Happiness
Are you happy?
Happiness - Feeling or showing contentment and pleasure. Having a sense of confidence or satisfaction with a person or situation.
Everyone likes to feel happy in life. Happiness is a wonderful thing, but it can also be a fragile thing.
Since five is the number for grace, I wish to ask you five simple questions concerning happiness.
1) How would you define happiness?
2) Is happiness your primary goal in life?
3) What circumstance or outcome are you hanging your happiness on?
4) Is there someone other than you that you’ve made responsible for your happiness?
5) Who should really be responsible for your happiness?
In the Book of Wisdom in the Amplified Bible, it says, Proverbs 3:13 Happy (blessed, fortunate, enviable) is the man who finds skillful and godly Wisdom, and the man who gets understanding [drawing it forth from God’s Word] NKJV Proverbs 16:20 He who heeds the word wisely will find good, And whoever trusts in the LORD, happy is he.
Someone cried out to Jesus one day, saying, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts that supplied You with milk.” Luke 11:28 But He said, Blessed (happy and to be envied) rather are those who hear the Word of God and obey and practice it!
My wife Sheila often says, “If you have a word from the Lord, you already have all you need.”
I feel sad for those who have not discovered the delight of hearing from the Lord. They have not tasted the security, excitement, and sense of well-being that it is to converse with Him. A strong sense of happiness flows from knowing you have heard from the One who created everything and loves you with everlasting love.
In Genesis 13, God blessed Abraham, and his nephew Lot also benefitted from that. Their herds had greatly increased, and their herdsman began quarreling over space. Abraham was so secure that he gave Lot the choice of whatever area he wanted. Lot chose the lush plains of Jordan and journeyed east, not far from Sodom. Abraham dwelt in Canaan. Abraham did not need a choice situation to be happy. He knew God was with him, and it was enough. God blessed him, and thus, Abraham could be generous without worry.
Abraham was a man who heard God. When you desire a healthy relationship with someone, you feel sad when you’re not experiencing any interaction, such as listening and responding. To be ignored by someone can be painful when your deep desire is to be loved and cared for by them.
I can confidently promise that Jesus does not play manipulative games with you and go zero dark thirty or ghost you simply because He is not getting His way in your life. He promised never to leave or forsake you. If He has an issue with something you’re doing, He lets you know about it. Likewise, He often affirms you and makes you aware of His desires. Zero dark thirty and ghosting may be something common to your experience in your earthly relationships, but it is not characteristic of the Lord.
John 10:27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
Being in a real relationship with Jesus and hearing Him speak to you is the most secure source of happiness there is. Lasting happiness is knowing Jesus.
Stop Fishing
Are you able to be direct with others?
When fishing, the fisherman selects a bait he thinks will attract a fish. He chooses his bait based on the fish he wants to catch and certain conditions in the water.
The fisherman has no good intentions for the fish. The fish is meant to serve the Fisherman’s pleasure or need. For a sport fisherman, it is the pleasure of the fisherman that the fish serves. It is the joy of catching the fish that the fisherman is after. For another fisherman, it is about food. The fish is merely intended to serve a purpose.
So, we could say the fisherman is using the art of deception to catch his prey. He appears to care about the fish and offers it something it may want. But there is no regard for the actual benefit of the fish.
I like to fish. If I catch a fish that isn’t a keeper good for eating, I release it. But I admit my release is not out of love for it. I do so in faith that it will grow larger and become a proper size to keep and eat. I still see the fish as serving my purposes. Pretending to care about the fish beyond that idea would be hypocrisy.
Sadly, often, we can treat each other like fish. We can fain to be contacting someone out of concern for them when, in actuality, our only reason for contact is to keep them on the hook in serving our purposes. Do we care about them for who they are?
I get contacted often by people who ask a question that is meant to sound like they want to know how I am doing, but I know the follow-up will be about what they can get from me.
We’ve all had that friend who never was inclined to have coffee with us until they went into network marketing. Hahaha
I admit I have done it to someone before myself. It is something I am not proud of, have not been guilty of in a long time, and do not wish to be guilty of ever again. I want to always be genuine with people.
Have you ever felt someone was baiting you? Setting you up for what they really want? Well, you are not alone if you have had such an experience.
There’s something respectful, honoring, and authentic in being forthcoming when contacting others. Especially when there are long periods of noncontact. Being contacted under false pretense feels dishonoring and degrading. No one can appreciate it.
Jesus said something enlightening and wise.
Matthew 5:37 But let your “Yes’ be “Yes,’ and your “No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.
There is beauty and respect in being clear and forthcoming when interacting with others. If I contact someone with a need, I do my best to get to the point with them about my purpose. That is the best way to respect and honor them instead of making them feel manipulated into a response they would rather not give. I also try to remember to tell them they are not obligated to give me a yes, as it will not impact our relationship. They are free to say yes or no without any strings attached. I do not want to go fishing for what I want. I want to humble myself and be as direct and honest as possible. There’s plenty of false pretense in this world; I don’t want to bring it into the church. Let’s stop fishing.
Love Without Hypocrisy
Can love be tainted?
There is an interesting passage in Romans in the Bible.
Romans 12:9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.
We all pretty much know what hypocrisy means. At least, I hope we do. So, what does love without it look like?
Well, for starters, it detests utterly - evil. That is what it means to abhor evil. It has no tolerance for it. Love also clings to what is good.
But love without hypocrisy also has other traits to it.
Romans 12:10 Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; 11 not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; 12 rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; 13 distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
Love without hypocrisy is a beautiful thing.
I love being kindly and affectionate with a brotherly love description. Who wouldn’t be blessed to see more of that? What would the world think if they beheld the believers honoring each other and giving preference to one another? Not that it doesn’t happen now, but what if it were amplified to be more inclusive among believers and not just offered to a special few?
I also like not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, and serving the Lord. This denotes it is less about me and more about Jesus! There is a call for every believer to find their place in serving Jesus and see it as their greater purpose in life. To do so is to own and walk in love without hypocrisy. It purifies our motives when interacting with others.
I love rejoicing in hope because it moves us beyond saying we have hope. If we truly have hope, it should free us to rejoice in it. There should be freedom to exhibit the joy of hope!
Patient in tribulation. That’s a challenge, but when love is real, it can override our tendency to be anxious and hurried about the troubles that come against us.
Love makes me pray more than ever for those I love and care about. It leads me to pray more for others than I do myself. But it takes me further than just praying. It moves me to do something where the Holy Spirit reveals I can. It helps me to know how to distribute to the needs of the saints and be given to hospitality.
Finally, love without hypocrisy can bless those who persecute me. I am not inclined to call down fire from heaven on them but rather to pray for them that they might be blessed.
When viewed from any other lens but love, these traits of love seem daunting and intimidating. But when the pure motive of love is at work, it empowers these characteristics. That is why it starts with the word let. Allow it! Allow love to be free from everything that wishes to limit it.
The Danger Of Denial
Are you in denial?
As a pastor, I do not wish to minister to make believers continually sin-conscious. I would much rather them be righteousness conscious. But it is neither integrity nor loving to teach believers to live in denial. Denying known sin in a believer’s life can open doors to many harmful things. Denying the possibility of a believer to sin and even to pursue sin is a dangerous prospect.
The New Covenant is not a doctrine of denial. It is a doctrine of faith that can be so assured of being loved and accepted that it can handle the reality of the weaknesses of the flesh and recognize when it has been allowed too much of its desire in a believer’s life. Authentic New Covenant faith does not deny the possibility of stumbling on the part of a believer. It simply knows the remedy for such things and encourages the use of such a remedy.
Romans 6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
This great apostle of grace teaches believers that sin should not be allowed to reign in their mortal bodies. He teaches it with good reason.
The unchecked and unbridled flesh can lead to all kinds of difficulties and hardships because it opens the door to our enemy. This is why it says in the letter of James,
James 5:14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
Not all sickness is the result of sin. But there can be some sickness, that is.
John 5:12 Then they asked him, “Who is the Man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 But the one who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, a multitude being in that place. 14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.”
Jesus gave His life and shed His blood to deal with the sin problem. He died so we might die to sin, and He rose from the dead so we too could be risen in newness of life with Him. The Scripture does not teach us to deny the reality of sin; it teaches us how Jesus dealt with it and how we are to view it and be delivered from it. Denial will never be equal to real faith.
If you are in a struggle with some sin, humble yourself and confess it. Bring it into the light so the power of the enemy trying to attach to it is broken, and let the power of His love and forgiveness bring release and, if needed, physical healing to you. The purpose of confession is to keep the enemy’s tentacles from latching on to us in times of stumbling or wandering away from the righteousness we have become in Christ and the closeness of fellowship it brings us into. Denial is like an invitation to the enemy to render all the damage he can manage. There’s a real danger in denial.
Real Fellowship
How deep is your fellowship?
The word fellowship in the Bible comes from the Greek word Koinonia.
It is defined as partnership, (literally) participation, communication, and communion.
Too often, this very rich Greek word is given only one application, which merely involves getting together at some sort of gathering. When this word is treated in such a way, the whole idea of what fellowship is meant to be is diminished, and a lesser version of what it is meant to be for the believer is settled for.
More often than not, this word is given a nostalgic treatment where it is considered that one has experienced this rich promise of fellowship when things are superficial but pleasant nonetheless. Real fellowship involves humility, vulnerability, and trust. Something religion can never bring to the table.
Even the rich promise of fellowship with Jesus involves something beyond the superficial and merely pretending in a moment and requires humility, vulnerability, and trust.
1 John 1:6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
True rich, deep fellowship involves honesty on a whole other level. This is true in our desire to experience a rich, full relationship with Jesus, and it includes it when we desire it with one another. Light as it is used here involves honesty, nothing fake, nothing that involves pretending.
Ephesians 5:8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. 11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.
The best way to avoid being hooked by the enemy’s attempts to snare you is to bring his activities into the light. There was a time when we hid what was going on in our lives from others and sought to do some things under the cover of darkness, but that is no longer who we are. Once we come to Jesus, we are made children of light; we are meant to lose our fondness for the darkness. We are also meant to lose our appetite for the unfruitful works of darkness.
That phrase, “but rather expose them,” is telling us to bring them into the light of the truth where they can be seen for what they really are. They are false representations of what it takes to be truly happy and satisfied. Darkness is a culture of lies and pretending. It is the place where the enemy seeks to draw believers so he can have the opportunity to do them harm and keep them from the rich and wonderful deeper levels of fellowship with Jesus and with one another that is promised in the word. We were created in Christ to walk in the light.
Real fellowship will sometimes be unpleasantly honest and go against our flesh and the schemes of the enemy being used to entice our flesh. But when we bring it all into the light by being honest, knowing we stand in His grace and mercy, forgiven and cleansed by His blood, the enemy cannot get his hook in us. We know we are accepted and loved in a real way by those we are called to journey with, and our fellowship becomes rich and full and satisfying as it is meant to be. Real fellowship is your promise and a tremendous blessing in all of its forms.
Hope
Where is your hope placed?
As a child, around age 10, I asked my parents for a drum set for Christmas. My younger brother Scott asked for a guitar. That Christmas morning, we came out of our rooms, and there was a drum set designated to Scott and a guitar designated to me. You can imagine the sinking in my heart when it happened. To a ten-year-old boy, that’s like the end of the world. My hope had been deferred, and my heart was sick. My parents somehow got it wrong. It eventually got worked out, and I got the drums. But my hope had been dashed to pieces for a time, and my heart was sick.
Proverbs 13:12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.
At eleven, after years of my mom enduring emotional and sometimes physical abuse from my dad, she finally decided she could do it no longer. She told him she was divorcing him and taking all five boys with her. He locked himself in a room where the guns were in a wall rack and used one of them to take his life. As an eleven-year-old boy, I had strong hope in my dad, and that moment rocked my world like a nuclear explosion. My hope had been deferred, and my heart was sick.
At sixty years of age, I have experienced many broken relationships. Some were very close and very dear. I’ve endured betrayals, difficult losses, and things not turning out as expected. It can jade you if you let it. It can hurl you into a lifestyle of self-protection that holds God at arm’s length.
Your trust can suffer a blow when your hope is deferred, and the pain of hope deferred can turn to withdrawal and an over-cautious nature if these events are not given the proper perspective and handed over to the One who has the shoulders to carry them.
The solution is not someone else getting it together enough for me to have hope!
I need to change where I am looking for hope!
I have to allow the Holy Spirit to help me trust again! I have to let Him point me to where the real solution is.
I don’t want to depend on a thin thread of hope in others to carry me in times of trouble; I want to hang onto the chain of hope attached to Jesus, Who is the anchor of hope and promise for my soul!
Hebrews 6:19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil,
We have a High Priest who has entered the real Holy of Holies in heaven, sprinkled His own blood on the mercy seat, and forever lives to intercede on our behalf. It is wise to put our hope in Him instead of how things seem to be going in the moment or what level or kind of attention I may or may not get from someone I have deemed significant. Jesus is always a sure hope and wants to be the anchor of our soul. I encourage you to put your hope in Him.
What Can Man Do?
What gives you confidence?
There’s something powerful about being in a place where no one can take away your joy. To be at a place where you are so secure that you can actually rest in your soul. No need to worry or be anxious about what someone else is doing and how it might impact you.
I know! It sounds too good to be true!
There was a man who lived long ago and experienced some very difficult times of being betrayed and pursued by those he deeply loved and refused to harm even though they wished to make life for him a misery and even take his life from him.
That man wrote:
Psalm 56:1 Be merciful to me, O God, for man would swallow me up; Fighting all day, he oppresses me. 2 My enemies would hound me all day, For there are many who fight against me, O Most High. 3 Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.
He experienced the momentary emotions we all feel when things are not going as expected or when someone acts out in ways the enemy intended to use to take away our joy and hope. To such a prospect, the Psalmist went on to say,
Psalm 56:11 In God I have put my trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?
We are told in Scripture that we have been hidden with Christ in God! When I let my soul get in touch with the reality of the safety of being in Him in every circumstance, it ministers hope to me when circumstances should indicate no hope.
Psalm 118:4 Let those who fear the LORD now say, “His mercy endures forever.” 5 I called on the LORD in distress; The LORD answered me and set me in a broad place. 6 The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?
It may look right now like bad things are closing in all around you but be assured that when you get quiet and let the Holy Spirit show you the Faithful One who is your Father, you will be brought to a place of peace and assurance with a sound hope regardless of what or who might be trying to trouble you.
You’re about to be brought into a broad place, and all those walls that were closing in around you will be pushed down so the light of day can shine in your soul again! Then, you will find yourself saying, “The Lord is on my side. I will not fear!”
Hebrews 13:5 Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 6 So we may boldly say: “The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?”
God is never going to leave or forsake you! He is forever faithful! He will never lie to you! He will fulfill all He has promised! Even right now, when things look dark and desperate, you can be assured He is with you in the fire and will deliver you from the snare of the fowler! You belong to Jesus! You’ve been bought at the price of precious blood! What can man do to you?
Do You Believe?
What are you convinced of?
Romans 1:17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
Romans 3:21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference;
2Corinthians 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
According to God’s word, I am already righteous with His righteousness by being in Christ by grace through faith.
In other words, Righteousness is a gift, not a payment. It cannot be earned or merited. It cannot be sought and bought. My own efforts cannot attain it.
Romans 10:3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
Anytime I seek to establish my own righteousness, I rebel against His righteousness.
Interestingly, it says that by seeking their own righteousness, they did not submit to the righteousness of God.
I cannot seek my own righteousness and His at the same time. To seek after any other type of righteousness means not submitting to His righteousness.
But this cannot be understood without believing in Jesus according to the right gospel message.
There’s much security in resolving such a truth according to faith in Christ.
How convinced are you that you have become the righteousness of God in Christ?
Are you so convinced that even when you do something you shouldn’t, you still know you are His righteousness in Christ?
Are you so convinced that having been born again and made His righteousness in Christ, nothing can take away such a gift?
I didn’t earn it, and I cannot maintain it; I can only submit to it, and when I do, it overtakes me in ways I never imagined possible. Do you believe God is telling the truth when He declares in His word that by believing in Jesus and being born again, you have become His righteousness?
No one will ever truly know His rest until this belief is settled in them. But there is a rest for those who believe.
Darkness And Light
Are you hiding something?
As kids, we played games outside a lot. One popular game was the game of hide and seek. We especially loved playing such a game at night when it was dark.
My four brothers and I would also wait late at night for our parents to take a short trip out to the local convenience store, and when they did, we would get up in the pitch dark and play hide and seek in the house. Even as kids, we understood how much easier it was to hide in the dark than in the light.
Such a game gives a reason for hiding in the darkness. But real life and relationships do not require darkness. In real life, there’s a reason given for why someone might love darkness rather than light.
John 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
Whenever someone desires something that would be considered wrong by God and determines they will engage in it anyway, the act of hiding it is called darkness. The word evil used here can sound severe, but it actually speaks about things known as unacceptable or indecent. The Greek word itself could have been translated as diseased, derelict, vicious, mischief, malice, bad, grievous harm, lewd, or wickedness.
Growing up as a kid, there were things I wanted that I knew my mom would not want me to have, and to have them, I would hide them and pretend I had complied with her wishes. But in my conscience, I knew I was being dishonest with her. Looking back with maturity and better understanding, I can see how it damaged what had once been a close relationship with her at that time. Our relationship suffered without her doing anything to damage it. My desire for something I was never meant to have or engage in caused the damage. Of course, later in life, as we both had come to Jesus and were walking in the lights, our relationship was repaired and healthy.
If something I seek requires me to sneak to do it or feel I need to hide it from others or someone significant in my life who loves me and Jesus, then I should not deceive myself by thinking it is harmless. It is darkness. There’s no real fellowship in darkness. The healthy attributes of real fellowship cannot be attained by means of darkness.
1 John 1:6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
Jesus never put on a false pretense for anyone. Jesus was not something different away from people than He was when He was with them. There was no pretending to be with Jesus. He was real, authentic, and consistent. He was not up to anything bad. He came to do good.
If I desire a healthy, vibrant relationship with Jesus and those He has placed in my life who love Him, I need to walk in the light. I need to be up to some good. I need to be honest and real. I benefit when I cherish the light and detest darkness. Darkness and light do not mix. Just enter a dark room and turn on the light switch, and you’ll find the darkness disappears because light expels darkness every time. It will always be easier to function in a lighted room than it is in a dark room. So it is with healthy relationships. They happen when they are full of light.
A meaningful, rich, full, and healthy relationship is open, honest, and without false pretense. Darkness and light will never mix. We cannot walk in darkness and have fellowship with Jesus simultaneously. We may try to say we do, but God knows the truth. Darkness will also keep us aloof from others we know who love Jesus and are walking in the light with Him. An occasional encounter may occur because pretending in short stints is possible, but a healthy, deepening relationship will be far from the person who walks in darkness because darkness and light do not mix. If a person loves darkness, they will avoid or withdraw from those of the light.
Faint Of Heart
Do you have a strong heart?
Faint of heart is a commonly used phrase. However, I think many may use it without really understanding it.
It’s a simple way of saying that unless the heart is fully in it, the ability to see it through will not be present.
So when we say, “It’s not for the faint of heart,” we are saying it can’t be brought to completion without a fully invested heart about it.
That brings me to what I want to share with you today. I want to talk about renewing the mind. But I must say that this is not something that is not for the faint of heart.
The real battle we fight as believers is the battle for the mind. It takes real courage of heart to take on the reality of wrong thinking and then press in to see it brought down and the right kind of thinking put in its place.
Just tearing down a wrong thought leaves a vacant spot for another developer to fill. That is why real mind renewal is not for the faint of heart.
It takes determination and perseverance to put in what needs to be there instead of what did not belong in the first place. It takes courage to keep all other developers from moving in on the vacant spot created when the wrong thought was taken down.
2Corinthians 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 6 and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.
A right thinking process produces the fruit of the right response and right behavior to pursue what the right thought was to begin with. In this case, right thinking involves making sure everything passes through the filter of Christ’s obedience at the cross.
Every thought that exalts itself, in other words, comes across as being more important, more significant, and more effectual than knowing what God thinks, what He is like, and what has been done by Him.
We punish the disobedience of unbelief every time we cast down thoughts that enable unbelief by deceiving us to put our confidence in our own abilities instead of the finished work of Christ. But we do not stop there like someone faint of heart. We press further to put our faith and confidence in the truth concerning God, His way, and what He has done through Christ to purchase us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The fruitfulness of a disciple depends on this process of mind renewal. This is why mind renewal is not for the faint of heart!
God Cares
God is very attentive towards you.
Psalm 139:17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! 18 If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with You.
The interesting thing about these continual thoughts regarding you is that they are not bad thoughts.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
God really cares about you! His desire is your overall well-being and continual connection with Him.
3 John 2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.
For this to manifest in our daily lives, we must humble ourselves to God by trusting Him in all things, even the things most precious to us.
1 Peter 5:6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, 7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
God wants to help you with His mighty hand of power. But it requires that you let Him have what troubles you and that you rely on His help instead of thinking you can be the answer and solution.
My solutions often interfere with His. They conflict with His approach and process. The best ideas my flesh can drum up for solutions to the things that trouble me run contrary to His ways of handling things. That is why humbling myself under His mighty hand is so important. It can be a real challenge actually to throw my cares onto Him. But it is what will serve me best and honor Him best. He loves us so much that He wants to take our cares from us and handle them for us.
Many get confused because they want God to act like a thief and snatch their cares from them. But God is not a thief, and He does not snatch from us the things we desire to keep. He waits for us to humble ourselves and give Him what troubles us. We need to want it gone so badly that we throw it onto Him! Sadly, there have been times that I struggled to let something that troubled me go and thought wrongly that God didn’t care because it was still with me. He repeatedly showed me how it remained because I would not let it go and throw it onto Him. I had to humble myself to gain what He was already willing to do on my behalf, and humbling myself meant letting go of what I was hanging onto and throwing it onto Him with no attachments. His mighty hand was ready to act but could not until I humbled myself and got beneath it.
I could not humble myself under His mighty hand until I became convinced He cared for me. It helps me to remind myself often of how God loved me even when I was His enemy.
Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
You mean so much to God that He sacrificed greatly to bring you to Himself. No rival thought should be allowed to exist in our minds. Such thoughts should be cast down and replaced with the truth concerning His affections and faithfulness. Anything that challenges the idea that God cares about you should be kicked out of your mind quickly and replaced with the truth that He cares for you. His mighty hand stands ready to help! God cares!
Authentic Intercession
Do you want to pray for others?
Intercession is about taking the situation of another to someone who has the power to do something about it. It involves being aware of the current state of things as they really are and seeing where they do not align with God’s best for that person. When that happens, it empowers prayer that seeks God’s best.
Knowing the person’s situation well and the One you are taking it to is important to successful intercession.
Would you want to take a case to someone in authority you felt was against the person you represent, or what would you ask for?
To feel assured of securing the outcome you seek, you need to know the One in authority you will be bringing it to.
We do not yet know God as completely as we will eventually know Him, and thus, our intercessions sometimes are clouded by our lack of understanding and revelation of who He truly is and what He is truly like.
Thankfully, we have a couple of reliable intercessors who know God with absolute perfection.
Hebrews 7:25 Therefore, He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
Romans 8:34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
This verse is speaking about Jesus, our forever High Priest and Intercessor! Thank you, Jesus! I am so glad that Jesus intercedes for me before the Father. His prayers are always answered because He knows the desire of the Father for my life, and He can bring requests that align perfectly with that desire. But sometimes, I am so weak that I need additional intercessory help.
Romans 8:26 Likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
I cannot rely on just what I would pray for myself. I do not even know my own heart as I should, so I need the help of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
When I am sick or battling unworthiness, my intercessor Jesus can take my case to the Father and say that even though the natural body is being affected, there was a time when He took stripes on His back to secure my healing and that I have been forgiven and purchased with His blood. This is what the Scripture means when it says the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ. There are many situations in this life where we need a supernatural intervention. If we wish to intercede on behalf of ourselves or others, we need to have an accurate handle on the situation and bring our case from a place of revelation about the One we intend to ask for help.
This is why knowing God according to how Jesus revealed Him to be is so important. Authentic intercession is rooted in a revelation of Him and His ways and seeks to see things aligned with His will.
The Whole You - Part Two
God wants to bless every part of you
The Whole You - Part Two
In yesterday’s devotional, I spoke of how God cares about the whole you, not just part.
This idea is further established when Jesus speaks of the birds of the air and the hairs of our heads.
Luke 12:6 “Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. 7 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Practical needs are things that affect our bodies and our souls.
What amazes me in pondering these things is the intimacy reflected in how attentive God is to our bodies.
The hair on our head?
What significance could that possibly have that would merit His attention and awareness of how much or how little there is?
Why give such attention to our body if it has little or no value to Him?
Perhaps I could use an example that will help with this. If the body doesn’t matter, why do we desire those we love not to be sick, not suffer physically, or experience issues with dysfunction physically?
Their bodies matter because they matter. Their bodies have value because they have value. We desire that they be able to experience what we perceive to be the fullness of blessing that comes from having all one’s physical capacities operating at peak levels with health and strength. It is considered a blessing to have all as it should be.
This matters because if I think God could care less about what happens in my body, then promises of healing for my body and well-being in my soul aren’t that significant. In that way of thinking, God isn’t all that concerned about these parts of who I am. Therefore, He could be letting those unpleasant and unwelcomed things for the sake of my spirit at the expense of these lesser important areas of my life. That kind of thinking lends itself towards deducing that only my spirit has value and, therefore, I should just be reconciled to most, if not all, the stuff that comes against my flesh and soul.
But when I understand the value He has placed on my body, then promises of healing for my body and well-being in my soul begin to make sense, and they are within my grasp according to faith. Understanding His love for the whole me awakens my faith and allows the promises to reveal with greater clarity who He truly is and what He is really like.
This is another part of getting to know Him according to how Jesus revealed Him in all His goodness as a Father to us. Jesus revealed a God very intimately aware of the whole of us and very intimately concerned about all the parts of our lives.
Is there an area in your life right now in need of His mercy? I promise He cares, is aware, and wants to help. He loves all of who you are. The Father loves the whole you!
The Whole You - Part One
God wants to bless every part of you
There sometimes seems to be a view among some believers that our bodies are not all that important when it comes to spirituality. Their talk and behavior indicate that things done in the body are of little to no consequence and are especially of no concern to God.
Such a view devalues the body and is ignorant of its importance in the Scriptures.
The body in the Scriptures is a temple for the Holy Spirit.
1Corinthians 6:18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
The truth is that God cares about the whole of who we are. God cares about us, spirit, soul, and body.
God loves the whole of us, not just 1/3 of us. He not only loves the new man in the spirit we have become in Christ Jesus, but He also loves our soul and our temple. Our salvation is threefold in scope. This is why we are promised a glorified body in the resurrection. Resurrection is meaningless if the body is nothing and has no value.
The truth is that we are spirit, soul, and body, and each part of us has value and is included in the salvation plan. Just as we do not wish to neglect to feed our spirit so that it might grow and be strong, we likewise place importance on washing our souls so they can be renewed daily. Likewise, we are to steward the temple (the body), for it is the temple of the Spirit.
Unfortunately, when we do not place an equal value on the body, we neglect its needs in terms of spirituality. Yes, it will eventually be changed. But the aspect of it being changed is concerning the mortality of it. It is still intended that we steward it well and do the things that bring it under the blessing of our salvation.
Just as our minds need to be trained to delight in the word of God and be washed by it, our bodies need to be weaned off the things enjoyed that are not good for us and are contrary to holiness. Things we engaged in before we came to know Jesus. This process of sanctification begins in the soul and manifests itself in the submission of our bodies to the righteousness we are in Christ.
His righteousness is meant to be pervasive in our lives. This marvelous, precious gift of God’s righteousness is not given to us so that our bodies can run amuck and do as they please without consequence. Nor is it intended to permit our minds to play and frolic with thoughts and ideas contrary to our true nature now in Christ and His desires. God loves the whole of who we are! He loves all of you and me. He’s not a 1/3 committed God, only caring about our spirit. He cares about our souls and our bodies, too. He literally loves all of you.
Salvation is about the whole of you. There’s value in the whole of who you are, not just in a small part of who you are. I pray this encourages you to pursue knowing and honoring Christ with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. God wants the whole of you!
I Beseech You
May I plead with you?
This word in the title, beseech, is an interesting one. In Greek, it means to call near and invite. Invoke by an imploring. It is to call for, exhort, or intreat.
Paul uses it as an apostle in his letter to the Romans.
Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
Another interesting thing in this passage is the wording “By the mercies of God.”
Why would he need to say by the mercies of God? What exactly does that even mean?
Is that just a dramatic way of saying something is important? Or is there more to it than that?
You know, a dramatic type of lingo like how someone might say, “for the love of all that is holy,” hoping that it conveys how serious they are about what they are saying.
I am not convinced, in my spirit, that this is what Paul was doing. I believe Paul understood it to be that he was motivated according to God’s mercy for those he spoke to. I think The Holy Spirit is stirring up the mercy of God in Paul to speak what is most needful at a moment in time. I also believe that the believer being able to grab hold of what Paul is saying is by the mercy of God as well.
In other words, let the mercy of God motivate in you the thing called for. Mercy is calling out to mercy. The mercy to reveal draws on the mercy to activate.
What is being activated in this plea of Paul?
Believers present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.
In Christ, the spirit we received from Him is already in the right position and surrendered as it should be. Our minds are being renewed day by day by the washing of the water of His word spoken to us. Now, it is time that our bodies be brought into this blessed package of Spirit life.
Paul goes on to say this is our reasonable service. Amazingly, this is not an over-the-top, go-the-extra-mile kind of request. Paul does not view what he is exhorting them to do to be asking too much or asking beyond what is reasonable.
If we think subduing the passions of the flesh (the yearnings our bodies may have that are contrary to what Jesus says is beneficial for us and according to His purpose for us) is somehow asking a lot, we are being carnally minded and embracing an enemy attitude towards God.
A living sacrifice bodily is not a lot to ask of any disciple of Jesus. Humility will gladly embrace such a call. Humility always sees its need for Jesus and will choose to rely on His ways and wisdom above its own. It does not pass the will of God through the filter of what the flesh desires; it subjects the yearnings of the flesh to the wisdom of God’s will. True humility of heart understands how desperately we need the authority of Jesus in life.
Is God’s mercy being allowed to do all for you and in you it is meant to?
Follow Jesus
Who do you follow?
Ever play follow the leader growing up? In that game, the idea is that whatever the leader does and wherever the leader goes, everyone else must do and go. If the leader skips in a figure-eight pattern, to stay in the game, you have to skip in a figure-eight pattern as well. So, to participate and win in such a game, you had to die wanting to do things your way and fully surrender to doing them the way the leader did them. By doing that, you could stay a follower until all the others had disqualified themselves, and by being the best follower, you became the leader.
Every generation has been taught the idea of following at some point or other and in some way or other. People follow someone no matter who they are. Some are unwilling to admit it and think they are their own leader. Sadly, some being followed are not good leaders and are not worthy of trust and surrender.
In all of human history, Jesus was the only leader who was and is truly worthy of being followed loyally and with great trust.
Following Jesus leads me to die to my ways and desires and put all my trust in Him and His ways. I cannot truly be His disciple without following Him in surrender.
Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
The idea of taking up a cross here is simple. It was the way at that time to say, “die to himself.”
Anyone who died on the cross in Jesus’ time was unable to do anything to rescue themselves. They were suspended with arms outstretched and nailed, feet overlapped and nailed, and there was no way for them to wriggle themselves free.
Jesus is saying any and every disciple of His must die to their own way of doing things to the same level they would do if they were on a cross. That is why He says, “And follow me.”
When it comes to really experiencing life, real life, eternal powerful life, and spiritual life, one must come to Jesus and learn to follow Him. No one really experiences the kind of life Jesus speaks of by their own methods and ways. No one can do anything in and of themselves to get the life Jesus speaks of. That is why Jesus was very clear and said,
Matthew 16:25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
I will never grow beyond the level of my surrender. The depth of my belief and trust in Jesus determines the level of my surrender. When I find that it is being challenged in me, I ask the Holy Spirit to help me refresh my awareness of the immeasurable worth of Jesus and my desperate need to follow Him no matter what.
Just like in the game of follow the leader I started with in today’s devotional. To be a good leader of others, I must first be a good follower of Jesus. I am no good to anyone else without first being surrendered to Him. I encourage you today and always to follow Him.
Jesus Is Lord
Who is in contrl of your life?
It is possible to be living in a sort of virtual reality where your perspective is so skewed that you actually think you are on track when, in fact, the enemy has you going in the wrong direction.
Saul’s Encounter with Jesus is a great example of this very thing. Saul was doing his own thing while claiming he was zealous for God.
Acts 9:1 Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. 4 Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” 5 And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” 6 So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
LORD IN GREEK IS THE WORD KUROS MEANING SUPREME IN AUTHORITY - GOD - LORD - MASTER
Saul realized he was encountering someone supreme in authority, and that acknowledgment led to his rescue and complete surrender.
Genuine Salvation is about Jesus being Lord. Scripture doesn’t teach that Jesus can be the Savior but not the Lord.
Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”
Jesus is not the great genie of heaven waiting to know what we want so He can fulfill our every desire. Jesus rules and reigns from the throne of grace and leads those surrendered to Him into the greatest destiny they could have based on whom He knows them to be and what He knows they were created for.
No one knows better what is best for you than Jesus. Knowing His will and purpose for your life is liberating because it connects you with what you were created in Christ to be and to do to start with.
Your best life now is not summed up in your flesh, always being satisfied.
Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
A vulnerable trust in Jesus that brings us to a full-on surrender to Him as our Lord is our best life now and our highest act of worship. Whoever you live for is the real Lord of your life.
Betrayed By The Flesh
Have you been betrayed?
Philippians 3:2 Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! 3 For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, 4 though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: 5 circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; 6 concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. 7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.
Any and all confidence in the flesh must be set aside to gain all that is meant to be gained in Christ.
Until I know just how deeply I need Jesus to the extent that all else pales in comparison to Him and other solutions cannot compete with Him, I settle for less than I am meant to experience of Him.
The flesh is a great betrayer. It tried to convince Paul that he could get to where he needed to get spiritually by the strength the flesh could supply, and then when Paul as Saul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, he discovered his confidence in his flesh had been a huge mistake and had led him down a wrong path.
The flesh can also betray a person with its appetite for sin and rebellion. If allowed to have its way, it will demand things that are not beneficial and bring a rotten harvest. The root issue with the flesh is that it wants to be centerstage, the most important thing. Flesh is self-centered.
Galatians 6:8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.
Only pursuing Jesus from a place of realizing one’s need can put the flesh where it belongs. To try to deal with the flesh in the power of the flesh is an exercise in futility.
When Saul was blinded by the light of Jesus and fell off his horse, his response was, “Who are You, Lord?
Lord, meaning someone with real authority, power, and greatness. Lord implies humility on Saul’s part because he recognized he was encountering someone greater than himself. His next response to Jesus was, “What would you have me do, Lord?”
Real born-again experience brings a person as a new creation to the place of surrender to Jesus with a desire to know His will and His desire for their lives. Religion points us to the flesh to try harder and do better. Genuine salvation brings us to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is treasured and valued for who He is with a desire to know what He wants. It produces the fruit of seeking Him for who He is so we might learn of Him and His ways.
A real encounter with Jesus produces humility of heart, not greater confidence in the flesh. It opens the eyes of the heart and soul to see the deception of confidence in the flesh. Has the flesh betrayed you?
No Other Gospel
Is there mixture in you?
Galatians 3:1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? 2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
The New Covenant operates by faith, not works. A New Covenant relationship is based on being saved by grace through faith. All the promises of God are received by faith. Thus, Paul reminds the Galatians of how they already experienced being filled by the Holy Spirit without any work to earn it.
I am not saying that true faith does not produce righteous works. The righteousness a person knows themselves to be will translate outwardly in their lives, and the more grounded they become in His righteousness that they now are, the more they are empowered to manifest that righteousness outwardly. But that is different from trying to merit things from God based on behavior.
Philippians 3:2 Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! 3 For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh,
Bewitching like what happened to the Galatians always offers a subtle temptation to put your confidence in the flesh. It tempts you to trust in your ability to perform at such a level that God has no choice but to admire it. It relates to God like He’s an employer who must reward based on work performance. It strips the believer of relating with God as a dearly loved child.
Bewitching is an identity thief! It seeks to steal your identity and security in Christ and make you question the completeness of Christ’s finished work at the cross. How does it do that? By trying to bring a believer back under the law for relating with God and experiencing spiritual growth. It seeks to mix the Old Covenant with the New because it knows that to outright come against the New would be too easy to spot as a fraud. This was very serious to the Holy Spirit, who moved Paul to write the following:
Galatians 1:8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
It’s possible to be enticed by another gospel because the package delivering it can seem way more impressive than what you are ordinarily used to.
Paul rebuked Peter for not being straightforward about the gospel because Peter separated himself from the Gentiles when Jewish men came up to Antioch from Jerusalem. It gave the impression that there was a special advantage to being Jewish and being under the law, and it even led Barnabas astray. Paul openly rebuked Peter to help him get his perspective right again.
Getting the gospel right, getting it in, and getting out matters!
Being caught between two covenants will never bring you spiritual maturity and growth. You have to cast out the bondwoman covenant! The Law Covenant and the New Covenant of grace should never coexist together!
The New Covenant is the only Covenant with a Savior who took our sins and gave us His righteousness. Is there a mixture in you?
Cast Out The Bondwoman
Can you do it?
Galatians 4:21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. 23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, 24 which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar— 25 for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children— 26 but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. 27 For it is written: “Rejoice, O barren, you who do not bear! Break forth and shout, you who are not in labor! For the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband.” 28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. 29 But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. 30 Nevertheless, what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” 31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free.
In these passages, we find that a false perspective had been introduced at Galatia—a perspective of applying the law as part of God’s plan is what completes one’s salvation experience. To dismantle the stronghold, this perspective was establishing, Paul explained the two main covenants in Scripture and how one is meant to be cast away. He demonstrates how a perspective of Gentile believers embracing the law after coming to Jesus opposes the real truth. Gentiles without the law are part of the heavenly Jerusalem.
The poem from Isaiah in the passages foretells how Gentiles without the law have always been a part of God’s plan of salvation, too. They weren’t an afterthought.
Paul called the Galatians back to the New Covenant Gospel he first preached to break off the false perspective's bewitching effect on them.
Galatians 3:1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? 2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
Anytime the gospel's simplicity and purity are challenged in a believer's perspective, it is bewitching. In other words, there are demonic forces at work seeking to dilute the purity and simplicity of the gospel. The most effective way they have found to do this is by using a mixture. By mixing law with grace, they sully the gospel and make the promises a maybe instead of yes and amen in Christ.
The enemy is after your perspective about the gospel, Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, and what is required of you to enjoy their love, acceptance, and help. Satan wants to affect your perspective about God.
Bewitched in Greek means to be fascinated with false representations. It is the same practice the enemy used against Eve in the garden when he called into question whether or not God really said what she had been told He said.
Law and grace are like water and oil. They do not mix. Law has a place when dealing with arrogant sinners who oppose the truth and argue for their own right standing based on their own merit or reject the notion that they need the help of Jesus in any way. But it has no place with saints who have come to Christ in full assurance of faith resting on His completed work on their behalf. Have you cast out the bondwoman? Or do you think she can help you become more acceptable to God than what Jesus has already done on your behalf? It is no gospel that encourages you to put your trust in what you can do to gain acceptance with God as your Father at any time during your journey. The real gospel calls you to faith in Christ alone.