If you have received Christ as Savior, you were baptized BY the Holy Spirit into God’s family forever. But since you believed, have you been baptized WITH the Holy Spirit—drenched, saturated, overflowing? Have you received that promise of the Father? If not, in whose power are you trying to live the Christian life? Ask for the gift. Wait for the baptism. And by any means necessary, receive the drenching of the Holy Spirit.
Do you ever feel guilty about the brevity of your praying? Do you feel like you’re short-changing God by shooting up “quickie prayers.” Let me relieve your guilt: Whether they are long or short, God loves heartfelt prayers. A “quickie prayer” is still a prayer, so just pray it, and let God be God.
In everything you do this week, do it as if you were doing it for Jesus. If you are married, love your husband like you would if your spouse were Jesus. Serve your wife like you would if Jesus were your bride. Parent your children like Jesus were your child. If you are under someone’s authority—a parent, teacher, a policeman who pulls you over, a supervisor who knows less about the job than you do, or the owner of the company—treat them with the kind of respect you would give Jesus is he were in their place. If you are in authority, lead like Jesus would. Do it no matter how you feel or how they respond to you, and just see what happens. Try it—because in fact, it is the Lord Christ you are serving.
The key to personal peace in the midst of anxiety producing circumstances is to think rightly. That means to deeply, rationally and habitually think about the things of God. That is not referring simply to positive thinking, mere optimism, self-hypnosis or silly mind-games. It is to set what the Bible declares about God as the gate-keeper of your mind. Do that and you will unleash God’s peace to protect your heart and guard your mind.
Are you broken over the violence, disgusted by the wickedness, fed up with the corruption and hopeless over the divisiveness in America these days? Are you demoralized by the moral decay in our nation? Does your heart break that “men have forgotten God.” Does the condition of our culture turn your stomach? It should! But it shouldn’t stop there. Let the turning of your stomach turn your heart to God in intercession for a spiritual awakening once again in our land. Never get used to sin. Rather, let it provoke an urgency that leads you to humble yourself before the Lord to acknowledge sin—yours and ours—that we might repent and turn to the Great Healer for the healing of our land.
Our capabilities and resources are not the deciding factor in the outcome of that for which we pray. Rather, God is the best solution to our every challenge, even our people problems. Charles Spurgeon wrote, “In all times of danger from men our wisest course is to fly to the Lord our Helper. He has ways and means for delivering us which we know not of. He can either turn our enemies into friends or else so check all their efforts that they shall do us no real injury.” If you are facing a challenge, perhaps even a people problem, the easiest yet most powerful prayer is simply to pray, “God, help!” And why not, for the Bible says, “The Lord is our help and our shield.” (Psalm 33:20)
Karl Menninger, founder of the famous psychiatric clinic in Topeka, Kansas that bears his name, was once asked, “What would you do if you thought you were suffering a mental illness?” Without hesitation, he said, “I’d go out and find someone less fortunate than me, and serve them.” The truth is, serving somebody else, especially if they are worse off than you, is one of the most self-healing things you can do. When you are going through your own hardship, whatever that may be—sickness, loss, disappointment, depression—God’s therapy is to find those who cannot help themselves, who cannot repay your kindness, and minister his love to them.
