No Longer a Sinner - The Love of God

 

We learn more from one another's example than from our words. We often say one thing, but do another. Many times we are not even aware of it. Our children are always watching us.

The human eyes absorb sights we do not even register with our conscious mind. These images are stored in our subconscious mind and affect us for the rest of our life.

We need to guard what our eyes, and the eyes of our children see. TV, movies, magazines, books and all media are sources of perversion that we can control to protect us and our children.

God uses our eyes to reveal to us His glory through nature all around us (Romans 1:20). We feel His pleasure in His love when we experience it through the details of our life.

The glory of Christ in us is the revelation of His divine character, which changes us into a new creation. He imparts to us the fruit of His Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), and relates to us through His grace and love.

The servant role, which Jesus performed while on earth, teaches us how to model His character to our world as well. We serve others as Christ serves His Bride, His Church.

Jesus was obedient to our Heavenly Father to the point of submitting Himself to the death on the cross. Similarly, we come to the place spiritually where we are willing to die to our self (1 Corinthians 15:31; Galatians 2:20).

We live for God to the point where He actually lives through us. We adopt the mind of Christ as our own and refrain from living a sinful lifestyle - fully convinced that He sets us free from the law of sin and death by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

Christ's life and death are the manifestation of the love of God for all of mankind. Due to His great love for us, His compassionate mercies never fail us; they are new every single morning (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Prayer:

Father God, we gaze on Your goodness through every moment of every day. We esteem, appreciate and adore You with every breath that we take. We look forward to You changing us into the image of Christ by the work of Your Spirit in our life (Romans 8). Lead us by Your Holy Spirit so that we only do the activities which You are calling us to accomplish with our day (Ephesians 2:10).

Help us to ignore the overwhelming flood of details in this life, which attempt to sidetrack us from doing Your will. We have confidence that Your Spirit will lead us to perform each detail of our responsibility in Your timing and way, without the stress we usually put on our self when we try to control our life.

Thought for the Day:
We are channels of God's love to everyone in our sphere of influence from our family to neighbors, workmates and acquaintances, as well as strangers we meet on the street, the store and the restaurant.

Going Crazy!

 

Have you ever felt like you were going crazy? Nothing makes sense in your life. You have no direction. You are squeezed into a mold where you do not fit. 

There is a war going on in your mind...like there is a whole crowd of people up there arguing! I have a simple explanation, and an even simpler solution. Our mind is the battleground where Satan wars against us.

Our soul includes our mind, will and emotions. Our mind affects every part of us, including our physical well-being. The imagination is where Satan likes to play. 

He perverts the truth and comes up with all sorts of lies, which, unbelievably, we accept as truth! Then they affect us adversely for the rest of our life.  ( www.theophostic.com )

We live in this world, yet we do not wage war in the natural realm. Our weapons are not of this world. God gives us His divine power to demolish every spiritual stronghold we encounter. 

We can take authority over every haughty lie, which rises up against God's spiritual truth and against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5).

God gave us divinely powered weapons to demolish all of Satan’s strongholds. We do this by taking every thought captive and having the mind of Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:5). 

The Holy Spirit’s priority is helping us to know and to do the will of God in His power (Philippians 2:12-13). He does this by transforming our mind to the mind of Christ (Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 3:18).

Prayer:

Father God, Satan really refined his art of deception over the years. However, Your Spirit of truth abiding in us, guides us to Your truth. When we surrender to You, our God of peace in us, there is no more lunacy warring in our mind. Now we can stand against the devil's wiles, which he shoots at us as fiery darts (Ephesians 6:11,16; John 16:13). 

You sent Your Holy Spirit in Jesus' name to teach us everything we need to know and to remind us of what we read in Your Word (John 14:26-27). You give us victory over the evil one through the power of Christ in us (Colossians 1:27). In Jesus' name, we take every thought captive and make it obedient to Your Word (2 Corinthians 10: 3-5).

Thought for the Day:

Do not conform your thoughts to the pattern of this world or Satan's lies, but allow God's Spirit to renew your mind to know the perfect will of God. - Romans 12:2

Why Surrender?

 

The world rejects the idea of surrendering. They equate surrender with giving up, and with loss and defeat. However, when we surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ we release all the stress and striving in our life. In return, we gain the fruit of His Spirit, which defy all human logic (Galatians 5:22-23). Surrender means to trust God and to stop struggling to live on our own in this hostile environment we call “life”. Surrender results in our absolute submission to God’s leading for each moment of our day. In return, we receive His deepest presence in our life along with a multitude of blessings (Job 22:21).

The easiest way to walk in surrender is to start obeying the Spirit’s direction in small increments. For instance, we prefer our mate’s needs to our own. We put money in the offering basket that we intended to use for some luxury. We take food to a sick friend when we prefer to stay home and watch TV. We give our bicycle to a family without transportation. We relinquish our right, as Jesus did, to prove that we are innocent. We do not assume the attitude of a martyr; but we obey the Spirit’s promptings with joy, knowing that God provides us with an abundance of every good thing (Hebrews 12:2).

In our old life we surrendered to sin, but now we have a new Master and He truly sets us free (Romans 6:16-18). Dying to self is not detestable when we know it results not only in future treasures in Heaven for eternity, but also in joy and peace now. This eternal perspective allows us to pass through the less agreeable moments of surrender more easily. When God calls us to submission to His greater will, we offer our life to Him. We relinquish our personal freedom and He replaces it with spiritual freedom, which is deeper and reaps lasting blessings in our spirit, body and soul – our thoughts, choices and emotions.

We surrender our life to Christ each new day, giving to Him the issues that weigh us down, seeking His guidance for each moment and giving Him the glory for everything we accomplish (Galatians 3:1-3). The areas of our life that we refuse to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ are the venues that imprison us. They are idols that we cherish more than our relationship with our living Lord. If we walk through life in obedience to the Holy Spirit, we reap blessings that never end. A life of half-hearted commitment may lose its tranquility and happiness, but a surrendered life provides overwhelming peace and joy.

There is no lasting freedom outside of a complete surrender to Christ (Luke 14:33). We not only commit our life to Christ, but also we surrender our works, talents and accomplishments to His Lordship and direction. We view our life from His vantage point and we see the people in it as our mission field. Our family, neighbors, friends, workmates, associates, and even the check out people at the retail store or those waiting on us at the restaurant are hand-chosen by God for us to influence for His Kingdom. When we live in Christ and allow Him to live in, through and instead of us, we shed the skin of our old life and live as His new creation for the glory of God (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, help us to follow You by denying our desires and dying to our selfishness. If we try to preserve our life, we will ultimately lose it; but if we surrender our life to You for Your sake, and give up our plans, goals and ambitions for You, then we will gain a more fulfilling and joy-filled life (Matthew 16:25; Philippians 3:8). We realize that gaining the world does not satisfy, because we will lose our own soul. But following You gives us unending peace and joy (Matthew 16:24-26).
 

Thought for the Day:

The moments we live in surrender to God are more richly experienced and completely fulfilling than any others.

 

Thank you, Megapixel Mike, for this serene photo.
http://www.flickr.com/mrickard5

Our Family Tree

The concept of “Family” started in the Garden of Eden. God created Eve for Adam and the excited man exclaimed, “This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” We cannot get any more related than that (Genesis 2:23-24). God created one man to be married to one woman for a lifetime. In spite of the way the world treats marriage today, the Word of God repeatedly blesses the union of the family (Psalms 128:3; Acts 10:2; Acts 16:31-34). This is the most complex unit in our society, however, and it often causes us the most hardship, because we are so interdependent on one another.

God expects parents to walk in His ways and to teach them to their children (Deuteronomy 4:9-10; Esther 1:22). God had total confidence in Abraham to command his children and his household to follow the Lord, to keep His ways and to live by Godly precepts (Genesis 18:19). Jacob followed in his grandfather’s footsteps and made sure his family also followed the ways of the Lord (Genesis 35:2). Joseph cherished his family so much, that even when they sold him into slavery, he did not take revenge on them. He provided for them during times of famine and forgave them for their treachery towards him (Genesis 50:17-21). Joshua boldly proclaimed his as well as his family’s allegiance to God (Joshua 24:15).

God created the woman to bless the man (1 Corinthians 11:7-9). Once the first couple sinned by rebelling against God, Our Father put it into the heart of the woman to desire her husband and to obey his rule over her (Genesis 3:16). A wife is advised to look well to the ways of her household, not to live in a lazy manner and to live faithfully with her own husband (Proverbs 31:27; 1 Corinthians 7:10; Ephesians 5:22-24; Colossians 3:18; 1 Peter 3:1). God even gives us Sarah as an example and exhorts us to reverence and respect our husband (1 Peter 3:6).

God exhorts husbands to live faithfully with their wife, not to get drunk or to be greedy for ill-gotten gains, not to be a fighter or covetous, to rule their household well, to help their children to walk in an orderly fashion, and to be hospitable and apt to teach (1 Timothy 3:2-5, 12). God even commends grandparents who impart His Word to their grandchildren (2 Timothy 1:5). We all have a place to serve in God’s family both at home and at church.

Family dynamics is one of the most tenuous life systems on earth. Every family experiences trials and conflict. God gives us clues in His Word on dealing with trouble. His primary focus during a disagreement is reconciliation (Matthew 5:24). Unresolved conflicts often destroy our association with others. Jesus died to redeem mankind to God; and God filters this reconciliation down into all of our relationships (Matthew 4:24).

The first step in relationships is not to judge the other person’s motives, meaning or reasoning for their words or actions (Matthew 7:1). If they say or do something that is offensive, ask them to clarify their reason for their words or actions. Often, our interpretation of the incident is based upon our insecurities and injuries from the past, rather on their motives or intentions (Matthew 7:5). We over-react because their behavior triggered an old wound in us. We see every incident from our own perspective.

God encourages us to take the other person’s perspective into account as well as our own (1 Tim 4:1-2); otherwise, discussions can escalate into an all out war. Through discussing all the options, no one party “wins” all the time (Proverbs 10:23). Often, neither side gets their way, and both parties choose a third selection as the best course of action (Proverbs 14:15). God gives His wisdom and grace in every situation, if the couple, parent or child is wise enough to seek His counsel (Psalm 2:10-11, 111:10).
 

Prayer:

Father God, thank You for creating us to live in families. Help us to appreciate the good aspects in the family You birthed us into, rather than allowing our focus to remain on the negative features. Give us wisdom as we choose our mate, and lead us by Your Spirit to the person best suited for us, someone that we can bless and who will bless us in return. You are able to protect everything that we entrust to You; therefore, we put all of our relationships into Your capable hands (2 Timothy 1:12). It is so good for us all to dwell together in unity (Psalm 133:1).

Thought for the Day:

“If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.”
- Romans 12:18