Security for Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Praise God.  He is so good.  Through the sacrifice of His Son, He provides our security for yesterday, today and tomorrow.  

He forgives our sins, providing propitiation for our past.  He sets our future securely in His hand.  He allows us to live today in freedom, in peace and in service to His calling on our lives.  We can move into every new year knowing that God will be with us and that His Holy Spirit will help us let loose of the things of this world so that we can grasp the things of His kingdom.

The Humbling Process of Sanctification

The sanctification process is not for the proud.  It is a humbling experience as God reveals to us everything in our lives that falls short of His perfect plan for our lives.  As we mature as Christians, it is generally not the "don't do" sins that are most often exposed.   It is the revelation that we are falling short of what God has called us to do that really comes to light.

Jesus only did in His life what the Father called Him to do.  So it will be in our lives as we die of self and become like the one that dwells within us.

Have Faith for He is Worthy

What is it that God is pressing on your heart?  You may not have a gigantic vision, but there is always something that God places as a desire in our hearts.  In all likelihood, it is something that we keep to ourselves.  In all likelihood, we have been waiting faithfully to see the fulfillment of our vision.  In all likelihood, it is challenging our faith that it will ever happen.

We cannot give up on the visions that God has given us for our God is a faithful God.  If He has placed a vision or desire on our hearts, He will deliver it in His perfect timing.  Have faith for He is worthy.

"Become as Little Children"

Small children run to their parents for everything.  Whether they need comfort, provision or direction, they immediately seek the arms of their parents.

They do not question the authority or power of their parents.  They assume the parents to be the ones in control and that their parents have the power to provide whatever is needed or desired.  More than anything, they do not see themselves as capable of doing more for themselves than their parents can do for them.  This complete reliance on the parents by their children is what God seeks from all of His children.

Where the Battle is Won

Receiving one's salvation is a nexus point in life.  It is the point at which the individual settles his or her destiny for all eternity.  It is the point from which many battles of good versus evil will take place.  It is the point from which every victory over sin is anchored.

Once the individual selects Christ as Savior, the attacks of the enemy are relentless.  Every day the Christian battles with the flesh over the issue of submission.  Will it be submission to the flesh or will it be submission to Jesus as Lord, Master and King?  Aided and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, continually choosing submission to Jesus leads to a life of victory and kingdom living here on earth.

Exposed by the Light

Sin lurks in the darkness.  It destroys us even when we are unable to see its ravaging effects on our lives.

When we accept Jesus as Our Savior, supernatural light comes into our lives.  Sin is no longer able to hide in the darkness.  The Light of Christ exposes it for what it is.  We are able to see it for what it is, what it does to us and how offensive it is to Almighty God.  Most importantly, the light of Christ opens our eyes so that we can rejoice in receiving what we did not earn and do not deserve - our sins washed away forever by the blood of Christ.

The Gift of Christmas

We could not go to God, so He came to us in the flesh.  He came to show us the way to join Him for all eternity.  He gave us the perfect gift...a gift so rare and wonderful that the world has celebrated His birth year after year for centuries.

Christ departed His heavenly throne and was born in the flesh.  He died and rose from the dead, returning to His place in heaven.  In so doing, He prepared a way for those born of the flesh with no rights to the eternal kingdom of God to be able to claim an eternal inheritance in heaven.   This gift beyond compare is ours when we die of self and accept the gift of salvation from Our Savior King.

Climbing God's Holy Mountain

As Christians, the Holy Spirit dwells within us.  Each day He is perfecting His strength in our weaknesses.  This is promised according to God's Holy Word in 2 Corinthians 12:9.

And he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

As time moves along, we continuously climb up God's holy mountain.  We move from one high spot to another, stopping along the way to gain the strength provided by the Holy Spirit.  Our only delays are when Jesus knows that we are not strong enough to move higher.  If we remain in submission to Our Lord's reign in our lives, there will be nothing to stop us from reaching the top.

A Wonderful Gift

As written in Isaiah 9:6, "For unto us a Child is born.  Unto us a Son is given.  And the government will be on His shoulders.  And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."  King James is one of the few translations that separates "Wonderful" from "Counselor".   It thereby attaches wonderful to all of the other names and attributes of Jesus Christ.  In Hebrew, the word wonderful means "of miracles, of wonders".

There is much that is wonderful about the the gift that we receive in Christ.  We are given our salvation which provides the miraculous cleansing of our souls and the miraculous ability to die to self and to self-identify with Jesus.  What a wonderful gift that we have been given - one that we cannot receive apart from Jesus.

Our Heavenly Father Calls Us

We can love God because He loved us first.  We can reach out to God to form an intimate relationship because He drew us unto Himself first.  We can bear fruit for the kingdom of God because He instilled in us the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit.  We can spend eternity with Our Heavenly Father because He gave us His Son, Jesus, to die on the Cross for our sins.

Everything that we have comes from the provision of God.  How can we not heed His call on our lives?

Releasing the Power of the Holy Spirit

Through our redemption in Christ, we receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  We do not get a mere piece of Our Savior within us or a replica of Our Savior within us.  We get the full power and person of His Holy Spirit within us.

If our lives are in submission to Jesus, the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit is available for us to tap into at all times .  If our lives are not fully submitted to Jesus, we will find neither the full power of the Holy Spirit nor the faith to access His power.  When our submission to Jesus is complete, the power and faith to use this extraordinary gift is released in its fullness.

The Reason for the Season

There is sin in every human's life.  Even the tiniest of which separates the individual from ever entering into the presence of God.  While feeling true sorrow for transgressions and making an earnest attempt at not failing again are good things, they are not enough to bridge the gap from God that is caused by sin.

Only the Cross of Jesus is sufficient to reconcile the separation created by sin.  Only through Jesus Christ can anyone prepare their place in heaven.  He is the reason for celebrating the Christmas season.

A Life of Dependence or Independence?

America was born by our founding fathers under a call for fierce independence from a government that wanted to control their citizens' relationship with Almighty God.  As our founding fathers fought to be independent of  England, they were steadfastly dependent on the God of the bible who aided and blessed their movement to freedom. 

Over time, Satan has done his work on many of America's citizens.  Many have become arrogantly and selfishly independent and have built their lives around self-manipulated lifestyles that require no God - at least in their minds.  Perhaps the only way that they will ever recognize God is by seeing Him in the lives of fulfilled Christians.  May our lives testify to the power and the glory of Our Heavenly Father and the true freedom that is promised through His Son.

Rejoice and Grow

If we find that we have a boss or co-worker that we do not get along with, we have reason to rejoice.  God has put him or her there for our growth.  If we find that we have a neighbor or a family member that we have issues with, we have reason to rejoice.  God has put him or her there for our growth.  God has purposely placed all the people that surround us.  They are in our lives for us to learn how to forgive them, love them and serve them just as Jesus Christ forgives, loves and serves us all.

For many of us, the hard part is that it all starts with forgiving.  If we have trouble with forgiveness, we need to ask Jesus to show us how.  In His Word, He promises to perfect His strength in our weakness.

Our All Sufficient Lord

It is easy to see why Jesus said it was so hard for the rich man to get to heaven.  In the comfort of his riches, the rich man felt no need for a Savior.  He thought he had everything he needed.  The rich man could not foresee the upcoming problem.  The hunger of his flesh would never be satisfied.  His flesh would always seek more than he had.  But more importantly, nothing that he could do in the flesh could prepare him a place in heaven.

For all of us, whether we be rich by the world's standards or not, there is only one source that can satisfy the hunger within us and can provide our access into our eternal resting place in heaven.  Only Jesus can satisfy the hunger that is placed in our hearts by Our Creator.  Only Jesus can satisfy the redemptive needs of our souls.  Jesus is our all sufficient Lord.

  



 

Wrestling with Decisions

Even though God has a specific plan for our lives, He allows us to make our own choices all along the way.  He has given us the free will to decide what path we take each day.  

Along with this right comes the burden of making an endless stream of decisions.  Some of the decisions we make are big and some are small, but they all have an impact on the paths we take.  Thus we often wrestle with our choices, creating a lot of stress in our lives.  We can make our decision process much easier by seeking God's counsel through prayer.  By following the urgings of the Holy Spirit instead of our own impulses, we will make better life decisions with a minimal amount of stress.

The Comfort and Power of His Word

God promises us in His Word that He will comfort us in our struggles.  But the teaching in His Word adds, "so that we may be a comfort to others who go through the same struggles".

Reading, understanding and then applying the lessons of the bible to our lives can be a struggle.  Be assured that God's promise "to comfort us in our struggles so that we can comfort others" applies here as it does for any other part of our lives.  God calls us to be diligent in our bible study so that He can expand our learning of His ways, so that we can apply the learning to our lives and so that we can share our revelation with those that God has placed around us. 

Living the Great Life

We live in a world where strife and chaos are more prevalent than peace.  We create a portion of this chaos ourselves by trusting in ourselves and focusing on ourselves as we seek the path to the "great life" promised by the world.

The path to the true, great life is found when we put all of our trust in God and focus our lives on Our Savior - not on our problems or our current circumstances.  On this path, we separate ourselves from the chaos in the world and find ourselves resting in the presence of Almighty God at all times.  This resting place holds for us the peace that surpasses all human understanding.

True Intercession

Every Christian is filled with a desire to pray for the needs of those around them.  The heart of the true intercessor, however, is focused on praying for the primary need of redemption in the lives of the people surrounding him or her.  All other needs, while perhaps urgent in the physical and material sense, are needs of the flesh.  The true intercessor will certainly pray for these natural needs, but only with the collaboration of the redemptive needs on the prayer table at the same time.

Being Our Best

In Psalm 139, the psalmist writes that he knows that he was wonderfully made by God.  And so it is for each of us.  As surely as God created every aspect of the universe, He created each of us to be a unique and powerful element in His plan for all eternity.

We can only reach the outer limits of our God given capabilities by submitting to Him.  Our flesh and our human constraints will never take us to the limits of our capability.  Only God can take us there and only when we are in His will for our lives.

Denying Our Rebellious Nature

All of us have gone through that wonderful self-development period known as the "terrible twos."  During this time period, we began expressing our own individuality.  We recognized for the first time that we were our own person and could make choices for ourselves.  Our favorite word was "no".  Our rebellious nature was evident as we regularly rejected the good counsel of our parents in order to have our own way.

This rebellious (sin) nature carried right over into our adult lives as we rejected the laws of God and the good counsel of His Holy Word.  Fortunately, our loving Father provided us with a way to overcome the weaknesses that He knew we had.  He provided a His Son to die for our sins and He sent the Holy Spirit to inspire us to receive His Son as Our Savior. Then He allowed the Holy Spirit to dwell within us so that we would be able to die of self, giving up our choices of the flesh in exchange for the will of God in our lives. 

Exchanging Natural for Supernatural

Our sinful nature separates us from God.  God gave His Son, Jesus, as a living sacrifice so that our sins could be forgiven and our inheritance as heirs to the Kingdom of God could be provided.  

In turn, we are called to sacrifice our own lives in the flesh by surrendering all that we are to Jesus.  When we keep our flesh in submission to the laws of God, we allow the Holy Spirit to work supernaturally in our lives.  In doing so, we receive the full measure of our redemptive blessings.

Pursuing Self or Pursuing God

The endless pursuit of self leads to a constant and unavoidable destiny that will be deviant from the way, the truth and the life of Jesus.  The flesh is unable to maintain a course of positive growth.  Destruction and deterioration are inevitable.

Only by turning to God and focusing on Him instead of ourselves can we avoid destruction.  We may find interim good without God.  We will never find God when we are focused on ourselves.

There is No Other Way

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.  No man can get into heaven without recognizing the sacrifice of the precious Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.  There is no other way.  

Yet every man, no matter how vile, corrupt and sinful he may be today, can receive the eternal life with God that is promised through His Son.  The shed blood of Jesus has the power to wash all repentant sinners clean of their sins.   Every man that is willing to call on the name of Jesus can claim this miraculous gift of grace. 

Sorrow-filled Enlightenment

Repentance comes from the Holy Spirit within us.  The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins, past and present, as we go through the sanctification process.  For the first time, we see our sins in the light of the pain and suffering that they caused Our Savior to endure.

This new sorrow-filled enlightenment inspires us to dig deeper into our relationship with Our Savior.  We yearn to bring to light the sins in our lives that we are not aware of or have learned to overlook through our worn conscience.  Through new found desires to repent of anything in us that displeases Our Heavenly Father, we seek to relieve that which sent Our Savior to the Cross. 

Trading Frustration for Joy

The Christian life can be frustrating because we are trying to be "good Christians" instead of "God led" Christians.  The things that we are trying to attain or achieve are probably good things.  But if they are not God things, they will not bring lasting satisfaction.

We need to focus first on our relationship with Our Savior before we set our paths.  The process is simple.  All we have to do is pray, "Jesus, I seek you.  Jesus, I want to walk with you.  Jesus, I want to serve your needs."  Then prepare to receive the overwhelming sense of peace and joy that comes from being in union with Our Savior and not from our own merits.

The Apex of Obedience

Once saved, the sanctification process begins.  Every blemish on our soul is brought to light to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus.  We are constantly being led by the Holy Spirit to come to our highest point of obedience.   We are being prepared to love God above all things with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength.

Until the day we die, we must submit the control of our lives over to God so that the Holy Spirit can assist us in walking the ascending path of sanctification.  We will reach our apex 
when we stand before the Lord in heaven.

The Building Blocks of Life

We all produce activity in three areas - physical, emotional and spiritual.  The proficiency of what we produce is based on our strength, emotional stability and holiness.  

The levels of our proficiency are built up by the way in which we consistently respond to the choices that we have to make daily.  Good responses build proficiency.  We become stronger and more proficient in each area when we choose exercise over idleness, patience over anger and righteousness over sin.  We become weaker and less proficient when we select the alternatives.  By the grace of God, we have the Holy Spirit to guide us and strengthen us to make the right choices.

The Truth and Power of the Word of God

One of the biggest mistakes that we can make is to try to deliver the Good News of the gospel with a manipulated salvation message.  We do a disservice to the listener when we word the salvation message in such a way that it sounds politically correct instead of biblically accurate.

We can be certain that political correctness will get no one into heaven or keep anyone out of hell.  The truth and power of the salvation message is found in the exact Word of God and not in our own politically correct version.

Yielding Perfect Fruit

When we observe beauty in nature, knowingly or unknowingly, we are usually not looking at a single object.   We are looking at a group of objects gathered within a larger picture.  Within the observed area, none of the individual objects are perfect.  But when we consider the individual objects within their setting, we see a perfectly beautiful site.

Similarly, God creates beauty in our own lives.  Even though we are not perfect, God can use us perfectly within the environment that we live in.  In the flesh, our imperfections will limit us.  In union with Jesus, perfect fruit will be yielded.

"Good Enough" to Get Into Heaven

According to Jesus, "Love God above all things with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind and with all your strength," is the first and greatest commandment.  Stop!!  Without looking into any other commandments, we find that we are incapable of meeting the requirements for getting into heaven.  For entry into heaven, God requires perfect holiness.  Only one person who ever lived on earth could measure up to the standards of the greatest commandment.  Of course, that was Jesus, Our Holy and Precious Savior.

We cannot earn our way into heaven if we are covered in sin - even one.  Nothing short of a sinless life is good enough to merit heaven.  Our best is not good enough.  Fortunately for us, "good enough" was provided for us in the only way that would be acceptable to God.  The perfect lamb had to be sacrificed to atone for our sins.  Our hope and our salvation were finished on the Cross by the only person who could meet the requirements of the first and greatest commandment.