my prayers being answered, I'm sure of this. I challenge you guys to think about your prayers and how you can enrich them. God will deliver.

Day 169

Apr 18: Psalms 56-77

Psalm 62:2 - He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.

Day 156

Apr 5: Psalms 9-17
Psalms 9:1-2 - I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders. I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
One of the things I've been really convicted about lately is having strong fellowship with other brothers and sisters of Christ. Pastor Jae has given a few sermons stressing the importance of investing time in each others lives and having that deep sense of unity with each other, not just some superficial friendships. I want to be a blessing to my friends and I want them to bless me as well. I think a good way to do this is to just flat out tell your friends of the wonders God is working in your life. Just taking time out of our busy schedules to catch up and grab some food can do it.
Hebrews 10:24 says, "And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds."
Let's really consider and think of how we can do this too. I hope that what I write about is encouraging to even one person out there and that they'd be blessed as much as I am through the reading. This is great and all but it's still not enough. How else can we spur one another on? How else can we encourage each other?