Get Ready to Stand before the Lord  

As I was sitting in a restaurant last weekend, a sudden thought struck me. It was brought on by my observing the freshly-hung strand of lights decorating the wall and listening to the Christmas music playing in the background. What entered my mind was the thought, “I’m not ready for this.” The “this” was the holiday season. I wasn’t thinking about a lack of preparedness regarding shopping, mailing Christmas cards, putting up a tree, and all the other activities we tend to associate with this occasion. I was just thinking of the season in general. It seemed to come too quickly this year. I just hadn’t gotten into the mindset to deal with it all yet. I didn’t feel like I was ready for it.

I know some people who seem to be ready for the next holiday season as soon as the last one is completed. They eagerly put up their decorations early and busy themselves with Christmas shopping well in advance. However, I tend to fall more into the class of people who like to wait until after Thanksgiving before listening to Christmas music or unboxing my nativity scene. Yet here we are. Thanksgiving is behind us now and we are fully into the holiday season. Some occasions are going to come whether or not we are ready for them.

   One of those events that is coming for each of us is the time when we will stand before the Lord to give an account of our time here on earth. “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). Just this morning I saw an advertisement proclaiming “Christmas is coming!” Likewise, we need to be aware that divine judgment is coming. For most of us it will happen after we keep that appointment with death the scripture refers to. The only ones who will bypass the grave seem to be those believers who will still be alive when Christ gloriously returns. Yet they will also stand before Him to be judged. So either death or Jesus’ return is coming. Are we ready for it?

 How do we feel when we encounter those moments that remind us of the coming judgment? Maybe it comes to the surface when we attend a funeral. Or it nags at the back of our minds as our bodies grow older and weaker, reminding us of our mortality. Or as we see the events taking place in the world round us, we sense that the fulfillment of Jesus’ promised return is getting closer. Or maybe we simply are reminded of this truth as we read our Bibles or hear a sermon. As those thoughts are brought to mind, maybe we feel like “we’re not ready for this.” It may seem like the years have passed by too quickly. Or our world has turned away from God much faster and to a greater degree than we could have imagined. Our time on this earth is drawing to a close and we will soon be standing before a holy God to give an account of ourselves. Are we ready?

The good news is that we can be. If we are trusting Jesus as our Savior, we can be assured that we are not under God’s condemnation. We can come before Him with the knowledge that our sins have been washed away by the blood of Christ. We can approach the throne of God with boldness, knowing that we are at peace with our heavenly Father who loves us.

A day of judgment is coming. If you aren’t ready for it, now is the time to prepare. Put your faith in Jesus and His sacrifice for your sins. Repent, believe, and follow Jesus.

 

Let Your Gratitude Lead to Praise  

Last Sunday we were singing the old hymn All Creatures of our God and King during our worship service. If you are not familiar with the song, it encourages all of creation to lift up its voice in praise of God. It makes reference to various parts of nature, including the sun, moon, clouds, wind, water, and fire. It encourages humanity to join the rest of God’s creatures in singing “Alleluia” and worshiping our Creator. Appropriately, and as if on cue, as we were finishing singing, a deer could be seen outside the sanctuary windows as it wandered beside our building over the blanket of colorful fallen leaves and into the nearby woods. Nature was surely joining us, or maybe we were joining it, in praising our God and King.

 This coming week many of us will be focusing on the idea of giving thanks. Hopefully we will be practicing such gratitude not only in relation to other people, but primarily in relation to God, the Giver of all good things and the Fount of every blessing in our lives. While thanksgiving is a proper and too-often neglected response to everything God has done for us, I would encourage you to join me in seeking to take it a step further this week. Yes, let’s express our gratitude to the Lord both through our words and our actions. However, let’s also make it a point not to stop there. Let’s allow our thanksgiving to become praise and worship as well.

In one of the most familiar psalms we associate with this occasion, Psalm 100, it doesn’t just promote the giving of thanks but also the praise and worship of the Lord. After it reminds us that God is our Creator, it says, “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name” (Psalm 100:4). We see both thanksgiving and praise being encouraged. What is the difference between them? We give thanks to God for what He has done for us. But we give Him praise and bless Him simply because of who He is. As that psalm goes on to declare, we do it “for the Lord is good” (v.5). No matter what blessings we may have received from God, or even if other desired blessings were withheld, He is worthy of our praise and worship simply because of who He is – a good, loving, just, and merciful God.

Don’t misunderstand. I am not discounting the giving of thanks at all. I am just encouraging us not only to express our gratitude to God but to let that spirit progress even further into an attitude of praise and worship. And I am not talking only about singing. I am concerned that in many of our Christian circles these days the concept of “praise and worship” is automatically connected to singing, and sometimes to singing particular types of songs. Certainly, lifting up our voices in song is one wonderful way to praise God and to worship Him. This same psalm tells us to “come before His presence with singing” (v.2). However, that isn’t the only way we can express our praise or worship our God. We can do it with making “a joyful shout to the Lord” (v.1), or we can do it silently in our own hearts. We can worship Him as we “serve the Lord with gladness” (v.2) and as we serve others in His name. All that we do, if done in the right spirit, can be expressions of praise to our Creator and acts of worship.  

So, as we offer our gratitude to the Lord this week, let’s also join the rest of creation in praising Him and humbly worshiping Him as the good Creator and great King that He is.   

 

We Should Be More Like Our Veterans  

This weekend our country honors its military veterans. Hopefully we do so without going so far as to glorify war, but rather with the hope that our armed forces serve as a deterrent to such conflicts and act more as keepers of the peace rather than warriors. We honor them without overlooking the horrors of war, the painful loss of lives, and the suffering that accompanies it. We gratefully acknowledge our veterans due to their assenting to serve in this manner, the sacrifices that were made, and their willingness to put their lives on the line if necessary.

Similar qualities should be found in us as followers of Christ. First of all, we should be seeking to serve. You may recall the famous quote from one of our former U.S. Presidents: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Such a spirit not only characterizes many of our veterans, but it should describe our attitude as believers. Too many people are pursuing God because of what they hope He will do for them. Don’t get me wrong. God has blessed many of us tremendously. He has done so much for all of us. As we approach a special time of thanksgiving, we are reminded to count our blessings and to express our gratefulness to the Lord for what He has done. However, as we move forward, we should be less focused on what we can get out of a relationship with God and more on what we can give back to Him. Our gratitude for what He has done for us should result in our willingness to serve Him. And one way we serve Him is through ministering to the needs of others. Watch out for that consumer spirit that is simply looking to receive something from God, whether physical healing, financial help, assistance in our latest struggle, or even spiritual blessings. God may want to bless us in those ways, but desiring those gracious gifts shouldn’t be our main focus. May our love for the Lord motivate us to seek to serve Him.

 We should also be willing to make sacrifices in our service to the Lord. Jesus declared, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24). Putting Jesus first in our lives requires that other areas of our lives take a backseat to Him. Self-denial is not a popular idea in today’s culture. We are told to do whatever makes you happy or what you think is best for you. It can be foreign to people to deny themselves some pleasure for the sake of someone else or for God. If a veteran can sacrifice a period of time in his life to receive training and become a good soldier, can’t we sacrifice some aspects of our lives in order to be better equipped to serve the One who loves us and gave His life for us?

That brings us to the other quality of military personnel that should inspire us. We ought to be willing to go so far in our self-denial that we would lay down our lives for Jesus if we needed to do so. We have been blessed in our nation so far not to have to face that choice as have Christians in other parts of the world. However, hostilities are growing. Just listen to how some people today talk so negatively about committed believers. Are we resolved to follow Jesus no matter what, even if our lives are on the line?

Be sure to honor the veterans you know this weekend. Thank them for their service. And as followers of Jesus, let’s seek to have a similar spirit.  

 

Seek Peace for Your Troubled Heart  

Maybe you have seen it imprinted on a bookmark, a refrigerator magnet, or some kind of framed wall-hanging. It is the familiar prayer that says, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” This is actually only a portion of what has been referred to as “The Serenity Prayer.” While it isn’t scripture, thus lacking that level of divine authority and inspiration, it has certainly been a help to many people. It points us to the hope that instead of turmoil, chaos, and worry raging inside of us, we can experience peace in our hearts and minds.

As we seek such serenity, we should recognize first of all that Christ is the source of true peace. While our attitude and outlook can make a big difference, peace isn’t something we can achieve on our own. Real, long-lasting peace comes only from the Lord. We are not going to possess true peace in our hearts regarding our circumstances or other people until we first make peace with God. The way to be reconciled with Him is through believing and accepting the gift of salvation Jesus provided for us through His sacrifice for our sins. So if we are looking for peace, we must start there. Find peace with God through Jesus, then we can talk about serenity in connection with all the other issues in our lives.

Concerning those soul-troubling situations we often face, this prayer asks God to grant us the serenity to accept what we cannot change. Sometimes we let things upset us which are out of our control. We worry and get all worked up over circumstances we can’t change. We fret over people who have to make their own choices in life. What they do is out of our hands. However, this prayer for peace doesn’t mean we simply need to dismiss those matters from our minds. As followers of Jesus, we have a better option. We commit it to the Lord and trust Him to take care of it. We know that He can do what we cannot do, even working in the hearts of other people involved. And we can still do something. We can pray. Turn your worry list into your prayer list. Rather than staying awake all night running through all the worst-case scenarios or planning your strategies, talk to God about it.

Then there is the other part of that prayer about granting us the courage to change what we can. Sometimes we lack serenity because we haven’t done everything we should to resolve a situation. Maybe we hesitate to make a hard decision or we run away from doing something that won’t be easy. It can be hard to ask for forgiveness or to grant forgiveness to another. It can be difficult to get out of our comfort zone to change something in our career, our family, or some other area of our life. Sometimes God calls us to do hard things. If there is some step God wants us to take to bring about a needed change, we need to do it. We won’t have peace until we do.

Let’s not forget the final part of that prayer – for wisdom to know what we can change and what we can’t. If we earnestly ask, I believe God will show us when we need to accept things as they are and when we need to take courage to make changes.

Does the word “serenity” describe the condition of your heart and mind these days? If not, take this prayer to heart. No matter what troubles come or storms blow into our lives, it doesn’t have to rob us of our peace in the Lord.