Meditations

Is Your Life on Fast-Forward?

Do you ever feel as if you are living life on fast-forward? Do you ever feel as if you are constantly bouncing from one project to the next, one message to the next, one app to the next, one meeting to the next?

In our fast-paced world we tend to value speed, intensity, and productivity. And recently I’ve tried to rethink how I can be more effective and productive in the various spheres of my life: husband, father, pastor, writer, professor, friend, disciple-maker. While away last week with my family, I received a reminder from the Lord about what’s truly important in life.

Here are the three lessons I believe the Lord was teaching me from my time away.

  1. Pause. Close your eyes. Take a nap. Go away. Guess what? The world will go on just fine when you are on pause. Yes, there are things God has assigned for you to do. Yes, you have a responsibility to be productive and faithful for the glory of God. But thank heavens you and I are not irreplaceable to God’s plans of redemption and salvation in the world. God gave us the gift of Sabbath (day of rest) to remind us of the importance of pausing and resting. When we pause and rest, we give ourselves the opportunity to exercise our trust muscles that the Lord has everything handled in life.
  2. Pray. I am naturally analytical and a people pleaser. It is my tendency to do. Maybe you’re like me. Or maybe you’re very different. However you and I are designed, we often find it easier to do than to pray. Unfortunately, we feel as if prayer is passive when we ought to be active. The opposite is true. To pray is to actively exhibit trust in God who is able to do far more than we can do.
  3. Pay Attention. In my quiet time yesterday, I read from Acts 20. When talking to the elders and leaders of the Ephesian church, Paul said this, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). You and I are responsible for our spiritual lives. When we get distracted from the importance of our walk with God, we have a tendency to lose sight of what matters most. Pastors are responsible to pay attention to their own spiritual lives as well as those they shepherd. This verse reminds us that we should take spiritual inventory of how we are doing in our walk with Christ.

So this week, make time for these spiritual disciplines.

Pause. Make time in your day to rest. Take a deep breath or a walk. Go for a hike or a swim. Get away from the hustle and bustle, and remember what is important.

Pray. Make time time in your day to pray and to think. Don’t go another minute without bringing your burden to the Lord. Talk to God. Listen to him speak through his Word. Trust him to handle that situation that’s bigger than you.

Pay Attention. Make time in your day to inventory your spiritual life. Are there sins you need to confess? Habits you need to break or add? Relationships you need restored? Be attentive to yourself and those around you.

Turn these actions into spiritual habits.

You are your habits.

So what are you doing regularly? What would your spouse, kids, and friends say about your habits and practices? Would they say you know how to pause, to pray, and to pay attention? Or would they have to say that you are bustling from one thing to the next constantly frazzled by the busyness of life?

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

Freedom to Pray for the Nations

This past weekend, the United States celebrated Independence Day. Two hundred and forty five years ago, the signers of the Declaration penned their names to a treasonous statement of freedom.

The subsequent victory in the War for Independence led these newly free colonies to create a government. The United States is the one greatest political experiments in human history. Combining Judeo/Christian principles with Enlightenment ideals, the founders gave the world a model for representative government. The Constitution and Bill of Rights have been unparalleled in simplicity and clarity in its written limitations on the government.

As a follower of Jesus and citizen of the United States, I am deeply grateful for the religious freedoms provided in the Constitution. Many billions across the world know no such freedoms. Followers of Jesus in many nations must meet in secret to worship Christ.

With the freedoms we have in the United States, we are in danger of taking those freedoms for granted. My hope is that the isolation and limitations we experienced during Covid-19 pandemic serves to motivate us in expressing our religious freedom by living out our faith regularly and faithfully.

I also hope that we will develop a burden for the unreached peoples of the world in praying for gospel witness to be made available to them.

One of the more striking mission declarations in the Bible is the promise of Revelation 5.

Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. 2 And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” 3 And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, 4 and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. 5 And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” 6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. 8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll
    and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
    from every tribe and language and people and nation,
10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
    and they shall reign on the earth.”

Revelation 5:1-10 (emphasis mine)

In this vision, John witnesses the praise of heaven. In that praise, heaven affirms that every people group and language will be represented in heaven.

According to the joshuaproject, there are roughly 17,500 total people groups in the world with nearly 7,500 of those groups considered unreached. Unreached groups are those without a gospel witness in their language.

From Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 1:8, and Revelation 5, it is God’s desire that people groups all over the world hear the good news about Jesus. Therefore, the mission of leading our neighbors and the nations to follow Jesus is part of our responsibility. While we must pray for our neighbors and share the good news where we are, we must also be willing to send the gospel to those who’ve never heard the message of Christ.

One of the best ways to be attentive to our calling to unreached people groups is to pray for them. For each month at Wilkesboro Baptist, we’ve chosen an unreached people group to pray for.

Our prayer group for the month of July, 2021 are the Kazahk people group of Kazahkstan. The Kazahks have about 16,000,000 people in 25 countries, though around 12,000,000 of them live in Kazahkstan. They are predominantly Muslim. Devastated by the Russian Civil War of the early twentieth century, many Kazahks were displaced. They are currently searching for an identity and desperately need the hope and identity that can be found in Jesus Christ. There is a small Christian population (.10% or 1/10 of 1% of the national population). They are still considered unreached. You can read more about Kazahk people here as well as discover specific prayer points for this people group.

Would you take some time today to pray for the small group of Jesus followers among the Kazahk people? Would you pray for the many millions who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ? Would you take a moment to use your freedom to pray for this unreached people group and the unreached peoples of the world?