Lord, as your servant, I beg you to release me that I may serve you. You have given me the tongue of a teacher. Let me sustain the weary with your word. Let me listen so I may not be rebellious, but stand with your Son as he faces good-byes, as he is crucified. Let me listen beneath the cross as those who are taught.
As I stand, surrounded by by those who have stood in faith before me, let me run with perseverance the race that is set before me. Give me courage to embrace hardship, pain, and to face strong opposition for the sake of securing your promises. Help me to endure on account that my obedience will make me malleable so you can shape me to your will.
Let me not betray you or in any way trouble you in spirit, Jesus. Rather let me be the servant of servants. The washer of the feet of those need your grace and my love. As we face the night that is to come, prepare us by your love to love one another.
Desperation only comes when there is a recognized need that is beyond our own ability to meet.
DESPERATE:
(1) dangerously reckless or violent as from urgency or despair
(2) Showing extreme courage; especially of actions courageously undertaken as a last resort
(3) Showing extreme urgency or intensity especially because of great need or desire
Contrary to the way we view things, desperation is not a bad thing.
We have let the world define things for us, and, by the worlds definition, desperation is a condition to be avoided at all costs.
But from a Divine perspective there are many blessings and even promises of God that cannot be obtained apart from being desperate.
I believe the Spirit's message to us all is, "You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting."
When we see in the Word the life that is available to us, and we see in our own lives and churches the low level of spiritual life and the absence of spiritual power, It should create a sense of emptiness within us, A recognition of falling short of the glory that has been prepared for us.
This in turn should serve to stir in us a sense of desperation.
Desperation because we have recognized the need of spiritual power to reach the lost, to heal the hurting and to deliver the oppressed. and because we know that only God can give us what we’re lacking.
Blessed are the desperate: for they will tear the roof off if and when necessary.
For they will push through the crowd.
Because they won’t be offended – (even the dogs eat the crumbs).
For they will gladly give up dignity for an encounter with deity (like Zacchaeus in the sycomore tree).
For they will break barriers - (the lepers; the woman with an Issue of blood).
For they will lay in the dirt or climb a tree or jump in a lake.
For they will not argue about what God does or how he does it.-(Jesus put mud and spit into the blind mens' eyes).
Blessed are the desperate for if it was not for them The Presence and the Power of God would never be manifested in our churches at all.
It is not religion, or ceremony, or tradition, or methods or programs, or preaching or singing that brings the power of God into a church.
It is desperation.
Can we read the scriptures, and hear Jesus say,
"The works I do shall ye do also, and greater than these shall ye do. These signs shall follow them that believe in my name: they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them, and they shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover."
I believe the divine will of God would be that, at this very moment, every one of us would become desperate for an encounter with the power of almighty God.
Desperate beyond comfort, desperate beyond reputation, desperate beyond tradition, desperate beyond cosmetics, desperate beyond emotions, desperate beyond reason, desperate beyond the good fellowship of friends and family who are satisfied to stay in the boat.
Desperate enough to risk ridicule, desperate enough to risk failure,
If you haven’t risked anything then you have never become desperate.
When you become desperate people will criticize you.
You will lose a certain amount of religious standing.
You will be looked at as overboard, extreme, unusual, weird.
People will try to hold you down, shut you up, You may get your fingers stepped on as you crawl through the crowd. You, for sure, will get your feelings stepped on.
But the bottom line is this, If you truly become desperate then you will get what you are asking for.
Blessed are the desperate for they will do whatever it takes to get what God has promised them.
Blessed Assurance, To God be the Glory, Praise Him, Praise Him the list extends into thousands, songs from the heart of the blind poetess Fanny Crosby.In this Feature length motion picture the life and testimony of Fanny Crosby unfold from her days as a teacher at the New York Institute for the Blind until she becomes the most influential woman in evangelical history. You may have sung her songs a thousand times. Running Time 87 minutes. A Ken Anderson Films Presentation. Copyright Approved.
Old
(Hebrew) Testament Deuteronomy 8:11-18 A Warning Not to Forget God in
Prosperity (*p. 227)
Israel
faced severe hardship in the desert during the forty years they wandered. They
had to depend daily on God for food, for water, for shelter, for life itself.
Now
they have crossed over into the land of milk and honey. The fertility of the
land is in marked contrast to the barrenness of the wilderness. “The plenty of
the land poses the threat that Israel will forget the Lord and exalt itself. “
(*p. 227)
“We
live as a blessed people, created in the image of a gracious and merciful God.
God calls us to a life of blessing, through love and obedience.
“For
Wesleyan Christians this is the call to a life of sanctification and holiness;
as we walk in the ways of the Lord, we are on the path that leads to life.
“Along
the way the roads will diverge and important decisions will loom before us. In
these moments, we pray for wisdom and courage to choose life, holding fast to
the disciplines that will keep us close to God’s purposes for us.” (*p.254)
Epistle
Hebrews 2:11-18 “Exaltation through Abasement”
“Christ’s
entrance into the heavenly realm announces the glorious destiny of all
disciples. But Christ is also the bridge, as it were, by which we cross over to
that goal.
“His
own experiences of pain and shame assure us that our path of discipleship,
though filled with experiences of loss and suffering, will also lead to
‘glory,’ and that our high priest knows from personal experience what we need
to arrive there securely….
“God
led Jesus through a path of hardest testing and deepest loss so that Christian
disciples would be confident of Jesus’ sympathy and help in their own trials.
“Wesley
observed that suffering incurred for the sake of obeying Christ helps ‘[to
wean] us from sin causing our affections to be set on things above.’
“When
people think that death is the final word, fear of death will keep them from
fully obeying God and seeking God’s justice. Fear of death diverts their
energies [from being obedient to God’s will] toward worldly achievement,
amassing wealth, and seeking pleasurable distractions to ‘make the most out of
life’ while they can.
“Because
Jesus faced death and emerged victorious from the grave, we can be freed from
this fear for joyful, unrestrained, undistracted obedience.” (*pp. 1485, 1486)
Gospel
John 2:1-12 The Wedding at Cana (*p. 1288)
“Jesus
is the bringer of God’s overflowing grace and end-time salvation, which the
prophets depicted as a wedding feast and a time of abundant wine. In Jesus,
God’s future salvation and abundant life are present now.” (*p.1288)
Abba,
Father
Keep
me humble. Let me feel my pain as a reminder of the barrenness of the
wilderness, as a reminder of the “path of hardest testing and deepest loss”
walked by your only begotten son. May my energy be freed from the distractions created by pain, and
turn to “joyful, unrestrained, undistracted obedience.” Amen.
