Look at Elijah in James 5:16-18
16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. 17Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
What a powerful example of a man who walked with God and yet had a nature like ours.
This encourages people... Wow look at how awesome Elijah was and all the wonderful things he did and yet he still had a nature like ours. What is the alternative? Perfection. Well, we know that "no one is righteous, no not one." So, I think the emphasis here is not on the fact that "he is just like one of us" as a means to relieve us of some responsibility in godly living, but rather that he was the godly man he was in spite of the fact "that he is just like us." The emphasis isn't to somehow relieve us that we don't have to live up to some crazy characteristics of godliness, but rather that by the power of God in our lives that is exactly what we should be like... totally surrendered to an awesome God, no matter what the cost.
Are we people who:
Dare we to walk in complete surrender to God. Do we dare to risk all to be his disciples? I say there is no other alternative if we are to live at all!
I am challenged by Elijah not relieved. His nature is the same as mine. I have no excuse that can hold any weight. His nature and mine are the same. Are we willing to go out on a limb to be just as radically sold out to Jesus no matter the cost exactly as he calls us to be or do we want to play the game of Christianity thinking that somehow Elijah was just given a little more of God than us, a little better of a nature than mine... But no, let us bend our knees to our awesome God with whom there is absolutely none to compare!
16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. 17Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
What a powerful example of a man who walked with God and yet had a nature like ours.
This encourages people... Wow look at how awesome Elijah was and all the wonderful things he did and yet he still had a nature like ours. What is the alternative? Perfection. Well, we know that "no one is righteous, no not one." So, I think the emphasis here is not on the fact that "he is just like one of us" as a means to relieve us of some responsibility in godly living, but rather that he was the godly man he was in spite of the fact "that he is just like us." The emphasis isn't to somehow relieve us that we don't have to live up to some crazy characteristics of godliness, but rather that by the power of God in our lives that is exactly what we should be like... totally surrendered to an awesome God, no matter what the cost.
Are we people who:
- speak his word regardless of the fact that our life might be on the line,
- never bow the knee to any other God despite the fact that those around us demand we serve anyone other than God,
- trust that God's word is true,
- proclaim God's message knowing that the person of Jesus Christ is complete faithfulness,
- place our complete confidence in our Almighty God.
Dare we to walk in complete surrender to God. Do we dare to risk all to be his disciples? I say there is no other alternative if we are to live at all!
I am challenged by Elijah not relieved. His nature is the same as mine. I have no excuse that can hold any weight. His nature and mine are the same. Are we willing to go out on a limb to be just as radically sold out to Jesus no matter the cost exactly as he calls us to be or do we want to play the game of Christianity thinking that somehow Elijah was just given a little more of God than us, a little better of a nature than mine... But no, let us bend our knees to our awesome God with whom there is absolutely none to compare!
deb... yikes read this yesterday and hoped this wasn't your boarding school, then realized that it couldn't have been since they had shut it down. Had you ever heard of this, or your parents?
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amy
wow... very sad. great grace. great forgiveness. nothing like my experience...
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