I Thessalonians 5:16-18(NLT)16 Always be joyful. 17 Never stop praying. 18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
Giving God a covenant response to all He is and has provided for us is all God expects of us. But having said that, I must add, that demands all you are! Every human response is brought into question when we contemplate these verses. Our human response to circumstances cannot replace, nor can our human ability stand up to the responses God wants to receive from us. None of us can give this kind of response to God on a continual basis. When we realize this deep within our spirit, we are then on our way to becoming that perfected Bride made ready for her Bridegroom!
Remember we are God's workmanship. It God Who causes us to will and to do of His good pleasure. You are His instrument to use on this earth to do His will. It is not about you, and your abilities, or experiences or failures. It is all about Him! He called you out of darkness. He raised you up to be seated with Him! He has the plan to bring His purpose to completion. The same Spirit that energized His Word of creation to bring universes into being and to bring order out of chaos, now dwells within His people to display His Splendor to a world sinking into the violence of darkness. When the darkness of depression and deceitful manipulation reigns, the joyful trust of God's people will be a shining light.
Contemplate today the subject of joy. Jesus said He gives us His joy. Are you trying to respond with your own will and abilities or are you willing to exchange yours for His? I love the following verses that begin with the word, "let". This shows our response is within our realm of capability. We "let" God bring His Spirit to make us capable. Colossians 3:15-17(NASB) 15Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. 16Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The Courage to Follow
I marvel at the grace of God, the mercy and love exhibited in the gift of God, Jesus, and the longsuffering patience I see in the Holy Spirit dwelling in me. Any contemplation of His Nature brings the eruption of worship! But this walk with God is not for wimps and so God continues His work in all of us to bring us into the likeness of His Nature. Philippians 1:6 (NLT) And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
When the Spirit first revealed the very nature of the Bible is a parable to us, I was humbled by the response of men of the past to the Spirit of God. Their lives were lived in the response that is an example for us. The lessons that God wants us to learn, to enable us to walk in this great day, have all been walked out in the natural realm. God began with the marriage covenant and 2000 years of a family line responding to God. Then He brought His people higher to His covenant with Abraham that opened the door to His dealing with a nation. The covenant in Jesus' blood opened the door to the Church, led by the Holy Spirit. In all of this, we see men walking courageously as they followed His leading.
II Timothy 1:7 (NLT) For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.
Joshua 1:9 (NLT) This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
These two Scriptures show us our response to God for the time in which we live. We face the great spiritual battle of the ages. The Church is to be the spotless, holy and without blemish, prepared as a Bride, creation of the Holy Spirit that welcomes the return of her King. This generation will see the violence of Satan's hatred and the completion of God's purpose. It will take courage and trust as our response.
We cannot live in fear and worry. The Day demands a people of courage. We are responsible for putting away our fears of the future, of lack of money, of lack of buying power, of the fury of the ungodly and what man can do to us. Our response to God's great purpose is to be strong and very courageous. Let Him work His work in us. Be the people of His Army.
When the Spirit first revealed the very nature of the Bible is a parable to us, I was humbled by the response of men of the past to the Spirit of God. Their lives were lived in the response that is an example for us. The lessons that God wants us to learn, to enable us to walk in this great day, have all been walked out in the natural realm. God began with the marriage covenant and 2000 years of a family line responding to God. Then He brought His people higher to His covenant with Abraham that opened the door to His dealing with a nation. The covenant in Jesus' blood opened the door to the Church, led by the Holy Spirit. In all of this, we see men walking courageously as they followed His leading.
II Timothy 1:7 (NLT) For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.
Joshua 1:9 (NLT) This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
These two Scriptures show us our response to God for the time in which we live. We face the great spiritual battle of the ages. The Church is to be the spotless, holy and without blemish, prepared as a Bride, creation of the Holy Spirit that welcomes the return of her King. This generation will see the violence of Satan's hatred and the completion of God's purpose. It will take courage and trust as our response.
We cannot live in fear and worry. The Day demands a people of courage. We are responsible for putting away our fears of the future, of lack of money, of lack of buying power, of the fury of the ungodly and what man can do to us. Our response to God's great purpose is to be strong and very courageous. Let Him work His work in us. Be the people of His Army.
Friday, May 14, 2010
What Measure our Response?
When I began to realize the importance of knowing and understanding covenant commitment, I began to see the importance of our response. I saw in the Scriptures that intermittent response to God mixed with unbelief and withdrawal into human reliance always meant disaster. I also saw it walked out constantly all around me and even within my own self. We rejoice in God's provision for us until circumstances test our trust in that provision. Then we return to reliance on other means found in this realm that are familiar to us. (Israel sought to return to Egypt!)
When Jesus was preparing His disciples for His departure, He began to explain the provision made for them in the New Covenant. God would not leave them, for the ministry of God in the Holy Spirit would take over in teaching and guiding as Jesus had been doing with them. The New Covenant in Jesus' Blood would allow the Holy Spirit to abide in them and lead them in following Jesus. This would not be a "different" way, but an enlargement to them of His command to "Follow Me!"
God now could come into a person to lead that person into keeping His commands with more than actions but with thoughts and emotions and change of nature. God's Nature and Person would be leading from within. The challenge to mankind was no longer external obedience. It had now become the challenge of yielding thought, reactions, and motivations. The coming of the Holy Spirit to abide within an individual became the challenge of that person to allow the Holy Spirit the control to lead to full surrender to God's Nature. Through the trial and error of learning to listen to the Holy Spirit's Voice and surrendering our own reactions and motives, we begin the process of change and the opportunity to follow Jesus into the victory of resurrection. In this process we learn the necessity of focus.
Our response to God's provision will depend on our focus. Are we so focused on our self and dependence on this realm that we cannot hear the Spirit's Voice, or are we focused on following the Spirit's guidance to lead us in Jesus' footsteps? This realm can drown out the quiet voice of the Holy Spirit. Our nature can drown out His voice. Our holding on to anger, revenge, hurts and unforgiveness can cause fatal deafness. The Blood of Jesus opened the door for the Holy Spirit to come to abide in us and only the Blood can cleanse us of those things within us that will cause us to be unable to be led by the Holy Spirit.
Do you want more of God? Do you long for that close intimacy with Him? Do you long to hear His Voice? God has already provided the Way for you to have what you long to see. Your response to His provision will measure what you receive.
When Jesus was preparing His disciples for His departure, He began to explain the provision made for them in the New Covenant. God would not leave them, for the ministry of God in the Holy Spirit would take over in teaching and guiding as Jesus had been doing with them. The New Covenant in Jesus' Blood would allow the Holy Spirit to abide in them and lead them in following Jesus. This would not be a "different" way, but an enlargement to them of His command to "Follow Me!"
God now could come into a person to lead that person into keeping His commands with more than actions but with thoughts and emotions and change of nature. God's Nature and Person would be leading from within. The challenge to mankind was no longer external obedience. It had now become the challenge of yielding thought, reactions, and motivations. The coming of the Holy Spirit to abide within an individual became the challenge of that person to allow the Holy Spirit the control to lead to full surrender to God's Nature. Through the trial and error of learning to listen to the Holy Spirit's Voice and surrendering our own reactions and motives, we begin the process of change and the opportunity to follow Jesus into the victory of resurrection. In this process we learn the necessity of focus.
Our response to God's provision will depend on our focus. Are we so focused on our self and dependence on this realm that we cannot hear the Spirit's Voice, or are we focused on following the Spirit's guidance to lead us in Jesus' footsteps? This realm can drown out the quiet voice of the Holy Spirit. Our nature can drown out His voice. Our holding on to anger, revenge, hurts and unforgiveness can cause fatal deafness. The Blood of Jesus opened the door for the Holy Spirit to come to abide in us and only the Blood can cleanse us of those things within us that will cause us to be unable to be led by the Holy Spirit.
Do you want more of God? Do you long for that close intimacy with Him? Do you long to hear His Voice? God has already provided the Way for you to have what you long to see. Your response to His provision will measure what you receive.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Learning to Follow
Revelation 2:4(ASV) But I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.
The Scripture above has been preached many ways. I heard one preacher say to get back your first love, "do what you were doing when you were first saved. If you made pies for your pastor, make him a pie." It is good advice if we only see the natural and for some, this works, for it motivates them into action. But the Spirit showed me a different slant concerning "first love" (after a very long period of searching for this key). It is our response to knowing we are loved by God. It is surprising how we can lose this realization. We know the words, but Satan has robbed us of the reality of "knowing" this deep in our spirit so that our soul can know the peace of His Love.
Condemnation is the result of not having this peace. John had arrived at this peace of knowing God's Love for him later after he had ministered, suffered and walked out the relationship of love. John's gospel was written late in his life. The Love of God had become his identity--not his ministry, not his calling, not his miraculous deliverance from death, and not his own efforts to walk in close identity with His Lord. God's Love was his only identity. Often he did not use his own name to identify himself. He was so immersed in God's love for him, he could only say, the disciple Jesus loved.
Religious zeal toward perfection is the result of not having this peace. Criticism of others is the result of not having this peace. Stubborn defense of your doctrinal belief is the result of not having this peace. We can be open for the Spirit to teach and lead us deeper in knowledge of Him when we have the peace of knowing we are loved of God.
When you were first born anew in your spirit, how did you see God? Was it not the realization of how much God must love you to send His Son to die for you? The overwhelming realization of the vast love of God is the "ear mark" of the victorious Christian who faces Satan's hatred without identifying with it. We cannot identify with sin's oppression when we have chosen to be identified with His Love.
I John 4:19(ASV) We love, because he first loved us.
You cannot love others with His love unless you use His love to love them. You must not rely on your own ability to love or you will have only a very few people to love. When God's love for you becomes so overwhelming that you do not condemn yourself, you will be quick to forgive the human failure in others. You may never understand how Jesus could suffer so for you, but you will let the Love that drove Him to do so be your life. You will return that love to the One Who loved you. Your love for Him will be the motivation of your life and all the responses to the things you meet in this life will be fired by your awareness of His Love for you. You walk as one deeply loved, made worthy by that love to be loved. You don't expect to be loved because you served or are loveable or are successful and always do the right thing. You know you are, at times, unloveable, oblivious and klutzy. But you have not accepted this as your identity. You walk under the banner of His Love.
Romans 8:32-39 (NLT)32 Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? 33 Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. 34 Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. 35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36 (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. 38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Scripture above has been preached many ways. I heard one preacher say to get back your first love, "do what you were doing when you were first saved. If you made pies for your pastor, make him a pie." It is good advice if we only see the natural and for some, this works, for it motivates them into action. But the Spirit showed me a different slant concerning "first love" (after a very long period of searching for this key). It is our response to knowing we are loved by God. It is surprising how we can lose this realization. We know the words, but Satan has robbed us of the reality of "knowing" this deep in our spirit so that our soul can know the peace of His Love.
Condemnation is the result of not having this peace. John had arrived at this peace of knowing God's Love for him later after he had ministered, suffered and walked out the relationship of love. John's gospel was written late in his life. The Love of God had become his identity--not his ministry, not his calling, not his miraculous deliverance from death, and not his own efforts to walk in close identity with His Lord. God's Love was his only identity. Often he did not use his own name to identify himself. He was so immersed in God's love for him, he could only say, the disciple Jesus loved.
Religious zeal toward perfection is the result of not having this peace. Criticism of others is the result of not having this peace. Stubborn defense of your doctrinal belief is the result of not having this peace. We can be open for the Spirit to teach and lead us deeper in knowledge of Him when we have the peace of knowing we are loved of God.
When you were first born anew in your spirit, how did you see God? Was it not the realization of how much God must love you to send His Son to die for you? The overwhelming realization of the vast love of God is the "ear mark" of the victorious Christian who faces Satan's hatred without identifying with it. We cannot identify with sin's oppression when we have chosen to be identified with His Love.
I John 4:19(ASV) We love, because he first loved us.
You cannot love others with His love unless you use His love to love them. You must not rely on your own ability to love or you will have only a very few people to love. When God's love for you becomes so overwhelming that you do not condemn yourself, you will be quick to forgive the human failure in others. You may never understand how Jesus could suffer so for you, but you will let the Love that drove Him to do so be your life. You will return that love to the One Who loved you. Your love for Him will be the motivation of your life and all the responses to the things you meet in this life will be fired by your awareness of His Love for you. You walk as one deeply loved, made worthy by that love to be loved. You don't expect to be loved because you served or are loveable or are successful and always do the right thing. You know you are, at times, unloveable, oblivious and klutzy. But you have not accepted this as your identity. You walk under the banner of His Love.
Romans 8:32-39 (NLT)32 Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? 33 Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. 34 Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. 35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36 (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. 38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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