More Meditations on Majesty

Jude 24-25

²⁴Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

²⁵To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

I love these verses!

The word that keeps snagging my attention is majesty.

I looked it up in the lexicon to see what it means:

Majesty is the Greek word megalosyne. Megalosyne means “magesty”.

Pretty straight forward.

So, when we pray Jude 24-25 and offer up majesty to God- maybe we should think about this:

God, King of the Universe, adopted us as His heirs.

We have been made His children.

Therefore, we are of the noblesse.

If we are nobility, maybe we need some nobility training.

Here is another scripture (shared by our pastor today) that sheds more light:

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. 1 Peter 2:9 (biblegateway.com)

We are:

Chosen

Royal

Holy

There it is again. Royalty.

We are royalty. A royal person carries him/herself with majesty.

Imagine yourself as majestic. Shoulders back, head up, dignity, bestowing grace and mercy on others.

How lovely.

If we go about majestically bestowing grace and mercy on others, daily we can offer service up to God in thanksgiving for what He has given us.

What a prayer:

Father in Heaven, thank you for making me Your child. Thank you that you made me one of Your Royal Priesthood. The acts of grace You have given me strength to do today, I offer up to you in gratitude.

Prayer for a Clean Mouth

Did your mom ever wash your mouth out with soap? I know I had a few mouthwashes when I was growing up. I learned the hard way not to sass or to use foul language.

Fortunately for us all, God doesn’t resort to bars of soap, but “washes us with the water of his word” (look at Ephesians 5:26).

However, He DOES take words very seriously. Look at what He says about the things our tongues produce:

James 3:3-6

³ We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth. ⁴ And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. ⁵ In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches.

But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire. ⁶ And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself. (New Living Translation, biblegateway.com)

In other words, we can make ALL kinds of trouble with our tongues. Duh. We all know that from experience.

So, here is an idea. Ask God to help bring His cleansing Word over your mouth, over your speech.

Mediate on these verses, (Tillmanized King James Version):

Proverbs 15:2,4

The tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly. The curative tongue is a tree of life.

Try praying this prayer:

“God, please help me guard my tongue. Please cleanse my speech. Help me to use knowledge rightly and have words that bring healing and life.”

Times Jesus Prayed- Part 5

We have been looking at times Scripture recorded Jesus praying. We’ll look again at Luke 22. Here is the story of the night before Jesus’ crucifixion. I can’t tell the story nearly as well as The Message does, so here it is (thanks to Biblegateway.com):

^39-40Leaving there, he went, as he so often did, to Mount Olives. The disciples followed him. When they arrived at the place, he said, “Pray that you don’t give in to temptation.”

^41-44He pulled away from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, remove this cup from me. But please, not what I want. What do you want?” At once an angel from heaven was at his side, strengthening him. He prayed on all the harder. Sweat, wrung from him like drops of blood, poured off his face.

^45-46He got up from prayer, went back to the disciples and found them asleep, drugged by grief. He said, “What business do you have sleeping? Get up. Pray so you won’t give in to temptation.”

We know from other places in the Bible, that Jesus knew the rest of His story. He knew He would die for our sins and that He had a resurrection and return to His Father to look forward to. However, that did not make it one bit easier. How would you like to be tortured, humiliated, crucified and spiritually bear all the sin of mankind? Ugh.

So, what did Jesus do?

He prayed. Not a good religious prayer: “I thank Thee, God, for this great opportunity, etc”.

No, instead, He shared with God that He really didn’t want to do this. But He would do God’s will no matter what. He got some relief from an angel then prayed even harder.

It was honest prayer. Messy prayer. Surrendered prayer. Then he joined his friends who had fallen asleep despite His request that they pray.

Jesus left His disciples with a command right there: Get up. Pray so you won’t give in to temptation.

Have you despised the next thing you had to do: were scared, stressed, agonized? Got anything like that coming up? How has prayer helped?