My First Love

i was listening to the radio today, the gospel station Praise103.9 FM in Philadelphia, and one of the questions that asked of their listeners  today was when did they realized that they truly loved Jesus? i guess in a way this being Valentine’s day the question kind of made sense.

As i drove my car down Roosevelt Blvd  and listened to the callers respond to this question my hand moved toward my cell phone setting in the middle console. my multi-tasking skill leaves a lot to be desired so i decided rather than cause a major crash on this already highest accidentprone street in the country i would wait until i got somewhere i could safely make a call.

i listened intently as caller after caller passionately recounted that moment when they realized that they really loved Christ Jesus. Even though i was still driving down the road, i could almost see the events of their lives as if they were projected on a big screen movie in front of me. 

For some as they recalled the moment when they gave their life to Christ; you could hear the cracking of their voice almost to tears as they discribed that day or night. Others remember when their lives were in a state of hopelessness, and when the whole world had counted them out,  no one believing  they could find help, but they called on the Name of the Lord, and He rescued them from destruction.

Almost in tears as i listened to the stories of these men and women of God as they praised Jesus with their testimonies, i knew in my spirit that this Valentine’s Day was not about their husband or Wife in the natural, i’m sure that loved them. But for them there was a special love they had for the Bridegroom Jesus Christ that was to return for His Bride the Church at the appointed time.

i struggled to remember when  i realized that i really loved Jesus.  i had always read my bible, and i’d rather pray than eat when i was hungry. Even before i knew i had given my life to Jesus i had already given my life to Him, if that makes any sense. Unlike some people, i couldn’t tell you on what day i was saved. i can’t remember the day that i consciencely said “I give my life to you Jesus Christ” to me it was almost as if Jesus already knew my life was his, He just had to get me to that place where I knew it also. 

You see I’ve always loved the good stuff about Jesus, it was the hard things like Luke 14:26 that caused me distress.  i just wasn’t ready to hate my mother and father, my wife and my children, it just seem like Jesus had crossed the line in my following Him.  He was simply asking way too much, i just had not came to that place where i could fully esteem the sacrifice of my Lord Jesus Christ;  That was the reason that these hard saying were so impalatableto me. If only I could fathom what it was that Jesus did for me on the cross, then i would be able to ingest what He was requiring of me. if i could as King David says “Taste and see that the Lord is Good” 

But it was my obedience to the parts of the Word that i would accept, that allowed me to mature to a point where those hard saying were not as hard anymore. I began to understand the importance of the sacrifice of my Lord Jesus Christ, the fear of the All Mighty God was in me, and all about me, i started to understand the magnitude of the Grace of God through Christ Jesus which saved my wretched soul. And i realized that i loved Christ Jesus more than my mother, more than my father, more than any gift i could receive, even more than my own life.

Now i can’t give you a day when all this happened, i can’t give you a day when I fell in love my future wife either, but i know i love her, and i know i love Jesus, and if i thought it made a difference to Him, i would surely say;

Happy Valentine’s Day Jesus Christ, my first love.

Humbling yourself in fear before the All Mighty God

 

What is this Sackcloth and Ashes what does it mean to us those that pray and fast  with the hope of seeing a move of God in our lives? What can we learn from what the Bible has to say about these Sackcloth and Ashes?

We have all heard the expression  the clothes makes a man. In acient times and even today the clothes that a man wore had  told alot about himself. If a man wore clothes of purple or blue scarlet or crismson, he was thought to be a man of high degree.  If he wore Silk or any other fine materialhe was assumed to be even the more greater. 

However, when a man wore sackcloth, which was the lowest quality of clothes there was, he was saying to the world “I humble myself before the All mighty God”  Being publicly naked was the most humiliating state a man could achieve. This is why the accusers of Jesus Christ took his clothes from him when they hung him on the cross. This was the high preist’s way of saying to everyone Jeus is not the King of Jews.

1 Kings 21:25-29 (KJV) But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the LORD, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.
And he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things as did the Amorites, whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.

And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly. And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,

Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son’s days will I bring the evil upon his house.

Humility, submissiveness, and even the intent of repentance were all expressed with the wearing of sackcloth. However this was not just a outward expression of humility but a mental state in which the individual truly fears the Works of God toward him. 

When we come to the realization that we have sinned against God and are not worthy of His forgiveness, (There are too many Christians that think they deserve forgiveness) When come to the realization that fair punishment for our sins, is eternal death, and that there is nothing that we can do to earn our own remission.  When we realize that we must humble ourselves before God even if it means the ridicule of friends, family and even enemies; then we can become naked before the world (your hidden sins set open for all to see) and fully gird ourselves in sackcloth and Ashes ( humble ourselves before an All Mighty God) 

 Esther 4:1 (KJV) When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and a bitter cry; 

Mourning is the other reason an individual would wear sackcloth, this can be the result of a lost for a loved one or even the fear that a loved one would die before giving his life to Christ. More over an individual may gird himself in sackcloth as he makes his request to God for salvation from the oppressive thumb of a worldly king. Here our request is made with such intensity that we are driven to tears. Here the individual is motivated by the realization that unless God saves him, He won’t be saved. 

So when we fast we put our bodies under submission, with the hope that by givein up somthing of the natural, we might attain something of the spiritual. But is this what  we really do? Is the fasting of today the same as the fasting of ancient times? 

Today we fast for all the wrong reasons, we fast for a new job,  a healing, so God can give us this or that or the other, our fast are no longer a period of humbling ourselves before the All Mighty God, but a type of forcing the hand of God to do our bidding. There is no spiritual growth in fasting because those that fast, desire not to fast, they can’t wait until sundown to eat, and they love the food which they should do without greater than the God which they can’t live without. Those that fast today don’t see the reward of a deeper relationship with God, they can’t  comprehend the importance of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ,  they live in an “I” world  which is one letter that has no part of either  Jehovah or Jesus.

Just as the wicked King Ahab rent his clothes and  we must also rent our bodies of our pride , taking into account noting of value before God which gave us all that we have. We must stand naked before the world without those things which we have become associated with. naked with from our pride, ego, intelect, knowledge, naked from our Job, bank account,wife,  husband, children, car. anything that may bring us up hauthy in the natral things of this world.

So the sackcolth represents  humbling ourself  removed from our prideful earthly ways and fully under submission to the will of God. Sackcloth represents the state of mind when we can come before God with a sorrowful and contrite heart, and beg with tears in our eyes, and snot running down our face, with trembling hands and fear that God may exact  his just and wholy will on sinful soul and that his mercy will not see my salvation.

When we can cry for our salvation, wet our pillows in intercession for a stranger, and cultivate the expection of  of healing through the mercy of an all mighty God. Then we are redy to fast on the promises of God.

 please take the time to visit my forum by the name of Sackcloth and Ashes

Praying to the Point of Tears

by Troy Pearsall

Nothing has hindered the blessing or the manifestation of blessing in the life of urban men today like the concept that it is unmanly to cry.

With time, as believer in Christ we learn to mature beyond the inundated precepts of a society motivated by the whiles of Satan’s pride. Those bit of society that tell us men should not cry. However for some the need to restrict crying is never released; not in public prayer, not even in secret pray with God. Some men never realize that tears are not a sign of weakness but the
expression of compassion. And because of this they never reach the full application of the compassion of Christ.

One of the things God desire in our life is that we learn to lean on him for all things in our life. However this to may seem like an admission of weakness, our pride says to us “I don’t need nobody” This is how the God of this world interject his poison into even our prayer and our relationship with God.

We listen to society telling us that we are self-sufficient, But the man of women of god is not self-sufficient in fact the very opposite is true. If we believe we can do anything ourselves, we have no God in us. Not until God sees the hopelessness in our life, and we experience the realization our personal situation is solely dependent on God will for salvation, there is no man or women, no job or circumstance, when we get to that point in life when we can do nothing but break down in tears crying out to God, realizing that in God hand alone is our salvation. Then God smile on us and hears our prayers.

So when we pray we need to pray in a state of desperation. If the need is not important enough to more us, how can we expect it to have the power needed to move God? The bible is full of scripture where the tears shed in prayer are heard by God.

2 Kings 20:5 (KJV)
Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the LORD.

Hebrews 5:5-7 (KJV) 
So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee. As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;

From the above verse in Hebrews we see that even Jesus Christ would pray to the point of tears. But not until we read psalms 56:8 do we get any idea as to why.

Psalms 56:8 (TNIV)
Record my misery; list my tears on your scroll are they not in your record? When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me

Ok I’m going to say it. Sometimes prayer is ineffectual just because there are no tears. This does not mean that tears make a prayer effectual. However if your prayer can not move you to sorrow, and you are doing the prayer, how much less is it moving God to want to see that prayer fulfilled?

Every one of ancient times cried out in prayer to the Lord. I would go as far as to say that it appears to be those that cried the hardest are the ones that did the greatest works in God. In Paul’s letter to Timothy he writes

“I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day; Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy;” 2 Timothy 1:3-4 (KJV)

I hope that I have given some of my personal insight into prayers.

Please give some feed back (positive or not)

Your Brother in Christ
Troy

 

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