“For You Are Holy”

To your left is another song that has ministered to me in the past day. I love how the music supports the words of this beautiful song and how the instruments and voice support the words so carefully penned. I hope you enjoy “For You Are Holy” as I have enjoyed it.

“O Lord, you taught us to pray… Hollowed by Your Name… You are Holy and apart from You there are non like You. When I look in the sky it is though I see your eyes. When I look in my heart I know you see my heart. For You are Holy Lord, O so Holy and there is non like You, none like You. Thank you for reaching down to us, for becoming like us, taking on flesh (John 1:14) and showing us what it is like to truly be Holy here on earth. Only through You can we come close to Your holiness. And as we approach Your throne through the Blood of your Holy Son, we will continue to cry – You alone are Holy. And we love You and adore You.

When the impossible becomes possible. Luke 18:27

This Friday a friend (Doug) sent me an email about a teenage gal (Elizabeth) who has brain cancer that is inoperative. Her situation is serious in the fact that Chemo or Radiation will not work either – we are looking at an impossible situation. And then on the same evening, I read about a young girl who passed away 1/5/12 who after battling cancer in the brain for 10 months (due to the same kind of cancer that Elizabeth has).

The Lord is calling us to have faith. Faith in which He commands as found in Luke 17 when He says all we need is the faith of a mustard seed. Faith that will persist like that which Jesus spoke of in Luke 17. And when we exercise the faith that He so generously gives to us we begin to see what faith is really used for – salvation of others. In Chapter 18 the disciples look at something that is more impossible than for a camel to go through an eye of a needle (which is impossible). The salvation of man is impossible with man. The best man can produce, his own righteousness, is filthy rags to God. So we need the Lord to do the impossible in our lives. We need the Lord to do the impossible in those we love and in those He lays on our hearts to pray for.

Daily we have opportunity to run to the Lord Jesus and watch Him do what is beyond our dreams. There are a number of you who did that when you prayed for me in my cancer situation. In the same way you ran to the Lord concerning my condition, I am asking you and others to run to the Lord for those who maybe at this moment seem like they are beyond any hope. You, mom – who has a son who has forsaken the Lord Jesus Christ. You, dad – who has a daughter living in total rebellion to all authority. You, brother or sister – who has a sibling who you looked up to, but now has gone astray and has no desire to return. You, doctor or nurse – who after looking at the test results, say there is nothing more we can do. You, son or daughter – who has Mom and Dad divorcing and throwing all hope for keeping their promise made before you were born, overboard into the waves of despair. You, who has sinned – totally unable to see any hope of forgiveness or mercy from our Lord and God. To all who are looking at the impossible – it is possible with God and He is certain to do something about your condition or loved one’s condition as you and I cry out to Him. Do not delay, right now as He is laying on your heart that someone – cry out to Him now.

2 Cor. 6:1-2 Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

Hearts that cry beyond words.

Luke 11:34 – O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing. (NKJV)

Romans 9:1- 3 - I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, (NKJV)

Romans 10:1 – Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.

Matthew 16:26 - "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

This week, the Lord has burdened my heart as well as my family’s heart, as well as students and teacher’s hearts with some very pressing concerns for others. Here are some of the requests that have reached our hearts this week. A teacher’s mother who is facing death and the mother may not know Christ. A friend’s father who at 81 just discovered he has cancer and is not expected to live but 6 months at best. A friends daughter who has walked out of the family’s life and has walked away from the Lord and declared she is not one of HIS. A student who has declared that he does not believe in Jesus or has faith at all in God. A freshmen student has just been diagnosed with leukemia (two different students without knowing it, made the same request). A student’s dad and a student’s mom have cancer. A father is dealing with blood clots. A teenager just found out that she has cancer on the brain, which can’t be operated on nor treated with chemo or radiation. A praise that one student reported that she is cancer free at this time. Two daughters and a son from three different families have turned their backs on Jesus for a lifestyle of homosexuality. Two sons from two different families have turned their backs on Jesus and have rejected Him. Multiple requests for grandparents and relatives have been listed who are facing major health issues. A persecuted believer was mentioned today (twice by two different students in two different classes – the same name came up causing us to pray for him as well as a host of believers). The list goes on and on as our hearts, like Jesus, like Paul and like these families, hearts that break and cry out to our Lord –

“O Lord, we come to You with great sorrow and continued grief on our hearts for the these who are facing such horrendous things. It is this on going disease of the flesh that causes us to look to You and it is the sin of rejection and unbelief that breaks our hearts beyond words and tries our faith, that faith that was given by You. Lord, You said, ‘if a man gains the whole world, and looses his soul, what profit is it?” O Lord, our children, our fathers and mothers, or extended family members and our dear friends mean more to us then our own soul. And so we cry out to You and say, as Paul would say, for I wish I could exchange places with anyone of these in order for them to have YOU. These people are like our own souls and we come to You now on their behalf as we came to You when we became aware of our own deepest need – when we cried out for YOU. We now come with that same heart for these dear loved ones. O, Lord Jesus, have mercy on us and hear our cry. We beg You as the gentile women begged You for even a crumb on behalf of her daughter. In that same determination we still come to You today. And we know that whoever calls upon Your name, O Lord Jesus, You save. Amen. “

If you could ask for anything from the Lord….

In Luke 11, the disciples came to the Lord Jesus and asked him to teach them how to pray. Our Lord gives them a timeless model prayer that many over the years have used to address our heavenly Father.

Then the Lord speaks to the issue of persisting in prayer. We are prone to present our requests at the alter and then if nothing happens within our defined time period, we give up, forgetting that we are speaking to the Lord of eternity – it puts patience and persistence in a whole new light. What is a few days, a few weeks, a few months, a few years or even a life time when it comes to us approaching the Lord who is everlasting and forever. (He literally has the time.)

In Luke 11:9-13, we come to the famous Ask, Seek, Knock passage where we are instructed by the Lord to ask for something, seek something and keep on knocking on the door for something. Many jump ahead and start sharing their wish list at this point, especially when we read that if an evil father would not give his son a stone when that son asked for bread… we jump ahead and start asking for that which fills the stomach or any of deep desires. And often readers overlook the end of vs. 13 –
“how much more will your heavenly Father give the HOLY SPIRIT to those who ask Him.” The Lord is so ready to not give us a “thing”, a “prize”, a “toy” or a “only-you can-have-it something” but He is so ready to give us “Someone” who can be shared with this world and is beyond any thought that would ever enter the mind of men. He is wanting to give to us, who ask of Him, who seek from Him and who are willing to knock and not give up knocking… the His Holy Spirit, who fills us and empowers us.

This is so wonderful to know: we can have the Holy Spirit dwell within us. But then I again think, what if I ask this not for me, but for those who I know and love. My wife, daughters, parents, brothers, sisters, extended family, and for friends, students who I teach daily, teachers, church family, pastors, elders, etc. What about if I ran to the Lord as I did for myself to ask for the Holy Spirit, but this time I run to Him for you. What more could the Lord do when His holy bride and children are full and controlled entirely by the Holy Spirit. That is my prayer this new year.

“O Lord, we need your precious, powerful, convicting, always instructing and exhorting Holy Spirit. And You have already promised that He will be given to those who ask. So we ask in Your most holy Name, Jesus. Amen.”

Trying to tell Jesus what to do?

Have you ever wanted something so bad or desired to see something accomplished so greatly that you tried to tell Jesus what to do?

The disciples tried this several times and every attempted command was over-ridden with the most unexpected reply.

Luke 9:12 – the disciples tell Jesus – “Send the multitude away…” Jesus reply, (vs. 13) “You give them something to eat.” The disciples were not expecting that nor could they feed this multitude that numbered 5,000 men (plus families).

Luke 9:13 – “We have no more than five loaves and two fish…
Luke 9:14 – Jesus now give the orders – “Make them sit down in groups of fifty.” And most anyone who has read the NT knows what takes place next.

I often tell the students in school, “we don’t tell God what to do, we just present Him with the problem and watch Him do the most unexpected thing, that which the mind would not even conceive, and that which would be impossible for man but not for God. And in the times when you love a person so much that you would go out on the limb to try to tell God what He should do or when you think that you have a solution that the Lord needs to hear – well, He is not obligated to do that which you are requesting. He does obligate Himself though quite often through the promises that He has made in His word. And those promises you can count on, bring before the throne of God and expect to be kept.”

Reading today in Luke, made me smile as I read these dear disciples who were just beginning to come to understand who they were trying to tell what to do. I am not much different in many ways than these men, but I am learning as I read His word and I go through this life – His ways are not my ways, and His thoughts are not my thoughts (Is. 55:8-9). I am so glad though that He, it time, reveals His ways and His thoughts, and even when that is unavailable – I can trust Him.

“Thank you Jesus for being the founder and finisher of our faith. “ (Heb. 12:1-2)