Our Righteousness in Christ

The Pharisees were certain of their own goodness and loved to show the world their righteousness.  They had no place for Jesus because they did not understand how much they needed Him.  They were so convinced of their own piety that they could not see the righteousness of Jesus.  We risk being like the Pharisees when we consider ourselves worthy without the daily cleansing of the blood of Jesus Christ.

God's Voice

Until we train ourselves to seek God's voice on every occasion, we will rarely hear it clearly.  We will have some level of uncertainty with each change in direction in our lives until our ears have been tuned to God's voice.  Listening to God is an acquired gift from God.  It is received by being obedient to God in all things big and small.  Obedience in the small things opens the way for God to ask us to do more for Him and allows Him to reveal Himself to us along every step in our lives, whether it be big or small.

Joy In Life

Just as our earthly fathers love to give us the things that make us happy, God loves to gives us the desires of our hearts.  Just as our fathers withhold things from us that might cause us harm, God withholds the things of this world that may take us away from His plans for our lives. Thus God, in His almighty power, takes what might be called life's circumstances and orchestrates them so that those that seek Him are prepared to be in union with His Holy Spirit in all that they do.  When in union with His Holy Spirit, our days are filled with joy.   

The Day of Change

The day that will change your life forever is the day that you make Jesus Christ the Lord of your life.  When that happens, you will release the favor of Almighty God upon your life.  Once that occurs God will lead you into the called purpose for which He has created you.  No force in this universe can stop your calling once God has ordained it.  The only thing that can adversely affect your ultimate calling is your insistence in following your own plans instead of relying on the work of the Holy Spirit in your life.

Focus on Him

Almighty God, who can do all things, promises us that all of our needs will be met if we abide in Him.  Why then, do we focus on our needs so much instead of focusing on Him?  Part of the answer lies in the weakness of our flesh which seeks satisfaction in the world.  The other part of the answer lies in the Evil One who does all that he can to lure us away from a relationship with God.  The Holy Spirit is the only reason that we ever stay focused on God.  Our hope and our strength lie in the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Personal Independence

The world would like us to believe that we are missing out on life itself if we don't put ourselves first in all things.  The world would like us to believe that satisfaction comes from personal independence.  As a result of the world's philosophy, we put ourselves through overcomplicated life styles directed at setting us apart from our peers and even our own family.  All of this leads to a personal appetite that is impossible to satisfy.  On the other hand, a life in Christ offers complete freedom and satisfaction in every aspect of life.

Life's Little Pleasures

God breaks into our lives in every way imaginable.  He is in the sweet songs of the birds outside our window.  He is in every sunrise and sunset.  He is in every kind gesture and word of encouragement that comes our way.  If we are in constant contact with Him, we will recognize His presence in every little thing surrounding us.  If we choose not to make Him the center of our lives, we will miss His presence and many of life's little pleasures will pass us by.

A Transforming Relationship

The apostle Paul was met by Jesus on the road to Damascus.  The relationship that formed was the basis for everything that Paul did for the rest of his life.  The activity in Paul's new life was the direct opposite of the activities in his old life.  The only way he could pull this off was through the transforming relationship he had with Jesus.  

We, too, are given the opportunity to change our lives completely and live according to the purposes that God created us to meet.  All we have to do is ground ourselves in a relationship with Jesus Christ as our Savior.  He will do the transforming work necessary to align us with God's purposes for our lives.

Revealing the Son

In Jesus' last hours with the apostles, He really emphasized the importance of abiding in Him.  Jesus wanted the apostles to know that their strength and their appeal to others would be through His presence in their lives.  So it is for us also.  We need to abide in Jesus to attain the fullness of the purpose that God has intended for us on earth - to reveal His Son to the world through our living testimony.   

Be Like Little Children

Little children trust their parents for everything.  They rarely have a thought about needing food, needing clothing, needing protection or even needing love.  They have all these things so they have no reason to believe that they will need to have them tomorrow.

For small children, the future is always certain as long as they know that their parents are around to care for them.  No wonder Jesus tells us to we should be like little children.  Their faith is certain.  Oh, that we should have such faith in our Heavenly Father.

Loving Our Father

God gave us the family unit to help us understand our position as children of God.  Just as an earthly father enjoys his children coming to him and acknowledging their love for him, so too does our Heavenly Father enjoy the attention and praises of His children.  Just as an earthly father is disappointed when his children neglect to visit or communicate with him, so too does our Heavenly Father feel disappointment.  

When any of God's children take for granted all that He has done for them and continues to do for them, there is a sadness in the Heavenly Throne.  Most importantly, the children themselves suffer by failing to nourish their love relationship with their father/Father.

Our Strength, Our Courage, Our Wisdom

All that we do should be done for the Lord, not for ourselves nor for any other man or men.  It is the focus on the Lord that gives us our strength, our courage and our wisdom to pursue and complete every task.  It is abiding in Him that provides our armor against the evil one who is trying to ruin all that we do - especially those things which are done to bring honor and glory to God and to bring others to know Him.

Learning to Go Beyond Self

When we look at the world through our own eyes, we set out to do things that we are confident that we can do.  When we look at the world through God's eyes, we are given things to do that are beyond our current capabilities.  We are likely to experience frustration and failure as we attempt these things of God because we start our relying on ourselves.  Only after we call on and rely on God's hand in our work for Him and learn to wait on Him, do we bear the fruit that God is looking for.

Our Rock

When we receive Jesus into our hearts and are fully submitted to Him, there comes an influx of joy and peace unlike anything that we have known in our lives before.  We can lose a portion of our joy and peace if we allow our focus to shift toward worldly things and away from our Lord and Savior.  This can happen even in periods of Christian service if our focus is not on the King.  Abundant joy is in us and in heaven when we exalt our Lord and look to Him to be our Rock in all that we do.

Our New Life of Service

God calls us unto Himself first.  When we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, then the outward expression of who we truly are begins.  

The new relationship that we have with Jesus will lead us into our areas of service to the kingdom of God.  Our endeavors in service will bring us unspeakable joy and deepen our relationship with our Heavenly Father.

Hearing the Call of God

Until we receive Jesus into our lives and until we submit to God's authority over our lives, the only call we are going to hear is the call of our flesh.  Once we receive Jesus and submit to God's authority, then we put ourselves in a position to hear God's calling upon our lives.  We must, however, block out all the noise around us if we are going to hear God's urgings.  Of course, this includes all the physical noise.  More to the point, we must remove the distraction that we cause by putting our worldly things in a more important place than the Lord Himself.

The Place of Struggle

The real struggle for many Christians is the balancing act of trying to live two lives - one according to this world and one according to God's kingdom.  There is no balance point between these two worlds.  This is certainly no place of peace.  The Holy Spirit will gnaw at you relentlessly until you come to that place in your life where you can walk away from worldly choices and make the choices that Jesus would make.  Only then will the struggle end.

Send Me Lord

When God places a calling upon our lives, He is the ultimate gentleman.  He always allows us the right to choose.  He never compels us to be obedient to His request.

"Send me, Lord," is the only appropriate response.  Any questioning or negotiating of the importance, the location or the timing of the mission (perhaps for a more pleasant assignment) indicates that we are not in full submission to God's call.   

Again, God will allow us to choose to be obedient or not.  But on the other hand, God will march us around the desert like the Jews until He receives our complete submission to His will.  Then, He will send us.

Our New Life in Jesus

Once we have asked Jesus into our lives, He will not leave us nor will He leave us alone.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit, He will pursue us to the ends of our sanctification.  He will not allow us to remain in our old ways.  He will continually prune away every bit of the old life that is not consistent with the new life that He has given us.  When we turn loose of this world and go to Him alone, the process will be complete.

Revealing Work of the Holy Spirit

The constant work of the Holy Spirit is revealing to us our own nature.  We cannot see our own nature clearly because it has been masked from us by the scars of life.  We only see what we have become and judge that creature by what the world tolerates.  The Holy Spirit strips away the facade and shows us the ugly truth of who we are without Jesus, but also shows us the beautiful truth of who we are with Him.

Trusting in Jesus

The power of the Holy Spirit strengthens us to stand firm through the waves of circumstances that life sends our way.  Through this process, we learn to trust in Jesus as the seas roil around us.  

His peace will also hold us steady when the riptide returns toward us.  Then His grace will allow us to teach others how to find comfort in the storm.  His awesome power will take us and those around us into new waters of unspeakable beauty.

Eternally His

When you receive Jesus into your heart as your Savior, you are no longer the person that lived without Him.  You become totally regenerated.  The old you is dead.  The new you is risen in Jesus Christ.  Although your flesh will try to pull you back into sin, your new spirit will have no part of it.  The new you has died to sin.  In God's eyes, you are free from sin for all eternity.  You are eternally bound to your Savior who took away your sin so you could be with Him.

Jesus Prepares the Way

Man cannot, in his own right, come to an understanding of the grievous nature of his sin nor can he come to a place of full repentance.  These things are only done through the power of the Holy Spirit and are only possible because Jesus prepared the way.  He prepared the way through His sacrifice on the Cross.  He prepares the way daily by standing before the Father on our behalf.

Our Living Sacrifice

God does not want us to sacrifice anything just for the sake of sacrifice.  He wants us to submit our lives to Him.  He wants us to submit daily to His calling on our lives.  He wants us to love Him above all things with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength.  He wants our every action to be for His glory. He wants our lives to be a living reflection of His Spirit within us.  He wants the world to see The Lamb of God in us.

To Know Jesus

To know Jesus is to know a peace in our lives that dwarfs any peace that we may have gained through any other relationship or circumstance.  To know Jesus is to know the purpose in our lives with more depth than we could have ever imagined.  To know Jesus is to know a joy that exceeds any happiness that the world has ever given to us.  To know Jesus is to know that we have no other need in our lives.

Setting Our Place with God

Worshipping God, waiting on God and doing God's work are not meant to be intermittent activities.  They are intertwined like the cords on a rope and operate in a continuum when we are functioning according to God's plans and not our own.  God wants us to continually grow in all areas of our lives, so He provides us with the power of the Holy Spirit to keep us in perpetual motion toward our ultimate place next to Him for all eternity.

Armor of Protection

Everyday we must endeavor to remember that we need the cleansing blood of Jesus in our lives.  Without the armor of protection that He gives us through His Holy Spirit, we are helpless to avoid sin.
Until we understand this, we will try to live a good life on our own.  It will be fruitless until we accept our utter failure at righteousness without the Lamb of God standing before the Throne of God on our behalf.  Praise Jesus.

Wait for God

We all want to jump ahead to the "big event" in our lives.  For most of us, God's plan for our lives does not call for a big event.  God calls us to a series of small acts of obedience, all strung together by periods of God asking us to wait for His next move in our lives.  Along the way, if we have waited on Him in obedience to His calling, we will have accomplished great things for God.  Most of the things that we will have accomplished for His Kingdom, we will not even be aware of.  This is God's way of protecting us from our own pride.

Impatience is our biggest enemy.  If we rush ahead of God's guidance, we risk missing it all.  The good things that we do are never as good as the the God things that He has planned for us.  

His Word is Alive

The Bible is nothing more than a collection of stories until we receive Jesus into our lives.  When we receive Jesus and His Holy Spirit, the Bible becomes life itself.  The words in the Bible certainly take on a new life as they reveal the Truth to us in ways we could not have ever seen without the intercession of the Holy Spirit.  When we go to the Word of God, we now meet God Himself as He reveals Himself to us through His words.

God Draws Us to Himself

For most of us, there is not going to be a "burning bush" experience.  Only a chosen few get a direct calling from God.  For most of us, the power of the Holy Spirit simply draws us toward the Father.  In that drawing, we are called to obey God in many small ways.  Each small submission in obedience puts us closer in step with God's plan for our lives.  Through the process, we learn who God is and we develop our relationship with Him.  Through the grace of God, we join Him in doing His work - no matter where, when or how.

Commitment to Jesus Christ

There is truly no area of grey when it comes to our commitment to Jesus Christ.  Once we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, His Spirit dwells within us.  His Spirit will root out everything that does not meet the standards of Jesus and will put us on a direct path to bring glory to God the Father and His Son.  If we waiver, we come under heavy pruning or heavy discipline.  If we are obedient, we move toward giving our utmost to Jesus.