Heads-up! Who needs a holy facelift?

 

(Raising hand sheepishly.)

 Things are looking up – except when they’re not. Or perhaps more accurately, things are looking up when I am looking up.

 

How does everything improve when we look up, as in keeping our eyes on God, instead of on ourselves and our own concerns?

 First, here’s an important clarification. Our God is omnipresent. That means He is everywhere – not just up. When we talk about looking up towards God, we’re speaking physically, not geographically. We’re pointing to His higher honor, wisdom, nobility, strength, power, and dominion – not to any tangible destination that we could mark or measure.

 

OK, back to the original question: How does looking up improve our outlook?

 How does everything improve when we look up, as in keeping our eyes on God instead of ourselves and our own concerns?

 

Let’s start with a big basic biblical truth. God is the one who lifts our heads.

 We might say that God does all the heavy lifting, when it comes to building our faith and raising our spirits. (To be clear: the Lord does all the heavy lifting in every situation His children face. And whatever lifting we do, we only do because He equips and enables us to do so. That’s not a trite, coy, or cute statement. It’s the bedrock of our belief.)

 

Another important Scriptural truth is this: God lifts our heads when we bow them to worship Him. (This becomes clearer when we consider the Scriptures cited below.)

 King David wrote the third Psalm after his own rebellious son drove him away from his royal city. In hiding, David might have been described as keeping his head down. But his outlook was upward, as he covered his head to pray to the Lord.

 “Lord, how many are my foes! How many rise against me! Many are saying of me, ‘God will not deliver him. But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high. I call out to the Lord, and He answers me from His holy mountain” (Psalm 3:1-1, NIV, emphasis added).

 The Hebrew word וּמֵרִ֥ים (pronounced ū·mê·rîm) pertains to lifting, raising, elevating, exalting, extolling, offering up, or setting on high. The same word (or related derivatives) appears nearly 200 times in the Old Testament, including these spots:

 “The Lord is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation; He is my God, and I will praise Him; My father’s God, and I will exalt Him” (Exodus 15:2, NKJV, emphasis added).

 “All the gold of the offering which they offered up to the Lord, from the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, was 16,750 shekels” (Numbers 31:52, NASB, emphasis added).

 “The Lord makes some poor and others rich; He brings some down and lifts others up” (1 Samuel 2:7, NLT, emphasis added).

 “O, my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens” (Ezra 9:6, ESV, emphasis added).

 “Stand up and bless the Lord your God for ever and ever: and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.” (Nehemiah 9:5b, KJV, emphasis added).

 “And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me; In His tent I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord” (Psalm 27:6, AMP, emphasis added).

 “Come, let us tell of the Lord’s greatness; let us exalt His name together” (Psalm 34:3, NLT, emphasis added).

 “Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at His sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy, I will sing and make music to the Lord. (Psalm 27:6, NIV, emphasis added).

 

Look up!

 I’m feeling better already. Are you encouraged by these holy verses too?

 Let’s wrap this up with a favorite Scripture that always give me a lift. I hope it will lift your spirit (and your head) as well.

“The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.” (Numbers 6:25-26, NKJV, emphasis added).

 Image/s: Public domain photo

 

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• Arms up or up in arms?
• Everyday Exceptions and Eternity’s Expectations
• Stick-necked or Soft-hearted?

 

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Does God say no to earnest prayers?

 

What a tough question. We pray. God answers. I’d stake my life on it. Maybe you agree. But does that mean God gives us carte blanche when we pray?

 Believers love to say, “Prayer is powerful” and “Prayer works.” I beg to differ. This may sound like semantics, but I’d rather proclaim this:

 “God is powerful” and “God works.”

 The Bible clearly states, again and again, that God answers prayer. Here are a few favorite examples:

 “I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry.” (Psalm 40:1, NIV)

 “The Lord is close to all who call on Him, yes, to all who call on him in truth." (Psalm 145:18. NLT)

 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8, ESV)

 “And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” (Matthew 21:22, NKJV)

 “And whatever you ask in My Name, this I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” (John 14:13, NASB)

 “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” (John 15:7, KJV)

“This is what I want you to do: Ask the Father for whatever is in keeping with the things I’ve revealed to you. Ask in My Name, according to My will, and He’ll most certainly give it to you. Your joy will be like a river overflowing its banks!” (John 16:23-24, MSG)

“Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” (Ephesians 3:20, NLT)

 “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” (1 John 5:14, NIV)

 These are wonderful promises from our faithful God, and we take great comfort in them. We find assurance for our faith, and we persist in praying. Even so, can’t we all point to instances in our own lives (and those of our loved ones), when God’s answer was entirely different that what we thought we’d asked Him for?

 Consider these biblical examples of God’s seemingly surprising answers to faithful prayers.

 

The Apostle Paul prayed several times for relief, but God let his suffering last.

 What was the thorn in the flesh that pestered Paul (See 2 Corinthians 12:7-9.)? Bible scholars differ on this. Some have suggested it was a physical ailment, such as vision loss (See Galatians 4:14) or even optic neuritis (perhaps from multiple sclerosis). Additional experts have alleged he might have had epilepsy.

 Others have proposed Paul suffered in another manner. Whatever the cause of the Apostle’s woes, God let his struggle persist for reasons of His own.

 

Lazarus’ sisters begged for his healing, but he actually died.

 When Jesus received a message that his special friend had fallen gravely ill (See John 11.), the Lord did not rush to heal him. Lazarus died. Sisters Mary and Martha questioned Jesus’ devotion for their brother. Then He worked a wondrous miracle, calling Lazarus out of his grave.

 

God did not grant Mary’s heart-wrenching prayers at the foot of her son’s cross.

 Mary stood at Golgotha with Mary Magdalene and John (See John 19:24-26.), watching her son endure a torturous death. Surely she begged the Father to rescue Jesus from this agonizing fate. But God allowed the Savior to complete the work He had taken on flesh to do.

 Had He not, none of us would be here to ponder the complexities of answered prayer at all.

 

The previous evening, God did not sway over His holy Son’s blood-sweating prayer in Gethsemane.

 Jesus wrestled so hard in prayer on the night He was to be arrested and sentenced to die that His sweat fell as drops of blood in the famous garden near Jerusalem (See Matthew 26:36-46 and Luke 22:40-46.). “Not My will, but Yours,” he called to His Father, submitting to the original plan, which led through His suffering to our ultimate redemption.

 

Sometimes a “No” answer from God actually leads to a bigger “Yes.”

 Why do we try to fence God in, prescribing how He ought to respond to our pleas? And why do we try to explain away His answers, when they don’t come in the flavor we’d like? We even try to blame those who struggle and suffer, as if God might treat their prayers differently if they weren’t somehow at fault. It’s heartless and unscriptural to critique others’ faith, based on how God answers their prayers.

 

“Name it and claim it” doesn’t exactly hold water, if God is truly sovereign. And He is.

 Maybe … just maybe … when we place our prayers before the throne of the Lord of Lords, we’d do well to leave them there.

 

Bear with me: I’m preaching to the mirror here, as I often must do.

 Do I earnestly believe He is willing and able to answer in the best way of all?

 Am I trusting Him for all that is to come?

 When I say, “Thy will be done,” do we really mean, “My will be done”?

 Amen means “So be it.” May I learn to let it be so.

 

Related items:

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• Maybe worry isn’t all bad
  
• Ouch! Why do we grieve grievers with tacky questions?

 Image/s: From Devotions, Ernst Nowak (1851-1919), public domain photo

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Every Promise in the Book – Hearty Hymns from A to Z

OK, this isn’t actually a hymn, but “Every Promise in the Book” has been a popular worship song for kids and adults. It’s upbeat and uplifting!

Every promise in the book is mine.
Every chapter, every verse and every line.
All are blessings of His love divine.
Every promise in the book is mine.

By His stripes, the book says I'm healed.
Until the day of redemption,
The book say's I've been sealed.
(According to the same book)
To prosper and be in health is right in line.

Every promise in the book is mine.
(From Genesis to Revelation)
Every chapter, every verse and every line.
They all are blessings of His love divine.
Every promise in the book is mine.

The book says, "Delight yourself in the Lord.
You can have what's in your heart."
It also says, "Therefore if any man be in Christ,
He's got a brand new start."
And it also says, "Knock and the door shall be opened.
Seek and you shall find."

Every promise in the book is mine.
From the very first chapter,
Every chapter, every verse and every line.
Everything in between, all the way down to the end,
Every line, they all are blessings of His love divine.

Every promise in the book is mine.
On resurrection morning,
When that last trumpet sounds,
And all that have died in Christ,
They begin to rise up from the ground,
Think about this --

Then we that remain and we that still alive
Will then find out that
Every promise in the book is mine.
Yes, it's mine. Yes, it's mine. Yes, it's mine.

They all are blessings of His love divine.
Every promise in the book is mine.

Listen to the Sensational Nightingales’ interpretation of “Every Promise in the Book”:

Image:

Created by this user with online generator

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