Created for God

Did you ever wonder why the earth's axis holds its exact degree of slant and stays in its exact obit? If it did not do this, we would all be frozen or burned up.

It is only due to God's great love and compassion that we are not consumed. His care for us never fails. It is new every single morning because God is faithful. This fact gives us unending hope.

The Lord is our provider as we wait upon Him. He is good to those who quietly hope in Him and concentrate the largest portion of our energy on seeking Him and the fullness of His salvation (Lamentations 3:21-26).

At times, we feel like the Lord does not really care about us. That is only because we have unrealistic expectations of Him that are not part of His will for our life.

We treat Him like a genie in a bottle created to grant our wishes, rather than as our Lord and King who created us to do His will with our life.

If we align our will with His, we are never disappointed in the answers to our prayers, because we pray in the Spirit rather than in our flesh.

We are taught by false prophets to claim Biblical promises, as if this puts God under obligation to us to do our will. He provides His promises to encourage us, not to give us some weapon to use against Him; which by the way, does not work and just leaves us frustrated.

God never changes. His mercy never fails us. His goodness is everlasting. His love is eternal. He is under no obligation to grant our wishes or to do our bidding. Instead, He requires that we lay down our life every day, take up His cross and follow Him (Matthew 16:24; Numbers 23:19; Hebrews 13:8; James 1:17).

Prayer:
Father God we often weave a tangled web with the circumstances of our life and then expect You to get us out of the mess we made. When we live in the center of Your will, Christ strengthens us to accomplish everything which You call us to do. You make us more than conquerors over the issues of life which You allow us to encounter, not over the jumble we create by our self-centered pursuit of this world.

In You we find peace, joy and boldness to walk in Your ways, which are so superior to our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). Remind us that at the moment of salvation You move into our life, abiding there and desiring for us to get out of the way and to allow You to use us to accomplish all that You created us to do.

Thought for the Day:

As we live fully in each present moment, with no expectations or goals of our own, we can more easily follow the leading of God's Spirit and walk in the center of His will; we hope in God alone, instead of hoping that He meets what we think are our needs.

Centered Focus

 

Salvation comes in stages. If we happily camp around the salvation of our spirit, we miss the glory of the redemption of our soul. One day we will also experience the glorification of our body when Christ appears for His Saints (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Once we realize that the divinity of Christ and all of the power of the complete triune Godhead live within every Born Again Believer, a new enthusiasm produces constant praise from our lips to God’s ears (2 Peter 1:3). We no longer view our self as a grubby worm inching around in the world of selfishness and sin.

Instead, we see our self as beautiful butterflies soaring in the Heavenly, spiritual realm of life. God calls His elect and then reveals Himself in us. He has a purpose for each of our lives (Ephesians 1:11). He loves us with His abundant, ageless and everlasting love (Psalm 25:6; Jeremiah 31:3). We are totally dependent upon Jesus for our direction, health and provision moment by moment throughout the day (Ephesians 1:9; Philippians 2:12-13). Through our connection to the Vine, the life of Christ flows through us by His Spirit and we produce much fruit for the Kingdom of God (John 15:8).

Through our union with Christ, we shed the shackles of our sin nature and submit to the dealings and leadings of God in our life (1 Corinthians 1:30). As branches in the Vine of Christ, we experience God as our husbandman. He prunes the flesh from us so more spiritual fruit grows (John 15:1, 5). We walk out of the bondage to carnality and into the glorious freedom of the sons of God (Romans 8:21). Jesus is our center and God is the focus of our life. We seek to do His will in our job, community, church, extended family and home. If we walk in the darkness of self and sin, we stumble and fail in our attempts (John 11:10).

As we walk in the light of Christ, we find fulfillment in living out His will for our life (1 John 1:7). God’s wisdom, grace, love and supernatural abilities reside within us in Jesus Christ and are always available to meet all of our needs (1 Corinthians 1:30). As we make every effort to walk in peace with God, He renews our soul and makes us blameless and spotless at His coming (2 Peter 3:14). Our perseverance in our walk with God, guarantees that we will not stop short of His glorious riches, which He prepared for us before time began (Romans 9:23). We will steadily walk into complete maturity in Christ (James 1:4).

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, as we abide in You throughout the day, Your wisdom, grace, love and peace manifest in our life and out into the world around us. As we abide in You, You provide us with a dedicated life full of the wisdom, strength and Godly conviction, which we need to further Your Kingdom in our world. We look forward to the day when we can also walk in Your power, so You can make a true difference in others through our life.

Thought for the Day:

Undistracted devotion to God allows us to tap into all of His power and majesty in order to live our life as Elijah, Moses and Enoch did.

Jesus As My Center

Read: 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” – 2 Corinthians 4:18

When we take stock of the priorities in our life, we often find them out of order. We are tired, depressed, irritable and stressed out because we are majoring on minors in our life. We assign too much importance to certain activities and people that need to be lowered on our list of priorities. There are many verses in the Bible where Jesus tells us to seek first His Kingdom, to love Him with all of our heart, to die daily, to lay our life down for our church family. God does not give us Biblical mandates such as these for His benefit, but for ours.

God knows that as humans, we tend to take the road of least resistance. If we do not commit to putting God first on our list of priorities, we may slide away from living a spirit-filled life and settle for a carnal, fleshly existence. Even worse, we may slide into sinful behaviors, which will rob us of our righteousness, peace and joy. God knows that if we compromise our values, we will not reap the benefits He has for us both in Heaven and here on earth. Jesus loved us enough to die the horrendous death on Calvary’s cross for us, the least we can do for Him is to give Him first place in our life.

Jesus does not demand all of our attention, just the first portion. He wants to reign as King in our life. Putting Him first does not mean that you have to get up early enough to have a morning devotion. The priority is to have a devotion time, no matter what time of the day you have it. Evening, morning or even the lunch hour is a good time to focus your time and attention on God, as long as it is in a quiet place at work, home or in nature.

Well, you know He is not in first place if you share that top spot with anyone or anything else; or if our calendar and checkbook have more notations for worldly events and giving than spiritual ones (Luke 12:34, Matthew 6:21); or if we have something come up during regular times of worship or Bible study and we do not choose worship over that person or event. In the conflict of priorities, a spirit-filled person always chooses God first.

Take an honest look at your financial spending and your time. Evaluate where most of your time and money are spent. That is your priority. Once you consider the depth of God’s love for you, the vision of where you want to spend eternity, the quality of life you want to enjoy here on earth, and your intensifying desire to be one with God’s Spirit, you will realize that your priorities definitely make a difference. Rearrange your priorities so that your goals are the ones God has for you. This realignment may need readjustments often, because the stresses of life often push us off course.

Start by acknowledging your need for Jesus as your Savior, answer His call on your life, desire to grow in your knowledge of and relationship with God each and every day, and make Him your number one priority. God planned our birth and life for His glory (Revelation 4:11). He purchased us with Jesus’ blood and our life now belongs to Him (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). He wants to have first place in our life (Exodus 20:3). Putting God first does not negate our responsibilities to our family, job, church and our own needs; it simply means that we prioritize all of these things in relation to God as our first priority.

God desires that we care for our bodies, because it is the temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). He states that those who do not care for their own family are worse than barbarians (1 Timothy 5:8). The Bible tells us to obey those in government and business who have rule over us (Hebrews 13:17). When we put God first, everything else lines up in order. You cannot have any relationship without spending intimate time developing it. Developing our relationship with God gives us the energy to care for our body, our family, our ministries at church and the duties at work (Philippians 2:1-8).

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, help us to prioritize our thoughts, words and action. Remind us to spend time with You through Bible reading; times of concentrated prayer in which we not only talk, but also take time to listen; corporate and private times of worship and Bible study; following the leading of Your Holy Spirit throughout our day, and doing only those things which He inspires us to do; putting God’s work first in our calendar and finances; and rejecting any thought, word or deed that is contrary to the nature and commandments of our Father God. Help us to realign our priorities by making a list of our current priorities and praying about God’s will for each moment of our time. We know that true peace and freedom only come when we develop a submissive attitude to the will of God for our life.

Thought for the Day:

Those who surrender their will to God’s will are the most fulfilled and blessed people on the planet.

The Center of Our Focus

Read: Isaiah 32:17-20

"Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you." - Psalm 9:10

A person, animal or thing that is the chief object of our attention, interest, activity and/or emotion is at the center of our focus. Every other person and interest takes a back seat. For instance, the sun is the center of our solar system. The planets revolve around the sun. Jupiter is our biggest planet; yet, it is miniscule in comparison to the sun. Anything that is the center of our focus is enormous in comparison to everything else in our life.

What is the center of your focus? Is it your family? Job? Car? Hobby? Money? Health? Beauty? Fame? You fill in this blank: The center of my focus is _____.
So many people find their life spinning out of control because their center is not secure. Fickle Fate comes along and removes the item/person from your life that you set up as the hub of your wheel. Without that hub, your life is at a standstill. You are not going anywhere.

We often allow our life to revolve around a person, animal or thing. We put all of our stock into this item/person and we bet our life on the fact that it will be with us forever. Then, something happens to remove our prized possession and we are left helpless, jaded and forlorn. Jesus Christ is the only entity in life that is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Everything else is destructible, fallible and temporary.
 
Jesus is our only friend who sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24), who will never let us down (Hebrews 13:5) and who will never die and leave us alone (1 Timothy 6:16). Our personal, intimate relationship with the Lord of lords and King of kings (1 Timothy 6:15) is the only permanent entity we have in this life. Nothing else will last through eternity. This relationship is vital for the stability of our life. Without Jesus as our center, we are like a boat without a rudder, a bird without two wings, a flag without a pole and a dog without a tail to wag.

Do you have this intimate relationship with the living Lord? He has perfect plans for your life. He wants to prosper you and to give you a future full of hope (Jeremiah 29:11). He is just waiting to give us a quiet and confident heart, a peaceful and secure home and undisturbed places of rest. Regardless of devastating natural disaster, accidents and emotional tragedies, He will give us blessings (Isaiah 32:17-20). Once we completely surrender our life to Him, He takes our heavy burdens and gives us His rest forever (Matthew 11:28).

Surrender is one of the hardest endeavors for a human being. Yielding to God takes no effort, no amount of control, no creativity and no stress. We merely let go and let God take over. We simply allow God to be God in our life. The reason this is so difficult is because, in order to surrender, we must first be willing to rest, to cease from our efforts, to sit down and to take a deep breathe and relax.

It takes a great deal of effort and struggle for a human being to let go. Once we are there, however, we can actually stop striving and enter God’s rest. God gives us His unconditional love freely as a gift (John 3: 16-18). We only have to open our hearts wide and receive His gift of love. When you realize the truth of this concept, you will sit in your quiet place and feel His love cascading over you like a waterfall. His peace will seep deeply into your soul, and you will never want to strive again.

Prayer:

Lord God, it is no small task for a human being to give up. We are not programmed to surrender, but to fight. You created adrenalin for this very reason. It is only when we realize that You will never leave us or let us down, that you protect and provide for us, and that you have our best interest at heart that we can even remotely consider letting go. Forgive me for placing other people and things at the heart of my life. I want You as my center.

Thought for the Day:

It is only by making Jesus the center of our focus that we can enter into His eternal rest.