Psa 9:10 And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, LORD, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.
What a mighty promise. The Lord never forsakes His own. Can you see how the Scriptures tell us that those who know His name and put their trust in God are those who seek the Lord? Knowing and trusting and seeking. The trinity of relationship with God. And for His part, the Lord never leaves us nor forsakes us. Now what does it mean to seek the Lord? It is one of those magnificent paradoxes. To know and yet to seek. And not just seek the Lord, but to seek Him with our whole hearts. With everything in us, we seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness. To seek the Lord with our whole hearts is to remove any and all obstacles that stand in our way. Fear must go, anxiety must vanish.
Do not be fooled saint, we have work to do. Obedience. Discipline. Responding. Abiding.Loving. Forgiving. Sacrificing. Taking up our cross daily. Laying down our offenses. If you are the Lords you have been empowered to do all of that and more. You have been empowered to possess that which was given to you, another mighty paradox. This is the work, to do the will of your Father in heaven. Those who are determined to walk with their whole hearts, they will bear the marks of such a pilgrimage. They will praise Him with everything that is in them. Not just on the high mountains of blessings but also and particularly in the depths of the deepest valleys of afflictions. They will testify of all His marvelous works to anyone who will want to listen, and also to those who don’t. They will be glad in the Lord and their joy will radiate from their countenance.
In all of that, in the presence of our glorious God, our fears and our anxieties perish. The destructive aspects of our characters are vanquished forever. And the Lord our God endures forever in their place. The Lord becomes to us a refuge in times of trouble. He is our ever present high tower and when trouble comes we run into it and we are safe. He has created in His children, a fragrant band of priests who are humbled and contrite. And He always hears the cries of the humble, and He dwells in High places with the broken and the contrite. The expectations of the poor in spirit shall not perish. We know the end of all things and we know that the nations and the powers that be are but men, but we serve the God who brings all men to their knees, one way or another, in the end. Will you praise Him today saints?
Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father, but by me. This scripture is the most profound truth ever written. This is why in the end of end days it will become the most infamous of all Scriptures. This will be banned and become illegal to share in our life time. It will be deemed as hate speech and once that occurs, almost all of what Jesus spoke will be considered detrimental to the spiritual health of the population at large. In the eyes of the world It will be deemed immoral to quote Jesus. This will be the ultimate irony, a wicked world condemning Jesus for being immoral.
Let’s just take a moment to affirm this truth. Jesus is the only way to heaven and every other road leads directly to hell, whether that be the Islamic road or the Judaic road or the Hindu road or the Buddhist road. The only way to God is through His son Jesus Christ. He is the only way. This is the way of Christ. We live and we strive to live as He did and taught. The truth is the word of God. It is not open for debate among saints, starting with the above Scripture. Jesus is the Truth and Jesus is the word made flesh and we stand upon it, even with our very lives. It burns at the center of our souls, it is a fire in our bones and flames upon our lips. The truth spoken in love scorches a Godless earth. To the ungodly it is a fire that must be extinguished.
Finally He is the life and no man truly follows Him without having His life in him. His life in us is joy and peace in the Holy Spirit. It is peace when all around us is turmoil. It is joy even in the depths of despair. It is love when we should hate. It is self control and meekness. It is a giving of ourselves and a crucified life. It is loving our enemies. It is continuing to preach in the name of Jesus even as the world warns us not to. And so saint, even in these ever darkening days let us stand upon the fundamental truth of our Lord and never waver even as the inevitable assaults come flooding in. He is true and let all men be liars.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.(Joh 14:6)
Psa 91:1 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
Saints, the Lord has set His love upon you. Therefore He shall deliver you. He will raise you up to the high and holy places because you know Him. This is where He dwells with the humble and the contrite. This is where He revives your spirit and and revives your heart. You shall call upon the Lord and He will answer you. He will be with you in the midst of trouble and He will deliver you. He will satisfy all of your needs, He sees what you lack, He sees into the depths of your soul. He is your refuge and your fortress and in Him you shall trust.
Brothers and sisters, these are marvelous promises from our heavenly Father. They are realized to their greatest depths in the midst of your troubles. His grace is sufficient for you. So when the waters threaten to overwhelm you, His grace raises you up to higher ground. When the fires threaten to consume you, He stands right there in the midst of the flames with you and rivers of grace surrounds you and keeps you. As the Royal priesthood enters into the darkest period of all mankind, then the world will see the greatest expression of light it has ever seen. Because of the darkness of their hearts they must try and consume the light that you bear, but this only produces more light.
The author of anarchy and chaos is on the march around the world and death follows after him. The horses of the apocalypse are riding with all their might through the night. Hell follows after them. A thousand shall fall at your side, ten thousand shall fall at your right hand, but you shall stand. The great falling away will sweep millions away in its mighty current, but you shall stand and the promises of God will dwell richly in your heart. Do not fear saint, for you have made the Lord your God your dwelling place, and in this dwelling place, in this secret place that no eye can see, you will find refuge under the shadow of the Almighty. And having done all, stand.
Mat 6:34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Imagine brothers and sisters, if we simply took the Lord at His word and obeyed that command. After describing all the things the “gentiles do,” He told us not to do them. We have not to worry what we shall wear. We are not to worry what we shall eat. He is talking about life in general. We often quote that we cannot serve two masters, and we have in mind God and “mammon.” And yet, that was only a part of it.
Jesus goes on to talk about what ails most of us and He begins with a “therefore,” meaning given everything I have just said do not do ………….the rest of the chapter. For if you do, you are assuredly trying to serve two masters. If you are taken up with worries about tomorrow then this is self-serving. You cannot serve yourself and serve God. You cannot be taken up with worries about tomorrow and seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. It is not possible. Something has to give.
The thing about being your own master, you are a tyrant. Your feelings are tyrannical. Your heart is deceitfully wicked. A beautiful woman can look in a mirror and see something ugly looking back. A good man can look in the mirror and and see a vile worm. Remember saints, the light of the body is in the eye. If the eye has a single focus on God, then your whole body will be full of light. If your focus is on the things of this world then it cannot be on God, you cannot possibly be seeking God and His righteousness. It is time to take Jesus at His word. Focus on God and not tomorrow, only then will you be able to seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness and walk in that Kingdom and in that righteousness.
A wise man once said that discontentment in the mind puts discontentment in the mouth and discontentment in the mouth puts a shackle on the neck. In America and Europe you are seeing divided populations which has led to violence in the streets. In Haiti we see an unfolding civil war. In South Africa stores and business are burning and open looting is taking place. I want to tell you brothers and sisters, a much more transmittable virus than Covid is spreading around the world. It has an incubation period that spans the human life. Discontentment rises up and sweeps over cities and nations and populations like an unseen tsunami. It has a critical mass. For the most part is is contained to local regions and smaller groups of people. Yet there was always coming a time when people would rise up and destroy themselves.
Jesus tells us in Matt 24 that in the beginning of sorrows that nation would rise up against nation. The word nation here is the word “ethnos,” it’s where we get our English word ethnic or ethnicity from. I want to use South Africa as an example. One would have thought that Apartheid was the root cause of all the South African problems. It was not. It was a problem, but not the problem. The virus runs much deeper than obvious societal problems. It is a fundamental flaw in our humanity. It awaits critical mass. It awaits to try and seize what it can never have, contentment. Once the levels reach critical mass it then needs a spark. It needs a way out. Once it is out it seeks the company of its own and garners strength in numbers.
George Floyd was a such a spark in America. His death was the spark that caused the virus to come forward. It will not be the last spark as the fire has not fully taken hold. Yet the fire is coming and we shall be consumed by it. Jesus said it and it will come to pass. In any inequitable society (every society that ever existed) the virus of discontentment is loose. There are certain forces that can contain it, for a while. Men rise up and champion its cause. Examples of its rise is without number down through history. The Chinese so called cultural revolution is one. The Russian revolution is another. The two great wars. The French revolution. The American revolution. Every war ever fought, the virus of discontentment lurks just underneath the shadows of such event.
Saints, it is a deadly enemy and will eat away your soul from the inside out. It will cause you to join its ranks, for it cannot truly exist on its own, its great strength comes in numbers. The human experience is to either be striving for riches and more riches, or to be striving to hold on to those riches once gained. It can never acknowledge any gain, it can never acknowledge that it is indeed rich or better off, lest its deadly enemy, contentment, the antidote, destroy it. A reflective heart that is bathed in thankfulness for what one has, perhaps simply the food on ones table and the roof over ones head is a highly effective counterpart to discontentment.
And so, the enemy of our souls, through his champions, must always have our eyes fixed upon what we do not have. In this scenario the glass is undoubtedly and eternally half empty. See it in every aspect of our lives. Our relationships, it is the major cause of divorce. Finances, it is the major cause of our anxieties. Politics, it is the major cause of our hatreds and divisions. Religion, it is the major cause of our divisions. A perpetual state of discontentment is perhaps one description of an eternal hell.
Now, the man or woman who has found Godliness with great contentment has found great gain. Paul tells us this in 1 Timothy 6:6-6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. Consider Gods advice to all men in regard to riches and the desires of it ….(1Ti 6:7-10) For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
And what does God say about all men who stir up such discontentment?(1Ti 6:4-5) He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. Withdraw brothers and sisters, from all men who promote discontentment with your lot in this world. That would cover just about every politician and also those who promote the ills of society for their own gain and advancement ( almost all men and women)
Thanking God in everything is the remnant’s stand at the end of the ages. It will protect us from the deadly disease of discontentment that is rising up in the world to levels we have never seen before. The “ethnos,’ are attacking the “ethnos.’ The peoples of the nations are destroying themselves as they drown in their own dark hearts. And according to Jesus, this is but the beginning of sorrows. Content in Christ, quite apart from our circumstances, is the key to an abundant life and is the solid Rock upon which we stand, all other ground is sinking sand. Can’t you see that the world is sinking? Come up and dwell together on higher ground brothers and sisters.
My wife and I know something of the pain of losing. Our first child lived only for two days. In the end it was God’s unfailing healing love that brought us through. He gives, and He takes away, blessed be the Lord as Job would say. None of that negated the pain nor stopped the tears, but it did restore my broken heart. He wipes away the tears and catches them in a bottle as a memorial. And my pain ebbed like the slow receding tide as the world continues to turn. I have a firm assurance that when this tide rises again one day, and takes me up into my eternal home, there I will see the child of my youth. The why’s of it all are really just a faint echo of the world as I lay down wrapped in the arms of the one who ever weaves this tapestry of life.
In the end I had “two” funerals for my son, Stephen. The first was on an overcast rain soaked day in Scotland, which perfectly matched my darkened closed down unsaved heart. The second would come fifteen years later, many years after being saved. It came from nowhere and broke over me like a violent thunderstorm. Thunder and lightening and a torrential rain of tears. Healing, never saw it coming. God was working His way into every chamber of my heart, and everywhere the waters of life flowed, there was healing, and there was healing for me. These are the mysteries of life and a God who works in mysterious ways whose thoughts and ways are so much higher than ours. As you ponder your own loss in this world, it is very likely that no answers will ever come as to the why. When we learn to put aside the why and live this life rather than die, then once again we shall surely fly.
Great loss is a clipping of our wings. Here is the definition of wing clipping …..”Wing clipping is the process of trimming a bird’s primary wing feathers or remiges so that it is not fully flight-capable, until it moults, sheds the cut feathers and grows new ones.” I have had my primary wings clipped many times over the years as I am sure that you have dear reader. The moulting and the shedding of cut feathers and the growing of new ones takes time and comes with its own unique pains. And then one day………we fly. We live again, fully restored. A process full of mystery and undoubtedly unique to every single person.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isa 55:8-9)
The context of these well known verses comes in the verses prior. It is an appeal to the wicked to repent and He will “abundantly pardon.” Imagine that, God calls you to repentance with a promise of an abundant pardon. It is hard for us to imagine that in our earthly minds. If someone consistently sinned against us, over weeks and months and years, decades even, it can be almost impossible to think that we could so forgive them as to never even give all the previous crimes against us a second thought. To have the slate so wiped clean as to be brand new. This is miraculous. We could, in and of ourselves, never do this.
Yet, out thoughts are not His thoughts. His ways are so much higher than our ways. In our own power it would be beyond our ability to grasp. You might as well throw punches at the moon. Yet we do not stand by our own power. Those who know Jesus stand by the power of God, by His Spirit. Now, if the Lord our God offers such an abundant pardon to the wicked what does He offer to His children? “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” An abundant pardon leads to an abundant life. You may think that you have blown it with God but His thoughts are higher than your thoughts saint. If you have been hiding behind the tree with some fig leaves, it’s time to emerge from there and to stand before God.
The rain that falls from heaven falls also upon your head. And the snow that falls from heaven and waters the earth waters you too oh child of God. It causes the buds to bloom and the seed to come forth and gives bread to the hungry and water to the thirsty. This is the Word of God and it does not return to Him void. It speaks life to you and prospers your soul. You shall go forth from here with joy and His peace shall lead you as the mountains and the hills break forth in praise and worship and the trees of the field shall clap their hands in wonder at His ways. A word to one of His children today.
The Spirit of God is always the Spirit of liberty; the spirit that is not of God is the spirit of bondage, the spirit of oppression and depression. The Spirit of God convicts vividly and tenesly, but He is always the Spirit of liberty. God who made the birds never made birdcages; it is people who make birdcages, and after a while become cramped and can do nothing but chirp and stand on one leg. When we get out into God’s great free life, we discover that that is the way God means us to live “the glorious liberty of the children of God.” (Oswald Chambers)
There are two main types of garden in this world. There is the garden designed by man. Wonderful and regulated in its design, measured distances between flowers, well thought out patters that please the eye. And then there is the seed that has committed itself to the Wind of the Spirit which carries it and deposits it where it will, and there it springs up and flourishes in the garden of our God. The wide open fields of God’s great free life. The so called wildflowers that grows in open meadows or drainage ditches. or in the side-streets of slums or in valley floors or mountain ranges. Who knows where the wind of the Spirit shall deposit them. God knows.
So, shall you commit the seed of your life to the wind of the Spirit? Shall you surrender yourself to be taken wherever you shall be taken? Or shall you commit yourself to the hand of man? To the designs of men? To the relative safety found in regulation? One of those choices involves great risk but also results in great freedom. The other guarantees certainty and the price is conformity. Imagine a bird, designed to fly in open skies, trapped in a birdcage. What a tragedy. Guaranteed food and shelter but the cost is no flight in open skies. Maybe the one who constrains you lets you out of your cage every now and then and you fly straight to the window. There is something in you longing to be free as you gaze at open fields or eternal skies. It’s Gods calling. Are you free today or are you being called to freedom today?
2Pe 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
Grace and peace, multiplied to us adds up to an abundant life in Christ. Multiplied by many factors. In the very next verse we see that we have everything that we need to to live this abundant life, it is through the knowledge of God. The word is Epignosis, to acknowledge God in all of your ways. When we acknowledge God in everything, recognize Him in every part of our lives and seek Him first and His righteousness then we shall live in Godliness, Godliness meaning a continual awareness of Him which leads to holiness.
The enemy of our soul knows well that if saints begin to walk in Godliness then this is a tremendous threat to his kingdom here on earth. So, he must distract us. That is one part of the struggle. Life itself is the the other and may even be the greatest distraction of all. How many plates do you have spinning in your life saint? All of them demand your attention. All of them are a distraction away from this Godliness that walks hand in hand with a multiplied peace.
Our marriages, our children, our parents, our careers, even our walk with the Lord can be tyrannical distractions and we run to and fro, exhausting ourselves trying to keep these things altogether. And in the end many of the plates fall and break despite our valiant efforts. They have to be surrendered and vanquished. We cannot hold onto them and walk in the abundant life of grace and peace if we do not surrender all these things into the hands of God. We must commit our very lives, our soul, into His hands and that includes everything that occupies our hearts and minds and souls.
Whosoever finds in the contemplation of God’s love, rest and peace and joy only, should carefully scrutinize his feelings lest they be excited by an erroneous view of the Eternal Majesty ; representing Him as being actuated by a mere tender affection melting into compassion. Stretching forth His hand only at an impulse of pity, that guilty men may cease to fear, and take to themselves rest ; as if His eyes looked not upon their guiltiness. The Eternal is not a being of mere emotion, but of unchangeable and untainted righteousness, and there is a law which all the universe knows “the pure in heart alone can see God,” -and the eye must behold Him, glorious in holiness, to measure in any way the depths of His love (William Carey 1827)
That my friends is totally profound. It is worth reading a few times over. What our brother is saying is that only the eye that has beheld His glory, the glory of His holiness, can rightly speak to the depths of His love. For within the depths of His love lies grace and majesty and glory and justice. Isaiah glimpses the majesty of God and falls down upon his face as one who is dead and cries out “woe is me…..I am undone.” Yet, of course, he also sees the glory of God who is high and lifted up and the train of His robe, His majesty and His glory, fills the temple. The fire of this encounter, both terrifying and glorious, changes Isaiah forever. He now has the fire of God’s glory in his bones.
Behold the goodness and the severity of God. The heads and the tails of the one coin. Focus on one part of God to the detriment of the other and you do God, yourself and humanity a disservice. The man that only “knows” God’s wrath knows not God at all, he has a mere head knowledge. The man who only knows God’s love, knows not God at all, he has mere “tender affections,’ which will not save him or anyone else. God’s love is a consuming fire. It has the power to save and the power to consume. The eye that has beheld the Lord our God can plumb the depths of His love. God is not the God of the vain imaginations of tender men and woman given over to emotions. Neither is He the wrathful vengeful God of the religious zealot. He is good and He is severe. He pardons and He rightly judges. Has the eye of your spirit beheld His glory?
1Pe 4:19 Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.
How is it that the saints of old and the martyrs were so able to withstand the sufferings they endured for the cause of Christ? How could Paul and Silas sing praises to God at the midnight hour in the depths of a dungeon having been scourged to within an inch of their lives? How could Stephen have a vision of God’s glory in the midst of being so cruelly stoned stoned? In order to stone Stephen unencumbered, those wicked men laid down their coats at the feet of Saul. They laid down their coats and they picked up their stones.
When we lay down our lives, when we commit our very souls into the hand of God, then we are free to pick up His glory. When the very essence of who we are is given over to God, committed into His hands then we find a tremendous freedom in this, its called the Spirit of glory. It falls upon the unencumbered soul. It strengthens the inner man. Our “outer garments,’ the cares of this world are cast aside and we are filled to overflowing. So much so that we can sing songs of glory in the midnight hour of our trials. We can praise the living God as we are cruelly treated by man, so much so that we can love our tormentors.
Are you suffering today saint? Have you cast off your outer garments? Have you committed your very soul into the hand of God? When you deliver this into His hand, He delivers you from the torment of your circumstances. He shuts the lions mouth and He stands with you in the midst of the fire in a very real way, it is His manifest presence. It will lift the hands that hang down. It will feed the hungry soul. It will quench the thirst of those in drought. So, suffering saint, while outwardly you may be perishing, there awaits for you a crown of glory in the kingdom to come. This presence is you exceeding great reward.
Heb 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;
Only that which flows from an uninterrupted gaze on the Lord Jesus is real. Everything else is the shadow of the object. Granted, the shadow of the Lord is more powerful than all that can be seen, and one can even enjoy the heat from the sun in the shadow. Yet the glow from the face of Moses was not the glow of a man who stood in the shadows. I believe that the Lord can pour out his unadulterated light if it is not diffused by the efforts of self appointed middle men or intermediaries.
Can it be that simple? Can we simply come into His presence and be changed? Does everything begin and end with the Lord Jesus? How does one continue to look to Jesus? It is a conscious act of the will to take our eyes off our circumstances and cast them upon Jesus. This is the great battle of our lives, not our circumstances. Our circumstances can simply be doors that if walked through leads directly into His presence. It is in that place, looking unto Jesus, that we are changed. Trust is the key that opens the door. To trust in God is to walk through the opened door of our circumstances into the throne room of God.
There are two Kingdoms. The kingdom of the world and the Kingdom of God. One is seen and affected by our senses and circumstances. The other is unseen and if walked in, relegates our circumstances to mere opportunities to go deeper into its depths. Now these two kingdoms compete for our attentions. You must cry out to God every day to bind up the reality of the kingdom of this world and to loose the reality of the Kingdom of God in your life. Cry out to God to give you eyes to see what He sees and how He sees it. Can you imagine the prospect of every situation you face being an opportunity to grow in grace and power? This is the Kingdom reality, will you walk in it today?
I was made to see, that if ever I would suffer rightly, I must first pass a sentence of death upon everything that can be properly called a thing in this life, even to reckon myself, my wife, my children, my health, my enjoyment, and all, as dead to me and myself as dead to them. The second was to live upon God who is invisible as Paul said in another place the way not to faint is to “look not upon the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen, for the things that are seen seen are temporal, but the things which are seen are eternal (John Bunyon)
Our brother John discovered the great depths of what it means to serve God with all of your heart. He knew he was going to suffer, and suffer indeed he did for the cause of Jesus. And yet, to “suffer rightly,’ he must count all things as loss. All the things of this world must be dead to him and he must be alive to God. This in no way meant that he did not love his family, clearly from his writings the opposite was true. Consider his agonies of knowing that his wife and family suffered greatly, especially his young blind daughter, because of his stand for Jesus. It tore him to pieces…….
“The parting with my wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place (prison) as the pulling of the flesh from my bones……I should have often often brought to mind the many hardships, miseries and wants that my poor family was like to meet should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer to my heart than all I had besides; Oh the thoughts of the hardship I thought my blind one might go under, would break my heart to pieces.”
You see brothers and sisters. Bunyon’s faith that led him to prison and his knowing that he must die to everything of this world, including his family, was not the actions of a cold, religious stoic man, quite the opposite. Amazingly, John could have spared himself the 12 years in prison and all the suffering he undertook and that of his family by simply recanting his faith. He could have walked out of prison at any time. How cruel the enemy is. Yet here is what he said in that regard ….
“If nothing will do unless I make my conscience a continual butchery and a slaughtershop, unless putting out my own eyes, I commit me to the blind to lead me, as I doubt not is desired by some, I have determined, the Almighty God being my help and shield , yet to suffer, if frail life might continue so long, even till the moss shall grow on mine eyebrows, rather than to violate my faith and principles.”
John would suffer the loss off al things rather than to violate his conscience in regard to preaching the Word of God. It did not come easy, it was in fact an agony, yet his great desire was to “suffer rightly.’ How then brothers and sisters, should we live in such a dark age as ours? Should we not also desire to “suffer rightly,” for the cause of Christ? Should we not love the Lord out God with all of hearts and all of our minds and bodies? Should we not love Him above all other things, even the most dearest things to our hearts? We should. God bless you and help you as you follow hard after God.
Php 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul was always moving forward. He never lived in the past. Whether it was failures or victories he did not let them hold him back or move him to think he had arrived. He did not “count himself to have apprehended.” Apprehended what? Why salvation of course. He did not consider in his mind that he had “arrived.” This is not to say that he did not have eternal assurance, he certainly did. Yet, he did not stand upon that as a reason to sit back and coast. God forbid, he was always pushing forward, precept upon precept, glory upon glory ever coming into the likeness of Jesus.
Now how does that apply to you and me? There is a temptation to think that because you have been saved then that is it. Or there is the equal temptation to think because you have messed up then you are finished. You would be wrong on both counts. The Lord here in this portion of Scripture is telling us to forget what has already happened. He is assuming in this Scripture that you have come before Him and asked for forgiveness and you found grace and mercy. That sin is now as far as the east is from the west and has been cast into a sea of forgiveness, never again to be remembered by the Lord. He will not cast it up, only we humans do that.
Now He is urging us to reach forward to the things that lie ahead. A journey is only completed when the pilgrim keeps in front of his mind his final destination. He cannot take up residence somewhere. He cannot camp there, he must get up and get on with the journey if he is to find his way home. Camping on a particular situation or putting down roots in a place that you know is not right will come between you and the Lord. Press forward saint in your narrow path of sanctification that is your high calling. Jesus is your high calling. We have been called to be like Jesus. This is the mark. Push on saint. Win that prize, run this race like someone who desires to actually win the race. God bless you as you make your way home.
Col 2:15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
When we suffer for His sake brothers and sisters and rejoice in the midst of it, then we disarm principalities and powers. We “prove,” to that old ancient liar that this is exactly what he is and we do it all by the indwelling power of the risen Christ. He has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind. His perfect love demonstrated through us casts out all fear and makes a public spectacle of principalities and powers.
It diametrically opposes their lie that force must be met with force, that evil must be rendered for evil for good to triumph. Jesus overcame them on the cross and He cried out to His Father to forgive His enemies. The first martyr Stephen cries out even as He was being cruelly stoned, that this would not be held against the ones stoning Him. This is the power of God that breaks ancients chains of evil and establishes the witness of Christ to the world and to the principalities and powers.Can you
You have been called to this brothers and sisters and it is a high and noble calling. It is a calling that requires our old man and woman to die. For in the flesh we are no different from anyone else in the world. We would simply be frail creatures who could laugh when the going is good, who could be happy when in the midst of prosperous circumstances and who could praise God as long as He “blesses” us. Yet in this higher ground that we have been called to we praise God not only from the mountaintops but from the lowest valley’s. We praise God whether we walk as free men on this earth or enchained with fetters of iron.
We praise God for better or for worse. We praise God in sickness and in health, we praise God whether rich or poor. We who love our spouses know that this is our commitment to them, we who love God know that His calling is on another level altogether. The marriage of the flesh is one thing and it is noble, the marriage of the spirit is high and lifted up and it is holy. We are one flesh in our marriages, we are one spirit in Jesus and when we walk according to that spirit we walk in power and in love and with a perfect peace that triumphs over principalities and powers for all the world to see. Your light is the life that draws the world to Jesus.
It is a beautiful thing when you begin to realize that you are God’s work. When we discover that we need only to yield to the hammer and the chisel, give way to the potters hands. The only thing that holds us back is our resistance. It is our dreams that hold us back. Our desires, our ambitions. They may all be perfectly fine dreams and desires, but not for us saints. In the end it is about walking with God and that being the desire of our heart, to be like Enoch who was like Adam, prior to the fall.
The world is full of smoke and mirrors. It is full of expectations. And for the most part, even the most beautiful expectations are tyrannical. They compete with God and God is jealous. To know God fully we have to give ourselves to Him fully. He stands with open arms, we need only cast everything else aside and walk deeper into His heart.
For God’s children, it all comes down to time. this is our most valuable commodity, and it is typically right here where we “rob” God. Where we choose “other lovers.” God is jealous for our time, for our thoughts. If I were a great artist and somehow deemed to paint you and told you that it would take many sessions to complete but in the end it would be a masterpiece and would be shown in the finest art galleries all over the world, would you show up for your sessions? Would you be easily distracted and forget about your appointments with this famous painter? And if you did forget about them, then in the end your painting would simply be incomplete. The Artist awaits, where are you?
For those who give themselves fully into the Masters hand, for His will and for His good pleasure, they become something beautiful, something marvelous. We were not much at all to start with but somehow, with limited materials, the God of all creation has crafted something outstanding. He has taken ashes and out of that He has created His own personal work of art, you. Has He finished His work in you? Are you missing your appointments? Give Him your most valuable asset, give Him your time?
Do not get distracted by the shiny objects of this world. Do not get distracted by your husband. Do not get distracted by your wife, by your family or your work. You must love Him more than all of these things otherwise you are not worthy to be His disciple, you will be an unfinished piece of work on the shelf. God wants to display His work. You are His work, His witness, His light, Christ in you the hope of glory!
It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. (Lam 3:22-24)
Notice this verse from Lamentations 3. It is a very grave chapter where the afflicted are overcome with fears and are surrounded by troubles. Yet right here in the middle of the chapter we see our great hope. Indeed the Lord’s compassion never fails, His mercies are new every morning and great is His faithfulness. We have hope because He is our Lord. There is a tyranny of yesterday and fear for tomorrow and they are chains which are designed to drag us down.
Oftentimes the older we get the heavier the chains are because many are our yesterdays and fewer are our tomorrows. Yet, praise the Lord the antidote to these fears and these tyrannies is the now. We serve God today and we are assured that His mercies are new every morning. It is the enemy that reminds us of our yesterdays, it is the enemy that sows fears in our heart for tomorrow. And why? He wants to rob you of today. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow is not guaranteed. All we truly have is now. Live and walk in the Lord today and forget yesterday and care not for the morrow for Christ is in you today. Today is the day of our salvation.
If the enemy has stolen from you yesterday, do not allow him to take tomorrow as well. Awake each day and give glory to God. Our circumstances may not change but we will. Arise with the sun tomorrow morning and know that the Lord Himself directs the tides, makes the moon to rise and the sun to set. He holds it all in His hand and remember this more than anything, He holds you in His hand. You are His servant for His purposes and you are called to rise every day and seek the Lord and serve the Lord. In this is peace and from this peace springs joy and that joy, the joy of the Lord is our strength for a brand new day.
And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Gal 5:24)
This is a very well known passage of Scripture. It is important to know, that despite the fact that your flesh has been nailed to the cross, it does not mean that your flesh is dead. It does mean it is defeated. Now the question is “shall you surrender to the nails?”
Now, crucifixion is, by design, a long , slow death. In this, the Romans were barbarically ingenious. They had designed a means of death that would take a very long time. So, although we often understand our need for the flesh to be crucified, we have little understanding of the process. Many theologians will simply say that the flesh is crucified therefore it no longer has any influence over us. This is wrong. It is important to remember that a crucified man is not a dead man as such, he is a crucified man. Death will come, one is indeed dying, but how long the death? That would depend upon our fight and our struggle against the nails.
In the end, this life that we lead is a crucified life. It is life on the cross. If we could see men with Spiritual eyes, we would see the men and the women of Christ with a cross upon their backs. It is the mark of the genuine saint. Victory comes on the cross. It is the ultimate victory to be able to say from a cross “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.’ There is no sanctification unless there is a cross upon your back. So saint, this day I ask you, shall you surrender to the nails? Let go and commit your spirit to the Lord this day. You can struggle or you can surrender.
As I walk each morning I am always on the lookout for deer. It is a heavily forested area I walk through and so it can be difficult to see anything. Of course you could walk at dusk or dawn and increase your chance of seeing them, but you just never know. I was walking the other day and looking into the foliage and suddenly realized that I was looking right at the deer and she was looking right back at me. It was as if just one second before she was invisible but then she just appeared before my very eyes and I wondered how I did not see her before. I took my grandson with me a few times, I really wanted him to see the deer, he really wanted to see them. I took him at the right time and the right places but we never saw one.
I thought about the manifest presence of God. I thought about seeking God. I thought about the wind and how we never know where it will blow next. It seems to me this is the way with God. If I only walked every now and again, or gave up walking because I never saw deer, it is likely that I would never see the deer. Yet, because I walk every day and seek every day, all of a sudden, there is the deer right there, looking at me. As it is with the deer, so it is with God. He is looking for those who will search diligently for Him, in fact the word says He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. And the reward? “I am your exceeding great reward.” To ” know,” that He knows you, that He sees you, that He is watching over you. May our souls long after Him today and every day and if they do, all of a sudden, He is there.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God (Eph 2:8)
Faith delivers what Grace provides-Don’t measure your faith, measure your God (David Legge)
If faith is the evidence of things not seen, and it is , then it is first and foremost the evidence of God. We see God in the man who walks in faith. We see God in love and hope and mercy and forgiveness. We see Him in joy and peace and self-control. We see Him in all of these attributes distilled in us and we see Him more clearly the darker the background. The more difficult the circumstances of our lives then the greater the canvas for memorializing God in the hearts and minds of the world.
And so, if the unmerited favor of God first and foremost provides salvation, justification, then it also provides us with the means of how to live out that justification. Grace gives us access to faith and faith is the evidence of the man or woman who walks in close proximity to God. The closer the walk, the greater the faith. The greater the faith, the deeper the love. The deeper the love the more abundant the hope. The abundance of hope leads to an abundance of mercy and forgiveness and thankfulness.
And finally, the greater the faith the greater the expressions of joy and peace and self-control. And all of these add up to an expression of the reality of God seen in us. An expression of the reality of the unseen God. A light that pierces the darkness of this world, the hope of this world. The measure of your faith depends upon the vastness of God in your life. An all consuming relationship with God produces the greatest expressions of faith for a dying world to see.
A Call To The Remnant 