Tag Archives: Righteousness

Devotional Series, Holy Habitation

Holy Habitation: Living Continually Seated at God’s Feet ~ Day 6

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“When the people heard this sad word, they went into mourning, and none of them put on his ornaments. For the Lord had said to Moses, ‘Say to the sons of Israel, “You are an obstinate people; should I go up in your midst for one moment, I would destroy you. Now therefore, put off your ornaments from you, that I may know what I shall do with you.”’ So the sons of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward” ~ Exodus 33:4-6.

Longing for the Lord this morning as I lift each difficult thing to Him who is the answer for each one, I long for His glory. In that longing, I turn to Exodus 33 anew and begin reading from verse one. There I see the removing of the ornaments that signify the repentance of the people who became discontented with God and His way, leading to their using their ornaments to create a god of their choosing.

Discontent produces every kind of covetousness in us, leading us to diverse fruits of sin’s seed. Discontent that leads us away from longing after God produces in us every kind of unrest. Longing for God and His presence, seeing Him as the answer in all things, leads us to cry out as Moses did, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people!’ But You Yourself have not let me know whom You will send with me. Moreover, You have said, ‘I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight.’ Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people” ~ Exodus 33:12-14, AMP.

Recognizing one’s first and foremost need to be a real and true relationship with Father-God, totally dependent upon Him, is the only way to remove the ornaments of sin.

God promised to send His angel with the people in His stead and that He would give the Promised Land to the people through the angel. This still required trust in God to fulfill His promise, but it removed personal relationship. Moses knew that was not good enough. He knew their one true need was God. Only He was big enough to tend to the need of the people and make them stand out as belonging to this God he served. So he cried out, “Tell me that You will go with us, and not another. I need You! And this people needs You.” To which God responded, “My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.”

The Presence of God with all His manifest glory is rest that delivers from discontent, fear, uncertainty, hopelessness, helplessness, and a slew of other tiring maladies ~ THE PRESENCE. When unrest, fear, anxiety, and uncertainty come, beloved, who or what do you seek?

“Seek the Lord and His strength; Seek His face continually, longing to be in His presence” ~ 1 Chronicles 16:11, AMP.

“We should be able to perceive that the crucifixion of self is going on and that the opposite most desirable grace, that of humble dependence and universal submission to Christ is increasing” (Sarah Hawkes)

(See also Isaiah 55:6; Hosea 10:12; Amos 5:6; Zephaniah 2:3)

Devotional Series, Holy Habitation

Holy Habitation: Living Continually Seated at God’s Feet ~ Day 4

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“…Moses returned to the camp, but his minister Joshua son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the [temporary prayer] tent.” ~ Exodus 33:11, AMP.

Moses grew a relationship with God that others feared to possess. He drew near to God, overcoming the fear of the flesh to develop a friendship with God. Most others feared God in ways that caused them to avoid coming too close to His tent, crying out, “Don’t speak to us. Let Moses do the talking.”

Not so for Joshua, the son of Nun. Exodus 33:11 tells us that Joshua, wanting that relationship for himself, stayed in the tent of meeting with God, seeking Him on his own.

Joshua’s desire for relationship made him unafraid to draw near and hear.

When I look at Joshua’s relation to Moses, I see him as one who took on himself the charge of ministry to Moses. Moses was his hero of faith. Following close to him, Joshua wanted to be a man of faith and obedience like Moses. Thus, when Moses left the presence, Joshua stayed behind to seek this God for himself.

Through Joshua, we have a picture of the heart God desires for us. God does not mean for us to live vicariously through others, feeding off their faith and their progress or victories. God desires we feed on Him to grow in personal relationship with Him and to become His instrument for a life of victory.

Because of Joshua’s heart toward God, God gave him his heart’s desire. Therefore, we have the book of Joshua that tells the glory God worked through him as he continued to seek personal relationship with God. Receiving His instruction and living in Holy Habitation with Him, Joshua found his desire fully met. Today, God wants us to have this same faith, not only hearing His call to those like Joshua, but receiving our own through personal relationship with God.

Devotional Series, Holy Habitation

Holy Habitation: Living Continually Seated at God’s Feet ~ Day 2

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“Where there is no vision, the people perish…” ~ Proverbs 29:18.

The Amplified version of this passage explains “vision” as “the redemptive revelation of God”. Without ability to recognize God and His work in our midst, we fall away. That is what happened to Israel during Moses’ 40 days on the mountain.

I am greatly inspired by such patriarchs of faith as Moses, the friend of God. Exodus 33 contains my favorite visual example of his relationship with God. However, that chapter comes on the heels of the fall of Israel. What happened to cause these people to deny the true God and make for themselves a graven image even after personally experiencing the miracles of God?

Setting Moses in God’s place, they failed to discover personal relationship with the Real.

God created us physical beings with senses that greatly help our lives. We do best with what we can see, hear, smell, and touch. When we cannot physically see, hear, smell, and touch something…well…“out of sight, out of mind”…“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Up until the moment of their fall, the people looked to Moses as the expression of God they could comprehend and follow. In his absence, unsure if he still lived, they lost their moral compass because of their distorted vision, so they made a god that made sense to their senses.

Like Israel, we struggle to follow God because we cannot touch Him with our physical senses. The solution? We must seek first the Lord to enliven our spiritual senses. Like Elisha, we must pray for God to open our eyes to see His realm (2 Kings 6:17).

Father, my heart is helped when I personally see Your movement and discern Your voice. I often smell the essence of rose when You draw near, and my skin tingles with Your touch. Knowledge of Your presence touching my spiritual senses in ways that influence my physical comprehension helps my faith and keeps my feet on the firm foundation of Your reality. In Jesus, I pray vision for Your people, O God, so each may know Your reality and follow You.

Body of Christ, Overcomers, who I am in Christ

It Is Time To Grow Up

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“And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?” ~ 1 Corinthians 3:1-3.

The theme of the thoughts God is giving of late to encourage those who read these blogs is focusing us on what we need to realize and walk out in these days we are living. More and more, people are watching the sky to the East, expecting Jesus’ soon return, wondering how bad things will get and how much tribulation will touch our lives before He arrives.

In our wait, life in this world grows ever more difficult for the child of God. Like Job, whose righteous heart-felt tormented by the evil of his day, it is difficult to see the ungodliness rising up all around us. The struggle we have in our own lives and the struggle we see in the lives of loved ones tempts our hearts to worry and fretting, robbing of faith to believe and trust God in all things. In our passage today, God reminds me that it is vitally important for us to seek the Lord for spiritual growth and maturity, so we have the wisdom needed to weather the storms that are coming our way.

HUG (2)Beloved, how often are you in the word of God, seeking Him for understanding, allowing Him to transform you by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:1-3)? The symptoms Paul saw in the church in Corinth reveals their immaturity through the “jealousy and strife” they were walking out into life. When we seek the Lord for understanding of Him and His ways, He changes our way of thinking, drawing us to understand His purpose and plan, granting us realization of our unity with Him and our part in His work. When we focus on God, His will, way, purpose and priorities, we understand that we are one in Christ, each having our part, all of which works together to fulfill God’s plan. There is no need of jealousy and strife when we are one in Christ, with mind set on the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of the Father (Colossians 3:1-17, AMP).

It is vital in this day, Beloved, that we grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ (Ephesians 4:9-16). Galatians 4:1 tells us that, as children, we are not much better off than slaves until we grow up to full maturity. We are owners with Christ of everything, our inheritance as the children of God, but we cannot possess all we have available to us or use it wisely and rightly until we grow up into Him who is the head.

Beloved, if you are still a child in your understanding of the things of God because of lack of time in His word, seek Him for Jesus-Bride009understanding so that He may transform you into His image, granting you understanding through your possession of the mind of Christ in your way of thinking and being. It is time to grow up! The days ahead are troubled-waters. Our only hope to weather these storms is through understanding of God, His ways, His purposes, His plans and priorities.

~*~

“Sound the alarm! The enemy descends like an eagle on the people of the Lord, for they have broken my covenant and revolted against my law” ~ Hosea 8:1, NLT.

“But if the watchman sees the enemy coming and doesn’t sound the alarm to warn the people, he is responsible for their captivity. They will die in their sins, but I will hold the watchman responsible for their deaths” ~ Ezekiel 33:6, NLT.

Exact Representation, Sanctification, who I am in Christ

Mirror Image

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“We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” ~ 2 Corinthians 3:18.

Beloved, if we are believers of God through The Savior, we are God’s image bearers in Christ Jesus. When God looks at us in the Spirit realm of the eternal, in the gracious provision of Christ, He sees us as He designed and desires we be. That fact is awesome to me: that God sees the image of Christ in me that I will bear eternally while the Spirit works to transform me, making my earthly existence bear that image in the life I now live.

Transformation is our physical person taking on the image that is already ours in the eternal through Jesus. In these days in which we live, it is vital that we realize the image we bear and walk it out in our daily, moment-by-moment, breath-by-breath life. For that to happen, we must realize the advice given us by James.

“…if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does” ~ James 1:19-25.

God’s word teaches us of Himself and His ways. When we look intently at His Word in the power and leading of His Spirit, we come to know our God. We also come to know our eternal selves in Christ through knowing, believing, and living this same word out into our days.

I know I will hear many “Amen” voices from those who have the experience of Paul in Romans 7. Paul’s account of the struggle between the Spirit man in us and the flesh that jumps up like a headless chicken to bring struggle to our walk of righteousness is a picture of this “forgetting what we look like” analogy in James. It is so frustrating to receive an awesome word of instruction from 088the Lord, stand in agreement with Him that this truth is righteousness, determine to walk it, then go into the day to fall away, forgetting the truth we know only minutes later. So frustrating!

Thankfully, God is patient toward us, not wishing any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. It is vital in these days that we not give up on ourselves in utter frustration, but keep working to see our salvation express itself through the image of God in us made increasingly clear as we press on toward the goal. Get up; dust off; take another look in that mirror as many times as needed through the day and keep walking forward until the image sticks.

Ask God to focus your heart and mind on one aspect of His nature that He wants you to focus your heart to possess in this day. Ask Him for one scripture to carry through this day as reminder of who you are in Christ. Begin today to take an active role in holding to the image in the mirror of God’s presence, perfection, and refining parameters. Thank God that He who is faithful to complete His good work and word in you.

Godly Principles, Kingdom Living, Opportunity

Seeds of Glory

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“Come, let us return to the Lord. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before Him. So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth. …Also, O Judah, there is a harvest appointed for you, when I restore the fortunes of My people” ~ Hosea 6:1-3, 11.

God returns to His people like the long awaited spring rains that promise new life for the earth when we turn from our darkness to seek after Him anew with wholehearted desire. He is the treasure possessed in the resurrection of His people to new life with Him.

This promise is true, no matter how late the season of our life, or that of the history of humankind. It is His people that God responds to, whether in response to our sin that invites the hand of the Father to discipline us out of His loving desire for our good, or that of the heart of the Father’s loving response to our seeking after Him with sincere desire to know Him. It is His people who seek after, trust in and rely on God as Lord that elicits His response.

Trouble comes in this life. That is an assurance Jesus warned us to expect (John 16:33). We are in the world, which falls to the dictates of fleshly desires, worldly ideology, and demonic influence. Those of the world do not believe God, seek Him, trust Him or rely on Him. As such, these vehemently oppose God, thus producing trouble in this life.

The trouble produced increases when the people who seek God forget God and fall away to the flesh, the world, and the demonic. God often uses trouble in this life to discipline a wayward child. That is what is happening with the people of God in the book of Hosea, yet God promises a return to Him that will find the reward of the fortunes of the spring rains.

What does God promise will come with that fortune? A harvest.

Beloved, God uses times of trouble, whether brought on by our own sin, or the touch of trouble found by our living in a world that opposes God and His will and way. Often, trouble in life allows us to experience the greatness of God and His grace toward His creation.

Trouble always brings opportunity. Sometimes that opportunity is to realize some way we have that opposes God so we can surrender to Him. Other times the opportunity is that of ministering to others in the midst of the trouble. Always, trouble presents opportunity to respond to God by choosing life over death, determining in our hearts that we will serve the Lord, as Joshua advises (Joshua 24:15). There is one more thing produced out of trouble:

Trouble in this life produces in us a harvest. As we learn more about God in seasons of hardship, it produces seeds of Spirit-fruittruth and righteousness in us, giving us a testimony to share with others. Winter seasons can be difficult, but even the winter has a purpose. It is in the winter that a tree rests from its work of produce, able to devote its time to growing deeper roots that allow for a greater harvest season. It is in the winter season that seeds mature in preparation to burst forth with new life. As we come into the spring of life, we share the things we learned during our season of growing deeper roots into our understanding of life with God. Through that, we reap a harvest of souls, inspiring others to know God.

In our days, as we travel this road in a very troubled world, experiencing the winter seasons of life that that trouble brings, there is a spring coming especially to this late hour in history. Come out of troubling times into the fortune found in God. That fortune provides us all we need to help others grow to know the Lord.

Beloved, don’t waste the times of trouble. Cooperate with God to allow trouble’s winter to deepen your roots into Him as God and to prepare your seeds for harvest. Understanding God and the good intended by God will produce its treasure trove within you. There you will find all you need to reap a Kingdom harvest that glorifies the Lord.

Godly Principles, Sanctified life

Speak as a Disciple

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“The Lord God has given Me the tongue of a disciple and of one who is taught, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He wakens Me morning by morning, He wakens My ear to hear as a disciple [as one who is taught]” (Isaiah 50:4, AMP).

When I pray having this verse of scripture in heart, I pray, “Speak, O God. Your daughter is listening. Grant me ears to hear as a disciple so I may speak as a disciple.” Today, as I pray that oft desired heart, thought comes regarding the word spoken about Peter when he denied Jesus three times. Standing around that campfire, warming himself, watching to see what would happen with Jesus, people ask him if he is one of those who run with Jesus. One person there says, “Surely you too are one of them; for even the way you talk gives you away” (Matthew 26:73). Peter’s accent and speech told the story of his heritage.

People who spend time with Jesus, seeking Him as a disciple, desiring to learn of and know Him as a child of the Living God, these hear Him and the things they hear effect the way they talk. Their speech is cleaner, refusing to dishonor God through cursing. They are not bitter, filled with anger, wrath, malice, and slander. They do not use smooth and flattering speech meant to gain approval, being deceptive or manipulative. Nor is their speech abusive, killing the soul and destroying destinies.

Instead, they talk with hope for the future and gratitude for the present. They are bold in speaking truth, showing careWords04 for the listener’s eternity and their here-and-now relationship with Holy God. They are uplifting, having words filled with grace, as though seasoned with salt, knowing how to respond to each person, able to “speak a word in season to him who is weary,” imparting discerning wisdom with truth and love.

Beloved, when standing in a crowd, does your way of talking give you away as being different, as being a disciple of Christ? Does your speech make it clear to others that you have been with Jesus that day as a faithful follower, His Kingdom representative? Do people tag along with you because of the inspiration flowing through your mouth and lifestyle?

Speak, O God. Your child is listening. Grant me ears to hear as a disciple so I may speak as a disciple.

Godly Principles, Godly Promotion

The Heart-Song of Godly Promotion: Intent on One Purpose

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“…Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose…” ~ Philippians 1:18-2:8.

Intent on one purpose, what should that be?

As I consider that question, I know my heart’s cry is to be like Jesus, who sought the Father and His purpose in all things, desiring the Father’s glory above all. My determined purpose cries out with Paul’s heart to know God intimately, being as one with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Philippians 3:8-11, AMP). The only way I see to godly promotion is found in unity with God and His purposes, which are not always easy or convenient, pleasant or desirable to the flesh.

According to this mandate from Paul, standing firm in this fellowship of the Spirit, we find unity of faith that whole-heartedly loves God and one another. That mutual, wholehearted love and unity of purpose makes one willing to deny oneself for the cause of Christ in loving God and others as Jesus exemplified through the power and leading of the Spirit of God.

With like-mindedness, having the same love one for the other, our unity comes in realizing that each of our purpose is to glorify God as God while helping one another to progress forward with joy in this faith, standing firm in it. Having this unity of heart with understanding of this love and humility exemplified in Christ, the only pride of our confidence found within is Christ and Him crucified: we boast in none else. Trusting His sacrifice, we live our lives with the realization of our need of Him, alive within us, uniting us as one in love of God. If you have ever met only briefly another person, and instantly known this unity of the Spirit with him or her, you know what I am talking about.

I read an inspirational quote recently that I cannot seem to find again, but the premise of it rolls around in my head a lot of late. Essentially, it said that in knowing who we are with realization of our purpose, our life choices would follow that path. Knowing who we are as believers of God in Christ does not only mean a realization of our fleshly being. It requires us to know who we are as God sees us, coming to realize His design and purpose in our being in this life at this time. When we know ourselves as God knows us and we know Him in ever-growing intimacy, that understanding dictates our priorities, empowering us to reach our desired end.

As we surrender ourselves fully to God, dying to our own interests that are dictated by our flesh-being trying to resurrect itself, Promotion03having God’s purpose and priorities as our directive, we possess His heart for our own lives and for those in it with us. This mindset and this fellowship of the Spirit remove all distinctions between us. Always desiring God’s best plan for each individual, we no longer compete against each other. This desire removes all jealousy, each of us living for the other as people, living to please God alone. In so doing, we inspire one another to higher ground on our journey to a humility that leads surely to the exaltation that comes from God.

Each of us surrendering to be one with the Father through Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit, finding His purpose for our own lives and trusting His purpose for those among us, we come into unity together in the fellowship of His Spirit. In this unity, jealousy that covets what another person has that we admire dies, for our focus is on God and His glory through our being all and only as He is, just as He created us to be. In this unity, the victories we each possess in life bring rejoicing to all, as our hearts bow to the glory of God found in each individual rather than in the exaltation of self.

Jesus set the example as He left the comforts of heaven to come to the cross for our benefit. He set the example through His desire for God’s priorities, purposes, and plans over that of His own or any other person’s desire for Him. Knowing and trusting God’s will made Jesus bold to stand firm in faith and to choose the path ahead in life (John 4:34; 5:20, 30, 43; 6:38; Luke 4:14-30; John 6:1-15). The King of kings set the example as He stepped into the lowliest of jobs saved for the least of the household slaves during that last supper with His beloveds (John 13:1-20). Taking towel and basin to wash their filthy feet, spending precious time in intimate communion with each individual one of them, He instructed us to do for one another as He just did for each of them.

Godly promotion comes to those who fully discover and understand humility that bows to God alone, taking a backseat to others out of faith in God who sees the heart of our surrendered-humiliation. One of the greatest things we can do is to deny self, even stepping into the lowliest of positions for the benefit of others who need the touch of God through us to the glory of God and the good of His Kingdom. Meeting the needs of others as God leads should be our only competition.

Beloved, sometimes bowing to God can mean being humble enough to allow another to wash our filthy feet, just as Peter learned while his Lord bowed to wash his. God knows our heart. He knows who needs the humility of serving others for a while and who needs that of being the one served. Both positions require surrender to God’s will and way, the emptying of ourselves through self-denial, and humility to submit. Following Jesus in surrendered service to God as both one who serves and one who receives the benefit of service is the pathway to promotion in God’s Kingdom.

hardest road

“So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor” ~ 1 Peter 5:6, NLT (see verse 1-11, noting especially verses 4-5 and 10).

“Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal” ~ John 6:27.

“Yes, furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege, the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ, and that I may actually be found and known as in Him, not having any self-achieved righteousness that can be called my own, based on my obedience to the Law’s demands (ritualistic uprightness and supposed right standing with God thus acquired), but possessing that genuine righteousness which comes through faith in Christ, the truly right standing with God, which comes from God by saving faith….” ~ Philippians 3:8-11, AMP.

“If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself” ~ John 7:17.

Godly Principles, Godly Promotion

The Heart-Song of Godly Promotion: Humility of Mind

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“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped” ~ Philippians 2:4-6.

Humility of mind is vital to one’s ability to empty oneself and obey God at all cost. By implication, I see that failing to humble self before God stems from the prideful desire to be God. It sets our desire over His, failing to surrender to His right over us as Creator-God, Savior, Lord, and King. Humility is a major issue in the human condition, being difficult for us to truly achieve apart from the work of the Spirit of God within us: leastwise, that is my experience. Even in times of appearing most humble, there is too often a self-centered motive involved:

False humility says, “If I allow them to lead (humility to consider the interests of others as more important), perhaps they will like me (self-centered motive).”

God-centered humility says, “I must allow them to lead (humility to consider the interests of others as more important), because that is God’s will in this situation (God-centered motive).”

False humility says, “I must surrender to their ideal (humility to consider the interests of others as more important), because I want the managerial position opening up (self-centered motive).”

God-centered humility says, “I must surrender to their ideal (humility to consider the interests of others as more important), because I appreciate God giving me this job and I serve in this position, doing my best as unto the Lord (God-centered motive).”

True humility of mind forgets self, thinking only of God. It asks, “What is God’s heart desire? What is His will and way in this particular situation?” Note in our focal passage that, though humility “regards the interests of others as more important” than one’s own interests, that practice does not rule out times of one’s own interests taking precedence, as it says, “do not MERELY look out for your own interests.” This tells me that true humility of mind allows God to inspire a right system of prioritizing, so we know when to meet the need or desire of others, and when it is important to follow our own heart desire.

Following the lead of the Spirit to know the will and purpose and pleasure of God is the key to true humility. This humility before God is the ingredient that enables a wife to know when it is important to give self to a friend for the day despite the dishes in need of attention, and when it is important to remain faithful to the duties of homemaking so the needs of the family are met. Humility that allows God to be God is the practice that helps us to discern when our mate’s or child’s need for our undivided attention trumps our desire to read or to watch a favorite TV program, or when our physical need of destressing takes priority so we can have a right attitude toward meeting their need. Our humility is toward God, and that humility has a vital purpose in life:

“Do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: ‘He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us’? But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, ‘God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you” ~ James 4:5-10.

Promotion03The Spirit of God empowers true humility; therefore, God is jealous to find His Spirit active and effective within us. The benefits of this humility toward God that surrenders quickly and completely to the leading of His Spirit, allowing Him to be God in our lives, include:

  • The Spirit of God increased and effective in our lives.
  • Increased work of God’s grace in our lives.
  • Automatic resistance and victory over the devil / demonic / evil.
  • Greater nearness to God, increased experience of relationship with Him.
  • Deliverance from habits and acts of sin.
  • Singleness of mind, settled on eternal purpose, having one heart with God.
  • Possession of God’s heart: rejoicing in the things that cause God’s heart to rejoice; weeping over that which brings Him to tears.
  • Exaltation / promotion by God as part of the royal court of God’s Kingdom.

Humility before God removes the joy that our sin once brought – sin being anything that goes against Him as Lord and His desire and purpose for our lives. With this heart toward God, we grow to desire the experience of God in every area of life. Anything that pushes away from Him brings remorse and bitter weeping. Growing to love God more than any other selfish desire produces ever-increasing love and desire for more of Him. When we reach this point in our love relationship with God, we grow stronger in our ability to obey at all cost, desiring that nothing come between our God and us. Beloved, as the day of evil increases in the world, it is vital that we develop this humility so our love of God protects us.

~*~

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. …The person who has My commands and keeps them is the one who really loves Me; and whoever really loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I too will love him and will show (reveal, manifest) Myself to him. I will let Myself be clearly seen by him and make Myself real to him” ~ John 14:15, 21, AMP.  (See also John 3:36; 1 Peter 4:17; 1 John 2:3-5 and Romans 6-8)

Godly Principles, Godly Promotion

The Heart-Song of Godly Promotion: The Reason

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“For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” ~ Philippians 2:9-11.

On our journey to discover the pathway to godly promotion, the words, “this reason,” beacon us to discern the reason mentioned for Christ’s promotion to the Name above all. Finding the answer and discovering the pathway to our own promotion requires we go backward in the passage from here. Doing so, first we look at the example of Christ that is the reason for His promotion.

“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” ~ 2:5-8.

Jesus had it all. He was in the Eternal, the Omnipotent, Omnipresent God, with full authority as God. He chose to leave the Eternal, coming into the limits of a flesh being so-as-to set the example and live the life that led to sacrifice for the eternal hope of all humankind. That journey led Him back to the eternal for all time, imparting to Him as Christ, the Son of God and man, the Name above every name as King of kings and Lord of lords. Simultaneous with Jesus’ promotion, God imparted to us the Way to Truth and Life Eternal in Christ.

Jesus began where He wanted to be, came willingly to where we are, then returned to the throne that was His all along, making a path for us to follow. Christ’s example points us to two things necessary for godly promotion:

  1. The emptying of self.
  2. The humbling of self to the point of obedience.

Jesus left His high position, emptying Himself of all He had and was, to come on our behalf as Christ, Savior and King. He calls we who are in this Beloved union through Christ to the same. “Emptying self” is the call of Christ found in Luke 9:23:

“And He was saying to them all, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me’” ~ NASB.

We must do as Jesus did, denying self-interest in order to take up the cross of self-denial as exemplified in Christ. The Amplified version of this verse tells us that to deny oneself means to disown oneself by losing sight of self-interest and concern, laying down one’s own interests, to refuse and give up self-centered purposes. Denying oneself takes up God’s purpose, plan, will, and way as one’s own.

Then the Amplified Bible explains that we take up our cross as we follow Jesus, cleaving steadfastly to Him, conforming wholly to His example “in living and, if need be, in dying also.” To empty self is the mindset expressed by Paul in Galatians 2:20:

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

The Persona of Pre-Jesus, described in our Philippians passage as One existing in the form of God, willingly chose to relinquish who He was and all He had in order to walk in human flesh as the promised Messiah—fully man, while rightly God. We follow His example by emptying self of our flesh man to take up His likeness in Spirit and in Truth. Emptying oneself lays down the person we think we are and desire to be in order to discover the person He destined us to be. It lays down our individual, selfish want and any claim on one’s own life in order to take up Jesus, give Him full reign, and allow Him to complete His work on earth through us. In so doing, we become the body of Christ. This is the humbling of self before Him to the point of obedience at any cost.

Promotion03God “WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation” ~ Romans 2:6-8.

Godly promotion requires dying to self-interest, humbling self to obey God, trusting Him to be God, lifting us up and taking us to higher ground in His way and on His timetable. He knows what our promotion in life looks like and what it will take on our part for us to get there. Note that Jesus received a type of promotion through a degree of renown in the earth that led to thousands following to see what he would do next. However, even the closest of His followers scattered and denied Him when He was taken into custody and only a little over 100 followers of Christ remained in that upper room after He bore His cross. The true promotion of Christ came to Him as He took His seat at the right hand of the Father in the Eternal.

We too readily work for a promotion we can see here and now, failing to focus on the treasure of Heaven. If our promotion is not what we expect, bringing hardship and challenge to us as it did to Jesus, Paul, and others of Bible times, we too readily fall away and quit working for the things of God. The heart of Jesus often hurt over those who turned away, but He did not view His success from a worldview. He saw with eternal eyes and trusted the will and way of God. God’s idea of promotion and prosperity is not worldly, but eternal.

Jesus set the example to show us the way to godly promotion through emptying of self and living humbly as servant of God, trusting all to Him. Next post we look at what God expects of us who would receive promotion.

~*~

 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” ~ Matthew 6:19-21 (see 1 Corinthians 3:10-15).

“If then you have been raised with Christ to a new life, thus sharing His resurrection from the dead, aim at and seek the rich, eternal treasures that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. And set your minds and keep them set on what is above, the higher things, not on the things that are on the earth” ~ Colossians 3:1-2, AMP.

Godly Principles, Godly Promotion

The Heart-Song of Godly Promotion: Realizing Opportunity

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“I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death” ~ Philippians 1:19-20.

The Apostle Paul was, and still is, a big man in Christendom. He is the example of one who follows hard the example found in Christ, taking every opportunity to glorify the Lord, “whether by life or by death.” As we begin our study to find the heart-song of godly promotion, what better place to begin than with Paul. Promoted by God as the best-known apostle of Jesus Christ, his road to fame was full of opportunity, but not of ease.

Paul wrote 2/3s of what biblical scholars deemed worthy books to include in the New Testament portion of the most published historic chronicle of our day. The Holy Bible is the go to authority for those desiring to follow Christ Jesus as Lord; and Paul was the number one, exemplary leader in teaching the way of following Jesus.

Because of his heart for God, Paul was highly promoted by God, but not in the way that we too readily tend to look for it. Paul often wrote from a jail cell or while in chains as a prisoner awaiting trial. He often relied on financial supply from those supporting his work and never, to our knowledge, had great, earthly wealth. Not much of a promotion in this worlds standard of measure, is it? Yet even here, in this letter written during one of those imprisonments, we hear his heart as he speaks of seeing the place he was in as an opportunity to accomplish God’s purpose and plan. Later in Philippians, Paul writes of learning the secret of being content. The secret he professes is that of seeing every situation in life as opportunity to trust in, rely upon, and glorify the Lord as his source of strength and supply (Philippians 4).

Paul was so successful as a follower of Christ, taking every opportunity to bear witness of Him, that people were jealous of his success as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We see that in his testimony in chapter 1:12-15.

“Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else, and that most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from good will.”

Others, seeing Paul’s example of faith in God despite circumstance, received inspiration to take every opportunity to share their own testimony of faith in God through Christ. Paul tells us that some preached Christ out of envy, hoping to cause trouble for him, but that did not bother him as long as Christ received glory in their sharing (1:16-18). These preaching out of envy are a picture for us of those who desire promotion with an ungodly mindset. They do not have as their greatest desire the promotion of the cause of Christ. Instead, their greatest desire is to achieve the prestige they see in others. These may have made a name for themselves in the earth; we don’t know for sure as they are not named, but these are an example to us of promotion sought after from a wrong mindset and heart-song. These desire prestige for self rather than the furtherance of Christ.

On this journey we walk in Christ, our promotion may not look like a good thing when viewed from a world viewpoint. Promotion as the people of God’s Kingdom, stationed in this world as ambassadors of Christ, God’s Holy Priesthood, truly effects our Kingdom position and eternal reward. Promotion from God’s viewpoint requires that we recognize every opportunity to take a step up for the glory of God, even when it may lead to our own momentary discomfort. The promoted and successful in Christ follow God and His will, accomplishing Kingdom purpose at all cost, knowing He is our supply, being content where we are, with faith that God is working His plan in and through our lives.

Each step toward higher ground with God only goes up when taken with a right and true heart attitude. Success on the Promotion03journey requires we have a mind set to please God alone with a right heart attitude, so we successfully participate in His fulfilling eternal, Kingdom purpose.

Next post we begin the journey of discovering the reasons for Christ’s promotion and the instruction God gives us who are the called, equipped by Him to come up higher as His Kingdom representatives.

~*~

“Behold, I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves; be wary and wise as serpents, and be innocent (harmless, guileless, and without falsity) as doves” ~ AMP.

Light

In the Light ~ Step by Step

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“Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life’” ~ John 8:12, NASB.

Each year God gives me a focal scripture to meditate on and grow in throughout the year. John 8:12 is the verse for this year, and, wow, what freedom is coming to me that is so very badly needed in this season of my life.

Not only is my life not exactly what I pictured it being when I was younger and thinking forward to my elder years, but there are constant challenges coming at me to hinder plans made in each day. Here, in this verse, God instructs me to trust Him to light each step before me and not fret the paths that do not light up and make themselves accessible to me the way I think they should.

That brings to heart another scripture that says, “The mind of man plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).

Here is something I am learning: disappointment, discouragement, and depression that comes when life gets in the way of our plans comes from failure to trust God, who directs our steps. God never promised a perfect life here in this world. Stuff happens, trouble comes, just as promised by Jesus, and the storms of life throw us off the course we lay out for ourselves (John 16:33).

God is never surprised or disturbed by the storms. He knows what is coming and why He allowed it. He has plans and purposes in 082all things. The true question is do I trust GOD to know the plan, lead the way, and work His purpose out in me, especially when the seas around me rage? Do I believe His presence and power to work the good He desires when the path around me is dark, shadowed, and gloomy, and all I can see is the Light that brightens my next footfall?

This is one thing I am learning as I focus my heart on the wisdom of John 8:12: Walking in light! What freedom that brings to my heart. It is the next well-lit step that I am to take. Whatever is out there…in the shadows, belongs to God. I don’t have to fret it. All I have to do is take each step as He lights it up before me, knowing with sincerity of trust’s faith that He is working His purpose into my life. As I follow His footsteps lighting the way before me, I see in each day His glory working the good in and through me that He has planned and purposed for my life. The path may lead to a cross for me to bear, laying down my will for His, but that cross will bring forth His glory, shining a light for others to step into His footfalls laid out for them. Thank You, Lord.

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Thrive at God's Side

We Thrive at God’s Side ~ Part 8: Blind-sided

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King David is described as, “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22, *AMP) He sought the Lord earnestly, desiring Him, His purpose and plan, and His supply. He sought to possess the very heart of God. Therefore he tells us, “I saw the Lord always in my presence, for He is at my right hand, so that I will not be shaken” ~ Acts 2:25-28 (Psalm 16:8-11).

DavidGoliath2David defeated lions and bears as he performed his duties as shepherd to the glory of God. He built of historical account in life that proved the hand of God with him in his battles. As a result, when Goliath came out to taunt the people of God, David did not have to think twice about taking the challenge with faith in the God he knew always in his presence. “You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted” ~ 1 Samuel 17:45.

This same David, known as a man after God’s own heart, had his moments of forgetting God’s presence as we all do; thus, he fell to lust for Bathsheba, and killed her husband, Uriah, in an attempt to cover up his sin (2 Samuel 11-12; 1 Kings 15:4-5). Like David, who fell to the lusts of the flesh when he forgot God’s presence as he looked on Bathsheba, life’s challenges blind-side us, bringing defeat, when we forget the presence of God with us. The question we must ask is, “Are we remembering whose side we are on?”

Failure to understand the side

Failing to understand the principles of life at the side of God, His Presence with us always, Him faithfully standing for us and not against us, we find ourselves suffering a:

  1. Wasted Supply
  2. Fleeing Heart
  3. Deceived Heart
  4. Divided Heart

Wasted Supply

“They slice off what is on the right hand but still are hungry, And they eat what is on the left hand but they are not satisfied; Each of them eats the flesh of his own arm” ~ Isaiah 9:20 (see AMP also).

In the scriptures studied that reveal the normal flow of God to and through us, that which comes through the right hand reveals the fruit of our lives and the manifestation of God through us in ministry to one another. The moving of God’s right hand, flowing through us to move our right hand, is God’s power at work, affecting the world around us. The left hand is the hand that holds the provision of God. We stand at His left, blocking our right hand movement, when we are completely dependent on God for what He alone can and will do. We stand at His right, His supply flowing to our left hand, through us, to move our right hand, when He desires we join Him as His instrument for ministering His will and purpose in the place where He stations us for service. Beloved, failure to realize God’s work, provision, and power flowing to us for our use in any given moment of life leads us to blind-sided, defeat.

Falling to dissatisfaction in or failure to realize and rightly use God’s provision and calling, leads us to wasting His provision. When we fail to see the provision and power of God to and through us, it is as one who wastefully devours their own flesh without realization of the glory of God’s provision and the opportunity at hand. Failing to consider the worth and significance of all God’s supply, we eat up what He gives with dissatisfaction because its purpose goes unfulfilled.

It is vital that we understand the importance and supply that flows from the side of God and use His supply as people after God’s heart. We must be seekers and possessors of God’s desire, plan, and purpose so we use His supply with integrity that fulfills our purpose in life. Every step of experience we see at God’s side builds a history with Him that inspires our progress to greater strides in believing-faith. We face every challenge this life brings when we know God is with us.

Fleeing Heart

“Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?” ~ Jonah 4:11.

Jonah ran from God because he failed to possess the heart of God for the people of Nineveh. Rather than get someone else to go to Nineveh, I believe God chased after Jonah until he surrendered to God because God knew he was not opposed to sharing the message. He had a heart for God and wanted to do His will, but he was only opposed to sharing God’s word of grace and salvation with this particular people group. Seeing things through his own understanding, he failed to know the purpose of God for the people He sent Jonah to warn. His hate for the people of that city caused him to fail to stand at God’s side and possess His heart for the people.

In the instant of his flight, Jonah failed to know the right from the left. Instead of trusting God, receiving the provision,FaithMountain1 and fulfilling the assignment, he tried to dictate from his own heart supply and understanding. He tried to reverse the flow and wound up on the run.

What situation are you facing that you cannot fathom as God’s will for you? Sometimes the trouble we experience is God, chasing us, desiring that we stand at His side and receive His heart as our own possession, so we have His supply for fulfilling His purpose in a place we would rather not go. He wants us to know Him, have His heart, and make a history that reveals His power at work to, in, and through us. He says to our fleeing hearts, “Choose today whom you will serve.”

Deceived Heart

“He feeds on ashes; a deceived heart has turned him aside. And he cannot deliver himself, nor say, ‘Is there not a lie in my right hand?’” ~ Isaiah 44:20.

Failure to recognize and fully comprehend God’s presence at our right hand leads to our believing a lie. “I can’t” is a common lie we believe when we fail to weigh God and His supply into the equations of life’s choices. “I CAN, you watch me” is a lie we believe when pitting our will against God’s better judgment. The potential of the HIMpossible becomes the IMpossible when a lie is in our right hand. We feed on ashes when we believe the lies of the world, the flesh, and demons over the truth of God, when we fail to trust that God knows best.

Divided Heart

“‘As I live,’ declares the Lord, ‘even though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were a signet ring on My right hand, yet I would pull you off’” ~ Jeremiah 22:24.

At the right side of God, we have His authority and power for every challenge this life presents us. Our heart united as one with His, we are victorious in Christ when we possess His power that flows to us for our success in fulfilling the purpose for our being in such a time as this.

Here, Jehoiakim obviously failed to recognize God and take his stand at His side to get the heart of God for his service as king of Judah. When we stand on the right of God with His authority for life flowing through us, it is as if we are His signet ring, stamped with His Name, sealing the deal so all may know God in and through us. When we fail to realize God’s authority for life, we fail the purpose He planned for us, being of a divided heart. Pulled in every direction by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the boastful pride of life, easily dictated by the wisdom of the flesh, the world, and the demonic, we find ourselves separated from God.

No matter where God has us in life, there is an eternal purpose for our being there. If our life choices lead to our suffering consequences we would rather not have to face, even there God has purpose. Ask Jonah, who wound up in the belly of a whale before following God to Nineveh, where hundreds came to saving knowledge of God through the message he professed. Ask David, who sat in sackcloth and ashes, seeking the heart of God while awaiting the fulfillment of consequences for bad choices. He knew that God could change His mind and spare him the suffering he faced, but when the decision was clear, he rose from his bed of pain to serve the Lord with renewed fervor, receiving well the Lord’s decision. His example continues to influence us when we fall, helping us know the grace of God that puts us back on our feet at His side.

God’s plans for us are good, to give us a hope and a future. In every experience with Him, good or hard, there is a lessonatside1 to learn that helps us firm up our need to remain at God’s side. There is always opportunity to bear witness of God’s work in our lives that will draw others alongside Him with us. God wastes nothing. When we falter and fail, even there, God will stand beside us to supply us for fulfilling His purpose and plan.

David was victorious king, known as a man after God’s own heart, because he proclaimed the truth of his success as, “I saw the Lord always in my presence; He is at my right hand!” He knew from Whom his supply came and the purpose for its provision. He trusted God’s heart desire and used well the gifts of God’s supply, giving God all the glory due His name. When he faltered and failed, through repentance he returned quickly to faith in God, remaining at the side of Him who’s Presence he knew and loved. It is vital we come to the same understanding if we want to succeed in our journey to thrive at God’s side.

“You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever” ~ Psalm 16:11.

Thrive at God's Side

We Thrive at God’s Side ~ Part 5: Victory!

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God seats us on His left in areas where complete reliance upon and trust in Him and His supply is our need. On His left side, we are dependent on God for all our need with nothing we can do to affect the outcome. However, when God seats us to His right, we become His instruments and partners in all He does. There, we not only have supply from His right hand, but we become an extension of His holy arm. Discerning the difference that signals which side God has us on in any given moment and learning how to rest at God’s side is the journey we are on as we consider God seating us at His side.

“O sing to the Lord a new song, For He has done wonderful things, His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him” ~ Psalm 98:1.

Today we see that God’s victory comes at the move of His right hand. When God seats us to His right, it is so that we can participate in and enjoy victory with Him. At the right hand of God, we have…

Victory’s Assurance

“The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at My right hand Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet’” ~ Psalm 110:1.

Beloved, as I read this verse in light of considering all it means to be at God’s right hand, I realize that He speaks this Jesus-Bride007-bword to us through Christ, when He sits us to His right side. God calls us to trust Him for victory over our enemies, just as Jesus did and does. As seen in the life of Christ, a part of the battle is ours to win through the authority we have in God through Christ. As we stand firm with God in this life, He uses us in His work of delivering us to victory over our enemies.

“Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me; You will stretch forth Your hand against the wrath of my enemies, And Your right hand will save me” ~ Psalm 138:7.

Note the Psalmist says he walks in the midst of trouble. Jesus warned that trouble will come to us as part of our experience in this life because we are not home with God yet. I don’t know about you, but too often, when trouble comes to me, having eyes on the trouble knocks me for a loop and hinders my ability to keep walking through it. Such fear and stagnation do not accomplish the work of God. God has a work for us to do here, victories for us to win, and a witness for us to bear forth so that others may join us on our Kingdom journey. One thing that equips us to walk with God is the realization that He walks beside us in the trouble, fighting for us, bringing us into victory with Him. As we keep eyes of faith on God, we can walk forth to accomplish all He calls us to as partner with Him in His work.

“Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand” ~ Isaiah 41:10.

In order to realize victory in Christ, realizing God’s presence with us, it is vital that we keep focus on Him, trusting His hand to uphold, strengthen and help us. “Do not anxiously look about you” is the key to our recognizing and participating in victory.

Think of Peter, taking that step of faith to get out of the boat and walk with Jesus on that storm tossed sea. He was fine until he took his focus off Jesus and put it on the crashing waves. When we are anxious, feeling defeated and impotent, it is because we are looking at the waves of life’s storm tossed seas. Refusing fear, realizing and trusting God’s presence, keeping eyes on God so as to overcome anxiety, and resting in His right hand that reveals to us the way of righteousness that works victory is our pathway to hope’s assurance and help in the battle.

In addition, God promises in the Amplified version of Isaiah 41:10, “I will strengthen and harden you to difficulties.” Jesus-Bride009Since trouble is a natural part of living in a world dictated by fleshly, worldly, and demonic wisdom, persecution and difficulty comes swiftly against those of godly wisdom who walk in ways that differ from this world. That makes it vital that we trust God to use the trouble to harden us against its assault. The closer we walk to the side of God, seeing victory at His right side, the more difficult it is for the trouble that comes at us to make a dent in our armor. Our faith stands firm and sure with greater strength as we grow in our ability to keep eyes on God, having a trust that is secure in Him, hardened against trouble.

“The Lord has sworn by His right hand and by His strong arm, ‘I will never again give your grain as food for your enemies; Nor will foreigners drink your new wine for which you have labored’” ~ Isaiah 62:8.

The promises of God come to us by the power and might of the strong arm of His right hand. It is the right hand of God that moves on our behalf, saving and protecting us, fulfilling His every good word to us. His right hand holds us up so we may stand firm of faith while we participate with Him as partner-instruments in His victory. Thus, we praise Him, because we know His presence with us, we trust His promises, and we understand that any good accomplished by us flows to us from His right-hand supply.

“The sound of joyful shouting and salvation is in the tents of the righteous; The right hand of the Lord does valiantly” ~ Psalm 118:15.

Thrive at God's Side

We Thrive at God’s Side ~ Part 4: Stability

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“You have a strong arm; Your hand is mighty, Your right hand is exalted” ~ Psalm 89:13.

As I look at verses describing God’s arms and hands, I note that the right hand of God makes His strength and stability available to us. We are strong and stable at the right side of God.

“My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me” ~ Psalm 63:8 See Psalm 37:24.

God orders His creation. There is order found to the right and to the left side of God. He determines at any given moment the side on which we stand according to His purposed plan, our need, and His authority over our lives. He is the creator God who is Alpha and Omega, beginning and the end, the first and the last. All provision is in His hand and He teaches us to prosper at His right side.

Jesus-Bride006At His right side, as we learn of Him, we gain strength of body, character, soul, and mind. As we grow strong in knowing our God and trusting in Him, we grow stable, able to stand firm in Him even when the earth quakes beneath us, shaking up our lives, and tempting us to question and doubt our God, His faithfulness, His love, His power. Knowing God as an apprentice at His right side, He equips our…

Stability ~ Empowering Strength

“Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand, Upon the son of man whom You made strong for Yourself” ~ Psalm 80:17.

In my dream shared in the introduction to this series, revealing the place of God’s positioning for me to possess, He has me at His right hand side, facing Him, having a throne of authority and responsibility that is just my size. All my concerns are before Him, all the people and things I seem impotent to influence in life. His positioning my throne to face His, Jesus makes it clear that there are things I must trust Him to deal with, trusting His “I’ve got this”. As I trust Him with all the things that concern me and rob of strength, keeping my focus on Him as my throne faces His, He empowers me to know the things for which I do have authority to influence, strengthening my stability and stance as partner with Him in His Royal Court. At His right hand, we learn to know our part and the power and authority He grants for doing our part in His will and way.

“Surely My hand founded the earth, And My right hand spread out the heavens; When I call to them, they stand together” ~ Isaiah 48:12-22.

God is the Perfect Coordinator of all things. He placed the planets in their orbit. He gave the birds their distinctive song. He knows the plans He has for us; plans for good and not for evil, to give us hope and future (Jeremiah 29:9-14). Trusting God’s direction equips us to stand with those who stand firm in Him, accomplishing His purpose and plan in our day. Trusting Him and following His instruction for life enables us to live eternity now as we prepare to enter His eternal Kingdom for all time. Trusting God stabilizes us while we walk in this world as people of His Kingdom, representing Him and His interests for eternity.

“…behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst. …the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” ~ Luke 17:21; Romans 14:17.

Thrive at God's Side

We Thrive at God’s Side ~ Part 3b: Apprenticeship

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“Now what I mean is that as long as the inheritor (heir) is a child and under age, he does not differ from a slave, although he is the master of all the estate; but he is under guardians and administrators or trustees until the date fixed by his father. …But we, brethren, are children [not by physical descent, as was Ishmael, but] like Isaac, born in virtue of promise” ~ Galatians 4:1-2, 28, AMP.

Reading Galatians 4 this morning spurs further thought regarding our apprenticeship as people positioned as children of God, Heirs of Promise.

In my journey to understand this position in Christ, I began with the understanding that I am no longer slave to sin, but slave to Christ. Under the guardianship of God’s Spirit, having teachers entrusted as trustees of my growth, I learned to no longer allow myself to be slave to lusts of the flesh or to demands of others, but to do all as slave of Christ and slave to righteousness (1 Corinthians 7:22; Ephesians 6:5-6; Romans 6:16-19).

Once I understood my need to surrender myself to God in all things as a slave to a Master, God began teaching me the difference between a slave and a bondslave (Exodus 21:1-6; Luke 1:38; 1 Peter 2:16). The difference between the two is subtle. A slave is a slave that wins the heart of the Master, receiving His favor by choosing obedience out of realization of one’s need to please the Master so as to receive the benefits gifted for a service well done. A bondslave is one who falls madly in love with the Master. Trusting that he is better off as a slave of God than without Him, and having as one’s greatest desire that of pleasing and tending well to the business of the Master despite any difficulty that may mean for the bondslave of Christ, they surrender themselves to His ownership for life. Love and trust trumps trouble, and surrenders to the Master for all eternity.

Once I understood slavery to Christ for life because of loving trust, God led me to understand that I am a child by His choice, child of promise through Christ.

“The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him” ~ Romans 8:16-17.

Jesus01“We, brethren, are children [not by physical descent, as was Ishmael, but] like Isaac, born in virtue of promise” (Galatians 4:28). We are children of God and heirs with Christ forever. Learning that, now, finally, from age 58-60, God is bringing fuller comprehension of the responsibility and authority I have as child of God and heir with Christ. We are children in the Royal Court of God and His Kingdom, having full authority in Christ and responsibility under God to represent the interests of His Kingdom in our here and now life and throughout eternity. As we discover our heritage as children, we understand that we are no longer slaves, but owners of the Kingdom with Christ. Our responsibility moves from that of ones commanded, to ones who possess and protect the Kingdom of our heart. We are in the world, not of it, for we are child-heirs, part of the Royal Court of God’s Kingdom, fulfilling Kingdom purpose for Kingdom prosperity to the glory of Father God and King-Ishi. Thus, we are…

Positioned as Children

In this Galatians 4 passage, we learn that our training in Christ leads us to understanding of God as Father and our ability to draw near to Him as a beloved child climbs into the lap of her daddy.

“Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God” (vs. 6-7).

The goal of God in our apprenticeship under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit is to equip us to make this transition from “slave of God in Christ” to “Heir apparent”. Having full assurance of our security in Christ, we realize our position in the Royal Court, fully possessing our authority to carry out our responsibilities as His representatives where He has us stationed in the world.

“But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?” ~ vs. 9.

God is God, all knowing and all-powerful. He knows who we are, but this scripture instructs that as we serve Him well, Jesus05that service catches God’s attention, growing the closeness of our relationship with Him as we draw nearer still to Him, and making us one He knows with a favor that makes us stand out as His representatives in life. I am sure you know a Christian whose relationship with God inspires you to know Him better. Those who know God well, trusting Him fully, not being easily swayed by false doctrine or the desire to please others, and that He draws near to because of that close, personal relationship stand out as His children of Light (Ephesians 5:7-10).

“…you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus Himself” ~ vs. 14b.

The one who is heir with Christ realizes that many will only come to know Him for themselves as they see Him in us and experience His presence through us. We are conduits of all that represents God, His will, way, purpose, and Kingdom. When we come into this position of letting Christ live through us, we are near to the heart of God, well known by Him and recognized by others as “having been with Jesus” (Galatians 2:20; Acts 4:13).

“So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth? They eagerly seek you, not commendably, but they wish to shut you out so that you will seek them. But it is good always to be eagerly sought in a commendable manner, and not only when I am present with you. My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you—but I could wish to be present with you now and to change my tone, for I am perplexed about you” ~ vs 16-20.

Children of Light, Heirs of God in Christ, grow in stability, following God’s truth, having full faith in Him. Here we see that those who were speaking religious legalism to the children were luring them away from the truth of God. Paul reminds them that it is good, being sought after commendably. To me that means we are to be that example of Christlikeness that draws others to seek us as teachers, examples worth following, as they seek Christ for themselves.

SeniorPartnerHowever, these followers of Christ found themselves sought out by those wishing to draw them into religious legalism that denies faith’s assurance in Christ. Instead of trusting Christ fully for saving-grace and the path to son-ship, growing strong in their relationship with God, pleasing Him, they fell back into the old covenant of law, trying to add Jesus plus works of the flesh as necessary for true salvation, seeking to please those religious leaders. That leads to constant struggle as we try to balance the pleasure of other people with pleasing God. Assurance of our position in Christ is difficult to realize when wavering between relational-faith that produces the fruit of the Spirit and good works that make one a pleasure to man’s ideology.

Paul reminds them that those true children, filled with the Spirit and following the dictates of God in the Spirit’s power do not need legalistic ritual added to their salvation. We are free in Christ to be God’s children, but if we choose to believe salvation through law, we must keep all the law without fail (Galatians 3:1-14). We cannot claim trust in Christ and the earning of our way into God’s kingdom. Instead, our trust in God through Christ, as empowered by the Spirit, produces in us the good works of God’s desire for us. Works of a righteousness of our own making do not save us. Our salvation is in Christ who is our righteousness, and through that, we are empowered to live righteous lives for the glory of God as pleasing Him. This is the heart of the one who understands their position as a Child of God and Heirs with Christ.

“Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. … you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise” ~ vs. 21-31.

“As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love” ~ Ephesians 4:14-16.

The hour is near for Christ’s return. Time grows short for us to shine the Light of God so all who will enter into this Kingdom life with us may come. It is time for us to grow up in full understanding of who we are in Christ, heirs with Him, given charge to represent Kingdom interests wherever God stations us in life. God positions us as children with Kingdom purpose where He places us. Some of those places are hardened soil, challenging to our holy feet, but we must grow strong in knowledge of Him so we may live in ways that make us known as His lights, children of God’s favor.

Thrive at God's Side

We Thrive at God’s Side ~ Part 3: Apprenticeship

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“And as her soul was departing, for she died, she called his name Ben-oni [son of my sorrow]; but his father called him Benjamin [son of the right hand]” ~ Genesis 35:18, AMP.

I believe that God calls those who truly desire to surrender to Him as child and partner in Christ “The son / daughter of My right hand.” There is great significance to our placement at the right hand of God. We are heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, called and equipped to serve along His side in fulfilling Kingdom purpose. Our position as heirs, people of the Royal Court of God, begins with that left sided surrender, receiving from His hand of supply, trusting His care, protection and provision. In that place of trust in God, we find Him preparing us and moving us to the position of apprenticeship at His right side. Once we truly understand His trustworthiness, He places us at His right as His instrument for use in our days. We are each in training for our role in His Kingdom …

Positioned for Instruction / Understanding / Discernment

“Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me” ~ Psalm 139:10.

When God’s right hand lays hold on us, His hand places us to His right. The right hand, as we will see throughout the remainder of this series, is the place of action. While placement at His left side is the position of dependence, protection, and personal supply – the relational position of His ministry to each individual of us, the right hand of God places us in positions of usefulness and authority – the place where His supply pours out through us to affect those around us. There we are in training for the purpose of ministry and the fulfillment of His plans for us in our lifetime. His right hand flows all that we need to accomplish His will in His way with power and authority to be His instrument in our day.

“As is Your name, O God, So is Your praise to the ends of the earth; Your right hand is full of righteousness” ~ Psalm 48:10.

It is at the right hand of God that we learn righteousness. In this position, God begins the process of transformation, Jesus07changing us from the inside out, beginning with our way of thinking. Scripture instructs us to understand that transformation begins in our minds, equipping us to take every thought captive in obedience to Christ (Romans 12:1-2; 2 Corinthians 10:1-6). Our thoughts effect our heart attitudes and desires, and from the heart flows the produce of our lives (Proverbs 4:23). At the right side of God we learn to recognize the difference between the wisdom that is false, coming from the flesh, the world, and demons, and that that is from God. Learning the true, right, godly, pure, excellent, worthy of praise thoughts that lead to good, righteous, and peaceful outcomes, changing the fruit of our lives, is the goal of our right hand position with God (Philippians 4:6-9; James 3:13-18).

“And in Your majesty ride on victoriously, For the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness; Let Your right hand teach You awesome things” ~ Psalm 45:4.

The right side of God is the fruit bearing side that effects life where we are living as in the world, but not of it. Experience is the greatest instrument in the hand of God for our training. As we experience Him at work in and through us, we grow strong of faith. As we learn to receive the instruction that comes to us at the right hand of God, we learn His ways that equip us to accomplish His eternal purposes where we are in life. As we live in agreement with His way of thinking and being, we see victory, truth, meekness, and righteousness in our day. The “awesome things” of God become our joy and song of praise to Him and that that brings His favor to us. Through that experience, His right hand flowing to us to affect the work of our right hand, we grow strong in Christ.

Apprenticeship through Christ makes us partners with God, set to learn His ways so we produce the good works He planned for us from the beginning of time (Ephesians 2:10). This surrender of “Yet not my will but Thy will” is the beginning of our journey to walk in the authority of Christ for His Kingdom purpose in us.

Assurance, Body of Christ, Exact Representation, Godly Principles, John 17, Sanctification

In Jesus Name: a Look at John 17 ~ Part 6c

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Read John 17

“As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. … Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”” ~ vs. 18-25.

Sent In Jesus Name

Concluding this look at John 17, desiring to be His people, His response to this prayer of Jesus for us, we acknowledge His work in us. God sends us into the world in Jesus Name to be a people sanctified by and set apart to live a life of truth, being in agreement with God, His will, and His way. God sends us into the world in Jesus name to be His image bearers, making His love known to all: For God so loved the world. Finally, today, God sends us into the world in response to Christ’s desire that we be…

Set in His Presence to Make Him Known

Jesus prayed that we may be with Him where He is and that we may see His glory. Yes, that is a prayer for us to join Him in the Kingdom He prepares for our eternity, and for us to see Him as He is, in fullness of glory. However, I also think of these words of Jesus regarding His work with the Father in the world:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner” ~ John 5:19.

See self through God's eyes.
See self through God’s eyes.

Jesus knew the presence of God in His midst as He walked through life in the world, but not of it. He recognized the glory of God as He realized the work of God in His path. Jesus joined the Father in what He did in the world where He served Him to accomplish His purpose. Jesus is our example for life. I believe that as we surrender to the leadership of the Spirit, we too can know the presence of God in our midst and see the glory of His hand moving so that we can cooperate with Him to accomplish the purpose He has for our being in this age of the history of this world.

Beloved, God sends us into the world to contrast the character and nature of God against that seen in the world. He sets us apart to be a people of truth, led by and living in agreement with all God says is true, right, good, and worthy of praise. He sends us out as recipients and conduits of His love, making the love of God known in the world. God sends us into the world, but He does not send us out alone. We have the Spirit of God who gives us eyes to see His glory, ears to hear His instruction, and a heart made ready and willing to accomplish His purpose.

Father, You send us into the world to represent You and make You known, therefore we are InGodsHandssmenot to be of this world philosophy, acting in the ways deemed true by its wisdom and priorities. We who live for You, knowing Your presence and following Your lead, are Your response to this prayer of Jesus. Make us to know You that we may walk in Your ways and make You known, being a people after Your own heart, united as one in the power of Your Spirit at work in and through us. In Jesus, amen.

“I saw the Lord always in my presence; for He is at my right hand, so that I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue exulted; moreover my flesh also will live in hope; because You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of gladness with Your presence” ~ Acts 2:25-28.

Assurance, Body of Christ, Exact Representation, John 17, Sanctification, who I am in Christ

In Jesus Name: a Look at John 17 ~ Part 6b

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Read John 17

“As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. …The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me…” ~ vs. 18-25.

Sent In Jesus Name

In the previous post (Part 6a) for this series, we noted that Jesus sends us into the world just as God did, sending us to believe, speak, and live truth as God intended truth to be. Choosing our own sanctification in truth in likeness to Jesus brings unity to all who believe and practice His truth in kind. Today we see that this gift of glory from God ~ our ability to be one as He is one, perfected in unity ~ is ours from God so that the world may know that God sent Jesus. In making Jesus known as the Christ who saves, God tasks us with making the truth of God’s love found in that sacrifice evident to all who hear. Just as God sent Jesus into the world, so Jesus sends us to make it known to the world that God loves them just as He loves Jesus and us. We are…

Sent in Love to Love

Jesus sends us into the world because God the Father and Jesus the Son so love the world that they gift us to our age in history as His image bearers, living love out into the world. As people of God, fully called and equipped to live sanctified lives in kind so the world may see and know the love God has for all, it is vital that we “be” love as He is love. Love is our nature in Christ, the outpouring of His Spirit at work in us.

Filled with the Spirit, the attributes of love that I have written about many times, will be evident in us: love, being unconditional and incorruptible, fulfills the law in our attitudes and actions toward one another. In the practice of love, the love we have for others covers a multitude of sins, not waxing and waning with insult. Though hearts may hurt when trust is stressed by sin, thus hindering our ability to put ourselves in harm’s way by trusting again, care for the best possible life for those we love remains, and that best is always God, His will, and His way.

Those in our sphere of influence can know that though we hate sinful actions, we love them, as we learn to love unconditionally and incorruptibly. In so doing, we find fear of losing our love cast away as those we love struggle to grow in knowledge of truth and love. As those around us see this love from God’s heart flowing to them through us, they are equipped to know and trust God’s love for them.

As we grow in knowing and receiving this love of the Father found in the Christ, we unite as one with all who have gone on before us and all with us on this journey now. United in this power of God’s grace, called to a committed life in unity with God through love, we set the example as people who know how to love in Jesus Name.

078Jesus prayed for us that we would succeed in the power of God as we sanctify ourselves through faithfulness to trust and follow Christ’s example out of love for those in the world who need to know that God loves them. We are God’s gift to the world, charged with making His love evident in likeness to Him. His desire is that we join Him in eternity, having fulfilled this work of God in the earth, being love as He is love so that the world may know that God so loved the world.

Father God, Your word makes it clear that You are love. You love not because we do all InGodsHandssmethings well, but because that is Your nature. Your word also makes it clear that we are to love as You love. You desire our perfection in unity with the Father, Son, Holy Spirit and one another, therefore, we must receive the seed of Your nature that bears forth the fruit of love in likeness to You (1 John 4:7-11). Love is the glue that binds us together as one when we fail to fully know and walk in truth. Father, pour forth Your love through us that we may be one as You are one, successfully making Your love known in the world. In Jesus, amen.

Assurance, Exact Representation, Godly Principles, John 17, Sanctification

In Jesus Name: a Look at John 17 ~ Part 5

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Read John 17

“I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth” ~ vs. 14-19.

“Sanctified in Truth; Your word is truth.”

Beloved, there is a danger in the world today that threatens our ability to work and live as Name bearers for Christ: that is, failure to realize and live as people who believe God’s word is true; inerrant in every way. The two things threatened when we fail to believe that God breathed His word in full truth through the thoughts penned by His authors include our ability to receive His instruction and our ability to trust His promises.

Sanctified in Truth

Sanctification means to be set apart for a purpose, fully useful in the hands of God in accomplishing His work in the earth; fully surrendered to His will and way, desiring His work fulfilled in us.

When we fail to believe God’s word fully represents Him, His will, His way, and His truth, we will pick and choose what we want to believe from the pages of Holy Writ and fall short in our sanctification to Him as Lord. When we close ourselves off to the relevance of His word in our day, we become unteachable of spirit, unable to transform with the work of His word in us.

When we are unteachable, we refuse the transforming power that equips us to renew our minds (way of thinking and believing) and to know the will of God, which is good and acceptable and perfect. When we cannot discern the will of God because of unbelief, we cannot please Him. Sanctified living requires us to believe the inerrancy of God’s Word and its relevance in our day so we are equipped to love Him through full obedience that makes us adequate for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17; Romans 12:1-3; Hebrews 11:6)

God’s Word is Truth

When we fail to believe that God’s word is truth, we cannot fully receive, accept application to our lives, and walk with hope in the promises of God. They are without relevance if His word is a lie.

Jesus believed all God said was true of Him and His life purpose, thus He was able to withstand temptation to fall away from the path God laid out for Him. Believing God’s word to be true and that He would do all He promised, Jesus refused a lesser crown in this life. Bowing down from His high position to be a humble man, walking with the power of God’s supply to experience a cruel cross in order to purchase a people for His own possession as King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus is seated at the right hand of God because He believed God’s promises, taking Him at His word.

I am really excited that following this study of John 17, God is teaching me the significance of our sitting to His right and to His left. I don’t want to give it all away in this post, but suffice to say, Jesus believed God and He received authority to fulfill the purpose of God laid out for Him from before time began. Jesus is our example, beloved. We are to walk in Jesus name as a people sanctified and set apart to God for His purpose. The only way to accomplish that is to believe God, taking Him at His word to and for us.

Truth is truth. Walk ye in it.

Father, the world hates anything that is in opposition to it. Your word is truth, standing in direct opposition to the waysInGodsHandssme and wisdom of this world. Therefore, we who believe are the hated, reviled by the world, just as Jesus was. Truly believing God, taking His word as God-breathed, is not an easy road to follow, but it is the road to eternal purpose that is worth the reward it brings us. Grant us hearts that believe You, taking You at Your word, being teachable of heart, and trusting fully in every promise You give. To do otherwise is to fall into the hands of Your enemy, allowing Satan to win our lives as his to claim. In Jesus, may we truly and fully believe You so that we may see Your glory in the fulfillment of all You planned for us from before time began. Amen.

Choice, Exact Representation, God's Faithfulness, John 17, Protection, Sanctification

In Jesus Name: a Look at John 17 ~ Part 4c

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Read John 17

“I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves” ~ vs. 11-13.

Hedged by His Name ~ Part 3

As we live within the hedge as people of God’s name, we possess a mind set on and driven by eternal purpose; and we bear His image, having His nature in heart and flowing out as adornment. Last in my thought for the hedge we have when we are In Jesus’ Name is found in John 15:

“My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples” ~ vs. 8.

When we name our Children, we give them personal names that distinguish them as individual, but they are born automatically possessing our family name. It tells the world that this is Joseph of the family of Smith. Discipleship is the same. This is Peter, disciple of Jesus. Andrew was disciple of John until he united with Jesus, changing his alliance: he married into the family of Christ.

A family’s character is judged by the reputation of its family members, each making an impact on the reputation of the whole. Likewise, the teacher grew in reputation partly by the actions and behaviors of those aligned under his discipleship. That is what happens with us as we become disciples of Christ, we come under the name “Christian”, representative of that family name. People know of Christians what they see and experience of our actions and behaviors. Thus, they believe they know who Jesus is through that experience. Do we represent Him well? Our lifestyle is the answer that reveals the sincerity of connection with the Christ. It is not just words, but it is our actions and ways of living that reveal the truth.

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples” ~ vs. 1-8.

God has long had a people in the world, tasked with representing Him and His interests. They are called “the Children of God” and are of the lineage of that Name, disciples fed by His heart desires, through which the fruit of His Spirit at work in and through them makes Him known. That name comes with great responsibility and with the full resources of God for the fulfillment of our responsibilities as His representatives in the world. As we abide in the vine of Christ, possessing the family name He passes to us, we are His disciples, tasked with discipling others.

Like with the nation of Israel, others may see what God is doing for and through us, His great blessings toward us, and desire to take part in that. Their desire may draw them in with claims of possessing the family name, but they are weeds beside us, never fully grafting to feast on the vine in true commitment and surrender to Him. Such people are unproductive branches that sap the provision of God meant for feeding the vine.

Simply saying, “I belong to Jesus,” is nothing without fruit that proves adherence of the graft. The things we do and the words we speak have power that will reveal the vine upon which we feast. Beloved, if we call ourselves Christian, but live as one fed by this world’s philosophy, we blaspheme the name.

“The person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is blaspheming the Lord; and that person shall be cut off from among his people” ~ Numbers 15:30.

We can walk along side and claim the people of God as our own, but we cannot claim God without vitally uniting with Him. The truth of our unity with God will reveal itself by a life changed to agree with Him and His nature. The Amplified version of this verse in Numbers is scary to me:

“The person who does anything willfully and openly, whether he is native-born or a stranger, that one reproaches, reviles, and blasphemes the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from among his people [THAT THE ATONEMENT MADE FOR THEM MAY NOT INCLUDE HIM].”

“Whether native born or a stranger.” Strangers hear and see the blessed of God and enter the fold to claim the blessing without wholeheartedly taking the marriage vows that make for vital union and right of name bearing. Likewise, we can be born and raised among God’s people, but without personally choosing relationship found in vital union with God through Christ, we cannot possess the family name in righteousness and truth.

If we truly belong to God in Christ Jesus, taking that family name through belief in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on our behalf, giving us life and a new name, it will show in our lifestyle, choices, words, thoughts and desires. We will faithfully feast on the vine of Jesus, bearing fruit that represents our God, Lord, Father, and King. If we fail to bear the fruit of abiding, we are impostors and not true Children, and we are in danger of eternal damnation, separated from God and His family forever.

“…To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM who called us by His own glory and excellence.  For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature…. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you” ~ 2 Peter 1:1-11.

“Make certain of His calling and choosing you.” That suggests we can have a false encounter with God that tricks us into believing that we are safe and secure in that relationship. We cannot bear true fruit without real relationship. TheInGodsHandssme proof of relationship is in the fruit of our lives.

These things, Lord, You speak in the world so that we may have Your joy made full in us. We can face this life as we unite more and more with You, being one together with You in the power of Your Spirit, bearing Your name, flowing out of and adorned by Your nature, as righteous representatives of the family of God. As You have spoken over us, O God, so let it be done. In Jesus, amen.

Exact Representation, God's Faithfulness, Godly Principles, John 17, Kingdom Living, Protection, Sanctification

In Jesus Name: a Look at John 17 ~ Part 4b

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Read John 17

“I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves” ~ vs. 11-13.

Hedged by His Name ~ Part 2

Last post we covered that, as people living in the hedge of God’s name, we possess a mind set on and driven by eternal purpose. Focus on the eternal leads us to our need to clothe ourselves in our new nature through the internal flow and external adornment of the image of God.

“Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him…. So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart…” ~ Colossians 3:9-10, 12.

As the Beloved of Christ, made One with God through Him, we are to put off the old self and put on the new that bears the image of the One who is God. That image we put on flows from a heart that is changed and made One with Him.

The heart of our soul is the essence of our character and nature. Made new in Him, His new creation, having His image in us brought to life, the habits and character of our old nature that was dictated by fleshly, self-centered desires, is pushed out and overruled as we possess the nature that is God. The most quoted passage, speaking of the nature we possess in the power of God’s Spirit is Galatians 5:22-23.

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

The remainder of Colossians 3:1-17 describes these and other attributes of God’s image found living in us. These characteristics we possess as our own, allow the Spirit to freely live in and flow through us to express God’s glory in the world around us.

Note that when we have His nature living and active within us, that image we bear has no law that stands against it. Our fleshly nature fell under the dictates of many Laws of God set in place to rule the ways of humanity. Even in today’s world, it is too often laws that motivate us to do the right that is expected.

In our flesh, which is self-indulgent, we run from God and walk all over any who get in the way of our fulfilling our desires. However, God’s nature is perfect and holy, fulfilling eternal purpose based on God-centered desires for unity and glory, and His Spirit transforms our nature. Leaving the worldly behind, we walk with godly intent and purpose.InGodsHandssme We are no longer motivated by force of law, but by the power of a right heart in Christ. Possessing His nature fulfills the Law and reaps a harvest of glory, hedging us in the protection found as we live our lives in Jesus Name.

These things, Lord, You speak in the world so that we may have Your joy made full in us. We can face this life as we unite more and more with You, being one together with You in the power of Your Spirit, flowing out of and adorned by Your nature. As You have spoken over us, O God, so let it be done. In Jesus, amen.

Choice, Godly Principles

The Problem with Offense

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“I am offended by that!”

“That offends me!”

These words grow louder in our society every day. Every day a new – old offense, touted on our newscasts, raises the temper in America. With each one, I find myself taking a side on which to walk my offensive line.

Most recent in the news are those “offended” by the flying of the confederate flag. As I watch the reports pour forth, stores get in on it, spreading a flag out, stating, “We will no longer sell these flags because we do not want to ‘offend ANYONE’”.

Immediately that “offended” me. Not because I want a confederate flag to fly, but because I want the right to fly one if I desire. However, as quickly as the offense hit me, God’s Spirit called me to shush it.

Think about it. What is the meaning of “Offend”?

Offend ~ Resentful or annoyed, typically as a result of a PERCEIVED INSULT.

Offense comes from a place of resentment, and is most often caused by festering anger. Note also in this definition that offense sprouts out over a “perceived insult.” It is based on our perception and opinion, which may, or may not, be based on truth.

Do I care if people fly a confederate flag? We don’t fly one, but others have every right to do so, and I want the right to fly a flag without fear that some person passing by, who does not know me or my heart, will judge me by their perceptions of that flag.

We are in a nation of free speech, and flags speak of allegiances. We fly an American flag because we are of that allegiance. Others fly a flag in honor of those who fought under that flag. Flags can speak of ideology, yes, but we need to know the ideology that has a person flying the flag.

The confederate flag speaks, yes. For some, they speak of a heart that is not right toward American-Africans (Not a typo, will explain in a bit). That is sad, but true. However, the Civil War issue of slavery was secondary to the cause of the war.

My understanding of that time in HISTORY is that the war started because people in the south felt the leadership in the north was making unjust demands against their produce, requiring more of them than they felt just and right and doable. Therefore, war broke out. The slave issue came into play as the north, needing to increase their depleted army, promised freedom to those slaves who would fight for their side.

Did the slaves deserve freedom? YES! Was the war a just war from the beginning? Everyone has their opinion. Nonetheless, many Flag-treadfought and died on both sides, and they fought and died for a cause they felt worthy of the fight. The African slaves, seeking freedom as Americans fought with the northern states because they deserved freedom and felt it worth the effort if they could win their freedom in the fight.

To me the confederate flag stands for our right to choose. It stands against unjust government. It is the southern voice shouting “Don’t tread on me!” I love that flag. LOL

To others it speaks of racial discord and the right of white over black; unjust slavery and hardship. This is sad to me. But why punish those who honor their fallen under that flag, seeing it for what it was in their eyes, a people looking for just government.

Offense tells the one we perceive offense from that their heart ideology is wrong, and it says that we only care about our own viewpoint. It assumes knowledge of another’s heart issues. It judges the heart of a person that we often do not know.

Think of the offensive side of a football team. Their goal is to push for territory they want to gain, even if they have to run over another person to get there. That is what acting out of offense does. It pushes, too often out of festering anger that works destruction, forcing “my way over your way.” It judges the heart of all who are on the other side as being of evil intent. Going on the offensive automatically puts those opposed on the defensive, even if they know you have a right to your opinion. The battle of the offended against those on the defensive brings all to discord and disunity.

The thing God spoke to my heart in the Spirit this morning as offense threatened to pull me into the battle is this, “WE CHOOSE TO BE OFFENDED.”

I am sorry for the offense perceived by others and I hate that which causes their offense. On the other hand, I am too easily offended by others trying to force their will off on me; my personalizing the injustice of their perception. Thus, I have to choose whether I will let that anger get hold of me and dictate my life and actions. The choice is mine, and it is quickly quelled when I refuse anger and choose the right. The right I want is our unity as a nation: to deny offense based on anger that brings division and walk in righteous paths of peace, love, and grace.

People, if we keep going the direction we are in, we don’t need ISIS to come in and destroy us. All they have to do is sit back and wait. With enough time and ammunition, we will destroy ourselves from the inside out.

Festering anger breeds offense. The offended put others on defense. And the battle is on.

A house divided against itself will quickly fall.

It is vital that we learn how to fight the good fight of faith, knowing how to choose our battles. A battle line drawn out of anger and resentment breeds discord, which brings disunity that will bring the house down. A battle drawn from a stance on what is right and good will draw people together. As we seek out of love to express what is right and true, others seeing the righteousness of it will join in, and a union forms that stands in strength.

I honor the right of others to take a stand. However, I pray that stance is made out of a desire for a righteous outcome. If anger, resentment, pride or arrogance is the fuel, destruction will come as people pushed to offense take their side. Note the base for your stance, beloved. If anger is the base, we choose to be offended and to judge the heart of others out of our angry perspective, thus breeding anger in kind. If we are standing on a base of what is right and a desire for truth and unity, there is no need for an offensive: Only live right and others will soon follow.

“Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another” ~ Galatians 5:19-26.

Side Note

Why do I prefer “American-African / Latino / Asian / Irish / etc.”:

I am American-Irish. I word it that way because I want unity in my country, so I am an American first, and I happen to be of Irish decent. I have never been to Ireland. I love my Irish roots and the people who spawned me. However, I am and always have been American.

Only as we move our roots fully to possess and grow a strong America as Americans first will we see this discord begin to calm itself. Hanging onto the past as if it is our present reality, our perceptions dictated by the hardship of our history, we will never build a strong America for our children to live in.

Only as we become an American who happens to have blood from other nationalities and races can we be one people, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We need to know our history, pulling from the good to continue that, and making sure we do not repeat the bad; but we do not need to keep living in the past. May we as Americans make our now and our kids future better by living the good we know in our now lives, producing good soil for the growth of future generations.

Father / Mother's Day, Godly Principles, Holidays, Parenting

Parent with Discipline and Instruction

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Today’s Bible Gateway scripture grabbed me with a different-than-usual understanding.

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord” Ephesians 6:4, NLT.

Reading that well-known verse, just as I started to delete it, a different instruction from it grabbed my heart and stopped my hand as pondering began.

Usually this verse says to me the truths commonly taught by others: that the father, or parent, is to train the child in the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord; to teach them the word and ways of God. This is true, but today it grabs me with understanding that Paul is teaching the way of disciplining the child so-as-to not provoke anger. He is telling the parent to develop within themselves the disciplines of God, receiving His instruction on how to be a parent to their particular child, so that child can grow strong in a teachable spirit.

This scripture specifically singles out Fathers, but we should receive it as good instruction for both parents. Usually in a family, there is a main caregiver and disciplinarian; and that is not always the dad. It is often the mom. Moreover, in today’s society, single parenting is too common. Therefore, I write this with parents in mind, not just the dad.

The first instruction given a parent in this passage is to train up the child in ways that do not breed anger in them. Anger produces bitterness and resentment that makes a child grow into a hard-hearted, unteachable adult. Such a heart attitude makes it difficult for a person to be open to God’s instruction and training in life. They often develop the traits found in their parent that produce the anger, and thus become a parent like their own, producing anger in the next generation. Resist the urge to be a hot-tempered parent.

“Do not associate with a man given to anger; or go with a hot-tempered man, or you will learn his ways and find a snare for yourself” ~ Proverbs 22:24-25

A child cannot easily leave the company of a hot-tempered parent. They quickly learn to give themselves over to angry outbursts of their own, carrying on the tradition when they become parents who are harsh, hard, sharp and pressing. We can learn a lot as parents, following the example of Christ in Matthew 11:25-30:

“Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls. For My yoke is wholesome (useful, good—not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne” ~ AMP.

As parents following the example of God in discipline and instruction, we yoke with our children, being an example to them, training them up in godliness to be the people God created them to be. We set an example that trains them to realize they have purpose and skill as people of His Kingdom, able to make this world community a better place for those around them.

“A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but the slow to anger calms a dispute” ~ Proverbs 15:18.

Controlling one’s temper as a parent instructing the child is a vital discipline to develop, benefitting both the relationship of parent to child and setting an example that trains the children in the way and importance of controlling their own emotions. It is vital that a parent learn to take a time out when angered, giving themselves time to get their temper in check and decide on a godly course of action in training the child out of a place of wisdom, love and spiritual discernment.

Parent, it is never too late to apologize for being hot-tempered and to make the adjustments that calm the heart of dispute and set a better example, bearing the fruit of the Spirit into that relationship (Galatians 5:22-23). Though it may take time for the adult-child to believe, receive the apology as sincere, and realize the change in example, it will take hold and bring healing as you persevere in walking out your change of temperament.

A second parenting instruction comes to mind, found in the Amplified version of Proverbs 22:6:

“Train up a child in the way he should go [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent], and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

This instructs in several important parenting skills to develop. One is to realize how each child best receives instruction. Some children are rigid and require a more firm hand; while others are easily bruised and require a gentler tactic. It is vital to learn the type of discipline the individual child responds to best. Whatever works best, all need discipline that is free of anger. Never discipline when angry. Send the child to the bed until a clear and cool head prevails in the discipline given.

Another instruction found in this wording of Proverbs 22:6, training according to the child’s “bent”, is to realize the gifts, talents, skills and abilities of each child and train them up in a way that helps them develop, becoming strong in the good things that make up who they are as people created by God for a purpose. It also means to recognize their individual temperament and help them know how to use the good qualities they have for benefit. They also need training in how to cope rightly with the more negative aspects of their personalities.

For some of us, our parents did not train us with our gifts and bent in mind, so we may have to seek God’s instruction for how to train ourselves up in these areas so we can better help our children develop their gift and personalities. God is the ultimate Father and He is always ready to help us grow strong as the people He planned us to be. His word teaches that His work of developing and perfecting and bringing us to full completion is a continual work that only ends when Jesus takes us home (Philippians 1:6). Realizing this for ourselves as we grow to be the parents God desires of us will help our patience with self in the process. It is also a vital truth to teach the child, helping them to cooperate with God and know how to work with Him in developing stronger skill and character throughout life.

A third instruction I think of concerning discipline and instruction to us as parents comes from the description of the Proverbs 31 wife:

“She rises while it is yet night and gets [spiritual] food for her household and assigns her maids their tasks. …She opens her mouth in skillful and godly Wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness [giving counsel and instruction]. She looks well to how things go in her household, and the bread of idleness (gossip, discontent, and self-pity) she will not eat. Her children rise up and call her blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied); and her husband boasts of and praises her, [saying], ‘Many daughters have done virtuously, nobly, and well [with the strength of character that is steadfast in goodness], but you excel them all’” ~ vs. 15, 26-29.

Training our children in the word of God is not the responsibility of the Sunday School teacher alone. They should be additive to the teaching the child receives at home. Realize that children learn more from actions than words, so make sure you practice the things taught them from God’s word, training by example as well as word.

This entire discourse in Proverbs 31:10-31 is that of a Mother setting a good example of how to be a godly wife – woman. The same is true for the husband, setting the example of a godly man. Our exemplary life is vital training for the child. Thus, we must know how to be godly people ourselves if we are to pass that quality on to our children.

Here the mother “assigns her maids their tasks.” Children need to learn how to function as vital participants in community life. They need to know how to keep their area of responsibility in good order. They need financial and economic training. Children learn how to be good citizens of the Kingdom – nation – community – by first learning how to be good family members as stewards of all the good gifts of God. We must not neglect to give our children a sense of responsibility as citizens in life.

Note also that this mother, in her parenting example to us, “opens her mouth in skillful and godly Wisdom, and on her tongue is the law (teaching) of kindness [giving counsel and instruction].” Not only is the parent to give the child wise counsel and training in kindness, but she is to do so by practicing wisdom with kindness. A godly parent sets the good example, looking well to the ways of the home and family, not feasting through thought and actions on “the bread of idleness (gossip, discontent, and self-pity)”. Such a parent earns the reward of children who bear the testimony of having praiseworthy parents.

Parents, “do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.” Grow strong parenting skills, learning the discipline of character God instructs us to possess.

This article barely touches on the things we can learn from God’s instruction to us that will make us noteworthy parents that produce godly children who will make the world a better place as they grow to be good citizens, skilled as good stewards in community life. Insights of this article are good starting points for growth as parents to children, but God waits at the ready to help each of us in our areas of specific growth needs. He promises, “‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart’” (Jeremiah 29:11-13).

No matter how old our kids grow to be, as long as we live there will be opportunity to yoke with them in their journey to becoming all God planned. Once we are one, though the nature of our role may change, we never stop being parents. Choose today to be a parent of noteworthy character, an example worth following, yoking with God in readiness to learn good parenting skills that allows you to yoke as partner-teacher on your child’s journey through life.

God's Faithfulness, Peace, These Things Series

These Things ~ Miracle ME!

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The Greater Works

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father” ~ John 14:12.

In our study of the produce and reasons for the “These Things” teachings of Christ, I found as I typed the last post a WOW thought that produced in me one final pondering on the subject. It came from the following thought quoted from the previous These Things Series post:

“As we said, life is hard. It can be hard some days simply to get out of the bed. The works we do are the greater works because we are not God. We are men and women of God, empowered by the Spirit, yes; and every good work we do and accomplish in that Spirit power is nothing short of a miracle. …”

That “Wow!” moment set my heart to realize that every good thing God accomplishes through us is a miracle that fulfills the promise of Christ found in the “greater works than these” we do in His name.

Now I don’t know about you, but I do not see “greater works” than those of Christ coming out of my life. So how is it true that all God accomplishes in me is a miracle that fulfills this promise of God? Here is what God is showing me as I ponder these things: NOTE the difference between Jesus and us.

Jesus

Jesus came into the world being One IN the flesh, but OF the Spirit. He came being IN the world, but OF the Kingdom of God. He came to a realm influenced by demonic wisdom, but He was OF godly wisdom and purpose. Jesus overcame the unnatural of His flesh man existence to live fully His natural estate of the godly as example to us. He did not have to overcome His true nature to be godly. God is His true nature.

Us

We came into the world being OF the flesh, living worldly purpose, too easily driven by demonic influence. It is a miracle of God when we fully realize and possess Him, walking in the new nature we have through Christ to overcoming our natural estate so that we can be people OF God, influenced by Him, being OF the Spirit, and OF His Kingdom, living lives OF godly purpose.

God’s work of deadening our natural flesh being is miraculous.

OF

That word courses through me as I type. John shares in John 17 the prayer of Jesus for His disciples, of which we are if we truly believe and follow Him. In His prayer, Jesus revealed this miraculous work of God in us.

“I have MANIFESTED Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me. I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours; and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them. I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not OF the world, even as I am not OF the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth” ~ vs. 6-19.

Beloved, through Christ, as we live in the sanctifying power of that name, we are no longer of this world, the flesh or the demonic. We are in the world but not OF it. We are OF the Kingdom of God. We are in fleshly bodies, but we are OF the Spirit of God. While surrounded by demonic influences, through Christ we are OF the will, way and purpose OF God. In the name of Christ as representatives of God’s image and nature, WE ARE OF GOD, sanctified – set apart to Him and made complete as His image bearers through Christ.

Of: Expressing the relationship as part of a whole.

We are of the Kingdom of God, expressive of that Kingdom. We are of the Spirit of God, expressive of God, bearing forth His image. We are of the purpose of God, working His will and way in the earth. We are no longer of the flesh, the world, and the demonic influence. WE ARE OF GOD, made whole and complete in Him. The work God does through us is greater works because we are overcoming our natural state in the power He supplies, by His power in us, becoming wholly that which is unnatural to our life experience.

Jesus came as the God who was man. His natural estate helped His unnatural condition: He fully possessed who He was in the name of God. We are man, made into God’s image. Only as we realize who we now are in Christ can we fully overcome our natural state as man to be helped by the unnatural state we are now in through Christ, in that power of His Spirit at work in us. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20). As I find that place of the overcoming power of God at work in my reality, making this unnatural my daily norm, the greater works of God is accomplished; all that He is becomes real and alive in me; the possession of my true estate in Christ.

Last post for this series, in covering John 10’s teaching that we follow the voice of the Good Shepherd because the other voices are strange, I said, “Jesus still calls out and speaks to His Sheep today, and those who know His voice follow Him. They will not follow a stranger because they do not know the voice of the stranger.” God’s voice is strange to the flesh, the world, and the demonic. We have to overcome the voices that we have known all our lives, so that those become strange and His becomes the voice well known.

Beloved, we struggle with our fleshly nature because we refuse to let that voice become strange to us. We struggle, too easily falling to the wisdom of the world because that voice is agreeable to our fleshly desires. We struggle, influenced by the demonic because we fail to realize and stand firm on the fact that we no longer belong to that purposed influence. We struggle because we fail to understand fully that we are no longer OF the fleshly nature, the world economy, or demonic purpose.

We are OF God, His Kingdom, and the Spirit that indwells us. Thus, we must…

COME OUT AND BE SANCTIFIED.

Colossians 3:1-2 in the Amplified advises us.

“IF THEN you have been raised with Christ [to a new life, thus sharing His resurrection from the dead], aim at and seek the [rich, eternal treasures] that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. And set your minds and keep them set on what is above (the higher things), not on the things that are on the earth.”

Bigger GodI read a devotional called “S.O.A.P” today, titled “You Need A Higher View”, written by Rich Wilkerson. Based on this Colossians passage, He advises, “Too often, believers operate from a ‘Buried in Sin and Shame’ position rather than a ‘Raised Into Heavenly Places With Christ Jesus’ position. We have direct access to the Father through Jesus Christ, who is seated at God’s right hand in Heaven. That is where the Apostle Paul commands us to set our affection and attention. Elevate your viewpoint. Instead of ‘Looking Up’ from your problems, ‘Look Down’ on your problems with your ‘Problem Solver,’ JESUS.”

We are OF God, Beloved. Come up higher in Christ

“…Every day that we overcome the flesh, the world, and the demonic is because we possess the Spirit that possesses us and works this miracle of God in His overcoming power. Wow. That is awesome to my heart and inspires me to realize the miracle worked when I hear His voice and simply follow Him.” (see yesterday’s Ponderings)

~*~

Cliff Note: Tending roses after typing this, I reach down to smell one just opening up to the fullness of its beauty. As I smell its wonderful fragrance, God reminds me that the minute a rose comes into its beauty, it begins to die. It is in dying that its glorious fragrance springs forth.

Likewise, as we die to the old nature, the beauty of our new nature in Christ ignites. In death of the old, the birthing of the new brings forth the fragrance of God that is His miracle in us, fulfilling the word of “greater works” promised in Christ. The Spirit overcomes the natural we know in our flesh experience, birthing forth the image and fragrance of God in all His glory. Sanctified and made complete, we bear forth the greater works fruit and fragrance Jesus calls us to in His “These things” teachings.

Go forth into this new life, Beloved, and fill the air with His fragrance and glory.

God's Faithfulness, Peace, These Things Series

These Things Revealed

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Pulling it together

John 16:1-15

“These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me. But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them.

“These things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

“But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

“I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.”

Life is hard. Have you figured out that, too often, life is hard? When we seek to follow the Father and live the life He desires, there are a hundred different things that vie for our attention and seek to pull us from the path He designed us to walk. Therefore, Jesus spoke with purpose.

He spoke so that we may have peace in knowing Him, realizing His great love for us and growing to be His friend who walks with Him to accomplish His purpose. He spoke so we can possess the Kingdom purpose He has for us, bearing the fruit that works that purpose in the world around us, making this a better place to be and shining a light that draws others to join our journey on the straight and narrow path of God’s making.

Jesus spoke so that we may truly and fully believe, receiving all that He has for us.

Top of the list of His desire for us to possess is His indwelling Spirit, for He still has “many more things” to say to us today. Jesus still calls out and speaks to His Sheep today, and those who know His voice follow Him. They will not follow a stranger because they do not know the voice of the stranger. God gives His Spirit to every believer, and He speaks clearly, telling us of God and His purpose and plan, so that we have all we need to walk the straight and narrow path of His eternal purpose for each individual of us. (John 10)

In our focal passage, the work of the Spirit that Jesus tells us will come to help us is this: that we may understand sin, righteousness and judgment.

The Spirit instructs our heart to know sin, wrong paths, all that goes against the ways of God. In addition, Jesus tells us that sin reveals lack of believing-faith in God, His word, His ways, and His promises. His Spirit is here to help our understanding so that we may have faith to believe.

The Spirit instructs our heart to know righteousness, right paths, all that accomplishes the will, way and purpose of God.

This work of the Spirit fulfills the promise of Christ that He revealed when He instructed us through John 14:12, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.”

When we learn the voice of God that comes to us in the power of the Spirit, we accomplish the purpose of God who created us for good works. We do so knowing that “nothing shall be impossible for us who believe, for all things are possible with God and I can do all things through Christ, my Lord.”

As we said, life is hard. It can be hard some days simply to get out of the bed. The works we do are the greater works because we are not God. We who believe are men and women of God, empowered by the Spirit, yes; and every good work we do and accomplish in that Spirit power is nothing short of a miracle. Every day that we overcome the flesh, the world, and the demonic is because we possess the Spirit that possesses us and works this miracle of God’s overcoming power in us. Wow. That is awesome to my heart and inspires me to realize the miracle worked when I hear His voice and simply follow Him.

This faith to trust the Spirit to lead us to the will, way, and purpose of God, thus doing His work, accomplishes the great things of God in our day to day living. Representing Him in all we do, fills up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions (Colossians 1:24). The work of Christ in the earth continues in us as we become His lights in the world, glorifying Him in all we do – great and small, as good stewards of all He supplies. The Spirit helps us to realize that all we have in this life, all we go through whether good or difficult, all things are ours to possess and use for His Kingdom purpose: nothing wasted.

Lastly, Jesus tells us of the promised work of the Spirit in us so that we can know judgment, consequences, and potential outcomes.

This understanding of judgment He gives to us leads to good judgment for living. He gives understanding of His judgment in the power of the Spirit in order for us to know that there are two kingdoms at work in the earth and our actions and choices accomplish the purpose of one or the other.

As believers in God through Christ, the godly Kingdom is the one we seek to represent as we follow the dictates of the Spirit to fulfill the good works God created us to accomplish in such a time as this (Ephesians 2:10; Esther 4:14). The ungodly kingdom is the one dictated by the evil spirit of Satan, and its desire is to destroy the work of God in the earth. Thus, it is vital that we learn wisdom ~ the ability to have functional understanding of sin, righteousness and judgment that helps us to make right decisions so that we fulfill Kingdom purpose in all we choose to do.

In verse 25 of John 16, Jesus adds, “These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father.”

We have the whole of scripture and the power of the Spirit so that we can understand the plain and simple truth of God and His eternal purpose. Jesus gives us the Spirit of God so that we can understand, believe, receive His truths, and walk the path He has for us to walk.

Beloved, we too often try to make this plain and simple truth harder than it is, seeking to find some magical ingredient that will make life here easy. The fact is that life here is hard because there are two kingdoms vying for our affections, and we have four sources of wisdom seeking to influence our decisions. The plain and simple is this: “Choose today whom you will serve”. Which spirit will you possess and follow? Which voice guides you? “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)

“…this we also pray for, that you be made complete. …rejoice, BE made complete, BE comforted, BE like-minded, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will BE with you” ~ 2 Corinthians 13:9-11.

~*~

I thought I was finished with this series, but the “Wow” moment is coursing through me with greater depth of understanding that we will cover in the next post of Ponderings. Thank you for your faithfulness as patrons of this blog spot.

God's Faithfulness, Peace, These Things Series

Things Leading to Perfect Peace and More!

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Other produce of the “These things” spoken by Christ:

“I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have perfect peace and confidence. …” ~ John 16:33, AMP.

In this series, we looked at the “these things” referenced by Christ, teachings given to us so that we may have perfect peace and confidence. In looking at the teachings of Christ in this message found in John 14-16, we found these ingredients to a life of perfect peace and confidence:

  1. True and abiding belief in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit: knowing who this Triune God is and the truth of His existence and work brings assurance that this world’s challenges to Life in Christ cannot destroy.
  2. Kingdom reality: knowing that we are here with a purpose as God’s representatives in the earth, being in the world but not of it, working to be His light that draws many to His Kingdom, fills us with purpose that is undaunted by life’s struggle.
  3. Fruitful living: As Kingdom representatives, we are to produce fruit in keeping with a true and abiding relationship with God and His Kingdom purpose that bears the image and glory of God in the earth, thus fulfilling our purpose and strengthening our resolve.
  4. Love: as Kingdom people of God, we are image bearers, His producing within us the character and nature that shows us to be His children. As such we are not only to know His love for us, but knowing that He loves because He is love and He cannot deny Himself, we are to love in kind, having love as an attribute from the core of our existence. Love is who we are. Therefore, love done well to His glory produces fruit that strengthens peace and confidence.
  5. Called Friend: As people of Kingdom purpose who bear the image of God, our relationship with Him grows ever stronger as we become more than slaves forced to obey. As friends of God in Christ, we choose relationship with Him, obeying out of faith in Him despite the challenges living in the world brings our way. That abiding relationship with God brings us from slave status, to Friend of God in Christ, a bondslave by choice of love’s friendship and desire to be in His service and under His protective care by choice.

All these things, alive and growing in us, bring us to hearts of perfect peace and confidence in God through Christ, empowered by the Spirit-bond we possess and live out into the world. In studying this out, I found other things that “these things” taught by God-Christ produce. Before we close out this series, let us look at the produce found in “these things”.

Bible001“These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me” ~ John 16:1-3.

Jesus knows what it is to be outcast because of faith, belief, and its practice. Living in the world brings challenge that can lead to conflict. Being Kingdom people in a world of opposition against God and godly principles is difficult. Jesus instructs us that true understanding of the things spoken by God and becoming as He is so we are at our best as His representatives protects us from stumbling in a world of obstacles.

“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. …It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” ~ John 15:3; John 6:63.

Remembering these things spoken by Christ helps us to trust His cleansing power and to live the life He gives us in the power of the Spirit. When caught off guard in the world and found stumbling over some obstacle, our peace and confidence remains strong as we remember the things we know of God, the things that make us who we are as His Kingdom people. We are already clean because we trust Him and all He says of Himself and of us. All we need when stumbling comes is to let Him wash our injured and muddied feet by trusting His word to us.

“But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. …These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father” ~ John 16:4, 25.

Jesus purposed two things in all the things He taught us: to warn us of the things of this world and the flesh that lead to eventual destruction; and to tell us plainly of the Father so we have what we need to overcome evil and be His image bearers.

“These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” ~ John 14:25-26.

I lean heavily on this one in these days of my life, when memory of things spoken to me through God’s word is challenged by my weak ability to recall. Jesus speaks wisdom and instruction in abiding moments with Him and the Holy Spirit brings all to my remembrance when life’s stressors and health issues challenge my mind’s ability to retain His instruction. I trust God to help me recall His instruction, and He faithfully does so through this work of His Spirit in me. We will cover this one in greater detail in our last post for this series. For now, I want to end this post with the following final, awesome promise produced in us through “these things” taught by Christ.

“These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. …Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full” ~ John 15:11; 16:24.

Following “these things” taught us by Christ produces true and abiding joy in us. We too easily fall to looking for joy in our situations and circumstances, only to find disappointment. We expect joy to come through those we love, too often being let down in our expectations, thus being robbed of a false joy that is fleeting. However, when we get our joy from faithfulness to trust, believe in, rely on with confidence and practice “these things” taught by Christ, our joy remains with us because of Him fulfilling the promise found in “these things” that produce joy, peace and confidence.

Life circumstances and flawed people cannot rob of joy that abides in us through our thriving relationship with God as Kingdom people who are set to represent Him to those we love and accomplish His purpose in our circumstances. When our joy comes from our relationship with Him and our understanding of and commitment to Him as His ambassadors in this life, we will ask according to His heart desire and He will faithfully meet our desires with “Yes” and “Amen”, thus bringing us to fullness of joy found in unity with Him.

God speaks with purpose in mind, and that purpose produces good things in and through us as we remember His teachings and become as He is, representative of Him and His Kingdom in our here and now lives. Remember these things of God, beloved, and go forth to prosper as Royal Ambassadors of His Kingdom purpose.

Godly Principles, Peace, These Things Series

Things Leading to Perfect Peace ~ Part 5

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Called Friend ~ Deepening Relationship

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. This I command you, that you love one another” ~ John 15:12-17.

Hear these words of Jesus, beloved. “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”

What did the disciples have that made them friends instead of slaves? They possessed a vitally growing relationship with Christ. This reality of growing in relationship with God that makes us friends He shares His life with is ours to have and possess in Christ by the power of His Holy Spirit working in and through us. That reality begins with understanding this love that God has for us, a love that lays down His life on our behalf. That love is the perfect love that casts out all fear.

Think about your most trusted friend. What is it about your relationship with that friend that helps you know that wherever you go, whatever you do, that relationship will always be there? For me that ingredient that makes for true and lasting friendship is trust in the love they have for me and me for them.

walking-with-godI have three friends who moved off many years ago. These friends stay in touch through our marvelous technologies that span space and time to bring us closer together. I can be who I am with these friends and know they love me as I am, even when I am not my best self. We may not see each other often, but when we do, it is as if we never parted company. We may not always like what the other does, but we love each other anyway. And we know that when we struggle, there is always the other to reach out a loving hand to help us to come up higher in life as God’s chosen friend.

That is another thing I look for in a human friendship. I look for a growing relationship with God. I want people around me who know Him and are able to encourage my walk with Him. One reason for that is not only that these friends have a growing relationship with God that makes them ably equipped to counsel me from His perspective, but they possess His abiding presence, being available instruments to Him, allowing Him to reach out and touch me through their lives: and me to them. Just now I received a text from one of them that I do not hear from often, but she knows when she is in need, I am here for her, just as she is for me.

Beloved, that is what God wants with us. This desire for a relationship that is vitally growing and available, able to encourage and help to rise up to greater heights is not foreign to God. It is His image at work in us. God is love. Love’s most vital need is someone to give itself to and for; and its greatest desire is to find that love returned in kind.

When we have this growing reality at work in us, knowing God and being known by Him, mutually loving and giving self to bring the other higher, Him lifting us to higher ground as we lift Him to greater glory, shining ever brighter, we have friendship with God and a love that casts out fear.

Fear cannot reside where true love’s trust abides. God loves you. You can trust that even when you are in a pit of despair because of poor decisions that caused you to fall away for a time. He reaches out in love, desiring to grab your right hand and help you to higher ground. When we move away from Him, He is still there, waiting to hear from us andJesus 01 - water walk reach out His hand of love, help and companionship.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing means NOTHING! Not even the bad decisions we make in falling away from Him can remove His love from us. His sacrifice of love remains even in our darkest days. Though He hates where we are and what was done to put us in such a state of affairs, He still loves us and longs for our presence. So reach up and trust His love to grab you and help you be your best self to the glory of Him who loves you more than life itself.

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. This I command you, that you love one another” ~ John 15:12-17.

Oh, beloved. What great peace it is that comes to the heart of the one who truly understands, receives, believes, trusts and grows strong in this friendship found in a deep and abiding love relationship with God the Father through Jesus the Son in the power of the Spirit abiding within us. And we know this love abides in us as we come to desire His will over our own, laying down our lives by picking up His desire for us and making that our possession for a life of abundance with Him.

Assurance, Peace, These Things Series

Things Leading to Perfect Peace ~ Part 3

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Fruitful Abiding

“I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace and confidence. In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer ~ yes, take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted! For I have overcome the world: depriving it of power to harm you, having conquered it for you.” ~ John 16:33, AMP.

In our busy couple of weeks, we saw friends come in for a visit, followed by traveling on a rush weekend trip to see family. Busy lives: all revealing issues difficult to deal with, threatening to rob of peace. Even preparing for company and to travel became a threat against peace. BUT GOD! He used the situations faced to reveal Himself as He responded faithfully to each need, accomplishing great things in and through us and on our behalf.

In our time with friends and family, the opportunity revealed the hand of God at work: bringing healing to some past issues; providing opportunity to bear fruit into the lives of those we love and care for as we ministered His comfort into current situations. We overcame all the threat against our ability to live in that place of perfect peace provided by God by believing in Him and walking with Kingdom perspective. Through that we were able to bear fruit in keeping with righteousness into each situation.

That is the next thing taught by Jesus that helps us abide in the place of His peace:

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples” ~ John 15:1-8.

Spirit-fruit-bOur abiding in Him is the ingredient necessary for our bearing fruit for His Kingdom. Here I just noticed that Jesus referred the disciples back to their feet washing session. It is constantly letting the Lord our Savior wash our feet that secures us as a fruitful branch on His vine. When we spend time with the Lord, allowing Him to speak into our lives and train us up in righteousness, rebirthing in us the image of God He intended we possess, we live in vital connection with God. That connection feeds us and grows us to be strong fruit-bearing branches.

In Matthew 12, Jesus makes an important point that tells us why fruit bearing is important:

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit” ~ verse 33.

The fruit we bear into life, whether good or bad, godly or worldly, reveals the tree from which we receive our nourishment. James speaks of this as he talks about our wisdom for life. Our wisdom for decision-making and action-taking either comes from our fleshly nature, worldly philosophy, demonic influences, or God and His truth. Wisdom from the first three sources mentioned produce bitterness, jealousy, selfish ambition, arrogance, falsehood, disorder, etc.: producing every kind of evil. Wisdom that is from God produces purity, peacefulness, gentleness, ability to yield that makes one reasonable, being merciful and able to bear good fruits which are unwavering and without hypocrisy. Then James adds:

“And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” ~ James 3:13-18.

When we see our ability to bear fruit in keeping with righteousness, thus producing godliness into our daily lives, we have peace of knowing that we abide in the true vine of God’s supply.

God's Faithfulness, Kingdom Living, who I am in Christ

GET UP!

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“So that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here” ~ John 14:31.

My heart leaps every time I read this verse. “Get up, let us go from here.”

Jesus and the disciples are going from the upper room where their last supper together was eaten, heading into the Garden where they will pray together for the final hours of Christ’s life and ministry.

Again, as I read this, the Spirit of God instructs me of its importance to me in my days of walking with Christ. He says to my heart even now, “The world knows your love of the Father in the same way as you follow Christ in doing ‘exactly as the Father commanded.’ Yesterday is gone. Its successes will meet you in glory as reward. Its failures, covered by Christ, He carried to the underworld for all eternity. Today is a new day. Do not let yesterday’s failures hinder your walk of faith-filled obedience today. Do not even allow your last failed breath hinder and rob you of the glory to be had with the next breath you take. Forgetting what lies behind and pressing forward to what lies ahead, get up, and let us go from here.”  (Philippians 3:8-16, *13)

walking-with-godConfess yesterday’s sins and repent of them, yes; but do not let those things define you or hold you captive. It is a new day with new mercy and loving-kindness from God who, because of Jesus, pours forth strength and power for us to overcome our flesh, the world, and the demonic wisdom that tempt us. Show the Love you have for the Lord by following in likeness to Christ’s obedience, and have a BLESSed day in the Lord as you see His purpose for you being in this day unfolding before you to the glory of His Holy Name.

Father, I am confident of this very thing, that YOU who began a good work in me, will perfect it from now until the day of Christ’s return. Grant me faith to believe and receive Your transforming, enabling, perfecting and equipping power for life more abundant and full, proving Your will made sure, complete and accomplished in me. In Jesus, amen.

(Philippians 1:6; Romans 12:1-2)