4-13-08
Imitating Jesus
Knowing God & Loving People Part 3
1 John 2:6b

Summary: The claim to remain in God requires that you walk as Jesus walked. Imitation is more than mere obedience. This is a reassurance when you understand chapter one-type obedience (repentance), but the main purpose is not assurance but obligation. Imitation is crucially important. It is the focus of predestination. We cannot know what Jesus would do until we have a good working knowledge of what Jesus did do. The first five in my list are Submission, Humiliation, Fasting, Growth, and Prayer. Pick one to work on this week.

The claim requires the walk
It is comforting to the believer when you understand ch.1
But the main purpose is not assurance. It is obligation
So WDJD?
1.	Submission (Preferring God’s will)
Loving God = devotion to His will
“Not my will” – conflicting desires (resolve and impulse)
Obey human authorities in order to obey God
2.	Humiliation (Perfecting Power in weakness)
3.	Fasting (Putting away empty ritual)
4.	Growth (Progressing in grace)
5.	Prayer (Planning extended Predetermined Places of Passionate, Persistent, Petitions, Pleas, Praises, and Prayers)
Went places where He could have extended times of prayer
Go to a special place
Conclusion
Devotionals: The God who guides His people
Day 1: It is wonderful to be guided through life
What is wonderful about this attribute:
Experiencing this attribute:
Day 2: The God who guides us personally
What is wonderful about this attribute:
Experiencing this attribute:
Day 3: The God who guides into His own presence
What is wonderful about this attribute:
Experiencing this attribute:
Day 4: His way is better than any other way
What is wonderful about this attribute:
Experiencing this attribute:
Day 5: He teaches us because of our oppressors
What is wonderful about this attribute:
Experiencing this attribute:

1 John 2:3-6 We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. 4 The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to remain in him must walk as He walked.
 
The claim requires the walk
Last week we enjoyed a few appetizers in verses 3-5, now in verse 6 John is going to give us the real meat and potatoes of this section. Brace yourself for a galactically huge statement. 

6 the one who says he remains in Him should walk just as He walked.
Imitation is more than obedience 
So far in verses 3-5 John has been talking about keeping God’s commands. Now he bumps it up a notch. Imitation is more than obedience. You can obey someone without imitating him. You can do everything your boss says and still be nothing like your boss. And that is fine. In most jobs it is not necessary for you to imitate your boss as long as you obey. But Christ calls us to both obey and imitate Him.

1 Peter 2:21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

Hebrews 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus 

1 Corinthians 11:1 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

If your Christianity stops at mere conformity of external behavior to a list of rules, that is not Christianity. The Christian life is a life of Christ-likeness. Jesus’ favorite term for those who followed Him was “disciples.” 

Luke 6:40 A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.

God is concerned not just with what you do, but with what you are. What you do only has significance inasmuch as it is a reflection of what you are. And so the goal of our existence is for your very nature to become more and more like Jesus Christ. The idea is not just to mimic Jesus’ actions but to be transformed into His very nature.
Every so often George Barna does a survey and finds that X percentage of Americans are Christians (based on what they claim to believe), and some small percentage of them live differently from the world. John is very exercised to show us that that is nonsense. When you examine how many are Christians and how many live like it and you come up with two different numbers your method is off.
How is this comforting?
So what are we to make of the statement at the end of v.5 – This is how we know we are in Him? Is this passage about assurance? Is verse 6 supposed to bring me comfort? “Don’t fret about your salvation – you can have full assurance that you are saved. All you have to do is walk like Jesus walked. As long as you live just like Jesus Christ then you can be sure you’re saved.” When I began studying this verse my thought was, That is about as non-comforting and assurance-destroying as a statement could possibly be.

It is comforting to the believer when you understand ch.1
How does this verse reassure us? There are a couple ways to answer that. First, verse 6 is indeed reassuring to the true Christian as long as you understand chapter 1. Remember, at the outset of this book John made it clear that when he talks about obedience or walking in the light, or keeping the commandments or walking like Christ; he is not talking about doing so perfectly. If you claim to do that you are a liar. The point is to have a heart that says, “My greatest desire is to live like Christ..,” and to have affections that see the way Christ lives and love what you see. And to strive with all that is in you to become more like Him and to set that as your highest goal and aspiration. And when you fail – repent! God counts that as walking in the light. When you step off into the darkness you repent and turn back to God. Repenting is not just saying, “I’m sorry God. I’ll try harder next time.” Repenting is returning to God with all your heart and seeking after Him with all your soul. 
So that is my first response to the question of “How is this reassuring?” It is reassuring because if you have as your life goal Christ-likeness, and where you fall short you repent, you can be assured of your salvation.

But the main purpose is not assurance. It is obligation
But the other answer I would give is this – I do not think the main purpose here is assurance. John gave us verse 3 for assurance. But the purpose of verse 6 is to point us not so much to assurance, but to obligation. That word “should” in verse 6 is a very strong word. If you make the claim to be in God, by making that claim you obligate yourself to live like Christ lived. It is a word that communicates inherent obligation. “Inherent” meaning it is an obligation that comes not so much from a specific command, but from the state of affairs itself.
The argument between John and his opponents was not so much whether this or that particular practice was sin or not, but over what our method of discerning good and bad should even be. Where does the “ought” come from in your system? Even more fundamental than what we ought to do is what compels our “ought”. The big question is not so much, “Do you think murder is OK?” but “Why isn’t it OK?” If you walk up to ten people on the street and ask the first question they will all say the same thing. But if you ask the second question you will get a variety of answers, most of which rise out of a system of determining right and wrong that allows them to define anything they really want to do as right. What is the basis for the imperatives in your system? For the Christian the standard is the life of Jesus. 
The importance of imitation 
Our imitation of Christ is a very important matter. It is the goal of the eternal purposes of God in predestination. 

Romans 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

God the Father loves God the Son with infinite love and delight. He loves Jesus that much because of what Jesus is like. And so there is nothing He delights in more than when you are like Christ in some way. In fact, I think it is safe to say there is nothing God delights in at all with regard to the way we live our lives, except that which imitates His Son. But to the degree we do imitate Jesus, the Father’s exuberant joy and delight in us is as extreme as His love for Jesus Himself. 

So WDJD?
So the question for us is very basic – How did Jesus walk? If the bottom line for us is walking as Jesus walked, we need to understand exactly how Jesus walked. It is a good thing to ask WWJD. Of all the fads that have come along, that has got to be the best one. The problem is asking that question does no good if you do not know the answer. We have a whole lot of people running around asking, “What would Jesus do?” who do not have the slightest idea what Jesus would do in a certain situation.
You can never know the answer to WWJD if you do not know the answer to WDJD. You cannot know what Jesus would do until you have a good command of what Jesus did do. Because what Jesus would do today is the exact same things that He did do when He walked this earth. He would make the same kinds of decisions, have the same priorities, and do the same sort of works. 
I said that most people do not know the answer to WWJD, but the sad thing is most of them don’t know that they don’t know. They think WWJD is the easiest question in the world to answer. And they think that because most people have a conception of Jesus as being very much like themselves. For them, asking “What would Jesus do?” is the same as asking, “What do I feel would be best?” But anyone who has ever studied the life of Jesus at all knows that what we naturally think is best and what Jesus tended to do are very often as far from each other as the east is from the west. 

I really wanted to finish v.6 last week so we could move on to the next paragraph today. And we almost made it. We covered everything but the last five words - …”must walk as He walked.” And I thought about just saying a few sentences about how important it is to follow Jesus’ example and then moving on. But then I thought, What in the world good does it do to tell people to walk like Jesus if you don’t give them some idea of how Jesus walked?, so I went through all four gospels and made a list of everything I could find that Jesus did. For me to preach them all I would have to just go verse by verse through all four gospels- which I plan to do someday, but we should probably try to get through 1 John before we do that. So I grouped them all together into about 20 categories. And if 20 is too many for you, all 20 of them are expressions of one thing – love for God. There are about 20 different ways Jesus’ love for the Father was expressed in the way He lived. My goal this morning is to look at the first five. By far the most important of these is the first one, so we’ll take a little extra time on that one.
1.	Submission (Preferring God’s will)
Luke 2 tells us about Jesus’ childhood. In verse 51 we see Him obeying His parents.

Luke 2:51 Then [Jesus] went down to Nazareth with [his parents] and was obedient to them. 

Children – if you claim to be a Christian you must obey your parents – because that is what Jesus did. Jesus not only submitted to His parents, He also submitted to other authorities. He obeyed the wicked, godless civil government – the Jewish government and the Roman government. He paid His taxes, and told His followers to do the same. He did not lead an insurrection or revolution. He obeyed the law.
And the reason Jesus obeyed the government and obeyed His parents was not because He thought they were perfect in their wisdom. The reason He did it is because Jesus had absolute trust in the wisdom of His Father in heaven, and He wanted to do nothing but His Father’s will.

John 8:29 The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.

Jesus never did anything else. He was not interested in anything else. His Father’s will was so delightful to Him, so satisfying to Him, He wanted nothing else. 

John 4:34 "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 

Doing the Father’s will gave Him strength and health and it tasted good to Him and was satisfying to His soul. It is fitting that submission to authority would be the first thing we would see Jesus doing, because that is really the summary of all Jesus did.

John 6:38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.

John 5:30 I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

John 14:31 but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

John 15:10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love

John 17:4 I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.

Hebrews 5:8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience 

Loving God = devotion to His will
You might be thinking, “Wait a minute – first you told us the summary of everything Jesus did was love for God. Now you are saying the summary of everything He did was submission to the will of God. Which is it?” The answer is those two have to go together because if you love God you will desire what He desires. And what He desires is His will.
You see, submitting to authority is all about love. We love God and so we love His will and His desires and His plans and His decisions. So the summary of Jesus’ life was: He loved the Father so much that He treasured His will. And that is why Jesus was so obedient to His parents and to the government – because their authority is given by God, so obeying them = carrying out God’s will.

“Not my will” – conflicting desires (resolve and impulse)
Now, I need to take a few moments to address a problem here. Jesus desired only the Father’s will. Their hearts were perfectly united.

John 10:30 I and the Father are one.

But how do we reconcile that with passages like Luke 22:42?

Luke 22:42 Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done

John 6:38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who 
sent me.

Romans 15:2-3 Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. 3 For even Christ did not please himself

Now that presents us with a bit of a problem. Last week I told you that if your serving God is a drudgery, you are not in the path pointed to by Scripture, because Scripture points us to a path that delights the heart (Psalm 19:8). We all understand from Malachi 3 that we are never to serve God with an attitude that says, “What a burden this is.” We are not to grind out our service to God – we are to desire it and delight in it and love it. So the problem is this – if Jesus delighted in God’s will, then isn’t His will identical to God’s will? If Jesus wanted the same thing that the Father wanted why would He say “not My will but Yours”? Why did He say, “I have not come down from heaven to do My will”? If the will of the Father was the most pleasing thing to Jesus, then why does Romans 15 say Jesus did not please Himself?
The answer is this – Everyone, including Jesus, has conflicting desires. That is part of being a sentient, conscious being. For example, think of what is going on inside you when you make a resolution to start exercising. You say, “I want to start exercising.” But there is another part of you that says, “No – I don’t want to work out.” We will call that first kind of wanting “resolve.” And we will call that second kind of wanting “impulse.” I am resolved to do my pushups at least four days a week. But when I follow the impulses of my flesh I do them zero times a week. I am resolved to get up every morning at 5:15. But when I follow my impulses, 5:15 is the middle of the night. When my kids were little I was resolved to consistently discipline them when they disobeyed. But when I followed my impulses I very often failed to discipline them.
Conflicting desires are not a part of our fallen nature. They are not bad. If the best thing for your child is to be punished when he disobeys, if you love your child you will say, “I am going to punish him because I want what is best for Him.” But if you are a loving parent you are also going to say, “I do not want to do this!” Both of those are desires, and both are good.
When your child is struggling with something really hard, your first impulse is to want to just jump in and help. But sometimes you know it is best to let him struggle until he learns to stand on his own two feet. And so you have conflicting desires – you desire to help and at the same time you desire to let him learn and grow. And when you have conflicting desires, one ranks higher than the others. And the one that ranks highest at the moment of decision is the one you choose. 
Even God has conflicting desires.

Lamentations 3:31-33 men are not cast off by the Lord forever. 32 Though he brings grief (note: it is the Lord who brings grief) he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. 33 For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

Andrew Wommack says God is not sovereign over painful circumstances. But the Bible says very clearly that it is indeed God who brings grief. But if God has compassion on you, why does He bring grief? Does He enjoy doing that? No – verse 33 says He does not “willingly” do it. Literally it says, “For God does not bring affliction from His heart.” He does not like doing it, and yet He chooses to go ahead and do it anyway because it is what is best for you. And He desires to do what is best for you. His impulse is to spare you the pain, but His resolve is to do what is best, and so He goes against the impulse of His heart to do what is in your best interests. He is like a parent disciplining his child and saying, “This hurts me more than it hurts you” and it really does.
The most striking example of this is the death of Jesus on the cross. Did God desire that? Yes and no.

Isaiah 53:10 Yet it pleased the LORD to crush him and cause him to suffer.

We know that God takes no pleasure in sin. He hates sin. And yet He loved what He was accomplishing in the crucifixion of Jesus. And so at the same time He did not desire what was happening and He did desire what was happening. 
This is why the Bible says that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. And yet in other passages it says that God desires just that.

Ezekiel 18:32 For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. 

Deuteronomy 28:63 Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. 

2 Peter 3:9 …The Lord is not willing that any should perish.

1 Samuel 2:25 … [Eli’s] sons did not listen to their father's rebuke, for it was the LORD's will to put them to death.

God’s impulse is to never put a single person to death or send a single person to hell. But His resolve is to do both. At one level God is pleased by everything He does, because everything He does is perfect. But some of those perfect things run counter to the impulses that rise from God’s compassion. And so at the same time God can say, “I am choosing to do this because it is best,” and also say, “I do not enjoy this at all.” 
So, all that is to explain how Jesus could desire only the Father’s will on the one hand, but on the other hand sometimes have to say, “Not my will but Your will.” What He was saying is, “My highest desire is not My own impulses but Your plan.”
So how do we follow Jesus’ example in this? In those instances when there is a conflict between our impulses and what God wants, our highest desire will be what God wants and not our own impulses. 
Is serving God a drudgery? No – it should never be a burden or a drudgery. But does it involve self-denial? Absolutely. Every good thing requires that you say no to some lesser good things. An hour before your big Thanksgiving meal you desire a snack, but you desire to keep your appetite in tact more – so you deny yourself out of a desire for greater joy. The man who finds a treasure in a field has to sell everything he has to get the field, and it is his joy that drives him to give up everything. So self-denial? Yes. Drugery? No.

Obey human authorities in order to obey God
So the reason Jesus submitted to authority was because He loved the Father so much that the Father’s will was supreme in Jesus’ affections. And so when God said, “Children obey your parents,” little 12-year-old Jesus saw that command and said, “Hey, here’s a chance for Me to fulfill the will of my Father in heaven! I can submit to His authority by obeying My parents.” So, children, do you understand why it is so important to obey your parents? Obeying your parents is a matter of obeying God. It does not matter whether you think they are smart or non-smart - we obey to honor God, just like Jesus did. The same goes for us adults – your mom submitting to your dad, your parents submitting to the government or church leaders.
Remember this when you are tempted to resist the authorities in your life. Are you greater than Christ? Are we higher and smarter and more dignified, so that He must obey but we do not have to? Let’s follow His example in loving the will of God above our own impulses. 
2.	Humiliation (Perfecting Power in weakness)
All the rest of the items in this list are nothing but examples of Jesus’ submission to the Father. So let’s take a look at His very first act of obedience. If we are going to follow Jesus’ example we should start right from the very beginning. And the very first thing Jesus ever did as a human being that is recorded in Scripture was to be born. And at first it may not seem like you can learn much from His example there – but there is actually an entire chapter of Scripture devoted to how we should follow His example in that area. You see, the reason Jesus was born is because He decided to set aside His glory in heaven and become a weak, frail, needy, dependent human being. And that act of setting aside His glory and subjecting Himself to weakness is an example for us.

Philippians 2:5-7 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very form God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the very form of a servant, being made in human likeness. 

Notice that first line – Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. His leaving heaven and subjecting Himself to the frailty and weakness of humanness is an example for us to follow.
Jesus did not become a man like Adam and Eve before the fall. When mankind fell into sin and received the effects of the curse everything changed. Now we get sick and injured and all kinds of things go wrong with our bodies. When holy God took on human flesh He took on flesh that was ravaged and spoiled and wrecked and ruined by the effects of sin. Jesus did not recoil from subjecting Himself to the effects of His own curse.
We all want physical strength and health, but if you pray for it and God says no – don’t fret. His grace is sufficient for you. Power is made perfect in weakness. Weakness has a way of creating dependence upon God, which is the greatest treasure you could ever gain. Jesus accomplished His greatest work through His frailty and weakness. If you want to walk like Jesus walked, use your human limitations and physical weaknesses as a platform that becomes the stage upon which the power of God is put on display. 
3.	Fasting (Putting away empty ritual)
That is not to say we need to seek affliction or weakness. Thankfully we can leave that up to God. Although there is one thing that Jesus did and that you can do that is a kind of self-affliction that helps remind you of your dependence upon God. And that is fasting. At the outset of His ministry Jesus fasted 40 days. 
Fasting is never commanded in the New Testament. However it is interesting that all the most godly people in the Bible did it, including Hannah, David, Daniel, Moses, Elijah, Ezra, Barnabas, the Apostle Paul, the rest of the Apostles, John the Baptist, the early Church, and the Lord Jesus Christ. And not only do godly people do it, but God always seems to respond favorably to it. Anna fasted in the Temple and God responded by letting her eyes be among the first to see the Messiah. Jesus fasted at the outset of His public ministry and God gave Him the greatest earthly ministry by far than anyone has ever had. In Acts 13, the Church in Antioch prayed and fasted and out of that came the ministry of a missionary who spread the gospel through the known world and wrote almost a quarter of the New Testament! (Paul) The last instance of fasting in the Bible is when Paul and Barnabas fast over the selection of elders in all the churches. The result of that was that instead of Christianity dying out with the Apostles, it is now a worldwide kingdom that is well on its way to reaching every tongue, tribe, people, and nation.
And yet, fasting seems rare in the New Testament. We only know of one time that Jesus fasted. He did not even fast the night before His crucifixion – instead He had a feast. John’s disciples even questioned Jesus one time about why He did not fast more. (Matthew 9)
My guess as to why Jesus did not fast more, and why He did not command it, is because He lived in a religious culture where fasting existed as a mere ritual. And He was trying to teach the people that fasting as a religious ritual is a thing of the past. He called that an old wineskin that is not appropriate for this age in Matthew 9.
There is, however, a good kind of fasting that is appropriate. And that is the kind that Jesus did in Matthew 4. Here you will see that there is no question what Jesus was doing. He was re-enacting the experience of Israel in the desert. And the reason God allowed Israel to become hungry in the desert was to teach them to depend upon Him- to teach them that man does not live by bread alone but by the Word of God.
So the right kind of fasting is when you go without food in order to humble yourself – to remind yourself of your creatureliness and weakness and neediness and desperate condition, and for all of that to drive you to desperate dependence upon God. The appropriate times for fasting are either 1) in times of sorrow (especially the sorrow of repentance), or 2) in times of seeking something from God that is especially important to you. That is kind of an overview of fasting. If you want a fuller study of the subject of fasting listen to part three of the Walking in Unity series from Ephesians 4. Or you can read the current pastor’s blog.
4.	Growth (Progressing in grace)
Flip back to Luke 2 and let’s take a look at number four.

Luke 2:52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

This is the fourth example we see from Jesus’ life. He made progress - mental progress, physical progress, social progress, and spiritual progress. Jesus was not born into this world with a mature body or a full education or even a full understanding of spiritual things. In His divine nature He knew all things, but in His human nature He had to learn how to crawl and then walk and then talk just like the rest of us. He had to learn how to get along with other people. And learning and memorizing Scripture was no easier for Him than it is for us. Jesus went through the painful, slow, long struggle of growth and learning and making progress over a period of years. He came into this world in weakness, and set an example for us by His progress and growth in every area of life. 
Do not ever imagine that you have ever arrived at some level where you no longer have great need of growth. If you are pretty much the same as you were a year ago that is not a good thing. If you are not making any progress in your besetting sins and the areas where you lack some virtue, then you need to redouble your efforts. Take some drastic measures and step up your fight in this warfare. 
It scares me when I ask someone, “What are you working on in your spiritual life right now?” and they say, “Oh nothing specific. I’m just kind of maintaining.” If you are not right now working intentionally on some very specific area of sin or spiritual weakness, then that means one of two things.: Either you are not even aware of the sins and weaknesses in your life, or you know about them and just do not really care that much. And both of those are disastrous for the Christian life. If Jesus Christ was not above growing and making progress, we certainly are not. If we claim to remain in Him we obligate ourselves to walk as He walked, and walking as He walked means making progress and growing.
5.	Prayer (Planning extended Predetermined Places of Passionate, Persistent, Petitions, Pleas, Praises, and Prayers)
Let’s squeeze in one more - prayer. You cannot watch Jesus’ life very long without seeing Him pray. And He seemed to love every kind of prayer – everything from little sentence prayers to going to a special place and praying all night. He prayed for Himself, for His Disciples, for all believers, for little children who came to Him, for the world, for the people who murdered Him. He prayed about the kingdom of God.
In Matthew 25:11 He burst out in spontaneous praise. 

 Went places where He could have extended times of prayer
Most of us follow His example in praying short little sentence prayers throughout the day, but He also went away for extended times of prayer.

Mark 1:35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.

Luke 5:16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. 

Luke 6:12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.

Luke 9:18 Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, "Who do the crowds say I am?"

Luke 9:28 About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray.

Luke 11:1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciple

Jesus often had extended times of private prayer. Each of those passages tell us that He prayed, but then pull the curtain on His privacy so we do not get to see what it was like. One exception to that is John 18, where we get to be there with Jesus when He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before He was crucified.

Go to a special place 

John 18:2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples.

J.C. Ryle makes an interesting observation here about the fact that Jesus often went to a certain place for prayer. “May we not learn from this verse that there is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing wrong, in loving one place more than another, and choosing one place more than another for communion with God? Even our blessed Lord had one special place … more than other places, to which He often resorted. The common idea of some, that it matters not where or in what place we worship, and that it is unspiritual and wrong to care for one seat in church more than another, can hardly be reconciled with this verse.” So if you have a favorite pew, that is OK. And more importantly, if Jesus could pray better in some places than in others than that is something for us to take note of.
Jesus seemed to like to go up into the mountains. I can very much relate to that. There is no question that I pray best when I am alone in the mountains. A few months ago I went up some back roads in the mountains up by Buena Vista, built myself a fire, took my Bible and another book, and just spent all afternoon and later into the evening alone with God. I talked to Him while I was walking around gathering wood each time the fire died down, or while I was watching the fire, I read, then meditated, then prayed, then sang. I looked around and took in the spectacular mountains and the sky. I watched the sunset. And I can tell you – I love my house in Erie, and I have some wonderful times with the Lord in my study, but never like that. I think I can concentrate more on prayer while staring into a fire than I can with my eyes closed or in any other context. 
It is good to go to a special place to pray – even in your own house. I have a special place set up for daily prayer in my study, where my Bible and some commentaries on Psalms and several good devotionals and the Valley of Vision, and my prayers on the attributes of God are all within arm’s reach. I bought a comfortable chair so I can stay for a long time. And there is a lock on the door so I will not be disturbed. And I cannot pray anywhere in the house as well as I can pray there.
If we are going to walk as Jesus walked, then there should be times when we go away somewhere to pray. We go special places for vacation – why? So we will have a good vacation. How much more important is it to have a really good time of prayer than to have a really good vacation? You can and should pray everywhere, but some places are better than others.
So instead of sitting there right now wrestling with your conscience and racking your brain to come up with some flaw in my logic that would justify going on without following Jesus’ example of prayer, why not just give it a try? Why not make plans to go somewhere special for an extended time of prayer? What is the worst that could happen? If you go away for an afternoon with your Bible and a really good book and a pad and paper to some beautiful place and spend some extended time writing some prayers or a psalm, and it turns out not to be such a great experience, what have you lost? If you are like me you have blown hundreds of afternoons doing a lot worse than that. When you have lunch this afternoon, why not just pull out a calendar and plan a time and place?
And when you do it – do not worry about rattling through some huge long prayer list. The issue is not how many words you say to God; the issue is how much time you spend with Him, and how delightful that time is to you. So just go enjoy being in His presence. 
If you claim to be a Christian, that claim obligates you to walk as Jesus walked. And that means delighting in the will of God above your own impulses, and happily submitting to all the authorities He has placed over you. It means humbling yourself in weakness. It means eliminating all empty rituals from your life, so fasting and everything else you do is a genuine expression of the heart. It means always laboring to grow and progress in the Lord. And it means being devoted to all kinds of prayer.

Conclusion
I want to urge you to pick one of these five to focus your attention on this week. Which of these five needs the most urgent attention in your life right now? Is it submission (Preferring God’s will to your own impulses)? Is it humiliation (Perfecting Power in weakness - accepting your human limitations as a platform for the power of God)? Is it fasting (Putting away empty ritual, so that your fasting is a real humbling of yourself to help with earnestness in prayer or repentance)? Is it growth (Progressing rather than just coasting or sliding backwards)? Or is it prayer (Planning extended times alone with the Lord). Let’s each pick one and make that the focus of our walk with the Lord this week.

Devotionals: The God who guides His people
Day 1: It is wonderful to be guided through life 

Psalm 23:3 he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 

What is wonderful about this attribute:
The Lord leads us through life like a shepherd leading his sheep. The One who knows and commands the future is the one showing us the way to go. The future is pitch black to us. No sheep knows what is over the next ridge. Left to ourselves we would have zero chance of finding the right way. We would wander into quick and certain destruction. But we have a Guide. What blessedness this life is! Why would we ever complain? Why would we grumble about a stone in the path when we have the certainty that the path is the right path? While thousands around us are hopelessly lost and imperiled without any shepherd, we are on the path that leads to His pasture. How could our circumstance be any better? What cause this is for joyful singing and shouts of praise to God! 
The reason God has provided this guidance for us is for the sake of His name. What a travesty it would be if it failed to result in His name being praised. If we shut our mouths and do not praise Him for this blessed guidance through life, and did not speak excitedly and joyfully around other people about it, what a colossal injustice that would be! It would leave little reason for Him to continue to guide us.

Experiencing this attribute:
God guides us not mainly by feelings and impulses, but by teaching us.

Psalm 25:4-5 Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; 5 guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and I wait for you all day long. 

Walking with God is a matter of taking the right path instead of the wrong one, but that is not as simple as it sounds. The right path is not always easy to find, because our flesh so often does not want to find it. And once that path is found it is not easy to follow because sin in us prefers its own path. Walking in His way is so much more than just decision and resolve. It is something that requires that He show us, and teach us, and guide us, and teach us again, and save us. God has to train our hearts to be willing and then to desire and then to prefer His way. He has to train our hearts to see it. Like the trained eye of the hunter can spot game where others see only leaves and branches, so the Lord must train our reluctant, dull eyes to spot a narrow path where others see only dead ends. 
God is so gracious and good and kind and generous and eager to supply all that teaching and guiding and showing and saving. But even though He is eager and willing and able; God does not immediately answer the prayer for guidance. He delays, and we wait. Because of His wonderful purposes and countless good reasons He is pleased to provide guidance and teaching only after we have sought earnestly and wholeheartedly for guidance, and then waited in expectant, joyful, confident hope for as long as the Lord sees fit to delay. His delays help give us the earnestness we need to really pray hard for guidance. 

Whatever Your reasons dear Lord, I am happy to seek and wait. Lord, let my seeking be love in motion and my waiting be love at rest. Let my cry for guidance be fueled by passionate desire, and my waiting strengthened by settled delight in both present and future grace. 

Think: Think of the horrible pits you have avoided only because of your loving and wise Guide in heaven.

Day 2: The God who guides us personally 

Psalm 23:1-3 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 

Psalm 63:8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me. 

What is wonderful about this attribute:
God has not just provided us with a map; He guides us personally. If Scripture were only a map we would surely hold it upside down, misread it, and become lost. God does not merely give us instructions and they leave us to ourselves. As our souls cling to Him and follow hard after Him He reaches back, takes us by the hand, and leads us along like a loving father helping his little child who is stumbling along behind him.
His guidance is personal. And it is individual. He does not just guide us; He guides me. 

Psalm 16:11 You have made known to me the path of life; you fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. 

The almighty, creator God has spoken individually and directly to you! (Not through impulses or promptings, but by opening your eyes to what His Word means, and to what the implications are for your specific situation.) The path of life for you is different than for anyone else. And it involves countless steps. God has shown you each one and continues to do that every moment. He is doing it right now, and will do it all throughout the day today. Even in moments when you are not thinking about Him you can keep taking steps in the direction He has shown you.

Psalm 25:4-5 Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; 5 guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and I wait for you all day long. 

The psalmist appeals to God for guidance on the basis that “You are God my Savior). What an amazing thought, that the Lord of the universe could be said to be my anything. It would be amazing enough if Scripture only said that we can seek these things from God because He is the Savior, or the Refuge, or the Comforter. But He is not just the great God of the universe; He is my God and my Savior. There is a special sense in which He saves you; a unique kind of saving that is tailored just for the specific bundle of needs that you are. God did not merely set up a salvation program, where everyone signs a form and goes through a standardized process. He condescended and became the Savior of this specific person who has the particular weaknesses and past experiences and feelings and moods and strengths and family situation and education, etc. that you have.

Experiencing this attribute:
Take a moment to look back over your shoulder to where you have been the past 10 or 20 or 50 years. You would have never chosen that exact path on your own. You would not have known the key places you needed to be at which times in order to meet the key people God wanted you to meet, and have the experiences you needed to have. That winding, circuitous route you have taken is the product of a guiding Shepherd who takes you all the places you need to go. 
As you encounter all the twists and turns of God’s path for you over this next 24 hours, remember that you are experiencing the outworking of the infinite, perfect mind of YOUR Savior and Guide at every turn! Wherever you are, remember that it is your Guide in heaven who brought you here and who will lead you to the next place.

Think: Everything that happens that affects your path in life is the product of the blessed, guiding hand of God. Which kinds of events (red lights, long lines, car problems, job changes, etc.) do you tend to fail to appreciate God’s guiding hand in? Can you imagine your biggest annoyances turning into real joy if you became more cognizant that those annoyances are actually the movements of the loving, guiding hand of God?

Day 3: The God who guides into His own presence 

Psalm 43:3 Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.

What is wonderful about this attribute:
We normally think of God’s guidance as help from God to know which option to chose when we make decisions. But if you come to a fork in the road and ask your guide, “Which way should I go?” unless your guide already knows the answer he might respond by saying, “It depends – where are you trying to go?” That is a good question for us to ask ourselves when we pray for guidance. Where is it that we want to be guided to? When we face a hard decision and say, “Lord, show me the way I should take,” do we really mean, “Show me which choice would lead to the smoothest, easiest, most pleasant life or to the fewest difficulties?” When we seek guidance, where is the place to which we ought to be seeking to be guided?
For the writer of Psalm 43 the answer was simple; he sought guidance in order to be led into the presence of God. What is important is not that we find a path with fewer difficulties. The only thing that is important is that we find the path leading us into nearness to God. When we pray about a hard decision the cry of our heart should be, “Lord, which job will lead me closer to Your presence?” “Which house will result in my family drawing nearer to Your dwelling place?” “Will marrying this person increase or decrease my ability to find my way into intimacy with You?” (And if either choice leads into the presence of God just as much as the other, then how important could the decision possibly be?)
God’s is the only well that is not dry. What insanity it us when we desire directions to any destination other than His well, which springs forth with water, milk and wine. (Isa.55)
It is His guiding alone that can bring you into His presence. If He withholds His guidance you will wander into a horrible wilderness – a place where you get up in the morning and do not want to spend time with Him. And when you discipline yourself to do it anyway, you will have no sense of His favorable presence and fellowship, and you will come away unmoved by His glory, and unable to see the beauty of it. Your eyes will become fogged over with dullness and inability to understand what is so wonderful about the attributes you are considering. In that wilderness you can be in the midst of the most spectacular, wondrous worship with thousands of exuberant voices and the grandest music and your heart can be pure stone – completely unmoved. In that wilderness you do not meet God in fellowship and so you remain unchanged in your heart. Your pride grows and humility becomes an even more remote virtue. Your love for people vanishes. Zeal for the lost grows cold. And in that state you can scarcely even cry out to Him to bring you out of the wilderness because your heart has become so dull and your prayers so passionless and distracted and shot through with sin that they are ineffective and cause His face to turn away.
That wilderness is not hundreds of miles away. It does not take months of rebellion to get there. You could be there by the end of this day. It is not just a remote desert; it is a deep pit whose edge is always inches away from our feet.

Experiencing this attribute:
The first step in experiencing this attribute of God is to recognize what it is. The attribute is the willingness and eagerness of God to lead you closer to His presence. When you seek guidance it must be His presence that you are seeking. Seeking guidance to some other destination (such as an easy life) will not result in the experience of this attribute. Watch out especially for claiming to seek guidance from God when in reality your prayer is nothing more than a desire for your own plans to succeed or to get around suffering or difficulty. 
Secondly, it is essential that when God does provide guidance that we follow it. If we refuse the guidance He has provided we ought not to expect further guidance. 

Lord, only Your Spirit can use the joint and marrow-dividing Word to sift out the idolatrous motives from the true. I am so prone to self-deceit, dear Lord; my sinful heart can easily fool me into thinking I am seeking You when I am really seeking me. Lord put me on the path that leads to You, no matter what else comes with being on that path, and no matter what it leads me away from. 

Think: Are there things that God has already revealed about how you could have greater access to His presence that you have not followed, or that you have followed only half-heartedly? Could this be preventing God from giving further guidance? 

Day 4: His way is better than any other way 

Psalms 139:24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. 

What is wonderful about this attribute:
How blessed is His eternal way! God is so good that His way is to be desired above any other. Just as anything touching the sun is bright and hot, so anything connected to God is pure and holy and good. And this way is not only connected to Him but it comes forth from His presence and leads into His presence. It is the ancient way and the eternal way. It has never changed nor will it. God has always been in the same place and so the way to Him has always been the same.
Why would we want to take any other path than that of our only Savior? Why walk down the path of destruction? There are times when the tempter convinces us that stepping off God’s path is no big deal. “Spend a few seconds enjoying this sinful thought. Yes, technically it is forbidden, but what harm is it going to do if it is only for a few seconds?” The truth is we do not need to know what harm would be done. We need only to understand that being on His path is far better than being on any other path whether the time frame be seconds or decades. 

No matter where it leads me, Lord, I want to be on it. If it leads me into pain and sorrow and suffering and peril and grief and sickness and death, I want to be on that way. Teach me to love that way, Lord. Teach my heart to see it as precious simply because it is Your way. Let enough faith well up in my heart that I would believe this way to be a delightful way simply because of its connection to You. 
Help me to rejoice today, Lord, in having my hand held by such a God who is so unchanging in His goodness that His way never deviates or changes, and who is so kind that He will guide even one in whose heart is entrenched ruinous, idolatrous ways. Let me feast upon this great banquet of Your glory today Lord. Let me take it in so that it satisfies my soul. When I feel anxiety today, let me think, “Why would I not be completely satisfied with a God who guides me in His eternal way – the way to His very heart?” Let me desire that way more than I desire anything else Lord. And let the knowledge that I am in that way satisfy me more than anything else and appeal to me more than anything else.

Experiencing this attribute:
To experience God’s guidance we should have a posture of looking to Him in eager, joyful expectation of receiving guidance from Him. Too often we fret over the fear that we will not be able to discern His leading. To be afraid of that is to accuse God of being a liar. He has promised to guide us and to take into consideration our weaknesses and limitations (Ps.103:13-14). Why would He place His guidance out of our reach? 

Psalm 73:23-24 I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel 

Any time you are doing what you know the Lord would have you be doing, whether it be preaching the gospel or changing a diaper, remind your soul that you are moving ever closer to God’s presence because you are following His guidance. And let that thrilling thought actually thrill you! 
And when there is a clear choice between God’s path and another path, God is glorified when we not only choose His path, but when deep down in our heart and affections we truly prefer His path. Those times when we are tempted to step off God’s path onto the lustful-glimpse path or the self-pity path or the grudge-nursing path, rather than justifying our detour on the basis of how briefly we intend to stray, let us instead see the clear fork in the road between God’s blessed way and the path of ruin and destruction, and decide not to take any steps down the path of death – even if they are measured in increments less than a second.
No path is taken for no reason. For a way to be taken there must either be an internal bent toward that way, or an external leading in that way. The wrong way through life lies not in life but inside us. The wrong way is something intrinsic to the sinner. It does not just lure our hearts – it is a part of our hearts. But the ancient, everlasting way is not within us. To take that way we need a Guide. We need God to take our hand and lead us along – pulling us from the way that is inside us – that hidden way of idols that needs to be exposed in order to be forsaken.
What a delight to be led by a God who will expose the external bent toward the dead-end way and lead us in the way that has no end!

Think: Which wrong paths have you tended to routinely find yourself preferring to God’s way? Preach to your soul until it is convinced that God’s way is better.

Day 5: He teaches us because of our oppressors 

Psalm 27:11 Teach me your way, O LORD; lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors.

Psalm 5:8 Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness because of the ones watching to harm me - make straight your way before me. 

What is wonderful about this attribute:
In this verse the psalmist asks God for one of the greatest blessings one could request of God: guidance. And his reasoning for why God should grant his request is the fact that he is being oppressed (unfairly treated). God’s guidance comes to us in great measure through His teaching us, and there is much that He teaches only to those who are being treated unfairly. It is a special benefit reserved especially for them, because God has such compassion for those who suffer unfairness. 
Unfair treatment at the hands of others, then, is one of the most precious gifts the Lord gives us because it gives us access to guidance from God that we would otherwise not have access to. When we are in pain, we search the Scriptures and pray more diligently and listen to preaching more intently than when we are not in pain. For example, you might hear a wonderful sermon on how to handle rejection from a loved one, but if you have not experienced that kind of suffering those truths from the sermon may not stick in your memory. The day after receiving divorce papers from the husband you dearly love, however, the truths from that sermon will be a lifeline to you that will be indelibly written on your heart. When we are looking for answers for someone else who is suffering we are sometimes content to give superficial solutions that do not end up proving to be very helpful. But when it is our own suffering, we will not stop searching until we find truths from His Word that really do help us.

Experiencing this attribute:
Whenever you experience some suffering or longing or discouragement or frustration or confusion, realize that those are keys to unlock wonderful truths you could never otherwise find. Make sure you do not squander them. Do not waste your pain. It is a unique opportunity to get a treasure you cannot otherwise get. Whenever you suffer it is crucially important that you find guidance and comfort from God through His Word and through fellowship with Him. If one attempt does not work, try something else, and keep trying until you find comfort and guidance from God. 
One reason why this is so important is because it is what will enable you to help others when they suffer. Have you ever been reluctant to attempt to comfort someone who is suffering because you do not know what to say? Or you were afraid your advice might seem shallow or superficial or the person will simply find it unhelpful? The solution to that is not merely to gain a greater Bible education. The solution is to find comfort from God personally while you are suffering, so you know exactly how to show someone else how to do it.

2 Cor.1:3-4 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 

Sometimes we read that verse and assume that if we suffer we will automatically be able to comfort others who suffer. But that is not true. It only works if, in the midst of your suffering, you succeed in finding comfort and guidance and grace from God. Otherwise your suffering is wasted. 
Another reason why it is important to find comfort and guidance from God in the midst of suffering and difficult circumstances is because doing so glorifies God as the great Comforter and Guide. It magnifies His compassion and wisdom and shows Him to be a wonderful Shepherd.
So when you suffer, seek guidance from God – and wait for it (eagerly anticipate it, and refuse any substitute. When we use the world’s artificial means of deadening pain we short-circuit this process, and we miss the keys to unlock the doors to grace).

Think: When you suffer, what is the worldly anesthetic that you are most tempted to use to deaden the pain rather than waiting on God?