Set Up an Altar of Remembrance

God gave the Israelites festivals to help them remember the great acts of salvation He accomplished in their lives. Altars were also used to commemorate encounters with God; they weren’t solely used for sacrifices. Abraham and Noah erected altars to God (Genesis 12: 6-7, 8:20). Joshua placed memorial stones after the Israelites finished crossing the Jordan River (Joshua 4). The Eucharist or the Lord’s Supper is another example of God calling us to remember what He has done to redeem us. (Luke 22:19). Although Christians are not required to build altars or celebrate the Jewish feasts, it would benefit us to keep tangible remembrances of God’s presence and faithfulness in our daily lives.

I’ve found one of the easiest ways to keep me mindful of God’s love, what he has done in my life, and what He will do in my life, is to create a prayer journal. Here’s what you will need:

• A notebook or notepad
• A highlighter in the color of your choice

It’s that simple. How this works is you simply write your prayers down, the more specific, the better. Specific prayers are great because you get to see God work in the details of your life. You can choose to review your prayers on a weekly or monthly basis. Grab your prayer journal and highlighter, then read your prayers. Every time you come across a prayer that God has answered, highlight it. If you’re ambitious, you might want to separate your journal for the different types of prayers you will be praying, for example, lost love ones, prayers for my pastor and other clergy, personal prayers, etc. You can also add a scripture before each section so you have God’s word near to strengthen your faith. You don’t need to buy a fancy journal unless of course you want to. Here are a few Bible verses I use:

• And this is the confidence that we have before him: that whenever we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in regard to whatever we ask, then we know that we have the requests that we have asked from him (1 John 5:14-15).

• Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4).

• If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you (John 15:7).

• Now without faith it is impossible to please him, for the one who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him (Hebrews 11:6).

My prayer journal has increased my faith in God and has kept me mindful of the prayers I’ve prayed and how and when God answered them. It’s a simple way to keep God’s faithfulness at the center of our hearts when we are facing difficult times or have the urge to complain or doubt.

Here's a picture of my prayer journal.

Remember the wonderful works He has done, His wonders, and the judgments He has pronounced (1 Chronicles 16:12).

The Sweet Spot of Singleness

“Set your heart on things above not below.” “Wait on God’s timing.” “Learn to love your own company.” “Find your identity in Christ.” These are but a few things I heard and read when I was single and broken.  I’m still single, but I’m not that desperate woman defined by her loneliness anymore. I hated the many books I read from marrieds and other Christian relationship gurus trying to school singles on “the wait.” I thought they were pat responses from those who had made it to coupledom. They didn’t know what I was going through. They were simply saying what sounded spiritual. Their words lacked any practicality and only the super dedicated could ever hope to fulfill their ideals. I often cried about my singleness. I lived Psalm 42:3, “My tears have been my food day and night.” My pillow was always soaked with tears. I felt invisible and unattractive. I just knew that I was cursed. I could not understand why this one thing eluded me. When I came to Christ in 2009, I was in a “relationship” that I desperately wanted to culminate in marriage. He was perfect, at least to me. We had such a wonderful connection, but God had other plans. Our “relationship” abruptly ended in late 2010. I picked up my phone to dial his number so many times, but the Holy Spirit said, “don’t do it,” and I didn’t. In addition to the “break-up”, I was also dealing with the death of my grandmother. It was all so overwhelming. There was really no one to turn to. Although, my relationship was very important to me, I didn’t talk much about him. It’s not that I didn’t want to; it felt awkward. I was always the girl without a boyfriend. Therefore, unloading my pain and confusion on others was not something I wanted to do.

During this time, I found myself alone with God. I sat in my secret place and cried out to Him. God was truly my Comforter. He healed me in a variety of ways. The memories that were created during this time of communion with Him are so dear to my heart. God was there for me in a tangible way. I asked Him to pull the weeds of sin and discord from my heart. I asked Him to make me whole. When you pray, be careful what you ask for, especially if it’s a hard thing. God will answer every genuine pray for sanctification and it may not be in the ways you like. He answered the prayers I lifted up for wholeness. One day, I realized I hadn’t cried about my singleness for a long time. I hadn’t cried watching “Say Yes to the Dress” in a long time. I was happier with my life and myself in general. I was getting stronger and stronger each passing month. The Lord gave me the courage to discard a collection of artifacts I had saved from the “relationship” such as plane ticket stubs, a Mizpah necklace, and text messages. I deleted the instant messages I read repeatedly like a junky and the internet stalking ceased. It was truly amazing. The ideal of a woman being whole and content in her singleness was becoming a reality in my life and I marveled. The marrieds and Christian relationship gurus were right after all. I didn’t hate them anymore; they were my friends now. I could take their books out of the box labeled “for the bonfire.” I had truly arrived at the place I like to call the “sweet spot of singleness.”

Yes, my brothers and sisters there is such a place, but you have to being willing to let God lead you by the hand, often blindfolded. He will not consult you on the best route to get there. He will not ask if you are enjoying the trip. God is not interested in getting anyone to coupledom for the sake of romantic love. We have our notions of soul mates, love, and romance, but Jesus didn’t die for us to meet the man or woman of our dreams and live happily ever after. The Lord wants us to be joyful and content, but He wants us to find our contentment in Him, not any person, relationship, or circumstances. He desires we be transformed into the image of Christ. Jesus will present His bride to “himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Ephesians 5:27). That is God’s foremost will for us.

I get it, I really do. You are sick and tired of being sick and tired of waiting on God’s timing. You’ve grown tired of dateless Friday and Saturday evenings. You want to shut the mouths of your family and friends who pester you at every gathering about when you’re going to walk down the aisle and have babies. You want companionship. You want to be loved and appreciated. You are fed up with relationship/engagement/be content with your singleness posts on your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Is the journey difficult? Yes, but it’s worth it. Jesus is truly my Savior. He saved me from sin, death, and God’s wrath, but He saved me from myself as well. You may not want to hear it, but if Jesus is not the One you’re completely satisfied in, then life is never going to get much better. You’re always going to focus on what you don’t have rather than what God has already done for you. You have the privilege of a relationship with the Alpha and Omega, the Everlasting God, don’t cheat yourself. I’m not saying you have to relinquish your desires for a spouse completely, but don’t let it become your breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Don’t let it depress you and consume your every thought. Don’t let it exhaust your tear ducts so you won’t have any tears left for those heartwarming moments of life. Give your pillows a break. Jesus is enough, if you let Him be. Seek Him intentionally, regularly, and passionately; He’s waiting.

A few questions, if you never get married, will God still hold the same place in your heart? Will you still trust Him and proclaim His faithfulness? Will you go out of the bounds of His will to meet your desires or submit to His sovereign purpose for your life? If we allow singleness to become a rope that binds us in loneliness, bitterness, and anxiety, we will never be content with our lot in life. When we let God be God, we can proclaim with Job, “though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him” (Job 13:15).

Reading The Bible is Just Not For Preachers And Teachers

Many Christians aren't reading God's Word for themselves.

Despite the millions of Bibles in print, it being digitally accessible, and no lack of preachers, teachers, and pastors, many Christians are biblically illiterate. It is not because they do not have a bible, or the time to read it, it is they choose to let others read and interpret the Bible for them. Regular bible study and prayer is vital to remaining grounded in biblical truth. Many ministries stand on the authority of the bible and nothing else; praise God for these faithful brothers and sisters. However, there are those who by ignorance or blatant deceit twist the scriptures to say things that are simply untrue at best and deadly error at worst.

Proverbs 23:23 tells us to “Buy truth, and do not sell it; buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.” Obviously we cannot literally buy these things, but the pastor or teacher we support with our tithes and offering should be a person God has called to preach or teach. If we sit week after week under a pastor and drop our tithes in the collection plate, we are essentially "buying" whatever wisdom and truth he or she is putting forth, even if that wisdom is not of God. John and Paul, apostles and great champions of godly truth, admonished and exhorted us to test the spirits, (1 John 4:1), and hold fast to the truth we have been given (2 Thess. 2:15, Titus 1:9, 1Tim. 1:19). If we fail to spend time in God’s Word on a regular basis, we put ourselves at a great disadvantage spiritually. We must have God’s Word at the ready in our hearts and minds to battle the flesh, emotions, temptation and condemnation from the world, Satan, and damnable heresies. If we are to be doers and not only hearers of the Word, we must have all of God's truth undiluted at our disposal.

The Holy Spirit has graciously bestowed the gift of discernment upon some believers in the Body of Christ. Those of us who do not possess this gift; have to lean on knowing and applying God’s Word to our lives. We must constantly pray for Him to reveal what's in the Bible, a person, ministry, teaching or whatever else it is we need clarified.

When a pastor or teacher presents a new teaching or delves into a section of the bible we are not familiar with, we need to look up, read and study those verses or chapters in their proper context. Keep in mind that the context for those verses or chapters is sometimes located several verses or even chapters back. One good rule of thumb is that the Bible interprets the Bible. Where the bible is silent, we do not need someone to offer up a shiny new penny of revelation. Nor do we need someone to reinterpret a solid biblical doctrine, explanation perhaps, but no new information. If the bible says, something about it once, it usually has more to say and if it does not, it is best to pray on it and not go further than the text allows.

Unfortunately, some preachers and teachers always want to dazzle their audience with a new revelation or something that the Body of Christ on earth today and our brothers and sisters from the past have somehow missed. I am sure some of them are relying on the biblical illiteracy of their congregants. While the ravenous wolves posing as God’s shepherds are certainly responsible for their lies and pretense, some churchgoers have to shoulder majority of the blame. They have a bad case of itching ears, want to hear new things, and heap for themselves false teachers and prophets. They get tired of hearing sound doctrine. “Jesus died for us, was buried, and rose on the third day by the power of God” is not good enough for them anymore; in fact, it is downright boring and uninspiring. They would rather pay a false prophet hundreds of thousands of dollars to man the pulpit, get his or her books on the New York Times bestseller list, and fund their usually extravagant lifestyles. There always seems to be a new book lining the shelves of bookstores that wants to reveal something “new, secret, or real” about Christianity, that no one else seems to know but the false teacher in question.  If their “new” knowledge was such a secret, how did they ever stumble upon it? By divine providence perhaps, I think not. 

Humans are fickle; their affections wane back and forth like the waves of the sea, especially those who find God’s truth inconvenient. 1 Tim. 4: 1 reads, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.” With that said, we should rightly divide the word of truth and sit at the feet of the Lord for instruction. If we have any trouble accepting or understanding something in the Word or teaching from a pastor, we should pray and wait for the wisdom God has promised in His Word ( James 1: 5).  Every person who writes a book or has a ministry is not worthy of our time or money.

The bible says there is going to be a great apostasy (2 Thess. 2:3). How is this possible? Too many Christians let others predigest the bible for them through books, devotionals, and other Christian media. Some Christians do not pick up the Bible at all. If the pastor’s sermon is the only time they hear scripture, and they do not read the Bible for themselves, how will they know if what he is saying is the truth or a lie? The answer is simple, they won’t. Books and other such things have their rightful place, but nothing compares to personal time spent in the Word of God.

As the Church, the Body of the living Lord, we should not put our pastors, gospel singers, teachers, preachers, or anyone who claims they are a beacon of God’s truth and light on a pedestal. We should respect them and render to them what God says is their due, but their doctrine needs to be closely examined and measured against Scripture. Those who do twist the scriptures to purposely deceive, do so to their own destruction (2 Pet. 3:16). They mix a little bit of truth with the many lies or a whole lot of truth with a small lie that gets bigger and bigger as they go along.

Let us not be like Eve who lived in God’s presence, but was still deceived because she did not stand on the Word. All the enemy got her to do was doubt God, not His existence, but His goodness and she fell for it. Her actions along with Adam’s propelled the human race into the chaotic and tragic realm of sin and death. We owe it to ourselves, our brothers and sisters in Christ, unbelievers, and future generations to stand firmly on God’s truth.

I would like to offer a personal anecdote to demonstrate why it is so important to be a student of The Word. I did not grow up in church. When God first saved me, I was going to a church pastored by a woman I knew by association with my grandfather. My sisters and I briefly attended her church as teens at the urging of our grandfather. A few months later,  this church dissolved and everyone went about his or her business. However, the pastor and my grandfather remained in contact.  I did not join another church; I went on with my life as if church never happened. 

Years later, after I came to Christ, she decided to pastor another church. As a new Christian, I was eager to attend church and agreed to join hers after a brief conversation over the phone. One day while we were chatting over lunch, I mentioned that Jesus is the Father in the flesh, (in what context I was speaking, I cannot recall). She tells me that Jesus is not the Father, and in fact, He is not God. She said that He was with the Father for billions of years; however, He is a created being. My new Christian mind and sensibilities were confused. Her words pricked me, and not with conviction. I had no true concept of the Trinity and there was not a theological bone in my little body, but I recognized a lie when I heard one. I was not well versed in the Bible, but I knew the Bible had said Jesus was God and that is all I needed to know. I tore into the Scriptures with a voracity I have never known. I spent hours and hours examining the Scriptures and scholarly articles. I learned that her belief was nothing more than an ancient heresy called Arianism, which is alive and well in the religious doctrine of the Jehovah Witnesses. 

I was a woman on a mission.This Bible is missing more than half of Genesis, 2 Peter, John's Epistles, Jude and Revelation.

While some may say that Jesus not being God does not have any bearing on one’s faith, I disagree, more importantly the Bible disagrees. The Word of God never portrays Jesus as a created thing. He is the Creator of all things. John 1:1-3 reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. Also read, John 8:24, John 8:58, Colossians 2:9, and Hebrews 1:8. If I would have accepted what she said at face value, my walk with Christ could have turned out much differently. I would have been a perfect candidate to be ensnared by every wind of doctrine that Satan could muster. If you are wondering, I did confront her about her beliefs, but it did not go over well. She just disregarded what I said. I am very thankful to God that He helped me see the truth and to be loosed from a false teacher.

The Athanasian Creed