He Was There All the Time

God created each of us to enjoy a deep and intimate relationship with Himself. However, Satan is the enemy according to Genesis 3 who desires to wound us and stop God’s purpose for mankind. God said to the serpent in verse 15 “I will put animosity between you and the woman—between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel.” Of course, we recognize that Christ is the seed of the woman who died on the Cross sealing Satan’s final fate. However, God has ordained that each of us must make a choice as Adam did. Along this journey we must chose whom we will serve—the god of this world or our Creator. There is a battle for each of our souls—Satan wants to wound, destroy us and separate us from God. But God wants to be our Father and have fellowship and a relationship with us. Over several weeks God has been impressing upon me the same phrase or principles in various ways. He brought back a statement from a dear Christian man who lived into his 90’s “Life is what you make it.” God spoke through the ministers at the revival last week to confirm His study this week. Bro. Matthew Reams summed it up with this question “Why do we do what we do?” The words of a solo of a song from the 70’s last Sunday continues the message to each of us “He Was There All the Time.” The words of that song sets the stage for what I believe God is calling us to do—to evaluate our actions, motives, attitudes and relationships as God desires to do a new thing in our lives. “Time after time I went searching for peace in some void, I was trying to blame all my ills on this world I was in. Surface relationships used me ‘til I was done in; And all the while someone was begging to free me from sin. Never again will I look for a fake rainbow’s end; Now that I have the answer my life is just starting to rhyme. Sharing each new day with Him is a cup of fresh life; Oh, what I missed He’s been waiting right there all the time. Chorus: He was there all the time, He was there all the time; waiting patiently in line, He was there all the time.”

Let’s begin with 2 Peter 2: 19b “For by what a man is overcome by this he is enslaved.” God does not want us to blame the “ills” of our life to keep us enslaved. As we look back over our lives, each of us has something that we keep returning to that we can’t seem to get over. Dr. George Mathison reiterated a truth God has brought to me recently “Childhood wounds effect the rest of life.” He gave several personal experiences he had encountered in his ministry that confirms that truth. Everybody has hurts that can lead to retreating or avoiding them and can result in distrust, shame or guilt. His solution was “God is a loving Father and wants to heal our hurts.” We must take a walk down memory lane and look at places in our life that needs God’s healing touch and release it to Him and picture His loving arms around you drawing you to the Father who loves us and desires to make us whole. God does not want us to live life in the old but to allow Him—our Loving Father to heal our hurts. We have a choice—to be bitter or better—to be a victim or a victor as a beloved child of God. Psalms 55: 23 instructs us to cast our burden on the LORD, and He will sustain us. The Lord asks us to release our hurts and worries entirely to Him and trust Him to minister love and caring. Our Father’s job is to look out for each one of His children who are faithful followers. “God is able through His mighty power at work within us to accomplish infinitely more that we might ask or think!” (Ephesians 3: 20)

Dr. John Ed Mathison shared the account in scripture where a Father was seeking healing for his son and brought him to Jesus. It teaches us about how to allow Jesus to heal us: He made a choice to bring him to Jesus. He makes an effort. He asks for help. He is motivated by love—he loves his son and wants his son to live. He is willing to believe and ask God to help him believe. So, this gives us our pathway to healing as well. Will you bring your hurt to Jesus? Do you love yourself enough to want to receive healing? Do you believe that healing would be good for you? Are you willing to believe that our Lord can heal you? Then, bring it to Him and pray this prayer: Lord, things in my life feel beyond repair, in need of a miracle. Yet it feels risky to ask for Your help. What if You don’t answer? But leaning on You is all I know to do. So here I am, God, in need of restoration. Here I am, asking for intervention, knowing whatever the outcome, You’ll be with me. I put my trust in You and await Your blessings. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

God is calling us to check our motives—why do we do what we do? Jesus in John 7: 16-18 illustrates an important principle to us. Do we do what we do or say what we say for our glory or for the glory of God? In other words, “Do we do what we do to get the approval and acceptance of people or for the Lord?” Jesus’ friendship with Martha and Mary gives us clarity on this truth. In the passage in Luke 10: 38-42 we have the account of Jesus’ visit to their home for a meal. We read where Martha was distracted with all her preparations and insisted that He speak to Mary to come help her. Martha was probably very shocked at His response. He said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” God created us to enjoy a deep and intimate relationship with Himself. While works of service are important, they must never eclipse the fellowship He wants to experience with each of us. God invites us to use our gifts to express praise to Him, especially if we use them with a grateful, joyful heart. If, however, they become our avenue for seeking acceptance and prestige—as with Martha—then they can become a source of bitterness and resentment. Our actions can either proclaim Christ or they can seek our own advancement. We can use our talents with an attitude of praise or an attitude of self-promotion. Each time that we see Mary in scripture, she is at the feet of Jesus--here in this passage, and in John 12: 33 when she fell at His feet after the death of Lazarus saying “Master, if You had been there, my brother would not have died.” And finally, in John 12:3 when she anointed His feet with expensive oil and wiped His feet with her hair. In Mary, Jesus discerned a heart of devotion and true love as she humbled herself before God and desired only to serve the Lord. (After writing this Saturday night, Bro. Wayne’s sermon on Sunday was “A Memorial Day Moment” on Mary’s anointing of Jesus—wherever the Good News is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be remembered and discussed.) Mary loved Jesus whole-heartedly and expressed it!

God expressed His love for us in sending His only Son into this world that whoever believes and trusts in Him will have eternal life. God wants to bless us if we will let Him. Jesus in every way revealed God’s love to us. In love, Jesus went about doing good to everyone without partiality. In love, Jesus did not covet what others had, living a humble life without complaining. In love, Jesus did not brag about who He was in the flesh, although He could have overpowered anyone He ever came in contact with. In love, Jesus willingly obeyed His Father in heaven even unto death on the Cross. In love, Jesus was/is always looking out for the interests of others. We recognize that Jesus demonstrated sacrificial love for us by dying for our sins making possible our forgiveness and restoring us to fellowship with the Father. Yet we often fail to remember that Christ’s love goes even beyond the Cross. Everything we do, don’t do, face, and don’t face is touched by His continuing love. Everything about us hinges on love because God, who is love, created us in His image. (1 John 4:8, 16) We have seen that the chief attributes of the Father and the Son are love for each other and love for man. Jesus said in John 15:9 “Even as the Father hath loved me, I also have loved you; abide ye in my love.”

With this in mind, God has been impressing upon my heart this truth: “You know Jesus as Savior, but do you know Him as your friend?” Proverbs 18:24 speaks about a friend who sticks closer to us than a brother. That “friend” is Jesus Christ. He is our Savior from sin and the Lord of our lives. But amazingly, and wonderfully, He is not only our Savior and Lord; He Himself calls us His friends. John 15: 13-15 records these words of Jesus: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made know to you.” If Jesus is our friend, how much time do we spend with Him? Do we treat Jesus like the family dog—giving him a brief morning greeting, ignoring him the rest of the day except for a passing pat on the head—then before bed scratching the dog under the chin telling him, “How much we love him and what a great dog he is?

Jesus, our friend, is waiting to spend time with us. He wants us to talk to Him and He wants to share His heart with us. He made promises to believers in John 14: 15-21 that He would give us the Spirit of truth to abide within us and will not abandon us. He says that He who loves Me will be loved by My Father and I will love him and reveal Myself to him. To abide means that knowing Him is not just learning about Him; it means becoming His disciple and being discipled by Him directly. The friendship Jesus wants us to have with Him is not something we “do” but a real and personal relationship with Him like Mary had. It is a relationship based on love. Jesus said in John 7: 37 “If anyone is thirsty let him come to Me and drink.” May we take time daily to enter the chamber with Him to drink in a fresh supply of His heavenly love—a cup of fresh life! It will make us strong in faith, and our joy will be full. Love, joy, faith—these will fill our life each day through the grace of the Lord Jesus. Remember, He is there all the time!

Paul, in Galatians 3: 27 instructs us to “put on Christ.” This practice enables us to “put Jesus on” and “wear Jesus” throughout the day. We put on clothes soon after arising from bed so likewise we are to “put Jesus on” daily by communicating with Him that prepares us for whatever comes our way. Just as our clothing is a necessity as we go out into the world, let it be equally indispensable for us to put on Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14), This enables us to have His mind and to think His thoughts. We are to ask the Holy Spirit to control our thinking—shut out every voice but His and be transformed by this renewal within us. Clothing ourselves with the mind of Christ is our best preparation for each day.

Bro. Gerald Carns closed out the revival with a challenge to Christians to share Christ’s heavenly love with others. We must wake up and get up and share Jesus with others! As the Father worked in Christ, so Christ will also work in us if we only believe that we are in Him and yield ourselves to His power. As we abide in Christ’s love, may that love fill our hearts with supernatural power so we can share that love with fellow believers and to others for their souls to be saved! “At that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” (John 14: 20) May God reveal to us the inseparable union between Christ and us, in which the consciousness of Christ’s presence may become as natural to us as the consciousness of our existence. Jesus said: “You shall be My witnesses.” (Acts 1:8)