Family Relationships

Mark 10:4-16
4And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. 5And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. 6But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 7For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; 8And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. 9What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. 10And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter. 11And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. 12And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery. 13And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. 14But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. 15Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. 16And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.

Family Relationships

This is an interesting passage where Jesus is not only talking about marriage and divorce, but He is then addressing the importance of children and their part in the kingdom of God. One of the greatest maladies of this age is the moral decline we are experiencing as a society and as Christians because of the breakdown of our homes and our families. We have become either too busy or too broken in our marriages to give our children what they need. There are millions of homes with single parents struggling to make ends meet and millions of children growing up with a lack of love, discipline and mentoring that they need. Even those of us who have homes and marriages that are loving and intact often find ourselves missing the opportunities we need to take advantage of, in investing into spouse and our children’s lives.
I believe Jesus, in this passage is bring out the point that marriage and family are not about putting the ones you love aside. So often we get so caught up in the process of providing for our family that the means takes the place of the object of what our lives are about. We miss out on giving the greatest provision of all, our personal time and attention. If we spend all our resources to buy a farm, but never spend time working the fields, can we expect them to produce anything but weeds? A family is an investment of our lives and it continues on even when our kids are grown and we have grandkids. The most meaningful memories we have from our childhood are probably not what mom or dad bought us, but those special one on one times that we had with them that were special and meaningful. Sometimes we don’t realize the little things that we do or give that are the most significant. God wants us to know that the most precious gift we have to give is our time and ourselves. Passing down memories, teaching and instructing our children and grandchildren are the things that matter. I have felt the Lord’s conviction on my own life that it won’t matter so much whether we were rich or poor, but where we invested our time and our love. Perhaps nothing says more to someone about how important they are and how much we love them than the personal time and attention that we give them. Seize those moments when you can have special time with your family and the ones you love. Few things are more important.

Blessings,
#kent

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Appeasing or Pleasing

Appeasing or Pleasing

Hebrews 11:6
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
I think that I may not be so different than many others who earnestly love God, want to have an intimate relationship with Him, but are often tempted to make compromises to please the flesh rather than to please God. I was meditating this morning on how much appease and please sound alike only they are different. If we examine our hearts we will probably find that there are many times we actually try to appease the Lord, rather than please Him.
“So what’s the difference?” you might ask.
I’m glad you asked that question. The dictionary defines appease as, “To pacify or attempt to pacify (an enemy) by granting concessions, often at the expense of principle.”
Now we don’t think of God as our enemy, but He is the enemy of our flesh and when we are trying to appease God that is usually where we are operating from. Romans 8:5-8 tells us, “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.” When we get out of faith and into the flesh then we begin operating out of a mindset that wants to appease God rather than please Him. We want God to wink at our sin and to let us slide. We want the favor and blessing of God, but on our terms. Maybe we start to bargain with God. “God, if you will just let me do that, or have this or grant me that, then I’ll do this.” Maybe we give more and try to do good things. Usually we are not only trying to appease God, but our conscience as well. It is not that we want to forsake God or not serve Him and believe in Him anymore. It is not that we want to displease Him, it is just that we want our way more than we want His way. What we don’t want to acknowledge and submit too is, that it is always our ways that lead us away from His. It is our ways that separate and break fellowship with Him and it is our ways, the natural mind, that hinders us from God’s highest and His best for us.
Like King Saul of the Old Testament we become headstrong about doing things our way rather than God’s way. Listen as Saul attempts to appease God rather than please Him. 1 Samuel 15:13-26 says, “When Samuel reached him, Saul said, “The LORD bless you! I have carried out the LORD’s instructions.”
14 But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?”
15 Saul answered, “The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the LORD your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.”
16 “Stop!” Samuel said to Saul. “Let me tell you what the LORD said to me last night.”
“Tell me,” Saul replied.
17 Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel. 18 And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.’ 19 Why did you not obey the LORD ? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the LORD?”
20 “But I did obey the LORD,” Saul said. “I went on the mission the LORD assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. 21 The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the LORD your God at Gilgal.”
22 But Samuel replied:
“Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD?
To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king.”
24 Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the LORD’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them. 25 Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I may worship the LORD.”
26 But Samuel said to him, “I will not go back with you. You have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you as king over Israel!”
Whenever we compromise what God has instructed by doing it our way rather than His, we only are deceiving ourselves and leading ourselves to heartache and misery. Hebrews 10:5-10 says in contrast, “Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; 6with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. 7Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, O God.’ ” 8First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). 9Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
Father is now asking the same of us. He doesn’t any longer want our burnt offering and sacrifices, our concessions and appeasement. He wants our lives, our obedience and our faith to trust and walk with Him wherever it is that He chooses to lead us. We can no longer seek to appease our Lord; we must walk in the faith and obedience that pleases Him.
“No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of [this] life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.” (2 Timothy 2:4)

Blessings,
#kent

Judgements, Intimidations and Manipulations

Romans 2:1-8(Amplified)
THEREFORE YOU have no excuse or defense or justification, O man, whoever you are who judges and condemns another. For in posing as judge and passing sentence on another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge are habitually practicing the very same things [that you censure and denounce]. 2[But] we know that the judgment (adverse verdict, sentence) of God falls justly and in accordance with truth upon those who practice such things. 3And do you think or imagine, O man, when you judge and condemn those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape God’s judgment and elude His sentence and adverse verdict? 4Or are you [so blind as to] trifle with and presume upon and despise and underestimate the wealth of His kindness and forbearance and long-suffering patience? Are you unmindful or actually ignorant [of the fact] that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repent (to change your mind and inner man to accept God’s will)? 5But by your callous stubbornness and impenitence of heart you are storing up wrath and indignation for yourself on the day of wrath and indignation, when God’s righteous judgment (just doom) will be revealed. 6For He will render to every man according to his works [justly, as his deeds deserve]: 7To those who by patient persistence in well-doing [springing from piety] seek [unseen but sure] glory and honor and [the eternal blessedness of] immortality, He will give eternal life.
8But for those who are self-seeking and self-willed and disobedient to the Truth but responsive to wickedness, there will be indignation and wrath.

Judgements, Intimidations and Manipulations

There was a time when Sharon and I were first married that we had a lot of conflict in areas. I had been a Christian most of my life and Sharon was only about a year old in the faith at this time. She had come to accept Christ as we had shared the Lord and read the Bible together. It was at Easter time as she watched the movie, “The King of Kings”, that the Lord made those scriptures alive to her and drew her to Himself. Before we were married we lived in two different cities. I had been going to college in the town where she lived. After leaving school that year I had a time of tremendous drawing to the Lord and was trying very much to walk with Him in every aspect of my life. By the time we got married in August she was encountering someone in me, different than who she had come to know. All I seemed to think about and care about was the things of God. It’s not that this was a bad thing, but I seemed to think that Sharon should be where I was. Instead of watching TV she should want to read her Bible and pray. So there was this rift between us. I remember praying one night and saying something to the effect, “God I don’t know what to do, I’ve tried to do what’s right and I’ve tried to change her but I can’t.” The Lord spoke to my heart in that time and said, “That is not your job to change her, that is the work of the Holy Spirit. Your job is to love her.” When I stopped trying to change and drag Sharon in my strength, she began to start coming forth in her own relationship with the Lord, because it was His doing and not mine. I say all of this to let us know that there are many of us that knowingly or unknowingly are still judging, intimidating and manipulating others to be what we think they should be or do what we think they should do. THAT’S NOT OUR JOB! STOP IT! You let the Holy Spirit deal with them in His time and His way. Meanwhile, know that while we are so busy trying to control others we have some issues of our own that we need to be focusing on. Maybe people aren’t all you think they should be or do for you all that you think that they should, but who made you the judge of them? We are all at different places in our life and in our relationship with the Lord. We have to respect that in one another. We all want to encourage one another in the things that are right and good, but that doesn’t make us someone else’s judge when they don’t live up to our expectations. We only see things through our own colored glasses and if we were to look at things through there perspective it may look a lot different and we may have a whole lot more empathy for why they are like they are. Only the Lord knows the thoughts and the motives of the heart. He alone is qualified to truly judge each individual.
If we are trying to control others, even if our intentions are good, that is a form of witchcraft. We use guilt, judgements, intimidation, seductions and various other means to control others to our way of thinking and doing. In some cases our intentions may be good, as mine were with Sharon, but our methods are the flesh. If one stubbornly is self-seeking, self-serving and disobedient to the truth then eventually they will answer to God for it if they refuse to repent and change their course. We have all been at times, either the perpetrators or the victims of these types of control. For some of us they have become a normal way of life and how we get our way. Instead of using God’s truth with mercy and grace we have wielded it like a club of condemnation and judgement to bring others to our way of thinking. It takes place in the other dynamics of our human relationships as well.
Take the time for a little introspection to see where you might be doing this to others. Remember that by the same standards that we judge others we ourselves will be judged. We need to be far more focused on judging our own walk, relationship and obedience to Christ. Our calling is to strengthen and encourage one another, not to be their judge. After all, that’s not our job; that’s His.

Blessings,
#kent

Love is a Language of Action

1 John 3:18
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

Love is a Language of Action

“I love you.” How many times have we said this or heard this? What does it mean? While the words can be meaningful and precious, it is what they convey, imply and promise that is of even greater weight. How many times have these been shallow words, void of promise and only speaking to someone what they so desire to see in reality? What gives flesh to these words are the actions that follow them. If we say that we love God, but we are cold and indifferent to our fellow man is the love of God truly in us or are we just clouds without rain, empty and void of the substance of God’s love.
For love to be meaningful, it has to be a language of action. Its expression is seen in our attitudes, our deed and in the true intent of our heart. I would say most of us often fall short of the kind of love we really want to have. Sometimes, even our best efforts seem in vain, but I believe God sees the motive and the intent of our heart. He is really the means by which we can truly love. The more expression we have of Christ in us, the greater our love, or rather the love of God in us, is expressed and made manifest. It will be seen, not only in the things that we give, but in our tolerance, our forgiveness, our patience, self control, our joy, our peace and in the way that we respond and act toward others. Christ in us is not measured in how much we know about the bible, or how much spiritual revelation that we have. It is not about how much we go to church or how religious that we appear. Christ in us is the measure of God’s love flowing through us. The less that we are in the way, the less restriction there is to the flow of His love through us. This is why we die to self, because self only hinders the flow of God’s unselfish love.
If we think that we truly love God and have His love in us then may our actions speak it and not our tongue. Let us manifest the works that He did. The manifestation of His love through us is God loving His world; this is what signifies to the lost that God is love when they see us give what they do not deserve. Are we a people of words or action?

Blessings,
#kent

The Light of His Presence

Matthew 4:16
“the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.”

The Light of His Presence

Jesus is the light of the world and He came to illuminate the world with the light of His physical presence. Today we long and await the manifestation of Christ in us in order to light up our world and make known the riches of His life. We cry out from the position of our weakness to lay hold of His strength. When His light comes it won’t be our flesh fabricating another religious move; it will be the reality of His substance and life. As a woman in travail we yearn within our spirits to bring forth that which we are pregnant with. It is with this vision and purpose that we live and press into Him. When He appears we will be like Him. 1John 3:2 says, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” A Monarch butterfly is still a Monarch butterfly even when it is in the larva stage. It just hasn’t yet appeared what it fully is. A transformation or metamorphosis must take place for it to come into its fullness. 2 Corinthians 3:18 speaks of this transformation within us, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
Romans 12:1-2 again speaks to us of that transformation, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Our eyes are now becoming fixed on who we are and shall be, not on what we were. Old things are passing away and behold all things are becoming new. We have seen that great light that is in Christ and as He is filling us and working in us, the shadows of sin and death are fleeing away. We have a hope in Christ that drives our faith to believe Him for what is humanly and naturally impossible. He has a great work of purpose to be worked through His people, but it can not operate out of a people who live in doubt, fear and unbelief. When we have finally come to that place where we have truly abandoned all and there is no longer the fear of earthly loss of possessions, position, family or even life itself, then we can be truly free to be filled with the purpose of God. When our love for Christ exceeds any other earthly passions, then His kingdom has place to come. Jesus has called His disciples to forsake all other affections in the light of Him. It is the cost of discipleship. It is not that we can’t love our family and others, but when it comes to Christ there is no question to where the fullness of our love and loyalty lie. The world will always encumber us with its cares, worries and agendas. It is not easy for us to break free of the economy of this world that we may enter into the economy of the kingdom of God. In His economy we find a freedom and a peace that we won’t find in this earthly realm. There He is king over all and everything in His kingdom finds its supply, provision and rest in Him. Are we willing to grasp Him with both hands so that He is able to lift us out of our weakness and defeat? Most of us only want to extend one hand to God while we hold on to our earthly affections and treasures with the other. God it wanting to pull us on up into Him, but we have to be willing to let go of what is in the other hand. It is in that place that we become the bright lights shinning in a dark place and all shadows will flee before us.

Blessings,
#kent

Riches in Christ

Riches in Christ

Colossians 1:27
To whom God would make known what [is] the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

Did you ever express the desire to be rich? When you find Christ, you have found the storehouse of God’s riches. There is none to exceed them in all of the earth. Many people miss His riches, because it doesn’t have all the glitter and shine that earthly riches have. It doesn’t make you the most prominent and honored by the people of this world. That’s why so many missed Jesus. They were looking for the worldly standard of riches, but the King of Kings was born in a barn, to a meager couple. In the world’s eyes, His mother had gotten pregnant out wedlock and no doubt bore the shame and reproach of an illegitimate birth. Farm animals and shepherds were the King’s attendants. There was nothing that rang of riches by the world’s standards. Yet, in heaven, the angels rejoiced and heaven celebrated the fact that the King of Kings had been born in the earth of a virgin to bring salvation to men. They were full of glad tidings, because they recognized the rich gift that God had just deposited into the earth, but the world comprehended it not.
What you and I contain in Christ is nothing less than phenomenal. We contain a treasure that the universe would covet, but your next door neighbor might not even notice. We contain the potential glory that even the angels of heaven stand in awe and wonder. How often do we, ourselves, treat this treasure and the riches within us as every day and common? We carry within our earthen vessel the outshining of the Father’s glory and yet so many of us have become complacent with it. 2 Corinthians 4:6-7 says, “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to [give] the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” Why we miss the Christ in us, is because there is still so much of us, that, like the world, we don’t even begin to appreciate and cherish this treasure within us. Think about what that means, “Christ in YOU!” The reason we don’t appreciate the Christ is because the “YOU” is too big. It is still trying to be our treasure instead of it just facilitating the Christ, who is our treasure. Ephesians 2:4-7 tells us, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us; Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised [us] up together, and made [us] sit together in heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in [his] kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” Look at the position in which God has placed you…”made [us] sit together in heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus.” You and I are in the Christ. We are in the King. We sit down at the right hand of the Father in Him. Colossians 3:1-4 reaffirms this, ” If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, [who is] our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” This is so often such a hard concept for us to really grasp and live in the reality of, “that it is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives within me.” We are one, as a husband and wife are one. Our name is now His name. Being faithful in our fidelity to our Lord Christ, all that we are is now to please Him and for His glory alone. Likewise His covenant with us is too meet our need. Paul tells us in Philippians 4:19, “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Christ and us now live unto each other. He is the motivation, the focus and the strength out of which we live and move and have our being. The heart of God for all of His people is, “That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:2-3).” You see Christ is our riches and our treasure house in which all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are stored. Could we, with these finite minds, begin to comprehend what we fully possess in Christ? It is not possible, for the natural mind and understanding doesn’t comprehend it, but the Spirit of Christ within us does. 1 Corinthians 2:9-12 says, “9However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”[a]— 10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” We have the potential of understanding and having a revelation of far more than we may think, but it will never be through the natural mind. You and I are a rich people today. Let us be careful not to despise, treat lightly or common the gift and riches that we have been given. They are often masked in pain, suffering, persecution, and adversity. All are the processes of bringing the gold out of the darkness and into the light; so let your light so shine before men, Christ in you, the hope of glory. He is our riches and treasure for eternity.

Blessings,
#kentGod

Liberty

Liberty

2 Corinthians 3:17

Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord [is], there [is] liberty.

Liberty is the liberation of the soul from the law of sin and death. It is emancipation from the bondage of the flesh. Liberty in Christ is the freedom to live in the calling and destiny our God has prepared for us, to realize His highest and His best for us. Oppressive forces are continually at work to rob our freedom, to undermine our liberty and to pervert the law of life in Christ Jesus to which we have been called. Our liberty in Christ is not found in the freedom to live to our flesh, or in self gain and promotion; it is realized in our dying to all that the world holds dear. Those former affections are no longer the object of our love and desire. When we really see Jesus, when the Spirit of God really possesses our soul, then all that is earthly, sensual and devilish will be as dung in comparison. We will catch the vision that Paul caught and we will run for the prize of the high calling that is in Christ Jesus. We are living in a day of purification and revelation. We are being called by the Spirit to come out of our former complacency, our ruts of religious thinking and form, and come into the anointing and calling that Christ has for each of us who are His. If you are reading these words, it is because you desire something more; you desire more of Him. God wants to impart more of Himself to us, but in order to impart the new, the old has to pass away or it is only a hindrance and a pollution of the new. Hebrews 9:8 says, “The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing.” We can not realize the fullness of God’s calling and the holiest of all as long as we are bent on carrying all of our old religious baggage with us. Do not depart from the Word of God, but put on new ears to hear not the same religious rhetoric that you have heard all of your days, but the sound of a new trumpet in the land. It is calling us up higher, but it is not going to often be all that we thought we understood. The Lord says in Isaiah 65:16-17, “That he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from mine eyes. For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” The Lord is doing a new thing in the earth. He is calling us out and up in ways we have not known before. Know this, that in the way of the cross there is suffering and in the suffering there is loss, but in the loss there is purification and resurrection from the dead. Don’t fear to let the former things go, for what the Lord is calling you into is so much higher and so much greater, but it is not the way of the flesh, nor of the will of man. Like Peter in John 21:18, the Lord would say to us, “I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”” The calling of God is great upon our lives, but it is not without a price. Again we know and believe Romans 8:16-18, “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. 18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” Can you hear the call of God personally upon your life today? Will you respond by releasing the former things and come to know Him in Spirit and in Truth. Learn His voice and obediently follow Him, for you are the sheep of His pasture. He is calling you into the liberty. When we truly find our liberty in Christ, then we will begin to become the liberators of others. 2 Corinthians 3:17, “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord [is], there [is] liberty.” Search out and know your liberty in Christ Jesus.

Blessings,

#kent

We, the Lame

We, the Lame

Hebrew 12:13
And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

Have you ever had a broken leg, a dislocated joint or wrenched knee or ankle? When you find yourself in this condition, you find that walking normally is out of the question. There is too much pain and tenderness to walk in a normal way. This is the way we are when we get out of joint in our walk with the Lord. Our spiritual health and harmony are interrupted and our walk with Him becomes crippled and distorted.
I think many of us have areas in our lives where we experience some lameness; an area that is out of joint with God’s will and purpose for our lives. The Lord doesn’t want us to walk in a crooked and twisted path, but in a straight and narrow one. It is like Jesus says in Matthew 7:14, “Because strait [is] the gate, and narrow [is] the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” I would venture to say that most of us have found ourselves off of that straight and narrow more times than we would like to admit. How wonderful that through repentance and the power of the blood of Jesus we have a means to be restored to the path of righteousness.
It is sin that cripples us and makes us lame. It is sin that distorts our spiritual health and wholeness. There are many that are still struggling with strongholds of sin in their lives. While they feel condemned and defeated, they can’t seem to get delivered and free from it. We often make the mistake of judging others in an area of weakness while we may have another area in us that is just as bad. We are all creatures of God’s grace and mercy. We didn’t find our way to Him because our works were righteous and we were so much better than everyone else. Like everyone else, we are sinners saved by the grace of God. That same faith with which we embraced Christ when we first gave our hearts to Him is what we must now exercise as we make straight paths for our feet.
There is something wrong with us as a body of Christ when we are more concerned about judging one another for our faults than we are with ministering to one another in our weaknesses. What does James 5:16 say? “Confess [your] faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” We all have weaknesses and faults that we have not fully gained the victory over or that we are still struggling with. Where are our ministry, compassion and prayers for one another in our weaknesses? We desperately try and conceal our faults and weaknesses, either because we are in denial or just think it is our problem, but more likely because we don’t have a safe place where we can expose and share the sins with which we struggle. Jesus says it is not the well that need a physician, but the sick. The Christ in each one of us is the physician that wants to minister help and healing to those around us. We need each other to help each other. Our sin would always cripple us and dislocate us from the Lord, but the Lord wants to heal our lameness and restore us in a path of righteousness for His namesake. The Lord doesn’t want us to justify and cover over our sin, that would be hypocrisy, but He does want to see us healed in the areas of our sin sickness.
We want to see Isaiah 35 come to pass in each one of our lives, “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God. 3 Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; 4 say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.” 5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. 6 Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. 7 The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow. 8 And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it. 9 No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there, 10 and the ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”
The Lord is on the side of our restoration and wholeness, but it takes our willingness to forsake our sin. Perhaps we need to seek out those who will stand with us and help us to lay hold of our victory and healing in the areas where sin has held us captive and crippled our walk. We are a body and we must minister to one another’s needs. We need one another to minister and help each other in all of the areas that pertain to life and godliness. Corporately, we are growing up in Christ, ministering to one another out of the gifts that the Holy Spirit has apportioned to each one of us. Ephesians 4:16-18 says,” Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work..”
If you are lame in an area of your walk with the Lord, then find your healing and deliverance so that your path may be made straight. If it is greater than your ability to find the victory then seek out those in the body of Christ who can come along beside you, give you help, prayer and accountability. It is the Lord’s will to restore the lame.

Blessings,
#kent

New Creation

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

New Creation

Do we really believe what this passage is telling us? How many of us are still focusing on the old, expecting it to somehow change or become better. So many Christians spend their lifetime trying to change and perfect an old creation man. Just because you see it there doesn’t mean that it any longer has to define who you are and what you are becoming. Through our religious mindset we keep trying to change ourselves from the outside in. We think if we do enough good works, go to church, keep the ten commandments or all of the outward things we try to do to prove our piety and goodness that will change us into a new creation.
My Bible reads that when I am in Christ, I have become a new creation. To me that means there is something more to me now than what I see in the mirror. It means that Christ has taken me into Him and made me a part of Himself. He has changed the whole dynamic of what life used to be about. What He wants me to realize is that it is the identification with who I am in Him as a new creation man that will transform and change the rest of me. It is no longer based on what I can do outwardly. The good works that I now produce should be the fruit of who I am in Him, not my efforts to please Him or earn His favor. The new creation that I am already has His favor, because it is His nature and Spirit that makes us this new creation.
It says, “the old is gone and the new is come”. It is not based on what I see or feel. It is based on what His Word declares and says to be so. My responsibility is no longer trying to change into what I already am, but to act upon the faith of what He declares I am and am not.
A new creation man is in the likeness of Christ Jesus and as such should have their focus the same place as Jesus had His, on the Father. From the time we read about Jesus at age twelve we find He was about His Father’s business. That is the focus of our new creation, it is about the Father’s business.
What is the Father’s business?
2 Corinthians 5:18-21 tells us, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” God, in Christ Jesus, reconciled us to Himself so that He might impart through us the ministry of reconciliation. He made us the messengers and ambassadors of reconciliation.
When I reconcile my check book what do I do? I balance it. I bring it into alignment and reconcile the debits from the deposits. The truth is we all know is that we are all overdrawn in our spiritual accounts. Our sins far outweigh any claim we might have to goodness and deserving God’s favor and acceptance, but the blood of Jesus makes the deposit on our behalf that cancels out all of our debt. He reconciles us back to the Father and brings atonement or at-one-ment with the Father. We are simply blessed with the privilege of being able to share this life changing message with all of those around us. That is the message and ministry of reconciliation. It reunites God’s creation back to Him so that in Christ they might become a new creation in His image and likeness. This new creation man has the privilege and ability to become the righteousness of God, because Jesus was willing to become sin for us and balance our account.
The new creation man is not the product of the work of our hands or our efforts. It comes forth in the nature of what it is as we simply live in the Father, operating out of the Holy Spirit as we are about the Father’s business. It is our intimacy and relationship with our Papa that will produce the likeness of His life through us. He loves you. He has already accepted you in Christ and Christ, who is the author and finisher of your faith, will finish the good work He has began in you. Just abide in Him.

Blessings,
#kentGod

Confession of Faith

Philippians 3:3-6
I thank my God every time I remember you. 4In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Confession of Faith

Sometimes, if I start to see myself after the flesh, I will become discouraged, depressed and defeated. I will focus on all of the things I am not, all of the places I still fail, all the places I’m still selfish and self-centered and on all of that which I don’t yet see. I will allow my circumstances to dictate a life that I left behind when I identified myself with Christ on that cross and died to that old man of sin and death. If I allow myself, I could go back there again, but then that would be to deny Christ and what He has done for me. That would be to say that I wasn’t raised in the newness of His life, to live out of His life and no longer my own. That would be to return again and live under the law of sin and death, rather than out of the law of the Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus. That would be to embrace the flesh, whose end is death and corruption, rather than embracing the Spirit, who enables and empowers me to walk in Life in the divine nature of His love.
What I am identifying with is what I am and am becoming, whether it be flesh or Spirit. It isn’t dependent upon what I see outwardly, it is fully dependent upon my believing the promises that my God gave to me or forsaking them to go back from whence I came. Behind me is only what brought me guilt and shame, but before me is my Jesus who has promised to bring to completion the good work that He began in me.
No, I may not see the fullness of Him yet, but I will keep pressing into Him, expecting and believing for His highest for me. I will not allow the discouragement, natural circumstances and even facts to detour me from the truth that I know in my heart. For I refuse to see through natural eyes alone anymore. He is teaching me to see all things after the Spirit; myself, my spiritual family and even the world around me. As I walk in the faith of who He is in me, I see more clearly others through God’s heart of love. I see that I walk in the earth, but I live out of heaven. I live in Christ Jesus who sits at the right hand of the throne of God. From that place I know that whatever touches my life has to come through the Father and the Son. I know that He works all things to my good, even the bad things, because He has loved me and called me according to His purpose. He doesn’t just love me, but in that love He corrects me, teaches me and stretches me. He makes me to come out of the dependency of my flesh, so that I can more full rest and rely upon Him. Only there will I learn of His rest that He has for me and only there can I operate out of the fullness of faith without which it is impossible to please Him.
I don’t know everything, I just know His Word. I don’t understand everything, I just trust the Holy Spirit to help me understand what I need to know. Life has a new meaning and purpose because He is in it. Because of that, it is no longer about me, it is all about Him. He has told me that all of His promises to me are “yes and amen”. As I walk in the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me, I believe I can walk into all that He has prepared for me. I don’t believe I have to die and go to heaven to experience and live out of a more abundant life. I believe heaven wants to live that abundant life through me as I walk in the earth. I believe God wants to manifest that kingdom in my earthen body as it is in heaven, but He can’t do that while I am still caught up in me. So with God’s grace and the power of His Spirit I submit myself and my will, which is the one gift He has allowed me to give to Him.
If you are looking for perfection in me, you won’t see it yet, but know that even in my human frailty and weakness I pursue Him who knows none. His blood continues to wash me and His grace certainly carries me. Out of His strength and abundance I will live and declare the name of the Lord, for He is my salvation, both now and evermore.

Blessings,
#kent