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 Prayer is not meant
to change God’s mind, but to change us and align our thinking with God’s.
When we begin our prayer with praise, we take the focus off of ourselves
and put it on God. When we pray for God’s will to be done, we take
the focus off our desires and put it on God’s desires for our lives.
Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as
it is in heaven.” For those who recite what we’ve come to know
as the Lord’s Prayer on a regular basis, it is very important that we
never take those words for granted or treat them like a doxology to a
commonplace prayer. It is the cornerstone, the focus, and the ultimate
purpose of prayer.
Jesus, Himself, prayed for God’s will to be done. In the Garden of
Gethsemane, just before his arrest, Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are
willing, take this cup from me.” His prayer was so intense,
capillaries burst and droplets of blood trickled down his forehead. And
yet, as much as He would have welcomed redemption in a way other than the
cross, Jesus prayed, “yet, not my will but yours be done.”
(Luke 22:42)
I am so thankful that God has not answered each of my requests with a
“yes.” My life would be much different than it is today –
and I don’t mean for the better. How thankful I am for my Heavenly
Father Who knows what’s best for me! He has plans that are “above
and beyond all that we ask or think.” (Ephesians 3:20) And in order
to hear God speak through prayer, we must allow ourselves to think beyond
our limited knowledge, to see beyond our limited vision, and to believe
beyond our limited understanding.
Prayer turns our focus toward God and allows Him to rearrange our
priorities. It is more than unloading our burdens and enumerating our
desires. Prayer sets our agenda. Did you ever notice that Jesus
didn’t set His agenda and then ask God to bless it? No! He did only
what the Father told Him to do. He “had to go” to Samaria, to
the next town, and to Zaccheus’ home for dinner. He also had to delay
his journey to see his ailing friend, Lazarus until he had been dead for
three days.
Prayer is more than telling God what we want. It is asking God what He
wants and then following His lead.
Here is your copy of firstIMPRESSIONS,
Volume 8.23. Live for God, on purpose, seeking
His will, and then obeying His Word.
 Accept
No Substitutes!
Imitations. Knock-offs. Copies. Replicas. They are all around us!
Instead of sugar, you reach for a pink, blue or yellow packet! Instead of
diamonds, you can get cubic zirconia! When cooking, instead of the
expensive vanilla extract, you get the bottle artificial vanilla flavoring.
These days, especially with the easy shopping of the internet, you can
easily find copies and substitutes for anything you can think of. Often
these copies are cheaper imitations of the real thing. And, unfortunately,
people have often been cheated when they thought they were purchasing
“the real thing” and later find out they have nothing but a
worthless copy.
This concept isn’t limited to material goods! For far too many
people, their faith walk has been deceptively overtaken as they are only
all too willing to accept cheap knock-offs for a real, genuine relationship
with our Lord Jesus Christ. There is an all-too-common thinking in modern
systems of belief that has exchanged the truth of God for the lies off this
day.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 that his message and his preaching
”...were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration
of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on
men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.”
We cannot afford to allow our faith to be built upon the wisdom of men,
but rather upon the power of God! Be sure to join us this Sunday here at
WFA as we examine many of the fallacies of today’s popular religion,
and learn to “Accept No Substitutes” for genuine Biblical
Christianity!
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 So
Beautiful... So Dead
by Ron Hutchcraft
Flowers are always special. They just seem even more special in the
winter. A lady who works in my end of our ministry offices had some flowers
on her desk. I stopped by to pick up some work, and there I saw these
beautiful flowers in a vase. That’s pretty significant. After all,
how many times do the words “man” and “notice” ever
go together in the same sentence, right? I actually noticed a few more
times as I hustled down the hall past her door. Then I actually put on the
brakes for a moment and I stuck my head in to smell the flowers on her
desk. It wasn’t worth the stop. No smell. They’re fake!
Those flowers can sure fool you. They look so real, but they have no
life. Just like so many folks who look like they really belong to Jesus
Christ, but there’s no life there. Jesus warned us about this fatal
difference in His story about God’s Kingdom being like a wheat field
where wheat grows right next to another grass that looks just like wheat.
Jesus said no man can tell which is the real wheat until harvest time, or
Judgment Day. Then the “wheat” will be gathered into heaven and
the wheat lookalike will be burned.
In another place, Jesus describes people who will come before Him on
Judgment Day, talking all the right Christian words and beliefs and
activities. But He’ll tell them, “I never knew you.”
That’s frightening stuff. You can see why the Bible says in 2
Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the
faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you
– unless, of course, you fail the test?” The time to realize
that you know about Jesus but you don’t know Him is now, not when
you’re standing before Him, because then it’s too late.
Just like those artificial flowers that are so beautiful but so dead,
it’s so easy to look like someone who belongs to Jesus but not really
know Him. Especially if you’ve been around Jesus most of your life.
You know the words. You believe the beliefs. You try to do the right
things. You go to the right meetings. You give to the right things. And,
quite possibly, everyone around you assumes you belong to Him except Jesus.
And He’s the only one who matters. That “examine
yourself” verse says to make sure “Christ Jesus is in
you.” A lot of people have Jesus around them, but not in them because
there’s never been a time when they consciously and personally really
opened up their life to Him. He can be in your head, but not in your heart.
Which means you will miss heaven by eighteen inches. That’s how far
it is from your head to your heart. And God says, “It is with the
heart man believes and is saved” (Romans 10:9).
One night I went into a church not married. The woman I wanted to marry came
down the aisle. We stood in front of the minister. We walked out together,
but I left still not married. It was the rehearsal. The next night, same
woman, same man, same minister, same aisle, but this time I walked out
married. The first night I was just going through the motions. The second
night I committed my life to her. Maybe you’ve been going through all
the motions of knowing Jesus. But somewhere, you’ve missed the step
of saying, “Jesus, I know what you did on that cross was for me. And
you’re my only hope. Beginning right here, beginning right now, I am
Yours!” That’s when you commit yourself to Him.
If you know you’ve done that, you really do belong to Him. If you
don’t know you’ve done that, you probably haven’t. But that
could change this very day. And what a relief, what a difference
there’s going to be when you are His for real. I want to encourage
you to begin a relationship with Jesus Christ so you can be sure you belong
to Him. There’s no more going through the motions, because this can
be your personal Jesus-day!
Copyright © 2008, Ron Hutchcraft. Reprinted with
permission. “A Word With You” is a radio outreach of Ron
Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc.
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 The
Word of the Concertmaster
Second only to the conductor in importance in an orchestra is the
concertmaster, sometimes referred to as the first chair violinist. He sets
the standard for the other string players in two regards: bowing and pitch.
Before a performance, he decides which bow strokes will be used and
annotates his music as such, from which copies are made for the others. And
pitch: the concertmaster usually gets an A note from the oboist, and then
plays that note as the standard to which the other strings tune their
instruments.
Life is full of standards: weights, measures, time, color, and others.
Think of what chaos would ensue if standards didn’t exist! There is a
standard when it comes to truth as well. Jesus said it best, referring to
God’s Word: “Your word is truth” (John 17:17). And the
psalmist declared God’s Word to be “settled in heaven.”
Because God’s Word is eternal and “settled,” the standard
never changes. It remains the “pitch” to which our instruments
must be tuned.
If your life feels a bit off-pitch at present, check and see if you are
tuned to the pitch of the Concertmaster as revealed in His Word. All truth
is God’s truth, and the Bible is the standard by which it is
measured.
from Dr. David Jeremiah’s “Today’s Turning
Point” daily devotional. www.TurningPointOnline.org
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 The
Power of God
by Alan Smith
The story is told of a hospital’s Intensive Care ward where
patients always died in the same bed, on Sunday morning, at about 11 a.m.,
regardless of their medical condition. This puzzled the doctors and some
even thought that it had something to do with the supernatural. No one
could solve the mystery... as to why the deaths occurred around 11 a.m. on
Sundays.
So a world-wide team of experts was assembled to investigate the cause
of the incidents. The next Sunday morning, a few minutes before 11 a.m.,
all doctors and nurses nervously wait outside the ward to see for
themselves, what the terrible phenomenon was all about. Some were holding
wooden crosses, prayer books and other holy objects to ward off the evil
spirits.
Just when the clock struck 11... Pookie Johnson, the part-time Sunday
sweeper, entered the ward and unplugged the life support system so that he
could use the vacuum cleaner.
The story isn’t true (despite what you may have heard to the
contrary). But the principle is an important one — where there is no
power, the results can be deadly.
I am reminded of what Jesus said to the Sadducees when they came to him
asking a question about the resurrection. They asked the question —
involving a convoluted situation with a man who married seven women who all
died — because they hoped to demonstrate to Jesus that there could
not possibly be a resurrection from the dead.
Jesus response was this: “"You are mistaken, not knowing the
Scriptures nor the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29).
Any time we deny (or limit) the power of God — denying what He can
do if He wants to — we find ourselves on dangerous ground. The New
Testament is filled with passages which emphasize God’s power. There
is power in the gospel (Rom. 1:16), power in the message of the cross (I
Cor. 1:18), and power in the resurrection of Christ (I Cor. 6:14).
If you’re noticing that others are spiritually dying around you
(or maybe even that you yourself are dying), maybe it’s time to check
the “power source.” Are you connected to the One through whom
our power comes?
May you be filled with a knowledge of “the exceeding greatness of
His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty
power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated
Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,” (Eph. 1:19-20).
Don’t underestimate (or unplug yourself from) the great power of our
God!
This article by Alan Smith, Senior Pastor of the Helen
Street Church of Christ in Fayetteville, North Carolina. You can visit his
site at http://www.TFTD-online.com
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 The
Devil’s Beatitudes
If the Devil were to write his Beatitudes, they would probably go
something like this:
Blessed are those who are too tired, too busy, too distracted to spend
an hour once a week with their fellow Christians in Church – they are
my best workers.
Blessed are those Christians who wait to be asked and expect to be
thanked – I can use them.
Blessed are the touchy, with a bit of luck they may stop going to church
– they are my missionaries.
Blessed are those who are very religious but get on everyone’s
nerves – they are mine forever.
Blessed are the troublemakers ~ they shall be called my children.
Blessed are those who have no time to pray – they are easy prey
for me.
Blessed are the gossipers – for they are my secret agents.
Blessed are those critical of church leadership – for they shall
inherit a place with me in my fate.
Blessed are the complainers – I’m all ears for them.
Blessed are you when you read this and think it is about other people
and not yourself – I’ve got you.
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 Moses
at the Bat
In the Big Inning...
by Hyman Baras
While baseball is generally considered a “modern” sport,
there are references in the Bible that could lead one to deduce that, in
fact, there were Giants in those days as well:
And Abner said to Joab, “Let the young men...arise and play before
us” (2 Samuel 2:14)
...[and] all the people rose up... (Exodus 33:8)
And Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the recorder; and Sheva was
scribe... (2 Samuel 20:24-25)
And they said unto Jephthah, “Come and be our [Captain]”
(Judges 11:6)
...and he measured two lines... (2 Samuel 8:2)
And he set the bases... (1 Kings 7:39)
And they stood every man in his place round about the camp (Judges 7:21)
...behold, Rebekah came forth with her pitcher... (Genesis 24:45)
Ehud...the Benjamite, a man left-handed ... (Judges 3:15)
...the children of Israel ...said “Who shall go up for us
first...?” (Judges 20:18)
...seek out a man who is a skillful player... (1 Samuel 16:16)
...Judah [shall go up] first... (Judges 20:18)
[And] Judah took... (Judges 1:18)
Three times... (Exodus 23:14)
...and...it was good. (Genesis 1:10)
...and Abram went down... (Genesis 12:10)
...out at the base... (Leviticus 4:18)
And Moses...smote... (Exodus 7:20)
...and... [it] became foul... (Exodus 7:21)
And Moses went out... (Numbers 11:24)
...and none came in. (Joshua 6:1)
And there was not a man left... (Joshua 8:17)
And Miriam was shut out... (Numbers 12:15)
And the children of Benjamin went out... (Judges 20:31)
...and went into the field ... (Numbers 22:23)
And...Aaron waved... (Leviticus 9:21)
And he looked this way and that way... (Exodus 2:12)
...and [he] delivered up... (Numbers 21:3)
...and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand... (Joshua 8:19)
...and they fell on their faces to the ground... (Judges 13:20)
Get thee up; wherefore now art thou fallen upon thy face? (Joshua 7:10)
...for it was an error... (Numbers 15:25)
...second and third... (Genesis 6:16)
And Joseph [spoke]... (Genesis 45:3)
...concerning the error which he committed... (Leviticus 5:18)
...make [an] atonement for thyself... (Leviticus 9:7)
Thou shalt fan them... (Isaiah 41:16)
Then Joseph commanded to fill their...sack[s]... (Genesis 42:25)
and...all the people saw it [and] they shouted... (Leviticus 9:24)
“Who can stand before the [Giants]?” (Deuteronomy 9:2)
and...Aaron waved... (Leviticus 9:21)
...and pitched on the other side... (Numbers 21:13)
...and suffered not a man to pass... (Judges 3:28)
...but...the seventh... (Exodus 31:15)
Gideon...smote... (Judges 8:11)
...Israel...at...first... (Jeremiah 33:7)
And Noah went in... (Genesis 7:7)
And there ran a young man ... (Numbers 11:27)
...he turned and went back... (Judges 18:26)
...unto the base... (Numbers 8:4)
...Noah walked... (Genesis 6:9)
Let us go and sacrifice... (Exodus 5:8)
And Moses lifted up his hand and smote... with his rod... (Numbers
20:11)
...the...hide... (Leviticus 20:4)
...a long blast... (Joshua 6:5)
...[outside] the camp... (Judges 7:17)
...[for] an ‘omer... (Exodus 16:36)
And the men of Israel and of Judah arose, and shouted... (1 Samuel 17:52)
as seen in the Smithsonian magazine, June 2008. Hyman S. Baras, a
baseball fan and religious scholar, died in 2003. His son Larry Baras
granted permission to reprint this essay, which first appeared on the
Israel Baseball League Web site.
back to top
 The
Last Impression
On Sunday, the new young pastor arrived at church and found only an old
farmer had shown up.
After waiting a while, the disappointed the pastor remarked to the old
farmer, “Well, it appears no one else is coming, so we should
probably cancel service today”
The farmer, dressed in his Sunday best, looked at the young preacher and
said, “Well pastor, I don’t know much ‘bout preachin',
but I do know something bout farmin’ and if I went out in the field
and found only one cow, I’d still feed ‘em”
This excited the young preacher who preached for the next 45 minutes a
fierce fire and brimstone sermon. Afterwards the pastor asked the old
farmer what he thought.
The old farmer remarked, “Well pastor, I don’t know much
bout preachin', but I do know somethin’ ‘bout farmin’ and
if I went out in the field and found only one cow, I wouldn’t give
‘em the whole bale.”
 What a tremendous joy and
privilege it is to pastor WILMINGTON first assembly of
God! But, interestingly, most of the subscribers to firstIMPRESSIONS are not members of WFA, and live quite a
distance from Wilmington, Delaware. I want to extend a special “thank
you” to each one of you for welcoming me into your
“inbox” every week! As always, please feel free to forward your
issue to your friends.
I regularly receive email from folks around the world who tell me that
week’s issue had something just special for them! One brother writes
to say that he uses the articles in firstIMPRESSIONS in
his ministry outreach in a local prison. Recently at a ministers’
meeting, I was introduced to someone I had never met, and they looked at me
and said “Your that guy that does those emails, aren’t
you?!” I just laughed. But, he thanked me, and told me how he
regularly uses the illustrations in his sermons.
For those subscribers who are part of our ministry here at WFA, I will
look forward to seeing you this Sunday! And for everyone else, if you
happen to be travelling down I95 sometime this summer, stop by and say
hello! It will be our privilege to meet you face to face!
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