February 19, 2015: It Doesn't "Just Happen"

"Therefore....I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." Acts 26:19

Some of us believers have been blessed with either a vision or a verbal inner directive or a prophetic utterance by a person giving us direction and vision for what was to come, and how we were to be a part of that. I have witnessed that latter example several times.

Here's the problem: We have all been taught the Biblical truth that God is sovereign and omnipotent. However, understanding those concepts from a merely human and mental standpoint, our inclination is to sit it out and wait for God to make it (and us) 'happen'.

Paul's understanding of that calling or vision requires obedience! Ouch!!

The will of man is the valve that God has given to each of us that determines whom and how much we will obey (cooperate with). God does not force us to do anything--He wants us to willfully love Him back, just as He has willfully loved us. Yes, that requires the enabling grace that comes from God. Yes, we must surrender to that grace.

The devil will use either apathy to entice us to do nothing, or the threat of pain to dislodge us from obeying God's will. Likewise, God will sometimes allow a challenge to arise to show us how much or how little it takes to knock us off course.

Father, please give us a fresh revelation of the greatness and power of Your love, and the willingness to love-you-back with that same love.

February 14, 2015

The infinite variety in people is a testimony to God's infinite creative powers. It is the servants of satan who wish to dominate us as a cookie cutter...stamping out the same shape from a flat piece of dough.

February 13, 2015

For GOD so loved...that HE gave.

God made Him, who knew no sin to BE sin.....for us that we may become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

It's not enough to acknowledge....in our little brains....that the offer has been made; we must humble ourselves, daily, and accept the offer.

We have no cause for pride or pretense.

God is offering us the gift of regeneration. To accept it, we must give up the 'mess' that we are to be transformed into the person God intends us to be.

February 12, 2015 (post #2)

Forgiveness is a remarkable and mis-understood thing. Forgiveness always COSTS the forgiver. But, to be received, forgiveness requires that the one who is being forgiven must acknowledge their own wrong, and desire to turn from it.

The forgiveness from God cost Him the death of His Son. For us to truly receive it, we must acknowledge our guilt, and desire to be different. If we truly long for that 'change', it will not come about by our own reason or strength--it will require our surrender to God.

February 12, 2015

No Band-Aids...No Long Sleeve Shirts.

I've been reading "Irregular People". It's about those who hurt us so deeply by what they do--or don't do--say--or don't say, etc. Those whom we feel we should be close to, but seem so insensitive to us as people--the "red-headed step-children" of their lives.

The author clarifies with examples what she means by irregular people and the ways they hurt us. She bares her soul, recounting the natural and spiritual progression she has gone through to be where she is now. She prayed for a heart to be obedient to God's voice--to 'want' to do what He had asked her. To forgive and to love, not out of her own strength, but out of His. And to follow His strategy in getting there. No counting the days or the time in any way; allow God to work His miracles in His time and His way if she just stayed obedient.

She is a wounded warrior. But the thing is, WE ALL ARE!! She has allowed God to be her strength. So she can walk transparently and not fear the faces of people because God is, and has been, her strength. Remember when Jesus met with His disciples after His resurrection; He said "See my hands and feet [the wounds], it is I". We can be like Him if we will only allow the Father to be completely ALL that He desires in us and through us and for us.

Today's post from February 15, 2016

The devil knows how to bring division into a situation, and in so doing undermine and destroy the foundations of what has been entrusted to us. The evil that runs rampant on the earth today has its roots in pride and envy. There are a lot of people who are insecure in themselves; they do not hear God speaking His Love songs to them, trying to bring them back to a divine sanity and His Kingdom community. This includes some real Christians who just don't know any better. Sadly, there is a streak of hateful, fear-based arrogance that is evident and manifest in the words and actions of real believers, pretend believers, and non-believers.

Those who lean and vote Left-ward seem to be the most hateful, but they are not the only ones. (Note the hateful things spoken and written about Scalia at his death by Lefties.) THAT is demonizing your opponent in a fit of self-righteous arrogance.

"Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His." (Romans 8:9b)

And, NO, I don't see the words and attitudes and behaviors of some of the Republican front-runners as being terribly godly or Christ-like. Our Pastor is ever challenging us to be the Church, to pray like there's no tomorrow, and act like Jesus in our everyday lives. God's calling to every believer is to be a disciple of--and a witness to--Jesus. Not a theology. And certainly not of ourselves. We only impact the world when we act contrary to the behavior and value-system OF the world. There are those who claim the name of Jesus, but insist on manipulating the Word of God so as to conform to the culture of today. If you have not truly been born again, you will always seek to compromise with 'the world'. Jesus had authority (see Matt.21:23-27) because He was under the Father's authority (John 5:19 & 8:28). And it was personal, not merely propositional or based on principles. That's the pattern Jesus set for us to follow. We desperately need God's intervention in the world and in the political process. We must submit ourselves to His voice and His direction.

"Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it." (1 Peter 3:15 NLT)

February 11, 2015

I don't know if there is any real and significant change--inside--until we deliberately make a change in the "gods" we have inside. Whatever thing(s) or person(s) we submit to in part or in whole have the authority to really change us from the inside out, which is the only meaningful change there is.

A discerning eye will ultimately reveal someone else's "god(s)". It may be ego, their bank account, their power level, certain possessions, their spouse or children, etc.

February 8, 2015

I was blessed to hear a part of Charles Stanley's message on Friendship this morning, and I need to listen to it in its entirety. At the same time I am reading "Irregular People", an insightful book on those people in our lives (especially kin) who always seem to say and do the most insensitively painful things. And, when we seek to say the most delicate and intimately vulnerable things--it's as if they didn't even hear us.

Our Pastor Chuck consistently tells us that we must sit still long enough to let God truly love us--for us to hear Him say "I Love You" in our prayer closets, and to let that divine love work the changes in us that must take place. Moses was the meekest man on the face of the earth, because he was always moving into or coming from the presence of God. Jesus had total peace and confidence even though He was the Son of Man, because He knew that He and the Father were One. His beloved disciple John said that the Law came through Moses, but Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ.

Think of all those you know who must "have the preeminence", who must always be right, who must always have the last word, who never apologize for anything, who must always have things their way, who must be the center of attention and appreciation. These are people for whom Jesus Christ has no authority--He is not LORD in or over their lives--and can neither be Savior. They need our compassion and our prayers that God would bring about a divine intervention.

Good friends can tease each other about their foibles and strange habits (because, as humans, we all have them) because they see themselves and each other as the fallen humanity that we are. We are in desperate need of God's mercy and grace. We see ourselves and our friends as co-equals at the foot of the cross. Sadly, those who must constantly strive to be better--or SEEN as better--than others are people without peace and without God.

James Robison: "It takes hurt people to hurt people."

February 5, 2015

There is an ancient story about six (or so) blind men who tried to describe an elephant. Each touched a different part of the elephant's body and the descriptions were obviously different from each other. Each man tried to express what he felt by likening that part to something he had experienced before. When we seek to describe some thing or some experience that is new to us, we try to liken it to something we already know. It helps to have a frame of reference when we deal with that which is beyond our past experiences.

Have you noticed how often Jesus said something like, "The Kingdom of God is like......"? He did that because the Kingdom is beyond our experiences. And one complex description can't cover it all--it's far too grand and glorious. The Kingdom of God is not something we can intellectually describe and present for people to ponder and someday make a decision about. Those individual decisions are moral--not mental. Will we surrender to the King--personally, not just an abstract thought? Wise people have observed how Jesus would locate [pinpoint] a person's heart with a question, or with a challenge. Note how the rich young ruler went away sad [when Jesus said, "Sell what you have and give to the poor"] because he was very rich.

February 4, 2015 (post #2)

We are not transformed by information or head knowledge. We are transformed by submission to a Person that we honor and esteem and [even] worship. That is why our time with Him in our prayer closets has the ability to do more good for us than most anything else. God would have all men (people) to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. God also knows that time must be allotted for that task to be done. We desire instant 'justice' (revenge?), but God desires a permanent change in the one who done-us-wrong. As we truly pray for those who hurt us--either on purpose or through insensitivity--we ask that HIS heart and mind be transplanted into that person.

So, we must willfully forgive, and pray "Hurry up, Lord!" And with me, too.

February 4, 2015

"A mental relationship with God is mechanical and spiritless.  We were created to dwell with Him in reality, not theory alone."  --John Bevere

THIS is why the New Birth is both Biblical and essential for eternal life under the Lordship of King Jesus. A lot of American "Christians" aren't because they don't understand that birth--natural or spiritual--is something you experience and KNOW you have experienced. Contemporary American culture has diluted the Bible word "believe" so that it only means "I think that is so." The Bible word "believe" has a Person as its object, and involves commitment to that Person, even to the point of obedience to that Person's authority. The Father is Daddy to all who are born again by His Spirit.