Our hearts are so thankful to God that amongst all the activity and hurry of preparing for the Christmas season, there is a place of quiet rest, an inner sanctuary, a hidden altar in our heart where we can meet and commune with the Lord to receive His grace, mercy, love and strength as we worship Him. That is the unseen life we live, deep down in our spirit where we respond to His touch on our life. It is there we know Him, touch Him and worship Him.
Countless Christmas carols have been written and sung proclaiming the message of that first Christmas when angels rejoiced over the birth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Magi and shepherds brought their gifts to the scene of His birth, the humble animal shelter of an inn. The carols often challenge us, “What gift can I bring to Him?”……Give Him my heart!
If God truly has my heart then He has 100% of me. Malachi 3:10 God challenges us to “…..PROVE ME NOW….”, not just in a 10% tythe situation but a 100% surrender of my life to Him – my heart. Jesus wants the gift of our hearts because that is where we carry our burdens and fears. In Matthew 11:28 – 29, Jesus bids all who are weary and heavy laden to come to Him and exchange our burdens for His “rest” – peace. Fear often plays the game of “Hide and Seek” with me. I can be unaware I am harbouring fear until a certain set of God ordained circumstances arise and I am found out! I need to bundle up my fears and leave them at Calvary at the foot of the cross, instead of bringing them home to feed and mollycoddle in my heart.
Intimate friendship with Jesus is a profoundly deep condition. Many times I have not been a good friend to Him. We all have personal testimonies where our failures, fears and betrayals of Him have fallen short of true friendship, “For ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God”, Romans 3:23. But His friendship to me has never failed. My friendship to Him comes out of His to me, and not vice versa.
God makes a way where there is no way. The way is made when I surrender to Him instead of trying to do things my way. I prove that God is who He says He is. PROVE ME NOW! I am not holding on to Him, He is holding me! When I give God my burdens, they do not belong to me anymore. He is the great burden bearer, I am not.
When circumstances disturb me and I quiet my heart before Him, He shows me where fear or judgement has stolen in. He reveals my heart and what is dwelling there. Calvary has made full provision for the divine exchange of my burdens for God’s peace to dwell in my heart.
Malachi 3:6 declares, “I am the Lord, I change not”. Our God, the great “I Am”, is the only One who never changes! How privileged I am to have a Friend so dear, so near. He knows all that is in my heart, and yet He still loves me!…..He will never leave me nor forsake me. He is mine and I am His! In my walk with Him I go alone to the sanctuary of intimacy where He gives me His true counsel. I cannot take my spouse or my friends with me to that inner sanctuary, it is God and I, and there I find all I need in Him, and of Him. My God and me, what a privilege.
We live in an ever changing world but HE NEVER CHANGES. We must come to the place where we are not continually tossed to and fro by our emotions and change of circumstances, portrayed as the rises and falls on some erratic graph of our lives. Many Christians live this way, but if the life of Jesus is within me I must yield to Him in daily situations and allow Him to order my life with His consistency of joy, peace and assurance and thus influence those around me. There is a power of influence from the life of Jesus within us that should emanate from us. We will always have our emotions but we do not want to be governed by them. We want the Lord Jesus to govern them, as He rules in our hearts.
Dear Lord, May the Unchanging Life living within me effect those around me, for the extention of the Kingdom and the glory of God.
What can I give our Royal King? My heart.
