Got Love?
What are you motivated by?
1Corinthians 13:1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Any good deed devoid of the motivation of love means nothing where God is concerned.
But we should note here that the Holy Spirit is not denouncing good works by revealing the higher motivation of love.
It does reveal clearly that it is possible to do many good things, even heroic things, from a selfish motive. Such things can be done to be seen and praised and to make a name for oneself.
So by no means are tongues, prophecy, revelation, faith, feeding the poor, or being a martyr being discouraged by what is taught here in 1Corinthians 13.
It simply puts into perspective the idea of doing such things in a way that truly counts for something. The only way to do that is to allow myself to be moved by love towards others.
Granted, a world filled with these acts, even when wrongly motivated, is far better than a world without them. But for those of us concerned with the record of heaven and the pleasure of God, being rightly motivated so that it counts where it matters most is a big deal.
So when love manifests, what does it look like?
1Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Notice that love, as described here, requires us to be involved with others. You cannot be a recluse and practice love. Withdrawing from others will not enable you to exercise love. The platform for love to be on display involves being among others with purpose.
This is why being committed to the gathering is important, and being involved with others outside the gathering is equally important.
I encourage you today to allow the Holy Spirit to direct your attention where He wants it and be ready to be used by Him to love someone He thinks you should love despite who they are or what they are in the natural or the spiritual.
The only thing that matters is that the Holy Spirit is allowed to fill our hearts and minds with the love of Christ and then direct us about who we are to manifest His love to. Go in His love today and be ready to show His love to whomever He desires you to show it to.
Set Your Mind
Where do your thoughts dwell?
Colossians 3:1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
Romans 6:4 Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we also should walk in newness of life.
What I give my thoughts to is very important. That old saying that a person is too heavenly-minded to be any earthly good is untrue. It runs against what Scripture teaches.
We are meant to be heavenly-minded to be any earthly good.
If you have been raised with Christ. If you have been born again, you were raised with Christ. Anyone born again was created to seek those things above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.
We are meant to be thinking as heavenly beings. We are no longer meant to think as someone who is of this world but rather as someone who is of His kingdom.
This means that what we fill our minds with matters. To walk in the newness of life, we must think like someone who has received newness of life.
What I dwell on determines how I live. The Holy Spirit does not force me to be and to do. He will empower me to be and to do, but He does not turn me into a robot for God.
I have a choice in the matter of how I live my life. If I refuse the wise counsel of where to set my mind, I will struggle more than is ordinary.
Many think laziness begins and can only be described as someone who sits around doing nothing. But the birthplace of laziness is in the mind. It involves the refusal to think productively and imagine possibilities.
Laziness towards setting one’s mind where it should be produces inactivity or at least the wrong activity. It is victory over laziness that invests in choosing to think right so that one can begin to choose right and then act on that right.
By thinking right, we begin to know who we are and what we are capable of because we see Jesus, who created us for greater purposes. I encourage you today to fill your thoughts with Jesus and consider where He is seated. See His greatness and grace. Know His love and mercy—Marvel at His abundant life and radiance. Then realize all this is working in you when you are abiding in Him. This is how to bear much fruit and be productive for His kingdom. It begins with where our thoughts are allowed to wander and dwell. To set means to fix. Where will you allow your thoughts to dwell today?
Alignment
Have you been adjusted?
Most people who own a vehicle periodically have their car aligned when they buy new tires. The reason is that by aligning the car, the tires will last longer, perform better, and the warranty for the tires will not be voided. A car out of alignment will experience unusual wear on the tires, will not handle properly, and can even become dangerous.
When I was young, without Christ and very foolish, I owned a 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner. One night I was down on Cumberland Avenue and was not in my right mind for good reason. On the sidewalk was a group of college students, and I was making a left turn and thought it would be a good time to show off what this car could do. So, I stepped on the gas, the tires began to spin and smoke, and I was making my turn sideways across the intersection. I didn’t realize that I was drifting close to a high curb. Once I noticed I let off the gas, the car began to right itself and slammed my right front tire into the curb. At that, I decided to head home. Going down the interstate, it dawned on me that my car was pulling hard to the right. So like a real dummy, I let go of the steering wheel to see what it would do, and it took off to the right into the grass off the side of the interstate and barely stopped short of a concrete culvert. I won’t go into what it cost me to get things straightened out again on that car. But my foolish disregard that led to it being way out of alignment almost got me badly hurt or killed.
It can be very unprofitable to disregard alignment, personally and for others a person may claim to love and care about.
Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
The goal of a follower of Jesus is to know the will of God and do it. Having been born again, I now know who I am and am allowed to know what God desires for my life. I can choose to trust that the desires He places within me for His purposes and glory far exceed anything I could come up with in my flesh.
My discovery of what His desires are for my life are made known and increased when I invest in renewing my mind with His word.
Not just any word I can find in the Bible but the right word that applies to me under the covenant I am in with Him right now.
If I had taken my Roadrunner in to be serviced and insisted that they align it based on tires that did not apply to the car, I would be no better off. I needed it aligned specifically for the tires I had on it.
The same is true for me now that I have come under the New Covenant through Jesus Christ. Jesus did not bring me into the Old Covenant that was before He shed His blood at the cross, rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven. That Old Covenant relied on what I could do in my own strength to be righteous. Under this New Covenant, I am made the very righteousness of God through faith in Jesus. I am indwelt by the Holy Spirit now, and my new man within desires to do the will of God.
But my mind must be aligned with the truth concerning who I am in Christ. I cannot serve myself and others by being out of line and thinking as I had before I came to Jesus. To live in the power God gave me to do His good and perfect will, I must align my mind with who He is, His ways, and what He says about me now that I belong to Jesus. Regular alignments are part of the journey, and I find that the more I am in His word, the more I adjust to the truth He reveals to me, and the more beneficial I am to myself and others.
Sealed
Want to be encouraged?
Ephesians 1:13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
When I asked my wife Sheila to marry me many years ago, I gave her an engagement ring signifying my promise to her to stand at an altar before many witnesses and declare her to be my bride. That ring gave her confidence that I would follow through, and it also was a sign to others that she was taken, not available, not on the market, so to speak. The Holy Spirit, if you will be open to the idea, is like the engagement ring. He is the sign that Jesus will come again and will complete His promise. What does the ring Jesus gave us look like?
In Scripture, we are given examples of what Jesus was like and told stories of what He did.
Jesus said if you had seen Him, you had seen the Father. In other words, everything Jesus spoke and did was mirroring the Father.
So we also know what the Father is like and how He acts.
The Ephesians were told they were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise after they heard the truth of the gospel of their salvation and believed in Jesus. They were told that the Holy Spirit of promise guaranteed their inheritance.
Now in a like manner, this is meant to apply to us who believe in Jesus today. The same truth is ours, just as it was theirs.
So it would be prudent to ask, is there anything in Scripture that shows us what the Holy Spirit is like and how He acts? Is there something about the Holy Spirit that indicates a person has Him in their life and thus can be assured of their guarantee of the inheritance?
The answer to this question is that there is!
Anytime the Holy Spirit filled believers, we find certain activities took place. In fact, because of this truth in Ephesians, believers are encouraged when they are part of a move of the Holy Spirit in a gathering.
It is the work of the Spirit that sets us apart. It is why sanctification is of the Holy Spirit. The act of sanctification is being set apart, made different, unlike what is common. It is what holy means: set apart, made special in a sense, given a specific purpose, not common.
A believer walking in the power of the Holy Spirit is uncommon. They are different. Believers who participate in the gifts of the Spirit in a gathering are different and set apart, so to speak.
But the key is revealed in Ephesians as to what unlocks this privilege of being sealed. It uses the terminology “having believed.” You see, it takes the same kind of faith needed to believe in salvation to believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Jesus makes the privilege of the Promised Holy Spirit possible by cleansing us from sin and making us righteous. He pioneered the way for the Spirit to come and indwell us and flow out of us to others.
When we believe and surrender to the work of the Spirit so He might express Himself through bringing His gifts to bless all, we are exhibiting the seal of our inheritance because there’s no mistaking that He is at work among us and that is evidence that we belong to Jesus and are destined for eternity. Just as the Father was made manifest through Jesus, the Holy Spirit magnifies Jesus through us and makes His presence known by how He moves us to respond to Him in various situations. It will always lead to blessing someone else according to the working of His power as opposed to us trying to affirm ourselves by trying to be good enough in our flesh to convince ourselves and others that we might just be okay.
I love being encouraged by His presence at work in and through me, signifying that I am born from above and that I am not of this world. I have supernaturally been born again through faith in Jesus, and I live a supernatural life through faith in the Promised Holy Spirit, given to me as a gift from the Father.
I accepted the gift of salvation Jesus offered me when I came to Him, and I received all that the Holy Spirit offered me when I received Him as well. Just as Jesus gave the gift of salvation and new life, the Holy Spirit gives the gifts of the Spirit. I know I am sealed!
Double Mindedness
What do you think?
1 Kings 18:21 Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORDb is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing.
Double-mindedness occurs when we allow anything into our soul that is contrary to the truth of the New Covenant. It might sound good, but it does not accord with the counsel of God as revealed in the New Covenant truth. It might even be from the Scripture but fails the test of passing through the filter of New Covenant truth and perspective.
Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
What was Jesus saying? Being divided in your heart or mind is not profitable and will always interfere with your ability to retain your focus where it ought to be.
To get our soul and spirit in sync so we can walk in the power we’ve been given, we need to wash our minds with the right truth.
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for herb 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
Here we are given an example of what Jesus does for His bride. He washes her with words. I dare say these words are not negative criticisms, abusive outbursts of anger, and reminders of how she doesn’t measure up.
He made her something already, and she needs to know whom she is married to, what He has done for her, who that makes her to be, and what it enables her to experience. She needs to get to where she sees the same thing in the mirror He is describing because she increasingly believes His words over her more and more.
Refusing to subject thoughts and opinions to New Covenant truth is akin to seeking after problems.
James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
Double-mindedness is out to rip off any follower of Jesus who allows it to have a place in their soul. Your spirit already has faith and trust in God and loves Him, and desires to do everything God wants. But the soul still needs some work. It needs some washing. It needs old ideas, traditions of men, sentimentality, nostalgia, and incorrect input washed out of it so it can align with the truth God speaks concerning you.
How does what you have been told by someone line up with what God says about you and the work of Jesus in Scripture? I encourage you today to saturate your soul with good truth concerning Jesus and His completed work and all that it makes available to you. Let the words of the groom wash your soul.
Trees Of Righteousness
Have you been planted?
Isaiah 61:1-3
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD and the day of vengeance of our God: To comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”
I do not think that anyone would imagine that Jesus was not anointed. But Isaiah prophesied about the Messiah and told us what His anointing would be for.
There was a reason why the Spirit of God was upon Jesus. He was on Jesus to anoint Him. He was anointing Jesus to do specific things.
Preach good tidings to the poor.
Heal the brokenhearted.
Proclaim liberty to the captives.
Open prison doors for those who are bound.
Proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God.
Comfort all who mourn.
Console those who mourn in Zion.
Give beauty for ashes.
Give the oil of Joy for mourning.
Give the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
Ten things Jesus was anointed for. Everyone one of them is good. Everyone thing Jesus was anointed for was positive and a blessing.
Why was He anointed to do these ten things?
That they who received might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.
In other words, it is the goodness of God on display through Jesus benefitting those in need and transforming their lives to the glory of God. Jesus did not come to make them focus on what they didn’t have in themselves. He came to make them aware of what He could offer them if they simply believed in Him. It’s about what He has, not what I don’t have.
At the cross, Jesus took our sins, past, present, and future, and in exchange, gave us His righteousness. New Covenant ministry sets at liberty under the same anointing Jesus walked in. It is the same Holy Spirit who anoints us. The ministry of Jesus is to continue on the earth through His church. Jesus stood in the synagogue in Nazareth, where he grew up, read this passage, and then declared, “This day, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus showed us the desire of the Father to be kind, good, and generous towards those who come in faith to Christ. This is still true today. This amazing message of hope and promise needs to be resurrected in the church and taken outside it to the lost. I encourage you to be a witness for Christ to those outside the church today.
Baptized With Fire
What were you baptized with?
Matthew 3:11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
In this case, John is speaking of Jesus. Jesus is the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
To be baptized, we know, means being fully immersed. The word baptize was used at that time to describe the pickling process. The idea behind baptism in pickling is that a small cucumber would be fully immersed in a container until it was saturated from within to without. No part of the pickle would be left out of the pickling solution. The process would alter the entire pickle.
So if we think about it, the idea of Holy Spirit baptism is about being overwhelmed by Holy Spirit transformation and endowing power.
Jesus told the disciples after His resurrection and just before His ascension to wait for the promise of the Father, which is the Holy Spirit, to come before going out to be His witnesses. They thought they were prepared to be His witnesses after seeing and being with Jesus after His resurrection. But Jesus knew they needed to go in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit. He told them to wait until they were baptized with the Holy Spirit. They were baptized with the Holy Spirit, and cloven (Divided) tongues of fire were seen over their heads, and they spoke in another language praising God and then went on to turn the world upside down.
So that puts some perspective on being baptized with the Holy Spirit, but what is the fire about?
Obviously, it cannot mean fire in the most literal sense, even though cloven tongues of fire were witnessed over the 120 in that upper room that day, as that is the only record of that particular occurrence of tongues of fire. But when we think of fire in the spiritual sense, we are brought to altars where sacrifices occur.
The fire was used to offer up sacrifices. Sacrifices represented surrender and were required for purification. Once the sacrifice was offered, the sin requiring the sacrifice and fire was purged. Thus the ones represented by the sacrifice were considered clean and free.
For the fire to occur, there had to be surrender. Jesus’ surrender first initiated the fire He spoke of. Think about the sacrifices of lambs before Jesus for a moment. What lamb ever walked up to a priest with a knife, jumped on the sacrificial altar, and stretched out its neck to be slaughtered?
Jesus knew He would be sacrificed and killed in a horrible way. Yet He offered Himself freely. Jesus was a knowledgeable, willing sacrifice. Jesus surrendered Himself completely to the will of the Father. The cross was the altar, and fire for Jesus was the culmination of the Father’s will in His death and resurrection. It would be His greatest act of surrender to the will of the Father.
For us, the altar and fire involve full surrender to the Holy Spirit so that we might walk in the will of God according to the Spirit. The desire of Jesus is not only that we are saturated in the Holy Spirit and endued with His power, but that we also are engulfed by the fire of surrender that brings us into the complete will of God for our lives.
Knowing and doing the will of God is not something you can do of your own accord and in your own strength. To embrace all God has for you, you need the Holy Spirit and fire Jesus promised to baptize you with. I encourage you today to be filled and saturated with the Holy Spirit and fire. Be found in full surrender to God, in full assurance of faith in His love and trusting in His goodness, ready to do anything He shows you is His will for you to be and to do.
Made Alive
How alive are you?
Ephesians 2:1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
The power of God at work in raising Jesus from the dead is the same power at work in us when we are given new life in Christ. Jesus does not make people dead, dry, dull, and boring. His life animates us with the power of His divine life working within us. The Holy Spirit He baptizes with brings with Him a fire that manifests itself in a passion for Jesus and yearning for the will of God.
Holy Spirit fire burns out the lust of the flesh that before dominated our lives in one form or another. It replaces it with a passion for the kingdom of God and Christ. His fire burns out the rival loves and empowers us to be focused on the one love that matters most.
He makes us alive together with Christ! He raises us up together in Christ! He makes us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ!
All this is done to show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us in Christ!
There are exceeding riches of grace that God bestows upon us with purpose and intention. Are you aware of the exceeding riches of His grace that can only be seen by recognizing His kindness?
He demonstrated His kindness toward us in Christ when He sent Him to the cross to die and to pay for our sins past, present, and future so we could be brought into life with Him supernaturally according to the Spirit.
We no longer have to live to satisfy the desires of the flesh and the mind that had been so corrupted by lust. Lusts are not only sexual in nature. They can touch every facet of life in some way or another and are the driving force of those spiritually dead without Jesus.
Lusts are the fuel of bad choices, wrong paths, and unprofitable companions and alliances. They lead a person away from what is truly good and profitable to people, places, and things the enemy intends to use to rob, kill and destroy them.
But we have been set free from the destructive work of lusts of the flesh and brought into a life in Christ fueled by the Holy Spirit that takes us to the right places, people, and situations where God is at work, and His blessing is flowing with great abundance and power.
I encourage you today to reacquaint yourself with the idea of having been made alive in Christ and let yourself relish the truth and live in its power. Be aware of His kindness towards you in Christ, and enjoy the joy of truly believing such good news.
According To The Flesh
Walking free of condemnation?
Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Just what does it mean to walk according to the flesh?
For many, their understanding of this begins and ends with blatantly obvious fleshly things related to sinful acts and choices.
But is that really what the Holy Spirit seeks to communicate to us?
The idea of Spirit versus flesh in these passages addresses how righteousness and justification are obtained and maintained.
What if we used the terminology “Own Strength, will, and determination” instead of flesh?
Seeking after right standing with God rooted in the law is relying upon our natural resources to comply. It assumes that with enough determination and by setting our wills to do our best, we might obey according to the flesh well enough for God to be impressed.
But the New Covenant Jesus established does not work on this basis. It works on faith in the finished work of Jesus at the cross, in the resurrection and the ascension, and in the fact that He ever lives to intercede for us as our high priest.
In other words, we experience a shift in where we draw our confidence from. We no longer experience confidence based on our performance, but rather it is based on the obedience of Jesus. If we allow ourselves to get caught in the snare of our performance for measuring our standing before God, we come back under condemnation and double-mindedness.
This is why mixing the law with grace is not New Covenant.
Romans 8:3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
The Law depends on our flesh, and our flesh is proven to be weak and inconsistent. Another wording that occurs in this train of thought is carnal-mindedness.
Romans 8:6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.
Notice it did not say the carnal mind rebels and refuses to be subject to the Law of God. It says it cannot be so. There’s a problem too big for any man or woman to overcome in the flesh. No matter how much they may wish to overcome it and will themselves to be better, they cannot alter their sinful nature by relying on the flesh to improve or be good enough.
We must, by faith in Jesus Christ, be transformed. We must be born again by the Spirit and thus become new creations in Christ, made right with God with a righteousness that is not our own. Jesus took our sin, past, present, and future, at the cross and gave us His righteousness. By making us new creations, He removed our sinful nature and gave us a new nature created in Christ that is clothed in the very righteousness of God.
When we, by faith, walk in this revelation and understanding, we are walking according to the Spirit. I encourage you today to walk according to the Spirit, and you will find you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Do not live according to the flesh. Instead, let the Spirit supply you.
Where Are You?
Do you know where you are?
This question was first asked in the garden after Adam had sinned and tried to hide himself from God. Of course, there’s no way anyone could ever hide from God because God sees everything. So the question was for Adam’s sake, not God’s.
In the letter to the Hebrews, we discover some communication that does not ask this question but rather answers it. It speaks of where believers are not brought to and positioned, but instead where they are brought to and positioned.
They were under threat of losing sight of what was made available to them in Christ. They were tempted to go back to the system of law observance and all the customs and traditions required to be convinced one was right with God.
In other words, they were under threat of losing their identity and failing to realize where they had been brought spiritually in Christ. They were under this threat because they had begun to lean on their own understanding once again. They had allowed themselves to think more according to their natural selves than to their spiritual selves.
To make the point clear, a contrast is made between what took place at the origin of the law and what takes place in Christ. The law came from a mountain that burned with fire, was covered in smoke, darkness, tempest, the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, and those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken due to their great fear. It was from that mountain that the law came forth.
When someone is born again through faith in Christ Jesus, they are brought to a place way different from that of the law.
Hebrew 12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.
In Christ, you are placed in this reality spiritually. You are born from heaven above. You are a heavenly citizen with a heavenly birthright. Your name becomes written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. You are brought to the city of the living God! You become part of the heavenly Jerusalem! You stand amid an innumerable company of angels! You are counted along with those who are among the church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, and you appear before God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and you stand before Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and you do so based on the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than the blood of Abel.
Abel’s blood cried out from the ground before God for justice. The blood of Jesus cries out for mercy and grace and establishes forgiveness.
Ephesians 2:19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
In Christ, we no longer are far away, distant, on the outside looking in, or not belonging. In Christ, we have been brought near! In Christ, we have left behind that far away, not fitting in, not a part identity, and have become fellow citizens! Once you know who you are and where you are, you live according to what you know to be true. What you think you know in the natural can be swallowed up in what you have become according to the Spirit. There is no condemnation for those who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
I encourage you today to know where you are according to the testimony of Scripture. Know what and who you are surrounded by, and know the truth about how you stand before Him! According to the new covenant truth, In Christ, you have been repositioned in life.
His Divine Nature
Do you know Jesus?
2Peter 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Based on verse 2, by what means are grace and peace multiplied to you?
His divine power has given us “all” things that pertain to life and godliness. When Scripture speaks of divine power, I think of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit desires to develop your knowledge of God and our Lord and Savior Jesus so that you will know all that is available to you and escape the corruption that is in the world through lust.
I know this is a fact because of what it says in the verse. All things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue. Notice it says through the knowledge of Him (meaning Jesus), not you, not a method, not some other thing. The Holy Spirit is constantly seeking to bring us into deeper fellowship with Jesus and the Father. His greatest yearning is to bring us into unity with God.
How well do you know Jesus?
It’s easy to get so caught up in looking for methods, keys, and secret ways to get something you need that you fail to look to Jesus.
It says everything we need pertaining to life and godliness. What is meant by life here? What do you believe the word life includes?
Is it possible that the word life includes everything equated with life as we know it? Your spiritual, mental, and physical well-being, financial provision, relationships, etc. If this is the case, there must be places in the word of God that offer us promises in such areas. There are such promises! And all the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ!
If I were to go to your bank and deposit $100,000.00 in it and then tell you that you have that much money available to you, but you refuse to believe me, you will never access it. The same would be true if I discovered a cure for cancer and you desperately needed it, and I offered it freely. Unless you believe you will not benefit from it.
We already have everything that pertains to life and godliness! Christ, in a way, is our bank in these matters. He holds our account and keeps it full. It’s all there in Him! He offers it to us freely, but we have to believe Him to be able to access it, and we will struggle to believe Him if we are not getting to know Him as we should. By growing in our knowing Him, we have access to everything!
We even are made partakers of His divine nature. New Creations are heaven-born spiritual citizens of the kingdom. In Christ, we were made something that before did not exist. In Christ, we partake of His divine nature, but our souls must be caught up to what that means. This is why renewing the mind is of such great importance.
I encourage you to consider more deeply what it means to be a partaker of the divine nature and have the divine power at work in you. The more your soul gets washed in the truth of it, the more transformed you will live.
Grace For Grace
Feel like boasting?
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:16 And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.
The first thing we should pay close attention to in these passages is how it describes the essence of Christ, whom the Father begot.
He is full of grace and truth.
The second thing is how it states His glory was beheld. The works that Jesus did were a manifestation of His glory.
The third thing is this matter of His fullness. Such as Jesus had He gave. Jesus gave out of His fullness.
The fourth thing is the matter of grace for grace, as it is the primary focus of today’s encouragement.
You see, grace is unmerited favor. It is favor you cannot earn.
The term grace for grace is akin to being told you were given favor to get favor. Many have sought to define it as favor stacked upon favor.
No matter how you choose to look at it, it is an extraordinary gift to be given. These two verses of Scripture describe what I believe to be one the most precious and great revelations there is.
We are given insight into who Jesus is, what Jesus is like, and what Jesus has done for us.
Jesus personified the goodness and generosity of God the Father. Jesus demonstrated the willingness of God to be a great benefactor and to bless.
To assure this reality for those of us who would believe Jesus gave favor to us for us to have favor.
Ephesians 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
I brought nothing any greater or any more than another in which I could boast it would turn the eye of God to me more so than another. I have nothing by which to boast other than His goodness and generosity towards me. You are in the same boat I am in regarding this matter. Neither of us has anything to boast about concerning earning favor from God.
Our privilege of having His fullness and the favor to have favor is purely a gift rooted in His goodness and generosity, which is freely given to all who will believe. In this is revealed God’s amazing love, goodness, and generosity. Grace for grace brings us boldly before Him at the throne of grace to find mercy to help in our time of need.
I encourage you to always take advantage of what has so freely and generously been given to you in Christ Jesus. I implore you today not to waste your grace for grace!
Being Loved
Do you know what love looks like?
It is now 2023 and this coming November 8th, I look forward to celebrating 37 years of marriage to the most incredible woman on the planet. I love her, and she loves me, although I am not sure why she loves me or chose to love me in the first place, but she does.
Now the way I know she loves me is proven each day in manifold ways. It started with a promise to love me before we married, and then she stated it in a vow when we married.
But her demonstration of loving me goes much further than words, just as my demonstration transcends words.
We have made many promises to one another over these many years of being together.
Just like in my marriage, we must experience the fulfillment of a promise because it makes love much more real.
There is so much more to being in a relationship with God than having a singular promise of heaven one day.
Great and precious promises throughout Scripture are now ours through Christ.
2 Corinthians 1:20 For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.
Do you know the promises you are permitted to stand in faith upon?
The promises are what draws on the character and power of God. God uses the promises in our lives to avail Himself in tangible ways to us so we can be encouraged in our belonging to Him and know His goodness.
Paul wrote to the Philippians, acknowledging their generosity towards him while he was in prison for the gospel. In that communication, he declares,
Philippians 4:19 And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
This is a promise of God that Paul stood on for himself and is now declaring over the Philippians, and it is our promise as well.
Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
Jesus said this knowing He would soon ascend to heaven but send the Holy Spirit to baptize them and be with them all their days here on earth until He would accompany them to their appearance before the throne in heaven.
To have the Holy Spirit in tangible ways is the same as having Jesus because God is one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are God, and to have one with you is to have all with you because they are in perfect unity. Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit for a purpose. It was to fulfill His promise to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire.
I meet believers in Jesus who struggle greatly because they have not yet tapped into the promise of being baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire. When the power of the Spirit comes in and over you and His fire purges your soul in ways you could never achieve on your own, you are transformed, and you experience what it means to partake of His divine nature in a whole new way. This fulfillment of a promise is an act of being loved by Him. His love is there and looks to land on an open, receptive heart. I encourage you to be open to being loved by Him today.
Partakers - Through These
What are you partaking of?
2 Peter 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Believers in Jesus are given the privilege of partaking in God’s divine nature. But this partaking in the divine nature is imparted to us through certain means.
His divine power has given us everything pertaining to life and godliness, but we realize the reality of possessing such things as we grow in our knowledge of Jesus, who called us by glory and virtue.
All these amazingly wonderful things are given to us by His divine power. The administrator of His divine power is the Holy Spirit. So the power of God at work in salvation, which is a supernatural work that brings us into His eternal life and causes us to come alive, although we were once spiritually dead, also imparted an ability to embrace godliness.
It is through this life and godliness that we receive freely when we come alive in Christ that we inherit the promises. All the promises of God are yes, and amen in Christ to the glory of God! It pleased God that we should inherit the promises through Christ. The promises belong to you and me in Christ, not by way of our own merit. Just as salvation is not by means of merit on our part, the promises are not ours according to merit.
The promises are very important too! The promises are what God uses to impart to us His divine nature in a very real and tangible sense. When you and I tap into a promise of God through faith in Christ, we experience in our time and space the working of God on our behalf, and it imparts to us a solid sense of belonging to Him and knowing He is working for us, in us and through us.
Being a partaker of the divine nature involves receiving and walking in the promises.
It is through the promises that we become partakers of His divine nature. You see, it was by believing one of the promises that you even were born again and rescued from death to life in Christ. Eternal life is one of the promises, and you benefitted from that promise when you came to Jesus in faith. If all Peter was talking about was the promise of eternal life in Christ, it would say we were made partakers of the divine nature through the promise instead of saying exceedingly great and precious promises. Making the application plural when it comes to promises means there’s more we have been given in Christ.
So the idea of being a partaker is not a one-time sense here. It is an ongoing idea being conveyed. I could be offered a cake, take one bite and then go away and say honestly, I partook of the cake, but by possessing the cake, I am given the privilege to take more than just one bite. I can continue to experience that cake beyond just that first bite.
That is the general idea of this communication in 2 Peter. We escaped the corruption that is in this world through lust when God supernaturally changed our hearts when we came to Christ. We were made the very righteousness of God in Christ and became alive spiritually. We were translated from the kingdom of darkness into His marvelous kingdom of light. He altered our desires and opened our eyes to greater things than what this world has to offer.
To continue experiencing Him the way He intends for us to do so, we need to be believing and receive the exceedingly great and precious promises that are offered to us in Christ. It is through these that we are made partakers of Him in an ongoing sense. I encourage you today to lay hold on the promises! Walk in a continual experience of Him in all His goodness!
New Covenant Gathering
What kind of gathering would you like to be part of?
Have you been born again?
Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit?
Do you believe confidently that the Holy Spirit is always with you?
Then what could prohibit Him from blessing, equipping, encouraging, convicting, offering gifts, or moving supernaturally just as He pleases in your life?
As vessels, we are meant to carry Him and submit to Him; we are the only way He can be prohibited. When we refuse to believe He is present, or we refuse to receive by faith whatever He wants to do in and through us, it limits what He wants to and would do.
As believers in Christ, we are the contact point for the Holy Spirit. We are like an electrical wire “of sorts” that carries the flow of current that He is in His power.
Every gathering we engage in should be electrified with His presence because we all carry His presence into that gathering and come to it prepared to allow Him to flow through us to others.
Born-again, Spirit-filled believers can’t gather in Jesus’ name without the Holy Spirit being present.
Whether or not His presence is discernable is determined by the level of surrender and participation of each believer present.
If you expect to see the Holy Spirit active and tangible in a gathering, you should attend prepared to be surrendered to His will and eager to receive whatever He wishes to bring forth. You should attend with expectation according to faith that He is real and appointed to be with you and others who are born again.
When that level of attitude and belief spreads through a fellowship, the Holy Spirit can accomplish much more than just the ordinary run-of-the-mill predictable Sunday gathering.
There is a contagious manifestation of power among those gathered with such expectations and attitudes.
The higher the level of faith and expectation at a gathering, the greater the work of the Spirit in the lives of those gathered. We are meant to be catalysts for the work of the Spirit. When we come in expectation with a heart of surrender to His desire, we affect the atmosphere we are part of and become a miracle looking for a place to happen.
I do not just want to attend; I want to be a part of and make a difference in how it turns out for all who come. I want to partake and participate in authentic New Covenant Gathering. I trust you do as well, so I encourage you to take advantage of every opportunity, especially since the day of Jesus’ return draws nearer.
Hope Of Glory
What do you hope for?
Colossians 1:27 To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Glory is the quest of every believer in Christ, yet it is our possession already in Christ.
The fact is that without Christ, there could be no glory for anyone. But when one is born again, the hope of glory is made alive.
Praise you, Jesus, for bringing many sons into glory!
Hebrews 2:10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
Jesus was made complete through His obedience in embracing suffering according to the will of the Father to bring redemption and make salvation a reality for all who would believe.
I read this passage and thought Jesus was already perfect and sinless. This is true. But He still had to push through the temptations of the flesh to abandon the ultimate sacrifice and suffering before Him, which was the cross.
Jesus surrendered to suffering in the flesh, which perfected His obedience. It brought things to their conclusion as His obedience took Him to that final step of the cross.
Jesus prayed something very powerful for all of us.
John 17:22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
This is the glory! Oneness of relationship with God as a whole in unity with Him. Jesus declared that the glory He had shared with the Father in oneness would be magnified again and then passed on to us who put our faith in Him.
I love how Jesus prayed that the world would know the Father had sent hIm and loves us the same as He loves Jesus! That’s some glory right there!
You are loved like Jesus is when you are born again in Christ!
John 17:24 “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
Jesus is looking forward to the time when all things are complete, and we are forever with Him, witnessing the splendor of the unity of the godhead at the throne! But please just take a moment and consider that Jesus is declaring He was loved before the foundation of the world. He has prayed we would be loved as He is loved, and that, my friend, means that you and I, too, were loved before the foundation of the world in Christ!
Is your hope of glory alive and well? It should be! In Christ, it is your privilege to possess it.
Offended By Jesus?
Are you offended by Jesus?
In John 10 of the Bible, we discover that there were some Jews who wanted Jesus to come out and say something extremely direct to convince them of who He was.
John 10:25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. 26 But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. 27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
The problem with the works Jesus did is that they often offended the religious leaders based on how they were done and to whom they were done.
Have you ever loved someone a bit odd? Every found yourself hanging with a person that others struggled with? The ones thought of as being respectable, and leaders had problems with?
That is what it was like for Jesus’ disciples. They followed Jesus because they were His sheep and could hear His voice. In other words, the parables Jesus spoke made sense to them and, if not, were explained by Jesus. They got Jesus while others did not.
John 6:61 When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. 65 And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.” 66 From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. 67 Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?”
Jesus had just spoken something that could only be understood correctly according to the Spirit. Because it could only be understood correctly according to the Spirit, the ones who were not truly His were offended by His saying.
You see, they could not see what Jesus was saying because they were limited only to their own analytical way of thinking. So when Jesus said my flesh is food, and my blood is drink, they took Him literally in a natural sense. This greatly offended them because, in their mind, that was cultish and cannibalistic. Still today, many things are taken wrongly because of people not thinking according to the Spirit as opposed to in the natural.
When you encounter Jesus as He is presented in Scripture with the notion that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, are you offended? This is why the need for the Holy Spirit is so important.
1Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Jesus is still doing things that can be difficult to explain to a naturally-minded person. If your goal is to make sense, you might also be offended. I encourage you not to be offended by Jesus in any way and to avoid letting your goal be to make sense to everyone, no matter who they are. Love Jesus and never be ashamed of how controversial He can be to those who lack understanding.
Holy Spirit Significance
What are you full of?
Some things are important enough that you cannot overstate their significance.
Acts 6:3 Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business;
In the first church, when they had practical needs that required logistical solutions and proper oversight of those solutions, they appointed seven men to serve as deacons.
In other words, a man could not serve in practical oversight without being of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. Overseeing the food ministry to widows required these qualifications.
Today, sadly, many churches have far lesser standards for leadership in both the practical and the spiritual areas. This is not wise.
When we understand just how untrustworthy and unreliable the strength of the flesh is, we realize how dependent upon the Holy Spirit we should be.
The Holy Spirit is not optional to someone who truly understands the work of salvation and the reason for it. We not only grasp how sinful we were before coming to Jesus but also realize how powerless we were to do anything about our condition. We grasp how great our need for the help and empowerment of the Spirit is.
Acts 9:17 And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
When Saul, who later was named Paul and became a great apostle for Jesus, had a supernatural encounter on the Damascus Road, I do not know anyone who would say that after Jesus knocked him off his horse and confronted him that Saul was not saved.
Here we find that after Saul was born again, he was taken to a house where he waited for the next thing God had for him. God sent a man to Saul to restore his sight and fill him with the Holy Spirit. Jesus was willing to appear to Saul to redeem him supernaturally but determined that Saul would need another believer who was filled with the Holy Spirit to lay hands on him for him to receive his sight again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Even our Lord and Savior Jesus needed the Holy Spirit to do His mission on earth.
Acts 10:38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.
If Jesus needed to be anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power, would our need for such be lesser? Like Saul, we need to see and be filled. Like the deacons in the first church, we need to be full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. Like Jesus, we need to be anointed with the Holy Spirit and power. I encourage you today to seek to be filled afresh with the person and the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish your mission from God. His purpose will require the aid of the Holy Spirit in you and upon you to be accomplished at the level and in the way He desires. I encourage you to ask to be filled afresh today.
Abounding
Are you possessing the benefits of the kingdom?
Romans 14:17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
The Kingdom of God is three things! The three things affect us directly. We are forever changed by the righteousness we received as a gift when we believed. Jesus gave us His peace, not peace like the world understands peace, but His very own peace. We possess joy in the Holy Spirit.
Now if that were not enough, Paul also prayed the following.
Romans 15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Fill you with all joy and peace! Fill you! Fill you! Why?
So that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is your destiny to abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Your abounding in hope can only be realized by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is through the working of the Holy Spirit that hope is awakened within the heart and soul because, in the working of the Spirit, God is made even more real to us, even though we cannot see Him with our natural eyes.
Every time I have experienced the tangible power of the Spirit, it has produced in me great hope and even stronger expectation with regard to the promises of God based on who He is and what He has spoken.
This is why Holy Spirit encounters make such a profound difference in the lives of believers.
Holy Spirit encounters produce in us the realization of the righteousness, peace, and joy that is meant to be experienced by us as part of the salvation promise in Christ. It is what brings the manifestation of the kingdom forward in our experience.
I’ve never met a freshly filled by the Spirit believer who wasn’t joyful, at peace, and confident in their relationship with God. That is true even when their circumstances are unfavorable at the moment.
1Peter 1:8 (Jesus) whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,
Those convinced by the Spirit have this reality working in them. Are you empowered to rejoice in the unseen? It is the work of the Holy Spirit to seal, confirm and empower believers with kingdom reality.
I encourage you today to ask the Holy Spirit to manifest the reality of the kingdom in you. I encourage you to be bold and, by faith, ask Him to fill you afresh and empower you for kingdom purpose. We are not disappointed when we ask such things in faith, expecting to receive. He is ready to empower you today to walk in the righteousness, peace, and joy that is the kingdom!
On Mission
What is your mission?
Luke 9:56 For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.”
Luke 19:9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; 10 for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
The Jesus in me and the Jesus in you desires to encounter those who do not yet know Him and have not yet surrendered themselves to Him.
Jesus is still on a mission and will be on a mission until the end comes. His mission is to seek and to save. He did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.
Jesus is not afraid of sinners. Thank God He is not because had that been the case, I would not be saved today and would not know what it is like to have my sins forgiven past present, and future.
I would not know what it is like to be made clean by the blood of the Lamb. I would not know what it is like to be set free by the power of His atoning sacrifice, and I would know the glory of being made righteous with the very righteousness of God.
More than that, I would not be able to know the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit, who fills me to overflowing measure and causes rivers of living water to flow out of me toward others.
John 7:38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
When I am on mission with Jesus, letting Him be Him through me and surrendering to the work of the Spirit, I find there is a flow of the power of the Spirit that can powerfully touch others.
All the resources of heaven become available to me because no soldier goes to war at his own expense. His expenses are taken care of by the ones who enlisted him.
Jesus promised that if I seek His kingdom and His righteousness first, all the other things I might ever need will be taken care of for me. I have experienced that in my life many times over.
I trust that you have had that experience as well. There are adventures in the Spirit for all who will go on a mission with Jesus. You can be on mission right where you are right now. We are called to be His witnesses, and I encourage you to find a way to surrender to the Spirit and share the life you have received in Christ with someone you encounter today.
Jesus is still wanting to seek and to save that which was lost. He wants to do it through us.