Personal LifeSpeaker: Sis. Stella Dhinakaran Gist: Friend, when you pray for those who are passing through the valley of tears, troubles and sorrows and want the personal life of your friends and family members to be built, God will build up your personal life. "Truly, this only I have found: That God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes." (Ecclesiastes 7:29)
"But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear." (Isaiah 59:2)
The foregoing verse clearly elucidates that what separates us from God is the combination of our sins committed against our conscience, our iniquities and slavery to sin; consequently our personal individual life is shattered to pieces. This shattered life should be built up again. Read 2 Timothy 3:2-5; these verses sum up tersely, giving a list of evils of modern man's life.
There were two sons in a family. One son was a decent boy, obedient to his father. But the other son struck a chord of discord. Utterly disobedient to his father he was a reckless spend thrift wildly wasting his father's money. Unable to tolerate his son's prodigality, the father chided him, one day. The irate son picked up a dangerous weapon in an uncontrollable fury, and stabbed his father, killing him on the spot.
This is how the lives of so many people in this malevolent world lie shattered and ruined because of 'lust of the flesh' the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life' (1 John 2:16). The Bible underlines our foolishness by pointing out that apart from indulging in these lusts, we ask God unabashedly for the fulfillment of our sinister pleasures. "You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your (lustful) pleasures" (James 4:3).
If we pray to our Lord wisely, 'Lord, I need no lustful pleasures, but I want You to build up my decayed life, according to Your will', He will heed and respond to our prayers. What does the Bible say about the consequences of our indulging in lustful pleasures? Here is the clue,
"But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death." (James 1:14,15)
But our God is kind and great. According to the Biblical assertion, 'I (God) drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love, 'He lugs us with bands of love away from sin and into His own fold, building up our dilapidated lives.
We should not only seek the aid of God for rebuilding our own personal life, but must implore the Lord to mend the lives of our neighbours, colleagues in the work-place and friends because we have been commanded by the Bible to save them also, as we read in Galatians 6:2.
"Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ."
Do we not know what God did to Job when he prayed for his friends? "And the Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before." (Job 42:10)
The very purpose of Jesus Christ's coming down to this world was to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound." That was the will of God. Jesus Himself testifies to this, "I have come down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." We should also pray with tears for our friends whose lives are in tatters and beg our Lord to build up their lives. Then the Lord will succour us and build up our lives too, as well as the lives of our friends.
Prayer:
Gracious Heavenly Father,
You are the mighty God and the Lord who answers all our prayer offered at Your presence. Remove all the things that are not pleasing in Your sight from my life. Help me to do Your will alone in my life. Change me into a person who prays for the needs for those who are suffering. Let Your unchanging love overflow from me to others. In Jesus' mighty name. I pray.
Amen. |