Pastors According To His Heart

LAMPLIGHT

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.(Psalm 119:105 NIV)

DATE:  

Monday ,November 16, 2009

TEXT (Phil. 1:9 - 11)

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.. (NIV)

I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—therighteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bringmuch glory and praise to God. (NLT)

So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.(MSG)

COMMENTARY

Here in Philippians, Paul is praying that the saints would demonstrate the life of Jesus. To achieve that he prays that love will continue to grow in them and will overflow. The fact is that love that does not overflow means very little. It must touch others if it is to have the kind of impact that it is supposed to have.

Secondly he prays that this love would overflow in knowledge and in understanding. This suggests that thereis to be some purpose to loving. It is not merely mushy sentimentalism, but a deliberate display of the grace of God based on a knowledge of who God is and an understanding of what He wants to achieve through us.

Paul prays that the saints would be full of the fruit of their salvation – the righteousness that comes from Jesus Christ. We do not live to achieve a righteousness of our own. Christ gives us that righteousness which He now requires of us to live out.

Something to Meditate on:

Do you think that the Jesus that you are portraying is attractive to others?

Lamplightis produced by PATHH Ministries and is written by Pastor Napoleon Black.

LAMPLIGHT

Yourword is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.(Psalm 119:105 NIV)

DATE:  

Thursday ,November 12, 2009

TEXT (Eph. 3:17 - 19)

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (NIV)

Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long,how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. (NLT)

And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. (MSG)

COMMENTARY

Paul’s prayer rises here to a crescendo, celebrating the unfathomable reach of the love of Jesus.  He prays for the saints that having their feet firmly planted on love, they would experience the magnitude of that love –the love that God has for them.

Love is a word easily used. It slips off the tongue so easily. And yet what the apostle has in mind is more, much more than a superficial notion. He wants God’s people everywhere to understand how magnanimous, how utterly immeasurable the love of God is towards them.

It is a love too intense to fully understand, too awesome to fully know. But it remains immovably true.God loves us and has invested every facility in us that we might know of Hisbreath-taking and amazing love for us. Paul asks  the saints in Rome, ‘ What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Rom. 8:31 - 32)

Something to Meditate on:

The cross remains the defining symbol of God’s unsearchable love.

Lamplight is produced by PATHH Ministries and is written by Pastor Napoleon Black.

LAMPLIGHT

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.(Psalm 119:105 NIV)

DATE:  

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

TEXT (Eph. 3:16- 17)

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your heartsthrough faith. (NIV)

I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with  inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. (NLT)

I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but aglorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door andinvite him in. (MSG)

COMMENTARY

This is the second of Paul’s prayers for the saints in Ephesus.Here he prays for their continued salvation. It is strange that the apostleshould be praying such a prayer for a community already known to be saved.  But he insists on it. He prays that Christ would live in the believers as they opened their hearts to Him.

Or it may be that he was praying for their continued sanctification. He was praying for greater surrender, that places where they had not yet allowed God to control, they would do so, so that they would experience the fullness of the divine presence.

Whatever the intention of the apostle, he is asking that God would strengthen the believers. The fact is, as believers, we cannot live for Christ, our hearts cannot be and will not remain  His home unless God’s Holy Spirit  empowers us with His strength  which empowers our inner being  to become the dwelling place.

Something to Meditate on:

Christ cannot live inside of you unless you make yourself available through faith and unless the Holy Spirit strengthens your resolve.

Lamplightis produced by PATHH Ministries and is written by Pastor Napoleon Black.

LAMPLIGHT

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.(Psalm 119:105 NIV)

DATE:  

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

TEXT (Eph. 1:19 - 20)

 I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’spower for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. (NLT)

And [so that you can know and understand] what is the immeasurable andunlimited and surpassing greatness of His power in and for us who believe, as demonstrated in the working of His mighty strength, Which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His [own] right hand in theheavenly [places], (Amp)

… and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might  which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenlyplaces (NASB)

COMMENTARY

Paul’s third request in this power packed prayer for the saints in Ephesusis that they might  understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe in Him.  He goes on to explain that this same power working in us and available to us is the same power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him in the heavenly realms.

This is nothing short of incredible. The power of resurrection and the power of ascension are available to us who believe! This implies that for us as believers, nothing is impossible. We have the capacity within us to break every power of death  over us by the power of God and to live froma position of  royal sonship as Jesusdoes. Paul says he wants us to understand this.

Resurrection and ascension power reminds us of God’s great and defining work on behalf of us who believe. That great power is available and flows for our benefit that we may truly enjoy life.

Something to Meditate on:

What does the fact that God’s great power used in raising Jesus from the dead is at work in you, mean to you?

Lamplightis produced by PATHH Ministries and is written by Pastor Napoleon Black.