Judgement on Disputable Matters
September 29, 2015
Romans 14:1-5
Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. 2One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. 4Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
Judgement on Disputable Matters
If we were all to gather around and talk our theology hopefully we would be in agreement concerning the basic tenants of our faith such as Jesus being the Son of God, His blood being the atonement for our sins, that we are saved through faith and not of works, the virgin birth and other foundational truths that define Christianity. Hopefully, what we do not do is what Paul and others warned us about and that is adding or taking away from the gospel. Many times men, doctrines and denominations want to put their addendum that it is not just by faith that we are saved. The Galatians had been deceived into thinking that it was Christ and the works of the Law that saved them, but Paul clarifies this all through the book of Galatians. In Galatians 2:16 it says, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” The Law is all about our doing and doing is never enough, therefore we find ourselves standing in condemnation because we can’t live up to the Law or we become judgmental and condescending because we think we are keeping it so much better than others around us. Christ came and died to deliver us out of the mentality and the separation from God that it brought. In Galatians 2:20 Paul puts our faith into perspective as to where our lives should be if we are a Spirit-led people. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” It is no longer about what I am or what I believe; it is about being the expression of the Christ that indwells me. “I” should no longer live, only Christ in me. The summary of our past, present and future in Christ is summed up in Ephesians 2: 1-10. “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Now if we agree on these basic tenants of our faith, then what is all of Romans 14 about? It is about all of little disputes about what we see, understand, are persuaded and comprehend the Word of God to say. I have found in myself, that over my lifetime many of my opinions and perceptions have changed and are still changing. We all walk in the light of what we know, see and understand, but 1 Corinthians 13: 12 says, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” The truth is, no matter how much we know, we all still just know in part, because we are limited through our natural mind and understanding. I read an illustration recently that helped me see this more clearly. If I held up a nickel between us and we were asked what was on the nickel, I would say an impression of Thomas Jefferson and you would disagree and say no, it is an impression of Monticello. The truth is that we would both be right depending on our perspective, paradigm and way of seeing it. Religious men, including us, have often been guilty of taking a particular truth and making a dogma out of it. The truths of God are like spokes in a wheel; they can only keep the wheel in round if they are balanced by all other truth. If I take any truth to an extreme it becomes out of balance. The truth is I need both Thomas Jefferson and Monticello to make that nickel work.
Let’s not get distracted by the minor points of truth that we loose sight of the bigger picture here. We are not in fellowship with one another to bicker over our differences, but to edify one another in who we are in Christ. Let us lay our petty differences aside and let us allow one another the freedom to walk in the light of what we know realizing that we are all growing in the light and knowledge of Him. God is our judge, not man, before Him alone do we stand or fall. The Lord told me once concerning trying to correct how someone else believes. Don’t argue and debate them. Speak the truth in love and the truth will set them free.
Blessings,
#kent
Attitude
September 28, 2015
Philippians 2:5
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus
Attitude
Our attitude, the condition and state of your mind, can be our greatest attribute and strength or our greatest detriment and weakness. Our attitude is one of the most important things that we possess and can have control over. Far too often we allow circumstances and feelings to dictate our attitude. We allow our attitude to be a thermometer, indicating the temperature of our life at any given moment, instead of a thermostat where we set the temperature we want to maintain regardless of the circumstances and feelings in our life. Our attitude, our state of mind, more than perhaps any other thing, determines our success and our failure in life and in relationships. We tend to attract what our attitude is conveying. If we are in a foul mood and our attitude is ugly and cantankerous, then we aren’t going to tend to attract a lot of smiling faces and sweet dispositions toward us. We tend produce strife and negative responses from others. On the other hand if we are bright, cheery, full of a positive and bright outlook on life, that tends to draw that response out of those we are around and it may serve to inspire them to a more positive outlook and attitude.
Our attitude is largely governed by the state of our mind. We all have days and times in our lives when everything coming at us is negative and bad news. If our attitude is a thermometer we will respond to that with a mental attitude that is defeated and depressed. If we are the thermostats we will set the temperature of our heart and attitude by the Word of God.
David was a good example of a man that had learned how to choose his attitude rather than letting his attitude choose him. In Psalms 42:5 David cries out, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and [why] art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him [for] the help of his countenance.” Psalm 35:9-10 says, “And my soul shall be joyful in the LORD: it shall rejoice in his salvation. All my bones shall say, LORD, who [is] like unto thee, which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him? Psalms 62:5 says, “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation [is] from him.” All through the Psalms David speaks often of those that pursued his life unto death. He struggled with fear, despair, disappointment, failure and rejection. So many times he had to give himself attitude adjustments and remind himself of whom His God was rather than what the circumstances indicated. Right and positive attitudes don’t just always happen. The sun usually isn’t shining upon our life everyday and some of us are going through some pretty dark valleys and deep pits. Isn’t it wonderful that God gave us men like David that could show us how to sit ourselves down and talk to the attitude of our soul from the Spirit man within us. If everything was turning up roses why would we need faith? We need faith to trust God for the things that we cannot see and feel. It is faith that can rectify our negative and wrong attitudes. It is faith that can cause us to hope in our salvation and deliverance that only comes from the Lord.
If there is one thing that determines the direction, the success or failure of a man’s life, attitude is the key factor. While two men may meet with the same defeat or failure, one will give up and say, “It can’t be done, I am just a failure,” and the other will say, “I will not be denied, I will find a way to overcome.” Attitude, more than aptitude or ability determines our success or failure in life. This is why it is so imperative that we seek to put on the mind of Christ. It is that attitude that was in Him that changed the world and the lives of so many. It changed us and we want it to continue changing us as we meet the challenges we face every day of our lives.
It is time for you to rule and set your attitude by the Spirit of Christ within you. Don’t allow your circumstances and feelings to dictate what your attitude will be. It is time for our soul to subject it’s self to our spirit. God’s has called us to overcome and to be more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. We shall be what He has called us to be by the strength and power of His life in us. Have this mind and attitude in you that was also in Christ Jesus.
Blessings,
#kent
The Wounded and Broken
September 23, 2015
We Have the Mind of Christ
September 22, 2015
1 Corinthians 2:14-16
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ
We Have the Mind of Christ
What a bold statement that the apostle Paul makes here when he says, “But we have the mind of Christ.” If you or I were to come out and say something like that many Christians might consider us heretics. It is made clear by what is written preceding this that we can’t make this statement if we are walking and reasoning out of the natural man. It is after we live and walk in the Spirit that we become spiritually minded and put on the mind of Christ. We can discern that the man who is not centered in the mind of the Spirit is often one that is a mixture of flesh and spirit. Most of us have seen or heard of someone who thought they were “the Christ” and were caught up in a God complex where they spoke as God. We all know of Jim Jones and David Karesh, for example, that led many astray and to a tragic end. Paul is not speaking in this context, because we never see ourselves as “the Christ”, we see that we are in Christ with the Lord Jesus being our head and yet He is bringing us into His likeness in mind and in being. Many are so afraid of identifying with Christ that they rob and deny the power of what He has called us to be in Him. Apart from Him we can do nothing, but as a part of Him all things are possible. Our faith is taking what God’s word says and counting it as so, even when the physical world and natural evidence doesn’t support it. Faith is what bridges the gap of time and space and the eternal. In Christ and in the flesh we stand between two dimensions and we are trying to reconcile who we truly are. In the natural we often see evidence in us that is often contrary to what we know we should be, but our faith renounces the old, repents of the shortcomings, sins and mistakes and then embraces God’s word and promise as to our true identity. Satan is always trying to convince us of who we are not, through feelings of unworthiness, condemnation, keeping our eyes on the natural man. Christ is saying to us, “Count that former man of the flesh as dead, as crucified with me upon the cross. Identify with me in resurrection life, for the power of sin over you is broken. You are a new and spiritual creation that no longer has to be subject to the law of sin and death. You have been called to be the children of God who walk after the Spirit and put no confidence in the flesh. As a part of your faith in identifying with me I am imparting my life to you and through you by My Spirit that dwells in you.”
God’s word provides our pattern of thinking and living. His Spirit is guiding and leading us into all truth. He is exploring our inward parts and revealing those areas that still need to line up with His nature and character. The difference is that the Spirit doesn’t bring conviction in us to condemn us, but to transform and change us. It is the man of the soul that must come into submission and obedience to this man of the spirit. As this happens our spiritual mind becomes more and more a way of our daily thinking and reasoning, for the natural gives way to the mind of the Spirit.
We have the mind of Christ, but it is our choice to embrace it and put it on by faith that leads to good works and righteousness.
Blessings,
#kent
“Is the LORD’s Arm too Short?”
September 21, 2015
Numbers 11:23
The LORD answered Moses, “Is the LORD’s arm too short? You will now see whether or not what I say will come true for you.”
“Is the LORD’s Arm too Short?”
It was not so many years ago that this was the scripture that I stood on concerning a house we felt the Lord had put in our hearts to believe for. That house didn’t come to us in the way we had envisioned nor did it come at the time we thought it should come. It wasn’t even the house we originally thought that God was promising us, but when it did come to pass it was so much better than what we had even hoped for.
When we read the passage that this scripture comes from we find the people of Israel out in the wilderness and they have become discontent with the manna that God has provided to sustain them. They are wailing and crying out for meat. They are lamenting the fact that they ever left Egypt.
God speaks to Moses in verses 18-19, “”Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The LORD heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the LORD will give you meat, and you will eat it. 19 You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, 20 but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the LORD, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?” ‘ ” Now how is God going to feed a million plus people in the wilderness meat for a month? Moses is thinking even if they slaughtered all of the livestock that they had there would not be enough meat to last that long. Moses is saying that is a lot of meat Lord, how can you supply that much meat and then you want me to put my reputation on the line by telling them that they are going to receive the seemingly impossible. They were already living the seemly impossible by the very fact that they were no longer in Egypt, but here in the wilderness, being supernaturally fed with manna from heaven.
It is then that God gave Moses this Word concerning what He had spoken that would come to pass. “Is the LORD’s arm too short? You will now see whether or not what I say will come true for you.”
It teaches this lesson, no matter how impossible it seems He is able and will perform the Word that He has spoken. In this particular case the meat that He brought to Israel turned into a judgement, rather than a blessing, because of their murmuring and complaint. Yet God honors those who operate out of faith, not murmuring and complaining about what they don’t have, but rather worshipping and giving thanks for what they do have even before they have received it. It is faith in God that reaps His blessing, but doubt, fear, discontentment and unbelief only attract judgement.
Our God, is a mighty God whose arm has not waxed short. What He says, He will do. It may not be in our time or our way, but God is God and we do Him great injustice to try to confine Him to the little box of our understanding and human comprehension. 2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.”
As we pursue what God has for us and as He proclaims in 2 Peter 1:3-4, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires,” lay hold of your inheritance with faith, confidence and thanksgiving. God is true to His Word and what He has promised He will bring to pass. Philippians 4:4-7 gives us the proper basis of how to approach the Lord for our needs: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Let us magnify the Lord for His faithfulness as we walk this walk of faith, for He does all things after the counsel of His will and not ours. What God has promised and what the Spirit, has truly spoken into your hearts, He will bring to pass in its season. Meanwhile, rejoice and be glad in Him, giving thanks and counting as already done that which He has faithfully promised.
Blessings,
#kent
Entering into His Rest
September 18, 2015
Hebrews 4: 1-11
1Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. 2For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. 3Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,
“So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ” And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world. 4For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “And on the seventh day God rested from all his work.” 5And again in the passage above he says, “They shall never enter my rest.”
6It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience. 7Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before:
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” 8For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. 9There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. 11Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.
Entering into His Rest
The Word teaches us that when God lead the people of Israel out of Egypt they wandered in the wilderness for forty years because they tested, quarreled and doubted the Lord even after all that He had done and shown them. What’s more, Hebrews 4 tells us that even after Joshua led the people through the river Jordan and into the Promise Land they still never truly entered into the Sabbath rest even though they had instituted the Sabbath.
The Sabbath first came into being after God had brought forth creation in six days and it says in Genesis 2:2-3 “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” It is God’s desire that we now enter into the rest of the Lord. We are told that those who went before us didn’t enter into this rest because of disobedience. That Sabbath rest is a holy place and it is not found in the realm of natural doing and thinking. It is entered into not by the will of the flesh or the will of a man but by the Spirit through faith. We must first believe that He is. We must receive that He is the completion of all things in our lives and in our spiritual transformation. Many of us are still striving within our means and abilities to please God and curry His favor. His favor is already ours in Christ. Christ is the Holy rest that we are to enter into. He has finished the work. He has imparted His righteousness and salvation to us, now it is ours to rest in it. If we are still working to earn His favor, if are still living under condemnation and sin, if we still think that somehow we must get good enough for Him to receive us then we have missed the rest of God. The rest of God, His holy Sabbath, is when we cease and He begins. The rest of God is the relinquishment of our self and our self-efforts. It is that place where God is our all in all. We walk by faith and not by sight. We see our world through the promises and the heart of the Father. Our obedience and submission is to walk in the light of that Truth.
We will be challenged and tested even as Israel of old was, but will we murmur and complain? Will we rebel and be dissuaded from Him by our natural circumstances? Will we forget our covenant with Him, stray from Him and enter back into that place He died to deliver us out of? If disobedience causes us to fall away from the rest then it only seems logical that trust and obedience are the attributes that lead us into that rest.
We are called not to make the same mistakes as our predecessors. God has again led us into the Promise Land of Christ Jesus so that we might enter into His rest, ceasing from our efforts as we embrace all that He is and all that He has already done. As we enter into that rest the Holy Spirit will be at work in us discerning and showing us our true hearts and motives. He doesn’t do this to condemn us, but to show us the obstacles that are standing in the way of our rest. As we are willing to relinquish these things to Him then His rest will continue to fill our lives. We have a High Priest in Christ who has walked before us and experienced our weaknesses and our temptation. He is interceding on our behalf. Because we are now in Christ through our faith and trust in Him we can come boldly before the throne of grace and experience that rest that is now ours in Him.
Blessings,
#kent
Those Who can Hear
September 17, 2015
Luke 19:41-44
As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
Those Who can Hear
This morning as I read these words I saw how they will apply to the Christian religion like they did to Jerusalem. The Christian religion is often the Saul that seeks to kill their David and the Jews that kill their Messiah. They call good evil and evil good. They have their established path and doctrine and they so often dogmatically refuse to move from it, truth or not. Many in this hour are catching the vision of how God is taking so many out of a dead form that has been largely shaped and molded by the ideologies and agendas of men with enough truth and Jesus to make it look of God. God is saying this is time for the former things to pass away that all things may become new. God is no longer in our temples made with stone. That is not to say that there are not precious saints still within their walls. It grieved the heart of Jesus because when He saw what was to come upon Jerusalem and because He was their peace and He was hidden from their eyes as a whole. He saw and prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem because it represented the former covenant that was passing away that the NEW covenant might come in. This parallels much of what is happening in this day when many in the throes of the Christian religion fail to see that this is the day of the Kingdom. As Christ is ushering in His Kingdom through a people who are learning their identity in Him, there will be those in Christianity who will be jealous, envious and will rise up to resist this coming move of God. Just as the Jews, as a whole, missed the Messiah many who regard themselves as Christians will miss Him again.
The word of the Lord is going forth to all those who have an ear to hear. It is not your theology of the rapture that will save you, it is your entering into Him now. His presence is already here in such a powerful way moving among those He is raising us up in this hour. Many are looking up into the heavens and into the outward realms for Christ to come and Jesus says what so many fail to hear in Luke 17:20-21, “Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, 21nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.” Many will miss the coming kingdom because they are looking in the wrong place and are still focused on the outward.
Even now these words will be hard for many to hear. Your safety is not in the walls and gates of Jerusalem or the walls of your theology and religion. Your safety is in the mighty fortress of your God and in the power of His Spirit life within you. You must learn where His hiding place is for you and what it is to be hidden under the shadow of His wing. You will find it in the rest of God, not in religious works and efforts. The only one that will bring us peace and safety is Christ and the intimate relationship of knowing Him. He gave warning to the people that truly knew Him and rescued them out of Jerusalem before destruction came, but those who put their confidence in the walls and bulwarks of their tradition and religion that they thought God would protect, found that which they had built and relied upon utterly torn down and destroyed with not one stone left standing upon another. If you are resting and trusting upon the walls of your Christian religion, denominations and traditions you may well perish with them for the Kingdom of God is being ushered in and the former things are passing away with violence.
Hear the Word of the Lord in Luke 13:34, “”O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! 35Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'” So it is in this day and this hour. Hear what the Spirit of the Lord is speaking!
Blessings,
#kent
Coming into the Light
September 16, 2015
Coming into the Light
John 12:44-50
44Then Jesus cried out, “When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. 45When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. 46I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.
47″As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. 48There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day. 49For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. 50I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”
When we see and comprehend Jesus as the Son of God, that understanding brings spiritual light and illumination. We have before us a pathway of light that we might walk into and take on the nature of that light. Many who have seen Jesus have seen a great light. They even acknowledge that He is that light of God that is come into the world. Many of them sit in church every Sunday and while they acknowledge the light they still abide in darkness.
We can see the lights of a great city from a great distance. We can acknowledge that it is a city and we may even admire it, but until we move there and abide there we are not citizens of that city. Many who acknowledge Christ miss this point. We are not children of God by mere association and agreement with Truth. We must come into Truth and have our residence and being in that place.
If we simply hear the words of Jesus and the gospel, but they never really become a part of who we are and part of our nature then it will be the very Word that we said that we agreed with that shall judge us. When we are truly born again of Spirit, we are no longer trying to be holy or spiritual by association, we are holy and spiritual because we have embraced the Light by faith and asked Him to come into our hearts. Now we are to be the expression of the Light that burns within us. We abide in the truth and in the Word of God because that is now who we are. As the children of Light we must continually exercise the Light of God’s Truth so that we are conformed to the same nature as the Light that we possess. God has called us to be the Light of our world and to be the expression of His truth before men. Our obedience to the Word of God is our abiding in the truth and the light. Faith embraces it and obedience brings it into substance.
Are we abiding in the Light? We can be all around the Light, but until we become the vessel of the Light we abide in darkness. The Light glorifies the Father and acknowledges Him in all of its ways. For He is the source, the generator, the dynamo of all that is Light and Truth. All that embrace God’s light and power will put away the works of darkness and come into conformity with the Light.
Blessings,
#kent