Claiming the Highest Honor

John 12:26

If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

How is it possible that Almighty God would honor creatures as lowly as we are - His mere creations from dust?  As unimaginable as it seems to us, it is settled in the kingdom of God.  The process for such an honor is locked into place for all eternity.  The steps are clearly defined.  Become a disciple of Jesus Christ.  Serve Him wherever and whenever He calls.  Be honored by the Father. 

Simple enough, right?  At least it would seem so.  But as Americans, we have some social hurdles to overcome.  We were raised to be fiercely independent.  That trait, while desirable in the carnal world, can have a negative impact on how we are able to build intimacy with God.  The true intimacy of a Holy Spirit lead lifestyle is not possible until we are able to completely surrender our lives to Jesus.

Anything short of full surrender to Jesus will lead to a life on the fence - half devoted to being a disciple of Jesus Christ and half devoted to the callings of the world.   When we are in that vacillating position, we are spiritually immature.  That is not the real life that God has planned for us.  God wants a spiritually mature life for us and from us.  He wants us to reach a place where we make every decision in life with discernment of the Holy Spirit.  Our Heavenly Father wants us to be fully committed disciples of His Son, conscious of our dependence on Him without regard to the trappings of our world.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing Your Son, Jesus, so that we can stay in constant communion with Him and receive grace from Him.  We rejoice in knowing that we receive honor from You when we follow Your Son and accept the gift of salvation that He offers.  We ask forgiveness, Lord, for all the times that we make decisions based on the world's standards and not Yours.  We pray, Father, that You will provide the grace that we need to heed the voice of the Holy Spirit only.  We ask for the strength and the wisdom to lay aside the trifling concerns of this life.  May we learn to exercise love, humility, patience, self-denial and resignation to Your will in the same manner as Our Savior did when He walked this earth.  May the eternal glory be Yours.  We ask all these things in the name of Our Refiner and Purifier, Jesus Christ.

The Blessing of Walking in His Ways

Deuteronomy 30:16

If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

Who does not wish to live, multiply and be blessed in the land where they dwell?  Almighty God placed these desires in all of our hearts and provided simple instructions for us to attain them - obey My commandments.

All simple and easy enough, right?  Well, our all knowing, sovereign God added an interesting wrinkle for us to deal with.  He gave us free choice.  He allows us to find the unique purpose and plan that He has for our lives through the choices that we make. Unfortunately, more times than we would like to admit to we make the wrong choices.  In the flesh, we are ill equipped to make the right choices all the time.

Knowing the inherent weakness in our flesh, our all loving and merciful God included an infallible resource to help us overcome our frailties.  He provided through our acceptance of His Son, Jesus, as Our Savior, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit provides us with supernatural assistance in making our choices. The Holy Spirit provides us with gentle urgings toward the path of obedience and clear stop signs when we are veering off the path.

As we learn to listen and respond to the Holy Spirit, our life choices come more into alignment with God's commandments.  The good and right way become more clearly defined in our minds and hearts.  Ultimately, our choices will be the same as God's choices for us.  Ultimately through our obedience, we will experience the blessed life that God has set aside for us.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for the blessings that You promise us if we are obedient to You.  We confess our sins that separate us from You and repent of them so that the blessings that have been set aside for us can be released.  We rejoice in knowing that You have provided victory for us over our sins through the sacrifice of Your Son, Jesus.  We bless His name.  We thank You for providing supernatural assistance for us as we make our life choices.  We pray that You will open our ears to hear the urgings of the Holy Spirit.  We ask for the grace to respond in obedience.  We ask all these things in the name of the Lamb without blemish, Jesus Christ.

Living a Life Void of Fear

Matthew 16:8

But Jesus, aware of this, said, “O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? 

The bread of life, which is Jesus Christ, is within us when we receive Our Lord as Our Savior.  The living bread is ever present.  It is never removed.  It is always available to us and to those around us.  The only restrictor of the living bread is our own faith.

When we have no faith in the indwelling power of Our Lord, we build a hardened silo from which no provision can flow.  With little faith, we restrict what can be released from our lives.  With great faith, we can release an unlimited distribution of power, protection and provision into our lives and into the lives of those who surround us.

Doubt should never be an option for a believer under any circumstances.  Jesus loved us so much that He was willing to die for us.  How could we ever doubt His presence and His power in our lives?  How could we ever fear with the King of Kings as our protector?  We should live in the triumphant belief of who He is.  Our faith must be, not in ourselves nor in the world, but in the One from Whom our salvation springs.  His countenance shines upon us and His grace is always with us.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for giving us the Cornerstone of our faith, Your Son, Jesus Christ.  With His death on the Cross, we received victory over all evil.  We bless the name of Our Savior who made it possible for us to live our lives without fear.  May we live by the faith that we have been given.  We pray, Lord, that You will give us the wisdom and the strength to yoke ourselves to Jesus Himself.  May we learn to live in the fullness of the One who dwells within us.  We ask all these things in the name of the strength of our lives, the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ.

The Foundation of Our Lives

John 14:20

In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

What a union...the Father and the Son partaking in the same nature, the same perfections and the same glory.  And to think that we share in the same union through our saving relationship with Jesus Christ.  We are righteous through the atoning work of the Son of God on the Cross.  We are risen with Him through the supernatural ascension of His body into heaven after His death.  We sit together with our Savior King just as He sits at the right hand of the Father.

As new men and women in Christ, the world can see us in union with our Savior.  We become identified by our obedience to God's commandments and the fruit that we bear from His callings.  Our lives become expressions of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that have been given to us through our union with Christ - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  In everything we do, we share the perfect love and forgiveness that we received from the Father through the Son.  We please the Father by bringing honor and glory to His name, the name of His Son, Jesus, and to the Holy Spirit.

And we know with absolute certainty that there is no possibility that our lives are the result of our inherent holiness.  All that we see that is good that is being manifested in our lives is being worked out through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.  Our union with Our Savior is the foundation of our lives and our reasoning.  

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for sending Your Son Jesus to be Our Savior.  We rejoice in our new lives that we take on when we receive and accept the redemptive work of the Cross.  We pray, Father, that we may be emancipated completely from the darkness in our old lives.  May we walk in the fullness of the union of the Father and the Son as we surrender to the work of the Holy Spirit.  We ask all these things in the name of the One who sits at the right hand of the Father, Jesus Christ.

Trials That Test Our Faith

Genesis 22:12

He said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."

We are going to experience trials in our lives.  This is as certain in our lives as death and taxes.  Some of the trials will be small and some will be so big that we will nearly faint.  In each case, no matter the weightiness, the real test will be the test of our faith.

Who of us could have answered God's request to sacrifice a child like Abraham did?  It was his faith that allowed him to go.  Notice what Abraham said to the men who were with him before he headed up the mountain to the place of sacrifice.  "I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you."  Abraham was resting on God's promise to make him the head of many nations.  Abraham knew that this was only possible through his son.  Abraham had the faith that in some manner God would provide a way through this test.

Trials and tests are God's way of drawing us close to Him and teaching us His ways.  It is through the trials and tests that our faith is built up so that we can become the person that God has intended for us to be.  God may not have created us to be a leader of a nation like Abraham, but He does have a specific plan for our lives.  We can only fulfill this plan by putting all of our faith in the One in whose hands we rest.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for each trial that You allow in our lives.  We rejoice in knowing that we are resting in Your hands as we go through each of these challenges to our faith.  We ask, Lord, that we will have the faith of Abraham.  We pray that we will not turn away from any test that you set before us.  May our character and our faith be built up in accordance with Your perfect plans for our lives.  We ask these things in the name of the One upon Whom our faith is built, the Chief Cornerstone, Jesus Christ.

Resting in the Wonderful Hope of God Our Father.

2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal comfort and a wonderful hope, comfort you and strengthen you in every good thing you do and say.

When we are in full submission to Jesus Christ, we have prepared ourselves to allow the bountiful power of the Holy Spirit to be released in our lives and through us to the world around us.  At this juncture, we are capable of doing all that God has created and willed for our lives.  In this process, we have to learn that God is using us from His personal standpoint.  All that He asks is that we trust in Him.

Even when it seems to us that our lives are a tangled mess, there is always the wonderful hope in the promises of Almighty God.  Through His grace and His mercy, we will come through whatever trials that we see ourselves caught in.  We will find our comfort and our strength by listening for and responding to the urgings of the Holy Spirit.  If we are diligent in listening and responding to the Holy Spirit, our paths will be productive and our fruit will be plentiful.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for the free grace and mercy that our hopes are based on.  We praise the name of Jesus, who is the fountain of all the good that we have hope for.  Father, we pray for the strength to overcome our doubtful minds that make us halting in our duties.  May You grant us the unwavering faith that we need to set aside our own self-reliance and to learn to trust in Your promises.  May we be comforted in our hearts as we await all the good things that You have already set aside for us and our loved ones.  We ask all these things in the name of the One who is the complete fulfillment of all of Your promises, Jesus Christ.

All the Strength We Need for Victory is Ours

Isaiah 40:29

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.

With so much going on around us that we are troubled by, but have no control over, it is easy to become frustrated at our station in life.  With so much evil in the world today, it is very easy to become despondent and depressed.  But how is this so?

How is it that we do not now trust in that which has been recorded throughout history and is prepared for our understanding in God’s Holy Word?  How have we missed being enlightened to the ways in which Almighty God has been forever with us when we have the experiences of good men through their own observation and the God-inspired writings of His apostles and His prophets to instruct us?  How have we not learned that the Maker and Former of all things, who upholds, governs and judges all that is under His kingdom, never tires of providing for and protecting the creatures that He created for His own glory?  Why do we continue with our foolish frets and fears and not find peace in the storm when the One who vanquishes all that comes against us is always with us?

We should not be surprised at our weakness or lack of understanding.  God was perfectly aware that we were not capable on our own to cope with the attacks of the flesh and the attacks of the enemy.  Through His immeasurable grace He sent His Holy Spirit to dwell with us.  For those that He knew were weak, He provided all the strength required for victory.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing all that we need to overcome this world.  We bless the name of Jesus who died on the cross so that we might have victory over all evil.  We rejoice in knowing that Your Holy Spirit is always with us to provide peace, comfort and strength through all trials.  Father, we pray that our hearts and minds are put to rest with the certainty of Your presence and Your promises.  May those around us be comforted by the peace that they see in our lives during times of trouble.  We ask all these things in the name of our ever-present Lord, Jesus Christ.