I have never liked this saying, as it implies to me some worldly or fleshly work on our part, or that God needs help...BUT...it came to me today...a new way of seeing it...the Word says that we have armor-that we are in a battle-that we have weapons (and the weapons of our warfare are NOT carnal...worldly, fleshly). We are expected to do more than pray and then sit back & wait...we are expected to engage the enemy! We are expected to lay claim to victories in the name of Jesus! I knew that, but I often fall short when it comes to that engagement. How can we expect God to move on our behalf when we can't get up and move ourselves on our own behalf-spiritually. We have weapons that we are told are mighty to the pulling down of strongholds-we can't sit back and let those strongholds remain if we have the means to move them out of our way. We have the power of the Holy Spirit on our side, but we need to show we mean it when we want to move a mountain. It is our responsibility to know the Word, and more importantly, to USE it!
Today's challenges-what does the Bible say about our weapons? Our enemy? Our armor?
We have real armor and real weapons-and a very real enemy! We need to know what they are all about. How did the disciples wage warfare? How did they pray? How did they live their lives? I believe you will find praise in spite of situations, intense devotion, and the fullness of the Holy Spirit were a huge part of their lives. They didn't just pray "God help me" prayers and go through the motions of being a believer-they engaged the enemy with the tools they were given. We need to be warriors-Christianity requires it! We may have thought it only required obtaining our "heaven ticket" by being born again of the spirit, and though God's love is unconditional...his promises are not...because we have the free will given by a God who loved us that much!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
A working knowledge of Christ
We often hear that we must have a "saving" knowledge of Christ, not just head knowledge but heart knowledge. This is absolutely true. But then what? You have accepted Christ as your personal savior and now you have your "ticket" to eternal life. You don't just know about God, you know him. You are now on a personal level with your savior. Amen!
I submit that you now must develop a "working" knowledge of Christ that takes you through life on this planet to a higher, deeper, wider place. Hallelujah! Now you have the privilege of growing in him, from glory to glory. You dig into the word of God and revelations begin to come to you. You start to see how this plan of God works out in your life. Suddenly there is an appreciation for the living, breathing word of God almighty! Now you are not just going through the motions of being a Christian, you have the tools at your disposal to walk with God in a new and exciting way for he is now a personal God to you. You have the power to change things by calling upon your father in heaven to show you favor in an area or to dispense his angels to protect you. The Bible says iron sharpens iron. As you fellowship with other believers you realize you are learning new and wonderful things. Praise God for he is a faithful God.
We often hear about God's love being unconditional and it is. He sacrificed his only son on a cross over 2,000 years ago so you might obtain the right to eternal life. It was essential that you make a conscious decision accepting him for he is a gracious God who forces no one to enter into relationship with him. If you purchase an airplane ticket it is useless until the plane leaves the ground. So is your faith without much redeeming value unless you "take off" with it. Because God loves us without reservation he knows what is best for us and unless we also grasp that concept we flounder around trying to figure him out. However, once we get that part we are on our way to a wonderfully exciting flight. Usually it takes some trial and error on our part as we learn to give things over to him. Actually it is a lifelong process as we move from glory to glory. Make no mistake the love of God is unconditional but the promises of God are definitely conditional on obedience. You see, he knows if we are not in right relationship with him the enemy of our soul (Satan) can paralyze, cripple, or even destroy our spirit man.
He created man for fellowship with him and he provided everything man needs to live a successful life on this earth and then spend eternity with him. Now your idea of a successful life and God's may differ. He has not said there will be no suffering in this lifetime, for we live in a fallen and sinful world. What he has said is he will walk with you day by day, guiding your footsteps. Doctrine is confusing to most people. They may understand the 10 commandments, salvation, and even that hell means eternal separation from God (that indicates an existence void of all love). Then it gets tricky understanding the word of God and even trickier living it out. Once you have put him in charge of your life you must remain yielded to his spirit and will. You must search out the word for meaning and follow the witness in your spirit. It can get complicated, but it doesn't have to. It is very important to remember we are all human, living in a fallen world, and we will not always get it right. Our responsibility is to get it as right as we can and to make course corrections when necessary. As long as we live on this earth we will get new revelations from the word of God. All he requires is that we sincerely try and not give up growing in him.
Those who do not believe will tell you there are many contradictions in the Bible and those who do believe may tell you they see some of it differently than you do. There are no contradictions, but there are differences of opinion. Why do you suppose the Lord didn't make the road map a bit clearer? Why isn't the entire word of God as clear to us as the 10 commandments? When you were a child I bet your parents told you if you looked a word up you would remember it's spelling better than if they just told you how to spell it. Generally this theory proves to be true as we tend to recall things we ourselves did, especially if it was a little challenging. In actuality, the Bible confirms itself repeatedly and works like a finely tuned machine. Our job is to learn to "work" with it-to put effort into our walk with the Lord-to do the very best we can because he so loved us he gave his only son to die for us that we might forever be with him. Had he made the world and the word robotic and given us no choice we would not freely love him, but would rather be puppets instead. He created a perfect world for us but gave us the choice about keeping it that way or not. Man chose to sin and created a need for being saved from his sin if he was to be with God forever. Think of it this way-if you made your child love you would the love be as pure as it is because the child chooses to love you and obey you because they wish to in their own heart?
For the saving knowledge of Christ to work in our lives we must walk and work it out. We must explore the word and apply it to our lives not just everyone else's life around us. We must take the log out of our own eye before we criticize the splinter in another's. We must forgive if we expect to be forgiven. We must not let man made doctrines trump the word of God ever despite the fact that the church at large has come to see it that way in many instances. We must make course corrections along the way. Always we must seek the face of God before the gifts of God and desire to serve him and partner with him rather than go through mindless acts of rituals and behaviors that are not supported in his word. Continually we must treat others as we wish to be treated and reflect daily on the life Christ expects us to live. To be victorious we must have a working knowledge of Christ.
I submit that you now must develop a "working" knowledge of Christ that takes you through life on this planet to a higher, deeper, wider place. Hallelujah! Now you have the privilege of growing in him, from glory to glory. You dig into the word of God and revelations begin to come to you. You start to see how this plan of God works out in your life. Suddenly there is an appreciation for the living, breathing word of God almighty! Now you are not just going through the motions of being a Christian, you have the tools at your disposal to walk with God in a new and exciting way for he is now a personal God to you. You have the power to change things by calling upon your father in heaven to show you favor in an area or to dispense his angels to protect you. The Bible says iron sharpens iron. As you fellowship with other believers you realize you are learning new and wonderful things. Praise God for he is a faithful God.
We often hear about God's love being unconditional and it is. He sacrificed his only son on a cross over 2,000 years ago so you might obtain the right to eternal life. It was essential that you make a conscious decision accepting him for he is a gracious God who forces no one to enter into relationship with him. If you purchase an airplane ticket it is useless until the plane leaves the ground. So is your faith without much redeeming value unless you "take off" with it. Because God loves us without reservation he knows what is best for us and unless we also grasp that concept we flounder around trying to figure him out. However, once we get that part we are on our way to a wonderfully exciting flight. Usually it takes some trial and error on our part as we learn to give things over to him. Actually it is a lifelong process as we move from glory to glory. Make no mistake the love of God is unconditional but the promises of God are definitely conditional on obedience. You see, he knows if we are not in right relationship with him the enemy of our soul (Satan) can paralyze, cripple, or even destroy our spirit man.
He created man for fellowship with him and he provided everything man needs to live a successful life on this earth and then spend eternity with him. Now your idea of a successful life and God's may differ. He has not said there will be no suffering in this lifetime, for we live in a fallen and sinful world. What he has said is he will walk with you day by day, guiding your footsteps. Doctrine is confusing to most people. They may understand the 10 commandments, salvation, and even that hell means eternal separation from God (that indicates an existence void of all love). Then it gets tricky understanding the word of God and even trickier living it out. Once you have put him in charge of your life you must remain yielded to his spirit and will. You must search out the word for meaning and follow the witness in your spirit. It can get complicated, but it doesn't have to. It is very important to remember we are all human, living in a fallen world, and we will not always get it right. Our responsibility is to get it as right as we can and to make course corrections when necessary. As long as we live on this earth we will get new revelations from the word of God. All he requires is that we sincerely try and not give up growing in him.
Those who do not believe will tell you there are many contradictions in the Bible and those who do believe may tell you they see some of it differently than you do. There are no contradictions, but there are differences of opinion. Why do you suppose the Lord didn't make the road map a bit clearer? Why isn't the entire word of God as clear to us as the 10 commandments? When you were a child I bet your parents told you if you looked a word up you would remember it's spelling better than if they just told you how to spell it. Generally this theory proves to be true as we tend to recall things we ourselves did, especially if it was a little challenging. In actuality, the Bible confirms itself repeatedly and works like a finely tuned machine. Our job is to learn to "work" with it-to put effort into our walk with the Lord-to do the very best we can because he so loved us he gave his only son to die for us that we might forever be with him. Had he made the world and the word robotic and given us no choice we would not freely love him, but would rather be puppets instead. He created a perfect world for us but gave us the choice about keeping it that way or not. Man chose to sin and created a need for being saved from his sin if he was to be with God forever. Think of it this way-if you made your child love you would the love be as pure as it is because the child chooses to love you and obey you because they wish to in their own heart?
For the saving knowledge of Christ to work in our lives we must walk and work it out. We must explore the word and apply it to our lives not just everyone else's life around us. We must take the log out of our own eye before we criticize the splinter in another's. We must forgive if we expect to be forgiven. We must not let man made doctrines trump the word of God ever despite the fact that the church at large has come to see it that way in many instances. We must make course corrections along the way. Always we must seek the face of God before the gifts of God and desire to serve him and partner with him rather than go through mindless acts of rituals and behaviors that are not supported in his word. Continually we must treat others as we wish to be treated and reflect daily on the life Christ expects us to live. To be victorious we must have a working knowledge of Christ.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Words as weapons
Even the most well-meaning believers can injure other believers & prospective believers with words much more easily than we might imagine. We all have witnessed this & the result is never good. Although usually we put on a good face for fellow believers the real deal in our heart sometimes slips out of our mouth. We are downright rude, too busy to care, or so puffed up as to think we can say anything & it is just fine because it is us. I have witnessed some remarkable things under church roofs. A large part of the reason for this is failure to think about what we are saying & failure to realize it isn't all about us! Our words, we are told in scripture, can bless or curse. One may not feel like they have "cursed" someone when they have blown them off or spoken sharply, rudely, or unwisely. Think about the last time it happened to you-did it rise up in your mind for awhile making you feel at least uncomfortable or disappointed, if not even angry? We all do well to try our best to speak with the love of Christ to everyone, reflecting Christ in us. Never let your position or your disposition allow you license to say anything you feel like whether or not it is kind, whether or not it is scriptural. Humans can get caught up in "self" & spew out hurtful & ridiculous statements. Never forget that children will learn & exhibit bad behavior as well! CHALLENGE: Look up what the word says about speaking, the tongue, etc. Often when we look up things we think we are well versed in, if we look far enough we will find something we didn't know! Use several translations & Biblical reference books if you have them. May our words be a blessing to the ears that hear them!
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