Elijah, the prophet, stood alone before Ahab, the king of Israel. Ahab was not high on God's "This is how you should rule Israel" list. In fact, "Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him" (1st Kings 16:33).
Because of Ahab's sin, God was going to turn the water sprinklers off. Israel was about to see clear skies. No rain. No sprinkle. Not even a light mist. Hebrew forecasters would soon forget how to say "precipitation."
Elijah had the privilege of telling the wicked king about God's "No Repentance, No Rain" policy. Elijah was a Tishbite from Gilead. Mean anything to you? Basically, Elijah was a renegade preacher from the back woods of a foreign country. He was no dignitary. Not a politician. Like today's politicians, he knew nothing of foreign relations. He just knew that God set him on Ahab's front porch, told him to ring the doorbell, deliver a message, and run!
Why Elijah? We're not sure. Other than the fact that Elijah was close enough to God to hear Him speak. Apparently, Israel wasn't. God will do that sometimes. He will use an available witness to confront a wayward soul just to get His message across.
Elijah's name and his story begin and end with God. "El" means "God" and "jah" means "Lord." All that's left to his name is "i." Add a little English to a lot of Hebrew and you could translate Elijah's name this way: God(me)Lord. A lot of God at the front and back...and a little bit of me in the middle. That's the way it should be for all of us.
Even in his name, El-i-jah was surrounded by God.
Zoom in on this one scene and you'll see a fiery, rugged, rawboned country preacher facing a rotund, posh, self-absorbed king. Elijah walked into six decades of immorality, idolatry, rebellion, and violence and pronounced a multi-year drought.
It was not a good time to invest in an umbrella company because Elijah was right. The drought came. The land of Israel suffered an unprecedented string of days, weeks, months, and years without a single drop of rain.
God provided for Elijah's food, water, and shelter. When the time was right, God sent Elijah out again to stand before a thinner, thirstier shadow of a king. When the smoke and dust settled, Elijah, the lone prophet of God prevailed over hundreds of Ahab's false prophets.
We live in a day and in a land where immorality and ungodliness surround us. We are called upon to sometimes stand alone against the evil that everyone else ignores or accepts. When we do, we are never really alone. God looks for special people in difficult times to stand for truth and righteousness.
Will you?
God probably wants to use you to lead others through difficult times. You can be someone's El-i-jah. In fact, go ahead and put your name between the "El" and the "jah" --- El________jah.
Surrender to the God who wants to surround you and let Him use you. All it takes is a lot of Him and a little bit of you.
Elperryjah
Showing posts with label surrender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surrender. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
How the Greatest War Was Won
Two opposing forces, Flesh and Little Spirit, do battle with one another constantly. Little Spirit fights hard against Flesh, but loses control with nearly every battle.
The Law was brought in to restrain and control Flesh. But the Law's demands were too much for both Flesh and Little Spirit. Neither could ever satisfy the Law. The Law had pinned them both and had become a weight that smothered and crushed them.
Into the arena stepped Big Brother Spirit. Big Brother Spirit came from the Maker of the Law and met the demands of the Law perfectly. He never failed once to meet the stringent demands of the Law.
Big Brother Spirit delivered the Law a crushing blow, thus releasing the Law's grip on Little Spirit. So that now, every little spirit that reaches a hand toward Big Brother Spirit can find release and freedom from the death-grip of the Law.
"But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law" (Galatians 5:18, HCSB). Go back up four paragraphs and replace the name "Little Spirit" with your name and insert "Jesus" in place of "Big Brother Spirit" and "God" in place of "Maker of the Law." Now, read it again.
God gave us the law to show us the things that are wrong and the things that we should avoid. But the law only points out sin. It does not change the sinner. A burglar alarm does the same thing. It points out a burglar, but has no power to change the burglar's behavior. It can't arrest a burglar, detain a burglar or rehabilitate a burglar. All it can do is spot a burglar and point him out.
The law never died for you. It just points fingers at you. You can try with all your might to serve it, but failure is inevitable. It is too heavy a burden for a sinner.
But Jesus - Big Brother Spirit - DID die for you. You now have the privilege of living with Him as His Spirit lives inside you. If you will accept Jesus as your personal Savior and friend, His Spirit will make His home in your heart and guide you away from the bad and toward the good.
Galatians 2:20,
Perry Crisp
The Law was brought in to restrain and control Flesh. But the Law's demands were too much for both Flesh and Little Spirit. Neither could ever satisfy the Law. The Law had pinned them both and had become a weight that smothered and crushed them.
Into the arena stepped Big Brother Spirit. Big Brother Spirit came from the Maker of the Law and met the demands of the Law perfectly. He never failed once to meet the stringent demands of the Law.
Big Brother Spirit delivered the Law a crushing blow, thus releasing the Law's grip on Little Spirit. So that now, every little spirit that reaches a hand toward Big Brother Spirit can find release and freedom from the death-grip of the Law.
"But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law" (Galatians 5:18, HCSB). Go back up four paragraphs and replace the name "Little Spirit" with your name and insert "Jesus" in place of "Big Brother Spirit" and "God" in place of "Maker of the Law." Now, read it again.
God gave us the law to show us the things that are wrong and the things that we should avoid. But the law only points out sin. It does not change the sinner. A burglar alarm does the same thing. It points out a burglar, but has no power to change the burglar's behavior. It can't arrest a burglar, detain a burglar or rehabilitate a burglar. All it can do is spot a burglar and point him out.
The law never died for you. It just points fingers at you. You can try with all your might to serve it, but failure is inevitable. It is too heavy a burden for a sinner.
But Jesus - Big Brother Spirit - DID die for you. You now have the privilege of living with Him as His Spirit lives inside you. If you will accept Jesus as your personal Savior and friend, His Spirit will make His home in your heart and guide you away from the bad and toward the good.
Galatians 2:20,
Perry Crisp
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Internal Combustion
Some Christians seem to have an internal combustion system. Their spiritual cylinders are always pumping. They have the smile, the joy and the bounce that sets them apart from others. They always seem to be on fire for God.
Then there are the rest of us. Far from internal combustion, we can never seem to get rid of our infernal congestion. We are always choking and coughing, spitting and sputtering. We can manage an occasional smile and a few milliseconds of joy, but forget the bounce. And if we're ever on fire, it's because we mistook the jalapeno for okra.
What makes the difference? As a member of the Infernal Congestion Society, I am happy to announce that I have infiltrated the ranks of the Internal Combustion Society and discovered the secret of those bouncy brothers and smiling sisters in Christ.
"Now to HIM who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to HIS power that is at work WITHIN US, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen" (Ephesians 3:20-21, NIV, emphasis mine).
Do you see it? The source and secret of the joy and power found in our perky partners in Christ IS Christ! The secret is not who THEY are. The secret is who GOD is -- IN them.
God is the one who has the ability, not the believer. And when His ability is welcomed into our availability, He has freedom to work within us. And when God has freedom to work within us without any interference from us, it's like having an internal combustion system.
We can all belong to the Internal Combustion Society. All we have to do is trust God to release His joy and power in and through our lives.
About to Bust,
Perry Crisp
Then there are the rest of us. Far from internal combustion, we can never seem to get rid of our infernal congestion. We are always choking and coughing, spitting and sputtering. We can manage an occasional smile and a few milliseconds of joy, but forget the bounce. And if we're ever on fire, it's because we mistook the jalapeno for okra.
What makes the difference? As a member of the Infernal Congestion Society, I am happy to announce that I have infiltrated the ranks of the Internal Combustion Society and discovered the secret of those bouncy brothers and smiling sisters in Christ.
"Now to HIM who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to HIS power that is at work WITHIN US, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen" (Ephesians 3:20-21, NIV, emphasis mine).
Do you see it? The source and secret of the joy and power found in our perky partners in Christ IS Christ! The secret is not who THEY are. The secret is who GOD is -- IN them.
God is the one who has the ability, not the believer. And when His ability is welcomed into our availability, He has freedom to work within us. And when God has freedom to work within us without any interference from us, it's like having an internal combustion system.
We can all belong to the Internal Combustion Society. All we have to do is trust God to release His joy and power in and through our lives.
About to Bust,
Perry Crisp
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Twenty-Eleven Times
Dale and Jimmy were playing in the back yard. It was Dale against Jimmy in a battle to the finish. They were only five-year-olds, but they both had high expectations of winning this war.
They hid behind trees and trash cans, fired make-believe bullets, missiles, and rocket launchers at each other and threw pretend hand grenades, but neither of them suffered an injury.
With that much pretend firepower it was amazing that either of them could survive. They were as invincible as Walker, Texas Ranger. After an hour of intense bombardment, Dale peeked around a tree and shouted, "Aren't you dead yet?"
"No way," countered Jimmy. "You haven't even come close. But I know I hit you twenty-eleven times."
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
Just before Jimmy and Dale engaged in hand-to-hand combat, the hop of a frog caught their attention and the war was over.
The backyard battle of five-year-old buddies raises an interesting point. Neither boy was willing to let the other win. No one wanted to surrender. Nor do we.
Let someone else win? Admit defeat? Yield? Give in? NEVER! That same spirit of self-dependence and self-preservation is often carried into our relationship with God.
To surrender is to let someone else have control. That is a difficult chore for most of us. We spend most of our lives struggling to gain more and more control of our lives. The last thing we want to hear is that we should surrender.
But we should. I should. You should. To give God control of your life is a sign of strength, not weakness. It is victory, not defeat.
"That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10-11, NIV).
Everyone will surrender sooner or later. Jesus is already Lord. The sooner you surrender your heart and the controls of your life to Him, the greater the victory will be in your life.
Hands Lifted...Defenses Down,
Perry Crisp
They hid behind trees and trash cans, fired make-believe bullets, missiles, and rocket launchers at each other and threw pretend hand grenades, but neither of them suffered an injury.
With that much pretend firepower it was amazing that either of them could survive. They were as invincible as Walker, Texas Ranger. After an hour of intense bombardment, Dale peeked around a tree and shouted, "Aren't you dead yet?"
"No way," countered Jimmy. "You haven't even come close. But I know I hit you twenty-eleven times."
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
Just before Jimmy and Dale engaged in hand-to-hand combat, the hop of a frog caught their attention and the war was over.
The backyard battle of five-year-old buddies raises an interesting point. Neither boy was willing to let the other win. No one wanted to surrender. Nor do we.
Let someone else win? Admit defeat? Yield? Give in? NEVER! That same spirit of self-dependence and self-preservation is often carried into our relationship with God.
To surrender is to let someone else have control. That is a difficult chore for most of us. We spend most of our lives struggling to gain more and more control of our lives. The last thing we want to hear is that we should surrender.
But we should. I should. You should. To give God control of your life is a sign of strength, not weakness. It is victory, not defeat.
"That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10-11, NIV).
Everyone will surrender sooner or later. Jesus is already Lord. The sooner you surrender your heart and the controls of your life to Him, the greater the victory will be in your life.
Hands Lifted...Defenses Down,
Perry Crisp
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