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Tag: Revelation

The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John

Prayer List
May our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, who we worship with the Father and Holy Spirit, kneed our impenitent hearts of stone into soft sands of His overflowing love. Amen.

To begin, let’s not forget that God is a Person who cares about us. In Christ Jesus we have a personal relationship with the Living God!

And by our intimate relationship with the God of Heaven, a spirit to Spirit relationship the Bible describes as most like that of a wife to her husband, we have the intimacy of the love of God and the ear of His loving heart.

Who, then, do we pray for? (and to whom do we pray?)

Can we begin any relationship without attention given to the intimacy of love between the one who asks and the person we would have answer?

IF you ignore the loving question of your loved one, how is it that you ask God and expect to receive an answer? His is an even more intimate relationship, not unlike that of husband and his wife.

Did I say, ‘His wife?’

Yes. Unless we are submitted to Jesus Christ as our Lord, He cannot be the Bridegroom of our hope. What a shame that He would say to you, betrothed christian, “I never knew you.”

Prayer is most personal with the Person of God!

If we pray privately, which I pray you do and will do so even more, the intimacy will give you more understanding of His will, alongside your dedicated devotion to the scripture of God’s written and living word. (I am too often guilty of a lack of intimacy in my prayer with God, a lack of time and commitment.)

Privately, (& trying to praise and thank the lover of my soul) I ask God my Lord for what I need, showing me what I need rather than what I want which is not in His will. I guess that I would say that I NEED God to sustain me in my prayer for my own heart-felt needs.

Corporately, that is in praying as part of our church or a prayer group, I find that prayers like my deepest prayers to God are sorely neglected by most of those asking ONLY for prayers for others, not confessing our own deepest hurts, needs, and desires for God’s love and the love of our Christian community.

We border on hypocrisy in our false, hopeful faces before our brothers and sisters in Christ.

If we only ask prayer for our family, friends, loved ones and others, while hiding the depths of our brokenness from those who would, along with God, sustain us in prayer; is our prayer request not disingenuous, an easier substitute for our own heart-felt needs for love and prayer?

Our God is a God of relationships – loving relationships. We dare not neglect His expected intimacy in our prayer relationships in which we would intercede for others by our own prayers.

I pray first for my wife, then for our three (grown) children. I try to do this more than daily. This has always been my first priority of prayer.

I try also to pray for my Christian family, as if they are nearer to me than my own biological family; for through Christ in eternity, they are also adopted alongside me into His body, through the Blood of His Holy Sacrifice of love for all of our sins.

Pray first for the person. Pray then for their need.

I try to bow my head and thank God in prayer before I eat or enter into some activity of the day. (I seek to do this both privately and publicly as witness.) This is not so much about the person, as it is for our immediate need. For example, my wife once insisted on praying for our safety most times we left home in the car. Our security and safety are needs, of course. Yet the soul of a loved one is certainly more important to God and to me than any thing I might ask for a trip across town.

Is it right that one who claims Jesus as “Lord,” should pray for help in winning in the world so that they might live comfortable in Christ?

Do you pray that you or someone in your family will ‘hit the Lottery’ and help answer your unanswered prayers? Do you pray for a blessing from God, nearer than the blessing God already sent for you to have and to hold?

We know the true answer in Christ.

Yet is not forgiveness and grace so necessary in dealing with the struggles and sins of our most beloved ones as they trustingly share the concerns of their own heart?

The false face of our prayer requests (sometimes)

Some of the sins of our lives and struggles of our flesh remain even more as anathema to ‘church’ prayers. Who will hear our cries to God, a crying out for help, love, forgiveness and grace; cries from some of our beloved Christian sisters and brothers?

Dare you even mention one of these at ‘church?’

Dare your brother or sister even mention: an abortion, adultery, a homosexual experience, pornography or any other such ‘christian’ taboo?

Dare any of our Christian youth even mention the passions and indiscretions which most commonly lead to the pregnancies the church must hide? For that matter, dare one divorced, widowed or unmarried for a time ask the help of a brother (sister) in prayer for the same?

Dare any ‘grace-faced christian’ even reveal these struggles and prayers to a pastor, let alone a dear friend of the church? Again, let us be careful not to judge too harshly.

You know why you put on the mask of hypocrisy.

Do you not suspect that those you love in Christ are not threatened by the judgment of your rejection?

How difficult it is for us to not judge (for even Jesus would not judge). I am guilty. May the Lord have mercy on me, for I endure the punishment of His curse. Yet I include loved ones guilty of each or these sins just mentioned and more in my prayers to God.

If God can forgive them (should they turn to His love), how can I not also pray for their repentance and return to God through the same Blood of Christ Jesus shed for me?

David committed adultery with a woman and murdered her husband! Yet when the man after God’s own heart finally repented, David prayed:

Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment. – Psalm 51

How difficult it is for us to reprove in love – give a Christian sinner the help for which they have asked God in their own deepest prayer. How difficult to love AND forgive those most dear to us.

Yet by the Blood of Christ, God has covered even our sins of today (in addition to those long past).

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered. – Psalm 32:1

The revelation of God’s love for us is in Christ Jesus, who died on the Cross and IS risen! He hears our pray. Jesus hears our plea. He is revealed to us. We are freed by his blood.

Amazingly, by his blood, we are made His Priests and His intercessors!

Revelation 1:5 … and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Help us, God. Help us, beloved believer. We all need prayer. Allow us, as His Priests to intercede for those near and dear to our hearts and our souls.

Who is important in your life?

Are you praying for your VIP in humble humility to God and asking your loving brothers and sisters in Christ to stand by you in prayer for their needs?

Who is most import in God’s will?
- A husband to his wife &
- A wife to her husband.
- BOTH parents to every child.
- a loving father to all of his children, at home and by example in Christ,
- a nurturing mother to all of her children, at home and by example in Christ.
We all FAIL in some of these most important relationships God expects from us in His love, don’t we?

So why not ask God, with whom we have a personal relationship in prayer, to help us to do what is right in His will and not our own?

And why not ask our most intimate of friends, Christian brothers (sisters), who care for us in Christ deeply, to support us in prayer for these same relational needs for the VIP’s of our daily life? Sometimes the difficulty of these struggles of life are more appropriate for a small group of believers or even one life-minded brother (or sister) in the Lord, than for the prayer list of the entire church (often as fodder for speculation and gossip).

It seems the ‘perfect christians’ must go to some other church.

OR perhaps some we know just hide behind their masks of Christ’s perfection.

Let us, dearly beloved of Christ Jesus, love them as He has loved us.

Let us bow down before the Lord our God in great humility, with hearts overflowing in love and pouring forth forgiveness, through our prayers for for the family of Christ Jesus. Amen.

How may I pray for you, adding you to my personal prayer list?

Please comment. If you would like any of our readers to also pray for you, please share your personal prayer needs with us.

(IF you would rather have your request remain private, please begin your comment with the word, ‘Private,’ and I will not post it publicly.)

Pray also for me, that I might return to a purer committed faith in God to both hear and answer my ceaseless prayers for my most beloved.

Roger Harned, author and site administrator
February 1, 2015
Wisdom Cries Out

Proverbs 8: NKJV Does not wisdom cry out,
And understanding lift up her voice?
2 She takes her stand on the top of the high hill,
Beside the way, where the paths meet.
3 She cries out by the gates, at the entry of the city,
At the entrance of the doors:

4 “To you, O men, I call,
And my voice is to the sons of men.
5 O you simple ones, understand prudence,
And you fools, be of an understanding heart.

Wisdom cries out! She calls out from the mountaintop. She echos the Truth of the Almighty from Mount Gerizim and Mount Moriah, from Mount Sinai and the Mount of Olives.

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

From the echo of the Voice of Truth, through unclean lips of the Prophet; from the highest mountain of the Law to the lowest manger of the cattle and fields of sheep: Truth is born as a Son of Man and speaks softly to those who will hear. You without deafening distraction hear what the Truth of wisdom would say to your soul.

Proverbs 8:6 Listen, for I will speak of excellent things,
And from the opening of my lips will come right things;
7 For my mouth will speak truth;
Wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
8 All the words of my mouth are with righteousness;
Nothing crooked or perverse is in them.

Yet we will not sit in silence before the Very Voice of wisdom and hear what Christ Jesus would instruct to our wayward and crooked paths. (Do YOU read His gospel truth before you begin your way in this day?)

Hebrews 1: God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things…

Proverbs 9:Wisdom has built her house,
She has hewn out her seven pillars;
2 She has slaughtered her meat,
She has mixed her wine,
She has also furnished her table.
3 She has sent out her maidens,
She cries out from the highest places of the city,
4 “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!”

You with ears to hear, hear the Voice of Truth.

Or will you yet hear the distraction of the devil, the beguiler of your soul by the lies of his snare?

Luke 22:“For who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the One who serves. But you are those who have continued with Me in My trials. And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”

And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”

Matthew 13:Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way…

…at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”

If Satan had asked to sift the soul of Simon Peter as chaff, will the snarer of souls not also seek to turn you from the wisdom of Truth?

Do YOU read your Bible?

Do YOU hear the invitation of Christ Jesus (with ears to hear) and do you continue with Jesus as your Lord, even in the trials of this life of distraction?

OR have you missed the invitation of the Banquet; for Wisdom will not beg your repentance and obedience.

Proverbs 9: 6 Forsake foolishness and live,
And go in the way of understanding.

7 “He who corrects a scoffer gets shame for himself,
And he who rebukes a wicked man only harms himself.
8 Do not correct a scoffer, lest he hate you;
Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you.
9 Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser;
Teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.

10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Jesus IS and will return. He will judge all sin and unrighteousness with wisdom and truth. He will gather the chaff; neither will those who only claim Him while wandering the paths of wickedness be seated at the Table of His mercy and love.

Luke 6:46 “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?”

The persistent fool will not receive the cleansed robe of His righteousness.

Matthew 22:

The Parable of the Wedding Feast

And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said:

2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, 3 and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come.

4 Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.”’

5 But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business…

8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy…

11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. 12 So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Though wisdom and Truth have called sinners and fools to the feast, only the humble and repentant will receive the Lord’s robe of righteousness.

The King, in His mercy, has demonstrated much patience; that you might now accept His invitation to come among the guests.

Revelation 19:

5 Then a voice came from the throne, saying, “Praise our God, all you His servants and those who fear Him, both[c] small and great!”

6 And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! 7 Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” 8 And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

9 Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.”

12 His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. 13 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.

He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. 16 And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written:

KING OF KINGS AND
LORD OF LORDS.

You with ears to hear, hear; for our Lord will not always contend with the dust of the earth and the chaff of the harvest.

August 19, 2014
A Temporary Throne – 10

CHAPTER 10

I spoke my plea to the LORD, as I had done so many times before pled to Him through prayer:

“Lord, You know all things. May Your will be done… on earth, as it is in Heaven… Lord, in my life, may your will be done. All glory to You Lord, for Your Perfect Most-Loving Sacrifice for me…”

“Lord, would you not save my most beloved ones, for whom I pray? Lord, has your silence been due to my sin?”

“Is it because my witness of You, Lord Christ, does not further your Name? “

“Do You want these I love most to see only my sin and not Your Own Righteousness?”

(I realized that I had already said too much.)

The Lord’s answer to this forgiven sinner, who repeatedly falls far short of God’s will, might well fill my ears for an eternity.

DEAR ROGER, FOR THIS FAITH YOU STAND BEFORE ME.

If I had not been so surrounded by the glory and the joy of Heaven, I would have shed a tear, as often I do now.

When I think back on it, I now see clearly from this foreign place of our service to God, where sin is allowed: This is only UNTIL HIS RETURN to reign on earth, as it is in Heaven.

Christ has already promised this through His Revelation to John:

21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

God, in the Person of Christ Jesus after His resurrection, has already revealed to John, His certain promise and completion of these last days in fulfillment of His Kingdom.

May His will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven.

To be continued…

A Temporary Throne is an original work of Roger Harned,

© Copyright 2013, All Rights Reserved by the author.

June 16, 2014