PASCAL’S WAGER Is death the end and there is no afterlife as Dr. Stephen Hawking claimed or as Billy Graham said, is there an afterlife where we may spend eternity with God in a place called heaven? Both of them cannot be correct. And the most important decision in your short life is to decide which position is correct. John 17:1-12.
I’ve heard of the Garden of Gethsemane most of my life, but it was only a few years ago I learned the meaning of Gethsemane. Gethsemane is a parable of what Jesus endured. The olive tree is called the tree of life because it provides oil for light, medicine, food, and soap. To harvest olives, cloths were spread under the branches, and then the harvesters took heavy sticks and beat the branches to make the olives fall onto the cloths. That reminds me that Jesus was beaten with wooden sticks by both the Jewish guard and the Roman soldiers.
God doesn’t just want your first fifteen minutes of a day; He wants you to acknowledge His presence 24/7. He wants you to pray without ceasing. And God doesn’t just want you to serve the Lord here at church two or three hours a week, He wants you to serve Him every day and in every way. And God isn’t just interested in getting 10% of our wealth. What He really wants is YOU–all of you.
Conservative estimates tell us there are a hundred million people today professing to be born again, evangelical Christians. Where’s our impact? Imagine a hundred million Jonahs walking around in a culture, in the marketplace, in the government, in the schools, in the health clubs, in the neighborhoods. A hundred million people filled with resurrection power as though alive from the dead. That’s what the world is waiting to see and that’s the hope for America today.
It is true that locusts of all kinds come and eat up things valuable to us. They may be literal insect locusts, or they may be the financial or emotional locusts that destroy our savings or our sanity. They may be the judicial or legislative locusts that strip away the leaves from the tree our founders planted. But whatever kind of locust you’ve faced in the past. God gives an amazing promise in Joel. He says, “I will restore to you the years the locusts have eaten.” (Joel 2:25)
The biggest question about our suffering is not “Why?” but “What?” What am I going to do in response to my suffering? You have a choice in the matter. When pain comes, some people grumble, some people gripe, some people groan, others grieve. Some people grunt and growl, but there are some people, like Paul, who GROW. The choice is yours!
I believe Satan has succeeded in convincing most Americans to believe his three greatest lies: (1) He doesn’t really exist; (2) Evil is good and good is evil; and (3) You can sin and you will not suffer. If you are going to have victory you must recognize him as a liar. The best way to resist the devil is to understand and claim the victory Jesus has already won. The devil really has no power over us because of what Jesus did on the cross.
Have you discovered the secret of God’s strength? If you do, the rest of your life can be the best of your life. Here’s how: Pray like never before, because God’s clock is winding down. Show love to others so deeply that you welcome strangers into your life. Give your life away to others–but do it in God’s strength.
I’ve known people who have quit praying because they didn’t seem to get an answer. If I walk into a room and flip the light switch, I expect the light to come on. If it doesn’t, I don’t curse Thomas Edison and say electricity is a lie. I start looking for the problem. Maybe the light bulb is burned out, or a breaker has been thrown, or the power is out. If it seems your prayers aren’t answered, don’t quit praying—start looking for the reason. It may be the wrong request, or you may have unconfessed sin in your life, or the timing may not be right. God always answers prayer. But He answers prayer in different ways.
Let’s say you need a job. Pray and ask God for a job, but don’t sit at home and wait for someone to come hire you. Seek His Will and plan for your life, and then go out and knock on many doors. That’s why prayer involves an action plan. It’s not about sitting and asking; it’s seeking and knocking.
For us, Kadesh Barnea is a place where we stand with an opportunity before us. This challenge can only be claimed by faith. At Kadesh Barnea, the Israelites failed to seize the moment and claim God’s promise; as a result they wandered aimlessly for 40 long years. As members of Green Acres, standing before a great opportunity, we must avoid the attitude of fear and unbelief.
All around you there are people who are lost and confused. They have no clear direction in life. God has given you the light and now He says, “Let your light shine.” Will you be the lighthouse that shows people you care enough to be willing to see that their personal ship lands safely within the protective harbor of God’s love?
Prayer is a relationship to God in which we bend our will to meet his will and we don’t spend as much time asking God for things as we do confessing our sins and praising God. Rather than praying for our own needs we need to pray for the needs of others. What we see here is one of the greatest examples of how to pray and especially to confess your sins before the Lord.
Daniel had a living, personal, relationship with the God of heaven. He carried on a conversation with the God of the Universe three times a day, and when he found himself in the pit, God was there! The satraps and their families didn’t know God. And there was no peace for them, only agony.
Do you ever wake up in the morning after having dreamt all night and then you couldn’t remember what you dreamed about? Dreams are strange things. Experts tell us everybody dreams, some people just can’t remember their dreams. Out of eight hours sleep at night, on the average you’ll dream an hour-and-a-half to two hours of those eight hours. Today we’re going to be looking at a dream a king had 2,600 years ago that also had personal, national, and eternal significance.
Where is the Lord Jesus right now? He is actually here in the person of the Spirit. But did you know Jesus Christ was crucified, he was buried, he was resurrected, and he ascended into heaven and the Bible says right now he is seated at the right hand of God, the Father, and do you know what he is doing? He is interceding for me. He is interceding for you. The Bible says there is one mediator between God and man. It is the man, Jesus Christ! Isn’t it good to know Jesus is praying for you?
The problem with so many of us is we treat prayer like a fast food drive through. We pull up, roll down our spiritual window and say, “I’ll take the Full Meal Deal, number one, and supersize it, dear Lord if you would.” We pull up to the window and expect to pay our money, get our stuff and go on our way and that’s the way we treat prayer. “Lord, give it to me quick.” “I want it right now.” Let’s just keep on going. That’s not the kind of prayer the Bible talks about. The Bible talks about spending much time in prayer persistence in prayer praying over and over and over. One reason some of our prayers are not being answered is we just stop too soon.
In the end Jesus Christ is victorious and no matter how you get from where you are to where you are going, know in the end that Jesus Christ wins. Because of that you can say, “God I thank you that you are good and whatever is happening to me is going to work out for your glory and for my good.”
You will never understand God’s love so, don’t try to figure it out—just receive it. You don’t have to figure something out before you use it and enjoy it. I don’t understand electricity, but I’m not going to stumble around in the dark until I have it figured out! I’m just going to flip that switch and use it. And so it is with the love of God. This is what Paul prays for, that you will be strengthened, that Jesus will be your Lord, and you will understand how much Jesus loves you.
