A Crucified Life - - Answers The Call To Wait & Keep

 

    Psalm 37:34

Wait on The LORD and Keep His Way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land: you will look on when the wicked are cut off.

    We know that to wait on The Lord is to come near when called and to serve Him in whatever capacity He has called us to serve. Whether we wash dishes, fix engines, build houses, mop floors, prepare lessons, drive trucks, scrub toilets, change diapers, fix leaky pipes, etc. Wherever we are, as long as our hearts are right with The Lord, we are in His service. 

    Many preachers have been called to not only serve in the pulpit but to build it, as well. The Lord builds His church and designates who does what. But sometimes the pastor does more than "just preach". He is the plumber, the electrician, the janitor, the spackler, the sweeper, the window washer. In each he waits on The Lord, he serves. 

    Many a parent multitasks throughout parenthood. This is a job that never ends. Here we wait on The Lord as parents, doing double duty: in the home we are parents; on the job we are the employer/employee. 

    No service is too mean when we are in The Lord's service. Colossians 3:17 "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him."

    Keeping His Way is to guard, to protect, to hedge ourselves with His Word. It is to surround ourselves with The Word of God. We pray that He leads us, guides us, guards us (Psalm 23). We pray that He carries us through, and walks with us. We pray that God surrounds us with Himself, keeping our enemies at bay as we wait on His purpose to be accomplished within us and through us. 

    We surround ourselves with like-minded praying people in our lives that we may strengthen each other in The Lord. The hand washes the foot, the heart pumps the blood, the diaphragm gives voice to the mouth. This is the body of Christ in service to God. 

(1 Corinthians 12:12-26)

    If I step on a sharp object, the immediate acknowledgement of pain comes out of my mouth. The body knows when the foot is in pain. If I gaze longingly at that maple doughnut, the stomach knows the eyes have seen something good and the nose has smelled a fantastic aroma, immediately the mouth waters. The body knows what satisfies the stomach. 

    So, if we remain in His service, waiting on His commands and keeping them, we will receive our reward in due time. We are to wait and keep with joy and honor. We are people of integrity. We are people of praise. 

    We are the body of Christ: we will be broken and poured out when we humble ourselves to wait on God's timing and keep living our lives in obedience to His Word. 

CALLED TO WAIT

Wait On You - Elevation Worship & Maverick City 

Surrounded - UPPERROOM

Talking To Jesus - Elevation Worship & Maverick City

Build My Life - Pat Barrett

Jesus At The Center - TRIBL

I Will Serve The Lord - Carman

Walking Free - Micah Tyler & Matthew West

Promises - TRIBL

     

A Crucified Life - - Answers The Call to Rest in The Lord

 

    Psalm 37:7

Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him: fret not yourself because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked devices to pass. 

    In this verse-Psalm 37:7-Rest means to wait silently and be still before The Lord, wait until He speaks or moves. 

    How do we Rest in the Lord? 

Psalm 40:1        Wait Patiently for Him

Hebrews 6:19    Anchor to Him in Hope

    How do we Wait patiently?

    Waiting patiently is a virtue, a fruit of the Spirit; it is part of the evidence of being a faithful faith-filled born again Christian. 

Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.

    We do not get impatient for God to move. We do not make demands on Him. We wait. And while we wait, we work. There is always much work to do. 

    We read God's Word, taking It into ourselves and applying It to our lives. 

    We pray to the Living God of the Holy Bible, speaking to Him reverentially, intimately and with joy. 

    We gather together in His designated places of meeting, whether that be a church building or synagogue or temple or in the open air. Wherever God calls us to worship and to hear His Word, that is where we go. Together. 

    We work together to advance God's kingdom. We preach the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ. We preach His Authority to be the Son of God while at the same time He was/is the Son of man. We preach His crucifixion, not just the how but the why. We preach His resurrection and ascension. 

    We work together in the Love of The Lord and the Unity of The Spirit. For it is The Spirit of God Who moves upon our hearts to do the will of God obediently and faithfully. 

    We Rest. We Wait. We Hope. We Serve. We Trust. In The Lord God and His only begotten Son Jesus Christ. 

CALLED TO REST 

Love Is Kind - John Lucas

Learning To Be Loved By You - Melissa Helser/Cageless Birds

There is One Gospel - CityAlight

Face To Face - Zach Williams

Friend - Jonathan Ogden

Abide In Me - Andrew Marcus

Living Hope - Phil Wickham

Come Jesus Come - Steven McWhirter

PSALM 62:5

Rest in God alone, O my soul, for my hope comes from Him.

  

       

Guide Me Teach Me

 GUIDE ME, TEACH ME

Psalm 25:5

Guide me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; all day long I wait for You.  

WAIT: Collect/Bind Together; to Expect

Both (1) a collective wait, when God's people gather together and wait for His presence to manifest itself and (2) an expectation of the Lord God's arrival. 

Not only are we asking for God to walk with us, but to walk with us knowingly, with certainty in His Truth, His Salvation, Himself. Knowing that He will and does because His Word tells us that He will never leave us nor forsake us. We are not on our own: we can have God be with us, in us, leading us to salvation in Him. All day long.

Waiting On God

Waiting on God does not mean doing nothing on our part. In this passage 'waiting' means 'to bind together (by twisting {think braiding] ). Waiting on God means to 'wait upon'. We wait for Him to speak to us, then we obey what we have heard Him say to us. Each of us has a purpose which God wants to fulfill in us. Each of us has at least one mission field to which God not only sends us, but goes with us.
Do you not understand even yet that God goes with you? In His Word He tells us that He will never leave us: "Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for He has said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee (cf. Genesis 25:15, wherein God makes a promise to Jacob).

Wherever God is fear is not. Speaking to Joshua: "Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for The LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest". Joshua 1:9.

Speaking through King David to Solomon: "All this, said David, The LORD made me understand in writing by His hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern. And David said to Solomon, Be strong and of a good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for The LORD God , even my God, will be with thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of The LORD." 1 Chronicles 28:19-20.

So, don't be afraid to wait on God. Be more afraid of not waiting on God.

When Samuel first heard God speak to him, he did not know it was God speaking, for "he did not know The LORD yet". He ran to the man he thought was calling his name, only to be informed on the third call that this was God's voice, not Eli's. It is only when we know The LORD that we will learn to listen and obey His voice.

You are not past the point of no return. You can still learn to listen to God, learn to know His voice. It is the voice of love, mercy and patience.
God is patient with us. Way more patient than we are with each other.
God is longsuffering. He puts up with quite a bit of our unrighteous acts. Why? Because He loves us and He only wants to bless us. He can't do that unless we obey His Word.

Obedience to God's voice brings God's blessings. Disobedience to God's voice brings God's curses, His wrath.

See this little scale? God has treasures set aside for each of us on a daily basis, when we obey His voice, His Word. But on the other end of the scale? Nothing. No blessings, no treasures, no gifts.

Waiting on God means to go where He sends us and to not be afraid when He sends us in a direction we are fearful of going. That bend in the road will glorify God. That steep climb will glorify God. That speech, that marathon, that song will glorify God. Whatever it is you think you can't do even though God has called you to do it, you can because God will be with you wherever He sends you, whenever He sends you.
Waiting on God means to be patient. (Warning: do not pray for patience. God will give you trials to learn to be patient in). Actually, when we are filled with The Holy Spirit, we have patience: we just need to exercise it. It is, after all, part of the fruit of The Spirit -- Galatians 5:23 -- "longsuffering".

Waiting on God means to live in love, as Christ loves us. John 15:12 "This is My commandment, That you love one another as I have loved you." How has God loved us? Unconditionally. Sacrificially.

Waiting on God means to do God's will. "And this is the will of Him that sent Me (Jesus speaking), that every one which sees the Son, and believes on Him, should have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day." John 6:40

Waiting on God means to serve Him, not as slaves, nor servants, but as friends. We like to do things for our friends, do we not? To show them how much we love them. We bring them smiles on cloudy days. We clean their houses, when they are laid up. We care for their children when they are overwhelmed. We prepare meals when they are grieving. Because we love our friends we choose to make them happy, at times meeting their needs before meeting our own. Why? Love.

God loves us and wants us to obey Him in love. "We love Him because He first loved us". 1 John 4:19

Are you truly waiting on God? Do you wake up in the middle of the night, when you hear Him speaking to you? Are you digging into His written Word, eagerly turning pages, seeking Him out? Have you heard Him speak and known it was God who was speaking?

It's not too late. God is calling you right now. Some of you He is calling to salvation. Some to service. Some to healing. Some to rest. Some to the baptism of His Holy Spirit, to be filled with power to walk in His Word. Some of you He is calling for the last time. I hope you are ready. I know I am.