Travelling As Pilgrims To Another Land
My husband was preaching last week from Revelation – the letter to the church of Laodicea. He said this is one of the churches most like Christians in our culture today because they were lukewarm.
Now none of it is left which is probably a good thing for my waist! But I find then that when I feel tired or down, there’s no cake to go and eat which makes me feel like something is missing!
I think the problem began when I started taking my current book upstairs to read a little before I read my Bible. When I finished the series, I had no more book to read, only the Bible, and suddenly found that I was not looking forward to my devotional time anymore!
- What do you go to when you feel down, tired or in need of escape?
- Is there a sin that you’re struggling to give up?
- What makes you feel empty, discouraged, or sad when you don’t have it? – It could even be approval from someone in particular.
- What stops you from doing the right thing or obeying God wholeheartedly?
- What do you desire more than being close to God?
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How do you feel about your time with the Lord? Is there anything that often takes its place?
These things may not necessarily be wrong in themselves, but they could point to something that we might be going to for satisfaction or to where we’re putting down roots so that it’s taking us away from our first love.
We need to get back into the battle and keep going, growing, and getting closer to God!
There is a really challenging chapter in A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of Godcalled ‘The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing’. Here are some closing thoughts from there:
Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight…
But sin has introduced complications and has made those very gifts of God a potential source of ruin to the soul…
There is within each of us an enemy which we tolerate at our peril. Jesus called it “life” and “self,” or as we would say, the self-life.
To give up all for Christ’s sake is to lose nothing at last, but to preserve everything unto life eternal. And possibly also a hint is given here as to the only effective way to destroy this foe: It is by the cross…
The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty… the blessed ones who possess the kingdom are they who have repudiated (refused to accept) every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing. These are the “poor in spirit…”
They have broken the yoke of the oppressor; and this they have done not by fighting but by surrendering.