Category: rest in God

Your Love Will Define You

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“You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.”

1 Peter 1:22, NLT

Love defines us as believers. I’ve recently been sharing God’s love to Steve, a backslidden Christian who sleeps in the woods behind our local Safeway. I’m aware that Jesus loves him so much, and that love just seems to burst out of me. I can hardly contain it. The Father loves Steve, and I hope to share that same love the next time I talk with him. He introduces me to other homeless people, “Here’s my pastor,” and that is an encouragement, but it often embarrasses me.

Love takes on many different forms. But it always is giving. It simply can’t be thinking of itself; it exists for others and takes no thought of itself. That magnificence that is God’s love gets funneled through us, and we are compelled to share it. Perhaps we are simply called to be ‘the transfer point.’

“And may the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow, just as our love for you overflows.”

1 Thess. 3:12

God initiates the love to be shared. Some of us are weaker than others; perhaps we are physically or mentally handicapped. But as believers, we are to turn to God to fill our hearts. When it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter how flawed you are, what matters is the vast ocean of God’s love. Weakness only makes it easier, because we’ve quit relying on ourselves to love others.

 “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

John 13:35

Our calling is to be ‘naturally supernatural.’ And that will take the dealings of God.

But please remember the joy that is present when you get to communicate His love. The book of Philippians is saturated with Paul’s joy at sharing God’s love. He sees it as his privilege to share it with the Church. And oh how God loves His Church! The Holy Spirit can teach you, how to do this if you’re teachable. IF…is a big word.

Faith makes all things possible… love makes all things easy.

–D.L. Moody
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A Prayer for Bryan

We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.

C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, chap. 4, para. 15, p. 22.

If you’ve been a visitor to Broken Believers blog for very long, you may have notice a drop off in the number of posts over the past year. You may have attributed it to COVID-19. I mean, really, can’t we blame a lot of things on the uncertainty of this pandemic? But that’s not the reason posting has dropped off.

The main reason is that Bryan Lowe, the trusted servant of God who started this blog and has kept it going for so long, has experienced some serious health issues. He is currently in Colorado, where for the past five months he has been undergoing much testing and treatment, but no answers yet. He has lost far more weight than he should and is having trouble gaining it back.

Bryan longs to return to Alaska, his favorite place to be, with the exception of being in the presence of the Lord. I think Alaska is the closest place to heaven on this earth for him.

And so I am helping out around here to keep Broken Believers Blog going. I’ll be posting more than I have in the past. I hope what I post will be a blessing. But the first order of business is a prayer for Bryan. I know he appreciates all the prayer he can get, because he knows God honors our prayers when we lay before Him what is in us.

My Prayer

Heavenly Father,

I lift up to You Bryan, Your dear son and loyal servant. You know exactly what is going on in his body and in his mind. I pray for Your healing touch, for Your comfort and peace, and for Your wisdom for the doctors treating him. Lord, help him to gain weight and to feel well again. Return Bryan to his home in Alaska with a refreshed spirit and strength to continue to serve You in whatever way You are calling him to do.

In the meantime, Lord, give Bryan rest for his body and rest for his soul. Help him to draw closer to You, Jesus, and feel Your very real presence. Lead him in paths of righteousness for Your name’s sake. Make him to lie down in peaceful pastures and restore his soul. Let him truly know that this time of illness has not been wasted but is being and will be used by You for Your glory and his good.

I ask all these things in the precious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.

Your Prayers

I hope that you will join me in praying for Bryan. I know over the years he has faithfully prayed for many of you and continues to do so. He has a heart to serve, but serving is difficult when illness strikes. Please pray that he has peace. If you would like to post your prayer in the comments, I know he would be blessed.

“O My Dove,” a Thought from A.B. Simpson

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“O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock,
in the secret places of the stairs,
let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice;
for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.”

Song of Solomon 2:14, KJV

“The dove is in the cleft of the rock”—that is, the open side of our Lord. There is comfort and security there. It is also in the secret places of the stairs. It loves to build its nest in the high towers to which men mount by winding stairs for hundreds of feet above the ground. What a glorious vision is there obtained of the surrounding scenery.

It is a picture of ascending life. To reach our highest altitudes we must find the secret places of the stairs. That is the only way to rise above the natural plane. Our lives should be ones of quiet mounting with occasional resting places; but we should be mounting higher, step by step. Not everyone finds this way of secret ascent. It is only for God’s chosen.

The world may think we are going down. We may not have as much public work to do as formerly.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

Matthew 5:3

It is a secret, hidden life. We may be hardly aware that we are growing, until one day a test comes and we find we are established.

  • Have you arrived at the place where Christ is keeping you from willful disobedience?
  • Does the consciousness of sin make you shudder?
  • Are you lifted above the world?”

~~A.B. Simpson

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Albert Benjamin Simpson, (Dec. 15, 1843 – Oct. 29, 1919)

FOUNDER OF THE Christian and Missionary Alliance, Albert Benjamin Simpson was born in Canada of Scottish parents. He became a Presbyterian minister and pastored several churches in Ontario. Later, he accepted the call to serve as pastor of the Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. It was there that his life and ministry were completely changed in that, during a revival meeting, he experienced the fullness of the Spirit.

He continued in the Presbyterian Church until 1881, when he founded an independent Gospel Tabernacle in New York. There he published the Alliance Weekly and wrote 70 books on Christian living. He organized two missionary societies which later merged to become the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

–Wikipedia

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Meandering Intensely Through Grace

“For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”

Romans 8:29, NLT

“Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man.”

1 Corinthians 15:49

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Much speculation has been made regarding these two ‘pinnacle’ verses. We must approach them humbly to see what they are all about. We must see for ourselves all that concerns us. “They will not hear the voice of a stranger,” (John 10:5).

The Father has decreed, “Christlikeness.’ This is a mandate from the One who loves us unconditionally. (There are no whips being used.) We really need to enter this holy process with a sure confidence of a solid love.

His face burns brighter when we are positioned appropriately in His glory.

It begins now. The heavenly Father’s exclusive purpose is to “bring many sons to glory” (Heb. 2:10). We do not have to wait until heaven to become like Jesus. We can accelerate the joy by starting today. And when He comes, He will ‘clean house,’ (so to speak). Holiness is mandatory to everyone who wishes to walk with Him.

You are one of the selected. Few have the options and opportunities that have been offered. To ‘put on’ Christlikeness is a rare privilege. From this point on, you will move through the confusion as one assured of his place and calling. He has ‘marked’ you, you are His. Everything will move aside in the light of His calling.

I so want you to ‘long for heaven.’ It is the place where we will dwell permanently. But at this point, the Father needs you to ‘hash it out’ on planet Earth. There is a need for volunteers who will come from ‘free will.’ After all, we get to choose Him who holds our destinies within; He alone carries our burdens and sins. He knows me thoroughly, yet loves me still.

You need to decide soon of your next step. But know this– Christlikeness will never be forced or coerced. Yet it is the ‘ride of a lifetime.’ Sheer boredom will probably ‘do-you-in’ if you choose to just ‘pray the prayer’ and walk away.

But you will never know the thrill of standing under God’s grace blasting full over your thirsty heart.

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