Stevemidkiff's Blog

Our help and glory are in God

God is our granite-strength

God is our safe-harbor

God is who we trust absolutely,

God is who we lay our lives on the line for as He laid His life out for us.

God is our safe place to be.

Psalm 62:7-8 Paraphrased

Our favorite promises in the Bible

“I will be with you.”

“I will never leave you”

“I will never forsake you”

So we can say this with confidence,

“The Lord is our helper; we will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to us?”

Heb. 13:6

Don’t slip of the ledge of doubts!

We’re often like a blacksmith

We design chains with which to bind ourself.

We create doubts that make us sterile

We become like a desert without water

Doubt discovers difficulties which it never solves

Doubt creates hesitancy

Doubt brews up despondency

Doubt wallows in despair

“God is doing 10,000 things in our life and we may be aware of 3 of them.”

Fox

We’re aware of little that God does in our life.

Of course we notice the unanswered prayers

We’re aware of our hard struggles

We notice the heavy worry that weighs down over the uncertain.

Time to ask for clarity on those 10 k things.

Ask Him to show us more of His glory,

Ask Him to reveal His amazing grace towards us,

Ask Him to open up the way he works in all the details of our life.

“Open our eyes Lord, to see Your wondrous things”

Psa. 119:18

We ask
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the Father of glory,

Would give us the Spirit of wisdom

Would give us the revelation in the knowledge of Him,

We ask to have the eyes of our hearts enlightened,

We ask that we would know what is the hope to which He has called us,

We ask to understand the riches of His glorious inheritance,

We ask that He make us comprehend the immeasurable greatness of His power for us who believe”

Ephesians 1:17-19

We have our worries
We have our fears,
We have our griefs
We have our sorrows

We confess our sin

We express our desperate need

We delight in God’s cleansing grace

We have all those things we want God to do in my life & in others lives.

We need healing,
We need provision,
We need restoration
We need salvation

We ask God to work in our life
We ask God to move in our life

We ask God to work & move in
others lives

God has done so many things

We’re grateful as we think of all He has done.

He has never failed to provide

He’s steadfast in faithfulness

We beg for eyes to see His glory.

We plead that we’d be amazed and wonder-filled
at who He is
and what He’s done.

We open our heart to see God as God and ourselves as dependent on His grace.

To see His sovereign hand
in all things,
the small details
the big details

To see God whose always watching

To see God whose always working.

To see God whose always cares for every bird that falls to the ground

To see God whose always involved in
the minute details of each hair on our head

Mt. 10:29-30

All we encounter each day,

God directs each & every event in our lives.

God let us Rejoice in Your Wonder

God let us sing Your praises

God let us testify to others of all
You’ve done.

We will ponder all Your works

We will meditate on Your mighty deeds

Psalm 77:12

We well speak of all Your wondrous works!

Psalm 105:2

Jesus let us see Your glory in calming the wind and rain

The wind and rain obey You

And that You care about us

But will God actually dwell with men on the earth? Behold, the heavens & heaven of heavens

in its most extended compass can’t contain You; how much less this house that I have built?

1 Kings 8:27

Would God move into our neighborhood?

Would He even think of living in our house?

Doesn’t God need a lot of breathing room?

Our place is not in very good shape. It needs remodeling!

It’s not very wheelchair friendly.

I’ve butchered some doorways with a saw to make wider openings but I’m not that handy.

And God is so big. How would He Fit. Plus I have a lot of clutter.

Isn’t Jesus persnickety? Isn’t He fussy and fastidious?

Abraham was called God’s friend on 3 occasions. How cool is that?

Friends become friends by spending time together.

When others avoid us it’s usually because they don’t want to be friends.

Or at best they’re just too busy with other stuff. They don’t have time for us.

But Jesus isn’t too busy.

Jesus tells us that He never wants to avoid us.

In fact He’s working on us being closer to Him and closer to each other.

Jesus tell us: You are my friends if you do what I command.

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know

What his master’s thinking and planning to do.

Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father

I have made known to you. Now you can know what I’m thinking and planning

You didn’t choose me, but I chose you and appointed you

so that you might go and bear fruit and fruit that will last

and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.

This friendship, this close relationship and yes, as amazing as it sounds.

Jesus, actually is moving in with me.

That He would live in this cramped hovel with me.

Now that’s amazing.

In Gen.18 The Lord came to have a beautiful meal with His friend Abraham.

He wanted to tell Abraham & Sarah that they were going to be productive.

They were going to bear fruit and this would be lasting eternal fruit.

The thought made Sarah chuckle. God said why are you chuckling.

She lied to God her friend.

How could Sarah blurt out, “I didn’t laugh,”

The Lord is amazing. He’s calm, His response is simple & understanding

He gently replies to Sarah behind the tent wall, “no, but you did laugh.”

Jesus is full sympathy and endless patience and love.

Sarah lied to the living God.

But with infinite kindness Jesus passed over the outrageous offense

He acted as though it had never happened.

If You, Lord, should mark & keep track of iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

But there is forgiveness with You & we respect You in deep reverence & awe

Psalm 130

Sarah’s saying in her chuckle; I’m old enough to be a great grandmother.

I’ve been barren my whole married life. It just was ridiculous. She felt useless & disabled

She felt she was a big disappointment.

We’re so privileged. The eternal God Himself comes to talk with us,

He comes down and talks man to man, women to women.

He comes to live with us. Not just an occasional visit.

But constant companionship and friendship. We can continuously chat,

God is as much interest in us as He was with Abraham or Sarah.

He interested in us living up to our full potential and productivity.

His purposes of grace for us and everyone we love can be realized.

His plans of love to our ruined world hinges on Him and yes, He wants to use us.

The Lord said to Sarah:

Is anything too hard or too wonderful for Me?

Genesis 18:14

We know the answer. But do we believe it?

He said to a publican, “Zaccheus, hurry climb down from the tree,
for to-day I’m visiting your house.”

Publicans were tax extorters. To extort is to gain by force, treat or any unfair methods

Publicans we’re cheating oddballs who we’re publicly hated.

They had no conscience about pressuring money mercilessly out of people.

Jesus came to Zac’s house to become his friend and change his life.

He went to the home of Peter, and healed his mother in law.

After Jesus resurrection, he walked with two unnamed disciples and went in their house for a meal.

He comes to live with us.

He’s a life changer.

He’s a friend.

And nothing is too hard for God

And nothing is too wonderful for God

to do in us, for us & around us.

I know that You can do all things,

and that no thought or purpose of Yours

can be restrained or thwarted.

Job 42:2

“I’m convinced: You can do anything & everything.

Nothing & no one can upset Your plans.

You asked, ‘Who is this muddying the water,

Who are they who ignorantly confuse the issue,

Who are those second-guessing My purposes?’

I admit it. I was the one.

I babbled on about things far beyond me,

I made small talk about wonders way over my head.

You told me,

Listen & let Me do the talking.

Let Me ask the questions.

You give the answers.’

I admit I once lived by rumors of You;

now I have it all firsthand—

I see You with my own eyes

I hear You with my own ears!

I’m sorry— forgive me.

I’ll never do that again,

I promise!

I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay,

I’ll never again trust in crumbs of rumor.”

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride,

but in humility consider others more important than yourselves.

Each of you should look not only to your own interests,

but also to the interests of others.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus:…

Phil 2: 3-5

Sympathy. Sym-pathy: literally, to suffer with.

Sympathy is entering the experience of sorrow with another and experiencing their suffering.

Our Savior is perfect in sympathy. In all our afflictions He is afflicted.

Jesus feels our feelings

Our great high priest is able to sympathize with our weakness.

Hebrews 4:15

Christ comes to our weakness to suffer with us.

He is Jesus Christ the sympathizer.

Phillips notes:

Jesus knows not only our nature but our needs.

We come boldly to His throne of grace, to obtain mercy, and to find grace to help in time of need

In Old Testament times the Israelite could not approach the Holy of Holies where God was enthroned, for that was the sole, annual prerogative of the high priest.

But now we can approach the throne of grace at any time,
as often as we need,
whenever we have a need,
knowing that our needs are fully known to our priest
and will be met with mercy and grace.

We have a compassionate priest

Our Lord Jesus is perfect priest
He understands us.

He understands human nature, not just academically & theoretically

Not simply omnisciently as God, but experientially.

No angel can function as a priest for us.

Angelic beings can study our faults and follies, just as we study plants and animals.

But, having not entered into human life by way of birth, they cannot appreciate our problems and needs.

The Lord Jesus is for us, as He perfectly can feel us. He was tempted in every way but is sinless.

Christ can enter into the pressures and problems of human life, yet without ever having sinned Himself.

The Lord Jesus stooped to grapple with the problem of sin, and He has solved it 2 Cor. 5:21

Christ is a real priest by His name, by His nearness, and by His nature.

Gold is repeatedly refined, put into the crucible, heated into a molten state, the dross skimmed away. At last the refiner was satisfied. The gold was pure.

But there is one more step. Before it could be stamped with the official seal, it had to go to the assayer.
The gold is put in the crucible and heated it to its melting point.

Why does it get heated again?
Is he going to refine it further?
No, this crucible is not to see if it has any impurities to be removed.
This crucible and fire is to demonstrate that the gold is indeed pure

In Hebrews 10, speaks of the believers who

“had compassion [sympatheo] on those in prison”

Heb. 10:34

John Bunyan’s long years in Bedford Jail were productive!

He didn’t spend his time pacing the floor,

He didn’t gaze into space, working himself into passions of rage or fits of despair.

Instead, he took his pen and began to write in compassionate sympathy:

He wrote:

As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where was a Den;
and I laid me down in that place to sleep: and as I slept I dreamed a Dream.

I dreamed, and behold I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place,
with his face from his own house, a Book in his hand & a great burden upon his back.

His cell became “a den” from which he wrote one of the greatest classics of all times,
The Pilgrim’s Progress, a book which, in former years, was a best seller second only
to the Bible itself.

He wrote from a heart of sympathy

Our sympathizing Christ lives through His sympathetic people.

In Christ, we are to live as those who suffer with.

J. C. Ryle writes,

Sympathy is far better than money, and far rarer too.

Thousands may give who don’t know what it is to feel.

Sympathy has the greatest power to draw us and to open our hearts.

Cold advice can make us shut up, shrink, and withdraw into ourselves,

Genuine sympathy touches our feelings

I’d prefer friend who, is poor in funds but rich in sympathizing”

We need genuine sympathy to open our heart and draw out our feelings.

As we hear prayer requests & offer prayer itself we’re crying for our Lord to hear & answer in sympathy.

We need more sympathy.

We need Jesus Christ to be sympathetic through us

Who can we sympathize with?

And how can we grow in sympathizing more?

Adapted from Joel Hart

Concerning the work of my hands command me. Isa. 45:11

This is what GOD says, The Holy of Israel, Israel’s Maker,

Do you question who or what I’m making?

Are you telling me what I can or cannot do?

I made earth & I created man & woman to live on it.

I handcrafted the skies & direct all the constellations in their turnings.

And now I’ve got Cyrus on the move.
I’ve rolled out the red carpet before him.
He will build my city.
He will bring home my exiles.
I didn’t hire him to do this.
I told him. I, God -of-the-Angel-Armies.

Our Lord spoke in this tone when He said,

“Father, I will.”

Joshua used it when, in the supreme moment of triumph,
When He lifted up his spear toward the setting sun, and cried,

“Sun, stand thou still!”

Elijah used it when he shut the heavens for three years and six months, and again opened them.

Luther used it when, kneeling by the dying Melanchthon,

he forbade death to take his prey.

It is a marvelous relationship into which God bids us enter.
We are familiar with words like those which follow in this paragraph:

“I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.”

But that God should invite us to command Him,

this is a change in relationship which is altogether startling!

What a difference there is between this attitude & the hesitating, halting,
unbelieving prayers to which we are accustomed & which by their perpetual repetition lose their edge and point!

How often during His earthly life did Jesus put men into a position to command Him!

When entering Jericho, He stood still, and said to the blind beggars:

“What will you that I shall do unto you?”

It was as though He said,

“I am yours to command.”

Can we ever forget how He yielded to the Syrophenician woman the key to His resources and told her to help herself even as she would?

What mortal mind can realize the full significance of the position to which
our God lovingly raises His little children?

He seems to say,

“All my resources are at your command.”

“Whatsoever you ask in my name, that will I do,”

F. B. Meyer.

Say to this mountain,

“Go, Be cast into the sea”;

And doubt not in your heart,

That it shall be to you.

It shall be done,

doubt not His Word,

Challenge thy mountain in the Lord!

Compass the frowning wall,

With silent prayer, then raise─

Before its ramparts fall─

The victor’s shout of praise.

It shall be done,

faith rests assured,

Challenge thy mountain in the Lord!

The two-leaved gates of brass,

The bars of iron yield,

To let the faithful pass,

Conquerors in every field.

It shall be done,

the foe ignore,

Challenge thy mountain in the Lord!

Take then the faith of God,

Free from the taint of doubt;

The miracle-working rot.

That casts all reasoning out.

It shall be done,

stand on the Word,

Challenge thy mountain in the Lord!

— Selected.

My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if we you don’t forgive others from our heart.”

Matthew 18:35

When Jesus said, “My heavenly Father will also do the same to you,” He was referring back

“And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to
the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him.”

This is no fictitious tale

Jesus says God personally will allow those who refuse to forgive others to be tortured.

What in the world does that mean?

The Greek term from which torturers is translated is a verb meaning “to torment”—
a frightening thought.

When I first saw the thing begin to take shape in my mind, I resisted it. I thought,

“No, that’s too harsh!” But the further I probed, the clearer it became.

The same term is used to describe a person suffering “terrible anguish” (8:6 NET).

And it is used to describe the misery of a man being “in agony” in Hades as he pleads for relief

Luke 16:23–24

When we read of a man named Lot, who was surrounded and oppressed by the conduct
of unprincipled men, we read “his righteous soul [was] tormented day after day”

2 Peter 2:8

Again the same term is used. Pain, agony, and torment are all a part of this torturous experience.

But here in Matthew 18:34–35, Jesus refers to tormentors—a noun, not a verb.

He is saying the one who refuses to forgive, those who harbors grudges,
those who nurse bitter feelings toward another, will be turned over to torturous thoughts,
feelings of misery, and agonizing unrest within.

And who hasn’t endured such feelings?

It is one of the horrible consequences of not forgiving those who offend us.

It makes no difference who it is—one of your parents or in-laws, your pastor or former pastor,
a close friend who turned against you, some teacher who was unfair,
or a business partner who ripped you off . . .
even your former partner in marriage.

I meet many divorcees who have been “handed over to the torturers” for this very reason.

Believe me; it is not worth the misery.

We are to forgive as we have been forgiven!

Release the poison of all that bitterness . . .

let it gush out before God, and declare the sincere desire to be free.

Adapted from Charles R. Swindoll

Don’t let our hearts slide away into any twisted stuff

Keep us from atrocious corruption

Release us from the company of those who are depraved in their behavior

Psalm 141:3,4

I haven’t skied in years. As out of shape and practice as I am

My Prayer is to stay off those slippery slopes:

“Do not incline my heart…” “Do not let me…”

Psalms 142:4

The Lord’s prayer echoes this exactly:

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Keep us away from destruction:

Let our prayer be set forth before You as incense”

Psalm 141:2

As incense puts out an excellent fragrance that’s attractive,
appealing & appreciated

We cry that our prayers would be pleasing to You O God.

We lift up of our hands as an evening sacrifice”

Make our prayers an act that praises You Lord Jesus.

We ask that You would let us feel Your pleasure & praises in our prayers

Keep us climbing into Your arms & deliver us from sliding away from You