Wheels of Glory! Blog

Restoration – VOTD.06.26.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | June 26th, 2018 | by

Then Jesus asked him again, “Peter, son of John, do you have great affection for me—more than these?” Peter was saddened by being asked the third time and said, “My Lord, you know everything. You know that I burn with love for you!” John 21:17

You probably know the story… Jesus had been crucified, buried, and now had risen from the dead. Jesus’ trial had not been Peter’s finest hour. In the Upper Room, before Jesus’ arrest, Peter had made the grandiose statement of his commitment to Jesus: “Even if everyone else abandons you, you can count on me.” That hadn’t worked out so well.

In fact, reading of the post crucifixion gospels accounts, Peter isn’t mentioned all that much until John 21. When someone falls we tend to toss them under the bus and that seems to be going on with the other 10 disciples. In fact, Peter seems to have tossed himself under the bus. He says, “I’m going fishing,” and the others say, “We’ll go with you.”

Now we find Peter, Andrew, James & John—not out for a relaxing evening of rod & reel sports fishing, but literally back in their former employment, laboring through the back-breaking toil of nets and boats. After agonizing through a night of fishing with no fish to show for it, they recast their nets at the word of a stranger on shore, and then realized they were in the presence of Jesus. Soon they were enjoying the fellowship and nourishment of their Lord provided on shore.

Where did the boat and nets come from? There were no boat liveries where weekend sports fisherman could rent a dinghy and maybe some gear to do a little fishing. It’s most likely, Peter (who instigated this fishing excursion), still owned a boat or two and the nets to carry out his former employment. When he said, “I’m going fishing,” he had the equipment to carry out his plan—and enough for the others, as well. (more…)

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Glory – VOTD.06.25.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | June 25th, 2018 | by Wheels of Glory

And [the seraphim] called out to one another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory. Isaiah 6:3

It is interesting to think that heaven cries out about the glory of the Lord on earth. Not just that His glory would cover the earth – future tense – but in the present tense, that the earth is full, now, with the glory of the Lord. We can define the glory of the Lord as “the magnificence and great beauty of the Lord; the heavenly splendor and bliss of the Lord… the evidence of God, Himself.”

In a way, the seraphim’s call is a response to the cry of the psalmist, “Blessed be the Lord God… who alone works wonders. Praise be his glorious name forever; And may the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen!” (Psalm 72:19)

If we think about the fact that there was a minimum of 220 years between when David penned Psalm 72 and the vision of Isaiah, that’s more than 200 years where people were singing that song – crying out to God to fill the earth with His glory.

Even before David, God promised His glory – “As I live, all the earth will be filled with the Glory of the Lord” (Numbers 14:21). That was more than 400 years before David would write Psalm 72.

And so there was a promise, a repeated cry for fulfillment, and then a vision of its reality.

The seraphim’s words were more than just a nice saying – they were a fulfillment of a promise given more than 600 years before, the answer to a worshipful prayer that had been prayed for more than 200 years.

Today we can see the evidence of the glory of God – in the natural world, in our times with God, in our daily lives – the manifestation of the glory of the Lord covering the earth. We are living in the reality of what God promised, what David prayed for, what the priests and people after him prayed for, what Isaiah heard had become a reality.

Wheels of Glory! Blog

Hope – VOTD.06.19.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | June 19th, 2018 | by

“Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” Revelation 4:1

I’ve spent the past few weeks hiking… climbing mountains, enjoying magnificent views. How much more clearly we are able to see our surroundings when we’re standing on top of a mountain instead of hanging out in a valley. Metaphorically, God wants us to come up higher to where He is, so we can more fully see things the way He does.

Sometimes we feel discouraged or even let down by God. Many times, we can’t see the full picture of what God is doing in our lives because we aren’t able to see things from His perspective.

It’s easy to focus our attention downward at what’s wrong with our situations and circumstances. There’s nothing wrong with considering what’s going on around us, but if we’re not looking upward, we won’t have God’s perspective… seeing things the way He does.

“I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” (Ps 121:1,2)

Many of us are still living in the narrative of our past or trying to deal with our present struggles out of the perspective of our past storylines. God sees us in our painful situations, and He will not leave us alone. He hasn’t dropped us. God is for us. And if God is for us, who can be against us (Rom 8:31)?

After repeated losses, it’s easy to give up hope…to simply not want to continue hoping, only to be disappointed again. When that happens we need to intentionally choose to live each day with gratitude and joy. That puts us in a position to receive new things from the Lord…to walk in His plans of hope and a future (Jer 29:11)

Focusing on our loss keeps us so distracted that we can actually miss the blessings God is trying to release to us. (more…)

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Press On – VOTD.06.18.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | June 18th, 2018 | by

So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. 1 Corinthians 9:26

There’s a difference between acknowledging a doctrine that says that God is All-Powerful and living a victorious Christian life that expresses and demonstrates how All-Powerful God really is. In the same way, there’s a difference between running on a treadmill and going nowhere and running in a race to win the prize (Phil 3:14). Paul tells us in today’s verse to, “Run in such a way that you may win”.

The implication here is that we can run in such a way as to not win…we can go through the motions. We can ‘just get it over with’. Or we can run to win.

There’s a story of a man who approached a laborer who was laying bricks and asked him, “What are you doing?”
The laborer said, “Can’t you see I’m laying bricks?”
The man then walked over to another bricklayer and asked, “What are you doing?” And the workman answered, “I’m building a cathedral.” 

Both were physically doing the same thing, but the first laborer was occupied with the present task, and the other was concerned with the ultimate goal. I’m told that this is a true story. But as I look around me it’s easy to identify people serving God who resemble both of the workers.  It’s easy to become encumbered by the urgent, entangled in the web of our own faithlessness. (more…)

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Rejoice Without Ceasing – VOTD.06.12.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | June 12th, 2018 | by

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

I’ve looked at many writings on the subject of prayer and considered what I’ve learned in many books on prayer and those teachings seem to mainly fall into two categories: guilt-producing reasons we should pray (the stick) and stories and testimonies of the incredible answers to prayer that people got when they disciplined themselves to pray on a regular basis (the carrot).

I’m afraid that many teachers on prayer have turned prayer into anything but a delight. But these same teachers have turned our communion with Jesus into a duty and the Christian life into drudgery. They don’t seem to have much God-filled joy to share.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m certain that one of the things that drives me to pray is the consistent answers I’ve gotten. And as for discipline, I can choose to make room in my life to pray, but I can’t choose to ‘pray without ceasing’. That has to be something that God does in me when my heart is continually going back to Him.

The problem with the stick and carrot approaches is that they make our relationship with Jesus sterile… they ‘incline our hearts’ to self-discipline and that has some pretty dampening effects on love and communion with Him. Instead, the psalmist asks God to ‘incline my heart to your ways’ (Ps 119:36). I believe that is why Paul ties ‘rejoicing without ceasing’ and ‘praying without ceasing’ together in today’s verses.

This same tie is made in Psalm 1’s description of the person who is blessed of God: ‘His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His Word he meditates day and night’. (more…)

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Big God People Live by Faith Not Fear – VOTD.06.11.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | June 11th, 2018 | by

You have forsaken your first love. Revelation 2:4

As I try to wet people’s appetites for deeper levels of passion and relationship with Jesus, I encounter many Christians who are afraid of drawing closer to God–even among Christians who are quite knowledgeable in the Bible.

They usually come with the same concern: “But doesn’t pursuing a deeper experience with God open us up to doctrinal error?” The answer that concerns us in this meditation is: ‘How big is your God’? If we are ever going to reach out and be touched by God we’re going to have to believe in a God who is big enough to keep us safe in our pursuit of more of Him.

Doctrinally speaking, we all know that God is all-powerful–He’s stronger than the devil. But if you talk with many Christians who say they believe that, practically speaking, their devil is bigger than their God. Some, because of their fear of error, have not only shied away from seeking an experience with God for themselves, they’ve actively discouraged other Christians from pursuing God. 

After all, history shows us many deceived groups who based their beliefs on experiences even though it was in conflict with clear statements in the Bible. Under the guidance of such attitudes, fear becomes our teacher and walking by fear instead of by faith, we ironically end up equally in conflict with clear statements in the Bible that tell us to pursue God. Is this deception any less dangerous? (more…)

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Free to Delight in Him – VOTD.06.05.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | June 5th, 2018 | by

How precious is Your loving kindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house, And You give them drink from the river of Your delight. Psalms 36:7-8

When we’re full of ourselves, full of other things, other programs and events and people, it’s hard to ‘be still and know that I am God’ (Ps 46:10). And sometimes our lives are like that—where the best we do is carve out time to spend in meditating on what God is saying and communing with Him. Sometimes it’s hard to turn our eyes, our focus, our attention, from the things of this life and spend time gazing on Jesus. 

But this isn’t abundant life…this is what Jesus set us free from when He came. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me TO PROCLAIM FREEDOM for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, TO SET THE OPPRESSED FREE, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:16-19)

The “thing from which you derive the most pleasure is the very thing you worship. For some people it is Prozac, or the NFL… It could be a wicked or a mundane thing. But ask yourself: where do you find the most irresistible pleasure? That is what you worship.

“We must worship and serve God for one reason alone: because we can’t help ourselves. We are entranced. God is that delightful to us.

“Worship is basically adoration, and we adore only what delights us. There is no such thing as sad adoration or unhappy praise. We have a name for those who try to praise when they have no pleasure in the object. We call them hypocrites.”–John Piper (more…)

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The Life of Grace – VOTD.06.04.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | June 4th, 2018 | by

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8,9

Every true Christian knows that he or she has been born into the family of God by God’s grace alone . . . through faith in Jesus. That truth has been the motivation behind evangelism crusades, social work, and personal witnessing across the centuries. We are sinners. We cannot do a single thing to save ourselves from our deserved punishment of eternal death in hell. 

That’s the way of salvation in a nutshell: You and I are saved by God’s grace alone. We receive God’s grace by reaching out and accepting it by faith (which God will give us according to today’s verses). When this happens, there’s a lens change even for the most socially acceptable of us. What we don’t often see is that such a lens shift is the first of many.

Christians don’t have much trouble agreeing that Salvation is completely and entirely a work of God’s grace. However, the Scriptures teach us that Grace does not end on the day that we reach out and receive God’s gift of Jesus. That is only the beginning work of God’s grace. His grace is instrumental in our continued growth and our daily living. The same grace that God offers to save you and me is the grace that God offers to transform our lives into something that Jesus called, “abundant life” (Jn 10:10). (more…)