A Prayer for the Vuletics

Colossians 1:9-12
9And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 11May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, 12giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

Father,

Please continue to give Stevo and Sarah wisdom and understanding concerning your plans for them and their children in Croatia. Give them wisdom to know what you have for them to do and understanding to carry it out daily in big and small ways. Help them to reflect You in everything that they do.

Keep them honest in a culture where so much is done under the table. May their honesty show that You can be trusted even when the consequences are unfair. Our actions show people much more about who You are than our words ever could.

Lord, keep Stevo and Sarah and Nina, Datci, and Marco close to You, keep them in Your word. Remind them to norish themselves even when, especially when, daily life can be so demanding. Give them strength and health so that they can endure the hardships and inconviences and unexpected events with joy because they know that nothing is unexpected to You, that You know already know the days that lie ahead of them and that you have already provided for them, that they will have what they need, when they need it.

Most of all, fill them with thankfulness for their salvation in Christ because we know that it's for this reason that You have called them to Croatia, so that others will also share in the eternal inhertitance that You have so graciously bestowed upon us!

Amen.

Glorifying God

One of the major themes in the kids' sunday school lessons is that man was made to glorify God, to show the world how special He is. I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Some people will tell you that God is only glorified when we are prosperous, but that's not always true. Prosperity can turn a man from God just as much as proverty can tempt a man to steal and therefore defame God.

John Piper spoke at WABC today. One point really caught my attention. God can be glorified by what He gives a man and by what He doesn't. If one is capable of glorifying God without wealth or even such basic things as food and clothing, than the Lord might choose to give this man poverty. But to the one who is not capable of being hungry without defaming God, He must give him food. That sounds wrong, but it helps us to better understand what Jesus meant in the following verses:

Matthew 6:25-34
25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Some will read this and think that thefore, if we have faith, we will be prosperous. But really God has only promised to give us what we need, what we need in order to glorify Him, as little or as much as that might be. It reminds me of one of my favorite verses in Proverbs:

Provebs 30:7-9
7Two things I ask of you;
deny them not to me before I die:
8Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
9lest I be full and deny you
and say, "Who is the LORD?"
or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God.

I've been reading Money, Possessions and Eternity and the more I read it, the less I want and the more dependant I want to be on the Lord for my daily bread and the more I see just how temporal earthly treasures are.

The Widow's Offering - Mark 12

 

Mark 12:41-44
41And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. 42And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny.43And he called his disciples to him and said to them, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. 44For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."

I've just started reading Money, Possesions and Eternity by Randy Alcorn. In the first chapter he compares the poor widow (Mark 12) with the rich ruler (Luke 12). The Lord granted me an insight in to the example of the poor widow that I've never thought of before. Jesus' point is that one's faith and generousity is not measured by the amount given, but by the trust that is implied in the sacrifice. The bigger the sacrifice the greater the trust. Jesus is of course correct, but that doesn't mean that the amount that the widow gave is insignificant. I used to think that if one gave away all that they had, their offering would be the same as the widow's regardless of how much, but that's not necissarily true.

 According to my bible, the two coins that she put in were worth 1/64 of a denarius (one days wage). For me that would be equivalent to $1.56 (before taxes). The scriptures say that this was all she had to live on. $1.56 might feed me for a day, but after that I would starve to death. This is vastly different than if one were to give away his last $1,000.00 ( or even $100.00) There's no point in taking to this widow about saving for her future, when what she has won't even last a day. Her desperate situation encouraged such faith because she knew that her "wealth" could not possibly sustain her. Unfortunately, most of us aren't as lucky, we have just enough wealth that we can fool ourselves into thinking that we just might be okay as long as we don't do anything crazy or give too much away.

 

 

 

Reading Romans

 

I just read all of Romans in one sitting. It's awesome. The Lord is glorious and gracious and merciful and wonderful and soveriegn and awe-inspiring.

Bible Study Fellowship is studying Romans this year, from begining to end. We're up to chapter 3. These first fews chapters have once again convicted me of my own sin. There's no doubt that I am a dirty rotten sinner and I fully deserve God's wrath and judgement.

Romans 3: 20
20For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight,
since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Yep. The law was put into place to bring about knowledge of sin. Despite our best efforts, the law doesn't bring righetousness, but rather thanks to our sinful nature, it leads us to sin even more.

Romans 7:7-8
 7What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." 8But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law, sin lies dead.

Fortunately there is GOOD NEWS! God has graciously provided us with a righetousness apart from the law and our works.

 Romans 3: 21-25
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there -is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

Tonight I challenged myself to read the entire book of Romans because I wanted to remind myself of our hope in Christ and there it was before I even got to chapter 4 and yet Paul continues for a total of 16 chapters. He's already presented the message of the gospel. What more could there possibly be? Well, Paul spends the rest of Romans expanding on the gospel,  warning us against the foolish conclusions that our sinful flesh would like to make about the gosple, such as an excuse to sin, and encouraging us present ourselves as living sacrifices to the Lord. In short, I could have only one book of the Bible, Romans would be it. How fortunate are we, that we have all of scripture :o)!!

There are many reasons that people refuse to believe in Christ. The number one reason would have to be that they refuse to admit that they are sinners. They'd rather work their way to heaven than to lay down their pride. When we judge others, we're merely pointing out their particular sins, rather than pointing them to Christ.