Tag: Preparation

Create Ultimate Good

The process continues to this day: wherever Jesus finds a yielded heart, an open mind, willing hands and an unselfish attitude He is able to create ultimate good.

Meditation Thought: “And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed.” (Mark 1:35)

Jesus prepared for every minute of the day’s activities by: 1) seeking God’s wisdom and knowledge and will 2) committing himself to doing God’s works 3) expressing His love to the Father and being reassured of the Father’s love for Him. 4) receiving energy by attaching His spirit to the power of the Holy Spirit.

No wonder Jesus performed miracles! He was filled with all He needed to meet every contingency, and to make every circumstance be a process which created ultimate good. He understood the nature of His Father; He sought to be living as a copy of that nature, and he devoted every part of Himself to enabling all whom He met to also be conformed to that nature.

The process continues to this day: wherever Jesus finds a yielded heart, an open mind, willing hands and an unselfish attitude He is able to create ultimate good.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, I desire to be the person You need: today, tomorrow – and every day of my life. Please help me to change my impulses from selfish to transforming love: to develop insight so great as to automatically think the generous thought, say the kind word, do the loving action – and recognize all the while that this moment is precious and unique, never will it be repeated. Therefore I need to be as pleased with it as possible. The only way to ensure that it is truly pleasing – and will result somewhere in time in another pleasing moment – is to, as had You, have prepared myself for this moment by having spent time in prayer.

Help me, through the Spirit You so lovingly express in me to pray and to live being conformed to the Father’s nature. In your precious Name I pray. Amen,

A Future of Good Return

…the present determines the character of the future.

Meditation Thought: “…if the householder had known in which part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and not let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Matthew 24:43,44)

You must anticipate the future, realizing that the present determines the character of the future. This will give you strength to conduct yourself as you ought, even when the required behavior is not to your liking at the moment. Not all moments will be “sacrificial” moments – in fact, as you come to rejoice in the perceiving and doing of the will of the Father, more and more activities will be joyful, and fewer and fewer perceived as sacrificial. It is this change in perception that is the moving of the kingdom upon the earth. It comes only by discipline and sacrifice of selfish desires – but the rewards of the discipline and sacrifice are as bountiful as the promised “hundred fold” harvest. It is this knowledge which gives you courage to labor for the moment, particularly when the labor is not to your liking.

The times of reaping the harvest – the unfathomable joy of actually having the promised return, will be carried in your memory as your tools to make the labor easier during the “tilling” times.

The more you experience in planting, tilling and harvesting – whatever area (field) it is in, the greater your wisdom and knowledge is to prompt a bountiful harvest.

This is consistent with the rewards of using whatever “talents” are provided int the most productive ways possible, and also the more provided, the more required. Each portion is either multiplied or not, and the more portions the more dramatic the contrast of results. The “Son of man coming at an hour you do not expect” compares to the owner of the fields checking out the status of your care of them. You cannot “set up” a good appearance for the “inspection” because you have no notice of the inspection time. Therefore, care must be constant and inspection will always reveal good care of the field because good care never ceases, when the laborer is as concerned about the harvest as the owner.

IT is the laborer who realizes that the owner will share the harvest with him who is able to be motivated to do a good job. If he is lazy he eventually cheats himself. It is those who will remove concentration from self alone who will know this, and thus use the present to provide a future of good return for themselves.

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