Something to think about
A Magician He is Not
19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Philippians. 4: 19
This scripture and many others like it have been used to express that willingness of God to bless people. It is often quoted out of context or out of ignorance. Often interpreted to mean that God will give us whatever we need or want regardless of the circumstances. Then when it doesn't happen, we wonder about the veracity of this verse and others like it. Is God really able to fulfill this promise?
It is akin to the soldier in the midst of battle asking God to keep Him from injury while he engages in the fight to inflict harm on his enemy. While his enemy is asking the same thing from the same God. What most people are asking for is for a magician to extricate them from their circumstance. They want to be freed, delivered from every undesirable situation without having to deal with the cause that brought them there. They want a free pass, and when they don't get it they ask, where is God in all this? He is where He always is, where they put Him on the outside.
For you to be blessed by God, you have to be in His will. Now, that is not a difficult thing. At least it is not a difficult thing to understand. Do what He has told you to do. How do I know what he wants me to do? Read the bible. Don't be so thick-headed it is not about you. It is about God it has always been about God. It will always be about God. He allows us to be part of His kingdom but be assured of this He is the boss and always will be.
To be blessed by God "according to his riches in glory" you must be part of His kingdom. Even then He is not a candy man. He is not going to give you the desires of your sinful heart. You must begin the process of transformation by the "renewing of your mind." Renewing as in turning away from your sin and after the precepts of God. Then is when you will begin to see the blessings of God. The blessing of God is continual and never-ending but are also tied to our personal transformation into the image of Him. To receive the blessing of God, you must be in a place where you can receive them. God does not bless those outside of His will. The blessing of God extends only to those that are called by His name. All appearance of blessing outside of the family of God will end in permanent separation from God. Regardless of how good it may appear and be confirmed by society. Without God, that apparent blessing may lead to permanent loss and separation from God.
If you want to be blessed of God and receive all the blessings He has in store for you move into His will. Then be ready for a life of blessings, challenges, and victories.
Monday, January 29, 2018
A Magician He is Not
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Four Words
Four Words
Last year about this time I participated in a fast my church had encouraged us to engage in. As I completed that fast, I felt the Lord shared with me four words. Expect, receive, glorify, repeat.
Expect
Means to expect something from God. It meant and means if we want to see God work in our lives we must expect Him to do something in our lives. A specific thing. Not something ambiguous and undefined. Vague and unclear can't be attributed to God.
Receive
It means we must receive what God wants to give us or do for us. If you don't receive what God is giving you, then you can't be blessed by Him. Accept what He provides for you so you may accomplish what He has for you.
Glorify
Acknowledge that it is His doing that has brought you to where you are. Acknowledge publicly not privately. Let it be known that God has called you to the task and the success of that mission is dependant on His provision and not on your wisdom.
Repeat
Do the process again, expect from God, receive from God and Glorify God. Then repeat.
From last year to this year, the Lord has brought about the Faith Business Alliance. Which is responsible for the Faith Business Directory. Which is also responsible for the Aging With Grace Conference 2017 and the soon coming 2018 Conference. Which is also responsible for the Business Luncheons and Business After Hours. As well as providing the "Essentials For a Startup, a class for new business owners. While using all the monies collected from our activities to help fund the mission efforts of our church. Though my expectations were high last year and the Lord has exceeded my expectations. I am expecting more, receiving more so I can glorify God more. Then I will repeat.
11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11
EXPECT, RECEIVE, GLORIFY, REPEAT
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Time Limits
Something to think about.
Time Limits
12 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant: 1 Corinthians 12:1
Upon reading this verse, you are probably thinking I am going to write about spiritual gifts. Well yes and no. I am assuming you understand spiritual gifts are a given. Spiritual gifts are active and given by God to His people. The proof of the spiritual gifts given by God to His people is evident in the use of them not in the exposition of someone writing about them.
This past Christmas I experienced the joy of watching my two-year grandchild play with all of her new gifts. It was the sheer pleasure watching her open an express her joy or displeasure at receiving a gift. She spent the day running from one gift to the other playing with them as long as her attention would allow. It's been two weeks almost three since she received her gifts and some gifts have been regulated to the bottom of the toy box, and others are her constant companion. She prefers her blanket and her teddy bears or plush. She travels with her blanket and plush. I know, her mother knows, and the rest of the world knows that she would learn a great deal more about the world around her if she uses the other toys as well as her blanket and teddy bear.
What are the gifts God has given you? Has He given you crayons, a book, and robot, a microphone, a drum set, a dream? More importantly which one are you using? Because God gives us spiritual gifts are we only supposed to use them in church only on church time? Only for those who are spiritual? Is there time limit, a location limit, a people limit. Are we only to use the gifts of God on the people of God. For sure we are to share the gifts God has given to us to edify and uplift the church but is it only for the church?
The gifts of God unlike the gifts given to my grandchild should become part of our DNA. They should be something we use on a continual basis. They should be what leads us in the direction of our lives. The positive figures of history are in the pages of history not for the mundane things in there lives but because they used the gifts they where given for the benefit of mankind. We know them for the exemplary use of there abilities not for anything else.
We should be using the gifts God has given us at all times in all places for all situations. Jesus used the gifts He was given all the time in all places with all people. And He said greater things than these you will do. With the gifts, God has given you, do for greater things.
Monday, January 15, 2018
What Does it Look Like?
Something to think about.
What Does it Look Like?
37 Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." Matthew 22:37
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:5
When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, He answered with this verse. There is no hidden meaning it is not a parable it is a direct answer to a direct question. What does loving God look like? How do you express your love for God and how is it evident to those around you. Love is not something that is kept in secret. It is something you want to tell everyone about or at least make it evident.
Think of all the ways you express love to your spouse your children, parents, siblings, friends. How do you show love to you God? It occurs to me that our love for God should be evident in the way we live. It is not about other people. Loving your neighbor is important, as the Bible says but loving God is on another level.
God is the one that created you, gave you life, you exist because he thought you up. He loved you before you love Him. He created you for the singular purpose of loving you. His desire is for you to spend eternity with Him. He wants to care for you, protect you and supply your needs. Whats more He can do all of that. He only wants to provide you with the best life you can live. Everything that is wonderful and glorious He wants for your life. Everything excellent and blissful is what He wants for you, and He has the capacity to supply it. He is not like us where we want the best for those we love but lack the resources to supply those needs.
What have you invested to reciprocate that love? What time, effort' money or service have you done or are doing to show God you love Him? If you love Him how do you express it? We were created to love Him. That is our purpose. In this purpose resides the meaning of your life. We spend all of our lives looking and desiring to be loved and all the while it has been right there in front of us. Show God your love for Him, and you will find what you have searched for. It is said that God will meet us at the point of our need, our need is to love God.
Saturday, January 13, 2018
The Past
Something to think about
The Past
13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14
This famous and inspiring verse is used and quoted many times and rightly so, as it paints a picture of perseverance and steadfastness we all need to employ in our lives. As I get older, I find I have not really forgotten some of the things of the past.
Forgetting things of the past is not as easy as putting them away in some long-lost abyss in the mind. Or covering them up with new more pleasurable memories and enjoyable activities. It actually requires that you bring them to the fore of your consciousness and deal with them. It means not to turn your back on the hurt and pain of a memory or occurrence. It actually means to bring it with full intent to your immediate and single-minded attention and laying it before God and saying, God here it is help me to forgive and forget. It is not a time to place blame assign guilt or in some way push it off on someone else. It is time to bring that hurt before God and ask, heal me and release me. It is time for you to come naked before the Lord and ask for his redemptive power to work in your life.
He is the only one that can release you from the past which will allow you to push forward toward the prize. When you bring your hurts, painful memories, failures, disappointments before God and permit Him to be God, you will experience a personal freedom that can not be obtained by human means. You don't have to wait for years to deal with the issues that are chains around your neck. You can deal with them with God at the time of the hurt, and He will heal you. Yes, there will be a time of healing but once completed you will be able to move forward toward the goal.
What denies you the future victory in your journey of life is not what assails you from the outside nearly as much as what binds you from the inside. The fears that are causing you to shrink back from what God has called you to do are the obstacles that keep you from the prize He has made available to you. You do not need to conquer your fear you need to be healed from whatever caused the fear. By bringing your life before God He can heal you, then you can forget those things which are behind and press forward toward the goal He has set for you. Forgetting things of the past requires you to bring those things before God your healer and allowing Him to do what He does.
Friday, January 12, 2018
Celebration
Something to think about.
Celebration
If you become still and realize He is God you will realize He is very good.
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
In The World Part Two
Something to think about.
In The World Part Two
14 I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. John 17:14-15
"You should keep them from the evil, this is an interesting statement or request. Jesus is asking God to protect us. To keep us from being defeated by the devil. You have to ask yourself why He would make such a request? Why do we need to be protected?
He is asking out of experience. He was hated, abused, ridiculed and had experienced the hate we would know. The reason he makes this request is that he knows if we follow him we will suffer. He knows that the world will reject us as they rejected him. So he asked for our protection, not that we will be protected to the point where we are unaffected. He asked that we are protected while we're being hated and ostracized. Jesus was hated because he challenged the status quo. He introduced a new covenant. And he asks us his followers to maintain the same Covenant. By doing so, he became an irritant to the powers-that-be. If we are to follow him and do what he did, we will be hated and opposed as he was.
If you are a Christian, you will be an irritant because you are in opposition to the status quo. We want to be accepted. We want our beliefs and our actions to be received by society without conflict. We want everything that we do to be recognized and welcomed. But we forget how we were before we became Christians. We were anti-Jesus Christ. We had no interest in Christian values, faith, belief or authority. We were self-centered and only interested in our own desires. We believed we were entitled to do whatever we chose.
We would like Christianity to be a very neat conflict-free existence where we could live peaceably, favorably and orderly. The peace, favor, and order we receive comes from God. It is foolish for us to think that we will have peace in this world. We are at odds with this world. We are at odds with sin. Our opposition to sin puts us at odds with society. We must realize that though we are in the world, we don't belong to this world. As such we will always be in opposition to the secular world. That is why Jesus Christ prayed that we would be protected. Because we will always be in conflict with the world.
Though he was rejected, hated abused and humiliated He overcame the world. Through His victory, we will also overcome the world. As joint heirs with Jesus Christ we have the assurance of our resurrection through Him.
Friday, January 5, 2018
In This World Part One
Something to think about.
In This World Part One
14 I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.
We have heard it said, we Christians should be in the world but not of the world. This is an abbreviated quote of the verses above. They are paraphrasing what Jesus said "they are not of the world," referring to Christians, Jesus is saying we belong to a different realm of existence.
I would like to focus on the lesser know verse 15. Here Jesus is praying, God do not remove them but protect them. We the body of believers have taken the "not of this world" to far. I noticed as I have become heavily involved in my church that I continually hangout and associated with people from the church. Which because of my involvement is a natural byproduct of how I spend my time. In a sense, I am living "not of this world." Which caused me to re-examine this verse and its intention.
As you become more involved in an activity, you tend to associate with others that are also involved in the same activity. If you like alcohol, you tend to associate with others that like alcohol. If you like running, you tend to associate with other runners. How does your, or my involvement in church activities accomplish being in the world but "not of the world?"
Your involvement in the church does not remove you from the responsibility of the "great commission." Good works do not exempt you from "why"you are still here. We are to be in the world. Jesus prayed that we remain here not that we be removed. He prays for our protection, not for our exclusion. What Jesus is saying to us is we are to be in contact with the world because if we are not, how can we share the Gospel. We are to be the mouthpiece of God, not the silent political irritant that we have become. Jesus prays for our protection. Why would he pray for our protection if all we do is associate with other like-minded individuals? The only reason for protection is if you are an irritant to someone. If we only associate with each other, then the evil one would have no reason to disturb us. He would leave us to our own interest. As long as we don't step outside of our boundaries, we would be safe. As long as we remain within the confines of our religious activity do we even need this verse? If all we do is minister to people within the church are we really doing anything?
We must interact with the world. It will be messy. We must shake off the comfort of complacency. We need to be in the world.
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Cornerstone
Something to think about.
Cornerstone
12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Acts 4:12
Jesus is the name above any other name. Of course, it is not just the name but the man who possessed that name that empowers our salvation. This is the cornerstone of our belief system without it we are irrelevant.
Christianity is weird if you think about it. We believe in being born again. Of eternal life through the blood of one man. We believe in the unmerited redemption of mankind. We believe in a God we have never seen. We believe this same God is still active in the events of man. We believe in the resurrection of a man who had been dead for three days. We believe He left earth by other means than death. We believe and wait for His return. We believe in the Trinity. We believe there is an unmovable moral standard by which to live our lives. All that we believe is dependant on this one man.
Christianity does not exist if you remove Jesus from it. If you make Him a man, the actual son of Joseph he becomes a byline of a ridiculous cult. If you prove, He was never resurrected, again Christianity crumbles. If you can find His remains, Christianity is a farce. If you can disprove any of essential claims we make about Him Christianity is a waste. The cornerstone on which Christianity exists is Jesus. In every aspect, Christianity depends on Jesus.
As everything about Christianity depends on Jesus, so does our salvation depend on Him. He is the only one that can provide us with salvation. In Him resides the power of salvation, rebirth, redemption, forgiveness, and life and life eternal. Christianity is all about Jesus it is not about anything else. It is not a means to an end. It is not a social program, a political party. It is not a religious entity. It is not the good we do for one another. Or the beautiful things by which we express Christ. Christianity is not a what it is a who. Christianity is Jesus. From Him flows everything else. He is the bedrock cornerstone of what we believe. Without him, precisely in the center of our lives and belief system, we will miss the mark.
There is no other name.
Monday, January 1, 2018
Go Home
Something to think about.
Go Home
The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." Like 8 38-39
The mantra of our society is to get an and education then go conquer the world. It is interesting Jesus tells this man whom He had liberated, go home and tell them what God has done for you. Education is imporatnt. The disciples spent three years with Jesus learning from Him. Most of which was in preparation for what was to come. However, there is a time and place when experience trumps education. This is one of those times.
Jesus tells the formerly demon possessed man no I don't want you to hang around me, go tell others of what I have done. We have expended much too much energy, resources, and intellect in preparing people to share the gospel and not enough resources teaching people to live the gospel. Jesus did not tell the formerly demon possessed man to go and study under the tutelage of a leading authority. He told Him by virtue of what God has done in your life you are empowered to share God with others.
It wasn't seminars, conferences, academic process or intellectual prowess, which qualified this individual to share Jesus it was his experience. It was the liberation of spiritual bondage that trained Him to share the healing he received at the hands of Jesus.
All of the highly skilled professionals involved in the propagation of Christianity are not the ones that are going to change the world for Christ. If that were possible, it would have been done. I dare say it was never the intent of Christ for that to occur. It was not the intent of Christ for the church to be the salvation of the world. At least not the church as we define it today. A centralized, organized corporate entity with the sole purpose of evangelization. Understand I belong to such a church I support my church both financially and physically. But my church was not what God intended for the propagation of the gospel. Yes, it has its place in the overall plan of God, it has an integral part in that plan. My church as any other church is and should be an oasis where the battered and beaten warriors of God come to be rejuvenated, fed, healed and sent back into the world to fight the war God intended us to fight. The Church was designed to be a fortress where the weary come to find rest and protection. A place to be educated in how to best fight the war we are inevitably involved in. The church as an entity is not there to evangelize, it is there to feed, edify and educate.
The burden of the gospel falls on the rest of us to do as the liberated demon possessed man was instructed. Go home tell them what God has done in your life. The office of the evangelist is not intended for the anomaly. It was never intended for the astonishing orator it was intended for you and me. To go home and tell our neighbors and friends what God has done in our lives. Everyone is looking for evidence of the living God, and you are that evidence. You are that miracle. You are the new creation that can only happen when God is in you. You as the formerly demon-possessed man are qualified to share the gospel of Christ by virtue of what he has done in your life. If you share your story the Church God intended will change the world.