Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Monday January 3, 2011

In the aftermath of the Holidays, I welcome the chance to get on with having a part in God's plan for my life this Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Eleven. It can be fantastic. I am using a phrase from Phillips Brooks whose most famous words were penned in the Holy Land which everyone knows, many by heart, "O' Little Town of Bethlehem." While today's phrase is not as well known, it can help you each day this year as you walk with Jesus. The compassionate clergyman wrote:

"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your great tasks."

Most of us spend so much time praying for deliverance from this or that, that we fail to by faith appropriate the power to achieve God's will in our life. American Christianity has bought into the idea that walking with Jesus is like journeying along a paved path through a magnificent well watered garden.

A walk with Jesus through 2011 could well involve the necessity to get out of the Egyptian River, "Denial," face the reality of your situation and lay hold on Romans 8:28 and believe that even "this" situation is redemptive as the verse states. It is only by trusting in His power, which is greater than all of your powers put together, that it is possible to walk through fiery furnaces and dens of lions with courage. In more than a few figurative furnaces heated to eight times normal, I have learned that the only prayer that is proper is that I will have a prevailing testimony concerning the event. I'm biblically certain that my only concern in the climatic events of my life, as was the case of the three Hebrew men and Daniel is that whether I live or die, Christ is glorified. As I am aware of the surrounding powers which in normal circumstance will kill me, I must do as Christ when He looked Pilate in the eye and stated in John 19:11:

"Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.”

Pilate had the power to marshal all the might of an Empire against Jesus, yet Jesus gave us the example for this year and for all time, "God is in charge."

Our living is not in vain when we walk with Christ. Every victory, every apparent defeat is loaded with positive meaning, meaning which we may never understand until the day we see Christ.

This year, 2011, by the grace of God I will look each problem, each circumstance, each event that brings a tear to my eye and a pain to my heart, in the face, and claim the verse Jesus used:

Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above:

We must reacquaint ourselves with the principles of Job and go on.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2011 Use with credit

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