You are a Person of Destiny

Romans 8:28

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

 

You are a Person of Destiny

 

God’s love has many facets and forms of expressions.  Some of them we love and some of them we don’t fully understand.  Through all of the elements of His love one principle holds true, all things are working for our good if we are among those that love Him.  If we love Him it is because we have been called according to His purpose.  In His purpose we have a destiny.  The thing that we must understand about destiny is that it requires us to reach a destination.  God has not promised us an easy road to that destination, even Jesus said, “in the world you will have tribulation.”  Who is a better example of this than Jesus is?  From the time of His birth satan sought to destroy Him.  In natural life He was not a child of privilege and in His ministry He continually faced those who sought to undermine and destroy Him.  Even in the end we see that He endured the cross, despising the shame.  Could we ever say that the Father did not love Him?  There was no greater love; yet through His natural life He endured hardships and difficulty.  Should we expect something different?

What is our destiny?  Romans 8: 29-30 goes on to say, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”  Our destiny is to be conformed to the likeness of the Son of God who went before us.  Christ is our destiny. Even now that destiny is at work in our lives.   Day by day, as we walk with Him and in Him, we see His grace operating in our lives even through difficult circumstances.

The enemy’s job and purpose is to rob you of your destiny and to turn you off course.  His mission is destruction and death.  This is why it is so important to know who we are in the love of the Father and what our destiny and purpose are.  We learn not to be distracted by the chaos, calamity and circumstances that present themselves contrary to our purpose.  Our eyes and heart must be fixed upon Him.  Financial meltdown is going on all around us, but God’s economy is unaffected, because it is not of this world.  What you have invested in His bank is safe; moth and corruption cannot touch it.  Many of us are facing difficult times, but our daddy is God and He can sustain us.  In all that is coming upon this world it is critical that we keep our focus and not take our eyes off of the Lord.  He does love us.  He does care for us and He is operating in our best interest.

Romans 8:31-39 concludes by saying, “What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Even as the Father has loved the Son, He so loves us.

Beware of the distractions that will come at you.  Watch that doubt and fear have no entrance.   Set your face as flint upon the One who will bring us through.  We are not here to escape our tribulations but to walk through them and overcome them in Christ Jesus.  Meditate always on what you have in Christ and who He is in you.  You a person of destiny.

blessings,

#kent

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Why we should be Thankful

Romans 10:19

But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by [them that are] no people, [and] by a foolish nation I will anger you.

Why we should be Thankful

Some nearly four hundred years ago God led a small handful of people out of the religious oppression and intolerance of Europe to a new land, unfounded and virtually uninhabited by the civilized world of that day.  These people possessed within their spirits a calling and a mandate of God to come out from among the religious beast of Europe that proclaimed its self to be Christianity.  They stepped out in the faith of God, forsaking all to become the pilgrims that we remember as the founders of our nation.  This little handful of people, who were no people in the eyes of the world, they heard a calling to a promise land that flowed with milk and honey.  A place where they could worship in the manner that they chose without fear of reprisals.  Here they could be true to themselves and to God.  It was this kind people with which our God founded this great nation we live in today called the United States.  If any ever doubts that there is a God or that He was the One who was at work to bring forth this great country, let them follow the true history and accounts that took place when this country was formed and through its growth, even till today.  All that we are and all that we enjoy is only due to the sovereignty, goodness, mercy and the blessings of God. 

How it must grieve Him that now we have laws that we can destroy our unwanted children, laws that prohibit our teachers from teaching the truth of God in public schools, that deny God as the Creator and forbid His Word from being read, along with the freedom to openly pray.  We have tolerated those who would strike His name from every public place and have courts that will not even allow the display of His commandments.  What kind of religious freedom is this that tolerates every other religion being taught about in our public schools except the one true gospel?  What spirit have we allowed to come in that has blinded the hearts and minds of so many and even we, His people, have become complacent and lethargic? 

These early pilgrims gave their very lives to establish a precedent of religious freedom.  Even when the captain of the Mayflower offered to take them back to England, not one of them would go, even in the face of such great adversity and loss.  They counted Him faithful who had called them out of darkness and brought them into the light.  It didn’t come without great sacrifice and loss.  Many of us don’t really think about or really appreciate all the sacrifice of so many throughout the history of this country that has sustained its freedoms and liberties. 

Let us remember our heritage and how we that were no people, God has made us a great people with blessings like none other upon the earth.  He has taken that which was nothing and has made it something.  He has taken the weak and made them strong.  He has taken the poor and made them rich.  Great is the Lord!

God, please forgive us when we take so much that You have done for us for granted.  Help us to truly acknowledge You and truly give thanks from the depths our heart and soul.  We are a blessed people and You are the reason for that blessing.

 

Blessings,

#kent

Our Pleasure is in the Lord

Our Pleasure is in the Lord

Psalms 16:5-11

LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. 6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. 7 I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. 8 I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, 10 because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. 11 You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

The Psalmist declares, “You have made known to me the path of life, in the presence of the Lord there is fullness of joy and at thy right hand pleasures for evermore.”  What a wonderfully secure and precious place the redeemed have found in Christ.  Though the earthly realms and kingdoms are falling down around us, though outwardly we may face peril, adversity and death, what a security and peace we have in knowing who and what we are in Christ.  We know that He will not abandon us to the grave.  We know that He is our resurrection and our life, through faith in Christ we are eternally bound to Him.  One of the greatest basic needs that a person has in their lives is the need for security.  We all want to know and live in that safe place where we are not threatened and we have something and someone that we can count on, that will always be there for us.  Someone who will never leave us of forsake us.  That is what we have found in Christ.  He is our security and our strong fortress.  He is our shield and our buckler.  Whatever life throws at us and whatever trials come we know that our reliance, our final hope and confidence is in Him.  Everything else around us may fail, but He won’t fail.  Everyone else around us may desert us, but He will stand by us. 

The Apostle Paul relates this steadfast confidence and the Lord’s faithfulness in 2Timothy 4:16-18, “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all [men] forsook me: [I pray God] that it may not be laid to their charge. ¶ Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and [that] all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve [me] unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom [be] glory for ever and ever. Amen.”  We can hopefully see why our identification with Christ is so powerful and must be so strong.  Our identity is in Him and not in the weakness, frailties and failures of our flesh.  All that we truly are, all that we hope for and walk in faith in, is realized in Christ.  He is our foundational and unmovable rock. 

We are not going to always understand all of God’s ways or why some things happen as they do, but that must never deter us from knowing Him as our life and eternal security.  The greatest undertaking of the enemy is to rock our boat and to bring about circumstances that will undermine our faith and cause us to forsake it.  What we know is that God never fails.  Our perceptions of God may not always hold water, but that doesn’t mean that He has failed.  He is still sovereign upon His throne and He still holds the whole world in His hands.  What I do know is that in the presence of the Lord there is fullness of joy and that is why I want to spend a lot of time in His presence.  At His right hand are pleasures for evermore.  There is no greater pleasure in life than to be walking in the perfect will of God for you.  In that place you will have fulfillment, contentment, peace and joy.  You will find the pleasure that the world can not offer.  The world’s pleasures are temporal and fleeting.  So many of them only lead to a hollow life full of darkness and despair, but not so with the Lord’s pleasures.  They lead to life, liberty and fullness of joy. 

The apostle Paul says it so wonderfully in Romans 8:28-39, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. 31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Your life is secure in Him.

 

Blessings,

#kent

The Choice of Forgiveness

The Choice of Forgiveness

Matthew 6:14-15

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses

Forgiveness is only a gift and a pardon that can be given by the offended.  Through the course of our lives all of us have been offenders wherein we have hurt or wounded another in some capacity.  All of us have been the offended wherein we have been hurt or wounded by another in some capacity.  I guess we could define forgiveness as the act of releasing pardon to someone who has offended, even though they may not deserve it.  It is saying, “I no longer hold this offense to your charge, you are released, it is put away and we go on from here with a clean slate.” 

We know through God’s Word, our conscience bearing us witness, that we have all sinned and offended our God and creator, not just once, but many times over.  As Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”  God through His great wisdom and love has desired and made a way to release His forgiveness toward us for our offenses.  We have come to know Christ and His cross as the means through which God has forgiven us and released us from the curse and judgement of sin.  As Romans 5:8 says, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  So God is our example of forgiveness and when He forgives what does that mean?  In Jeremiah 31:34 the Words says, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”  Hebrew 8:12 and 10:7 both say, “And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.”  Often we hear the phrase,  “I’ll forgive, but I can’t or won’t forget.”  According to the Word is that true forgiveness? 

Jesus has made a strong statement in Matthew 6 in that He tells us that we must forgive to be forgiven.  Our forgiveness of others releases forgiveness to us. 

Right now, there are those of us who are really wrestling with forgiving.  Someone has hurt and wounded us deeply.  It is very painful and when we think upon it makes us very angry with the person who has done this.  Can we just forget it and pretend it didn’t happen?  No, it is very real and after all we are the victim here not the perpetrator.  While a victim doesn’t deserve the hurt they receive it does become their responsibility to heal and recover from that injury.  If someone shoots me and I am wounded, they can’t heal me and cause me to recover; only I can do that.  Often it has a great deal to do with time.  It often takes time to work through emotional as well as physical pain and suffering.  Realistically, when some has deeply hurt us, we can’t just say, ” I forgive you” and then just forget it.  The memory is too raw and the wound is too fresh.  This is where we operate out of a higher principle than our emotions and feelings.  We act out of our will by faith.   We make a choice to forgive, not because we feel it, but because it is the mind and will of God.  We know that we could have never deserved God’s forgiveness and yet He provided it for us.  If we choose to hold on to unforgiveness then we place a roadblock to God’s forgiving us.  We have a break in our relationship and fellowship with Him that is never worth holding on too.  When we hold on we give place to a root of bitterness that will trouble us and can defile the many (Hebrews 12:15).

Peter asks Jesus one time in Matthew 18:21-22, “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?  Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” Jesus spoke of a divine principle of Jubilee wherein we operate out of a spirit of release and forgiveness of debts and offenses.   It doesn’t have limitations.  Even as God has forgiven us as often as we have repented and turned to Him, we must operate out of the same principle toward others.  When Jesus hung on the cross, some of His last words were, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Today, if you are struggling to forgive, give it to the Lord.  Make it an act of obedience to Him.  It may help to write down on paper all the offenses and hurts you are feeling and then, in faith, by choosing obedience to the Lord, act out of His love and burn those hurts and offenses.  Let them go and in essence remember them no more that you can be set free, even as you have set your offender free.   What God has done for us in great measure, forgiving us much, we must do for others in smaller measure, forgiving and releasing them of their offenses.

 

Blessings,

#kent

Our Hopes and Dreams

Proverbs 13: 12

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but [when] the desire cometh, [it is] a tree of life.

Our Hopes and Dreams

Part of life and living is having hopes and dreams.  We hope for a happy life.  We hope for health and wealth.  We hope for our children.  We hope for a lot of things, but there are those special hopes and dreams we hope to accomplish and see come true.  These hopes are the elements of our faith.  In faith we believe.  Our faith in Christ leads us to live in hope till we realize by faith the promises we have in Christ Jesus.  If we take all hope from a person, we take away their desire and reason for living.  The reason for life is predicated on hope. 

As a people in Christ, our primary hope and faith is planted in Him.  We base our life on that hope.  Yet within that hope we have in Christ we still have our personal hopes and dreams.  The difference between the world and us is that we want to filter our hopes, aspirations and dreams through the will of the Father for our lives.  Everything we might hope for and dream for might not be according to the will and purpose of the Father.  We might see every reason in the “world” why they should be, but again, it is His will and purpose that is foremost.  So we commit all of our ways, our hopes and our dreams unto Him.  Sometimes we see our dreams and our hopes fulfilled and sometimes we don’t.  Even with our disappointments should come the solace that the Lord is our greatest hope and He will order our steps if we acknowledge Him in all of our ways. 

We can make the mistake of holding on to our hopes and dreams even when God says “no” or sometimes we in the fervency of realizing our hopes and dreams will try and help God out like Abraham and Sarah did.  Then we just end up creating an Ishmael, a work of our flesh and doing.

No matter how great our hope or dream, it is important that it not become our idol and that which we place above the Lord.  In all of our ways we must remain subject and obedient unto Him. 

Have your hopes and have your dreams, but allow the Lord to be Lord of all.

 

Blessings,

#kent

The Light before Me

Psalms 119:105

Thy word [is] a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

The Light before Me

This morning, it was before dawn that I was on a little run.  As I turned the corner and headed up the street, straight before me, in the distance on a hill was the lighted steeple of a church.  Immediately I thought of that scripture in Philippians 3:13-14, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but [this] one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”  I thought this is so symbolic of our journey through life.  As I ran on and started up a hill, my breathing became more frequent and heavy as I felt the strain.  Again, I thought how the Lord is with us each step of the way.  We must keep Him as the lamp for our feet and the light unto our path so that we will not stumble, falter or fail in our course.  He is the One who is the inner strength in those times when we are pulling the hills of life and things are hard.  Sometimes we are breathless and we feel we can’t keep going, but we turn within and draw our strength from the Lord.  We tap into that life and source that is not of our flesh, but which is our strength to take us where we could not reach. 

Raise your head and see that beacon on the hill before you.  That is Mount Zion, the city of our God and King.  Keep running, don’t quit, He is the power and life to bring you to your destination.  Our journey is the preparation for what He is bringing us into.

“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform [it] until the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)”

 

blessings,

#kent

Moral Compass

 

Ephesians 4:17-24

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

20You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. 21Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Moral Compass

Sin and the passions of our flesh distort and corrupt our moral compass.  It is like putting a magnet near a compass, it can pull and distort the true direction of where we are heading.  It causes us to loose our bearings, our right ways of thinking and then it causes us to loose our way.  Our understanding, meditation and the implementation of God’s Word into our life are what keep us in the path of the upright and the righteous.  It imparts unto us the ways of wisdom and life.  We see more clearly from God’s heart and perspective.  When our heart is drawn away in sin and vanity, which here is defined as “devoid of truth and appropriateness, perverseness and depravity”, it darkens our heart to God’s light.  It clouds our understanding of God and His ways and then separates us from the life of God, because of the ignorance that comes through the hardening of one’s heart by sin. 

We are exhorted that this is not the way we were taught in Christ or how we came to know Him.  We were enlightened and brought into the light through the knowledge of Christ, through the repentance from sin and through our commitment to live unto Him.  Following the weakness of our sinful passions causes us to loose our sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and the conviction that brings us to repent of our sins.  We begin to habitually shut out the voice of God and His Word in our hearts till our hearts have become hardened and our spiritual ears deaf so that we no longer have the moral compass of God’s Word and Spirit directing our lives.  Instead we have changed our heading and started down another course that leads us to greater depravity, sensuality and impurity.  This lasciviousness has become the direction of our hearts.  The more we have fed this monster of our lust the more it has grown till we are no longer our own, but we are now the slaves of our own impurity and depravity. 

I watched a TV program the other day, which I think is a part of Dateline, called “Predators”.  It was about a sting operation that was set up on the Internet to catch sexual predators.  Then it filmed these people coming to a house where they thought they we meeting some child for sex.  The commentator who confronts them with the transcripts of their Internet chats then confronts them and he asks them about their motives.  Some of the men caught in this were rabbis, teachers and such.  They sat there realizing that their life was over, as they had known it.  There sin and depravity had caught up with them and now they were exposed for what they were.  One person said, “ You know, I am almost glad that I was caught, because my life was out of control.”  That is where the depravity of our sin and lust can take us.  Before we judge someone else we had better start with our own hearts.  It is God’s grace that keeps us from the snares and the pitfalls of our sin. 

Perhaps some of us are loosing or have lost our moral compass.  We need to find our way back to who we are in Christ.  God doesn’t stop loving us, even when we get caught up in sin, but if we continue the consequences will follow. If we find ourselves too weak to get free, then find those to whom we can make ourselves accountable too.  Men, find a brother or ladies, another sister that will pray with you and hold you accountable in your life.  There are times our passions and lust can become stronger than we are to deal with them and we need help.  We need the body of Christ to come along side of us and help us “to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”  Only we can make the decision to get back on course and again find our moral compass.

 

Blessings,

#kent

A Healthy Spirit

 

A Healthy Spirit

Proverbs 18:14

A man’s spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?

The true life of an individual is contained in their spirit.  The spirit is the center of hope, faith and the reason for living.  A healthy spirit is one that is broken and contrite before God, but whole and mighty concerning the adversities and trials of life. 

Psalms 51:17 says, “The sacrifices of God [are] a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”  The full humility and submission of our spirit toward the Lord is the sacrifice that He will not despise.  In that condition we are in alignment and submission to His will and purpose in our lives.  We have positioned ourselves to be reliant upon His strength and live out of the hope and faith we have in Him.  

On the other hand there is a broken spirit that is not good and is the most detrimental to our health and our life.  Psalms 17:22 says, “A merry heart doeth good [like] a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.”  A merry and joyful heart is like a medicine.  It proceeds out of a spirit and heart that is rejoicing and has found joy in the Lord in spite of circumstances that might dictate that it feels to the contrary.  That joy and merriment is an expression of faith, not necessarily of feelings, because our heart has its hope and confidence in the Lord.  Proverbs 15:13 says, “A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.”  We can go through almost anything as long as spirit is healthy and our hope and confidence remain in the Lord.  Our greatest danger, even over physical or mental illness is when our spirit becomes unhealthy and broken.  Our spirit is our lifeline to God.  It is the medium by which we communicate and maintain relationship with the Almighty.  When our spirit becomes broken then the physical man will dry up as well.  The power cord of our life is maintained through our spirit.  When the conduit and conductor of our life becomes interrupted or broken then we are running on batteries and true life is ebbing away.  It is through our spirit that faith is generated and hope is maintained.  There are times in our lives that circumstances can be so overwhelming that our spirit can be crushed with grief and despair.  We can lose our hope and even our desire to live ceases.  What strikes me in Proverbs 18 is that it is our spirit that sustains us in sickness.  There are many trials in life, including sickness, that can come in like a flood and overwhelm us with a sense of hopelessness and despondency. 

I am reminded of the disciples who were crossing the Sea of Galilee when they were caught up in a terrible storm that threatened their very lives, while Jesus lie sleeping in the bottom of the boat.  They had come to the end of themselves and hope was leaving them when they awoke Jesus.  Luke 8: 24-25 says, “And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm. And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.”  When our spirit becomes broken our faith leaves us.  When we lose faith, we lose hope.  Faith and Hope are always right there in the boat with us in the person of Christ.  He says He will never leave us or forsake us, but He doesn’t tell us that we won’t feel that way.  That is how the disciples felt in that storm.  They felt helpless, afraid and were losing hope when all the while the Author of Life itself was resting in the hull of their boat.  Is any storm or adversity in life greater than He who is the Lord and Master over the winds and the water?  If we perish, we perish, but we must never allow our spirit to remain broken.  When life is overwhelming and it feels as if all hope is gone, allow your spirit to crawl up in DADDY’s lap, hold fast to Him with all of the strength of your being until your storm passes over. 

Proverbs 18:10 says, “The name of the LORD [is] a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.”  Allow the name of the Lord to be the strong tower that protects your spirit from becoming broken.  It is your steadfast faith in Him that will keep your spirit from being broken in those most difficult of times.   Remember what Colossians 3:3 says, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”  You have already died to this outward life, so don’t allow it to rob you of the inward life that is hid with Christ in God.  Maintain a healthy spirit that you might live in hope and in faith.

 

Blessings,

#kent

Be Angry and Sin Not

Be Angry and Sin Not

Ephesians 4:26-27

Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.

 

Anger is a God given emotion.  While it is not a sin to be angry, it carries with it the potential for sin.  On the other hand it can be an emotion that motivates us out of a place of passivity and complacency.  Any emotion or feeling we give place to has the potential to lead to sin if it is not brought under the control of the Holy Spirit within us.  Most all of us are aware of what uncontrolled anger can do and the harm it can cause both emotionally and physically.  Many marriages are broken and people reside in prison as a result of anger.  The Word of God gives us some insight into the right place of anger through the example of Jesus when he saw the misuse and abuse of the temple of the Lord by the money- changers.  He saw the greed and corruption at work in the Temple, which was to be a place that was to bring relationship and connection with God.  Jesus didn’t just immediately fly off the handle.  He took the time to make a whip of cords to be the instrument of His wrath to drive the moneychangers out of the temple. His anger had a purpose and was God directed. (John 2:14-17 “And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting.   And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.  And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up”)  We often think of Jesus as just being a man of love and compassion, but there was another side of Jesus that didn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, hypocrisy and abuse of others.  There was a holy anger and zeal of God that rose up in Jesus against such things.  It is this kind of anger that often rises up in God’s people to bring about change in lawful ways.

What about the issues of anger that we may deal with on a daily basis?  They may not be so noble in their cause.  Anger can not always just be ignored or repressed.  That can just place more powder in a powder keg that will one day result in even more extreme consequences if we don’t deal with it.  At the same time anger can’t just be reacted too unchecked.  It should be filtered through the Spirit within us to judge our motives in each circumstance as it arises.  While anger may arise at times and can actually cause us to deal with and address issues that we may otherwise avoid, the scripture says it is not something we want to hold on too.  The Word gives us about a day to deal with it.  But it tells us if it is still there when the sun goes down it is time to let it go.  Anger held onto becomes unforgiveness.  Unforgiveness removes us from right relationship with God and blocks the flow of His forgiveness to us.

The spirit of anger and wrath is a fruit of the flesh and not the Spirit and cannot be given place in our hearts because it is sin. (Ephesians 4:31″Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: “)  The theme of the passage in Ephesians 4 that addresses the subject of anger is primarily about being renewed in the spirit of our minds.  While we have emotions, they cannot rule us.  The Spirit and the peace of God must rule in our hearts.  The former areas of emotion and sin that ruled us must do so no longer.  Now we put off these former attitudes and behaviors as we put on Christ and that mind that is in Him.

 

Blessings,

#kent

The Treasures We have in Christ

The Treasures We have in Christ

Galatians 6:9

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

Oh the treasures and the riches that are ours in Christ.  How richly our Lord favors us with His love and blessing.  How often I take for granted how immeasurably rich I am in Him.  It is not because things always go right or because I am wealthy beyond measure or that I don’t have any trials, tribulations or troubles, it because He is, “I AM.”  “I AM” is with you always, through everything and in every need.  “I AM”, is not our magic wand or “get out of jail free” card, but He is always there for us.  His presence and grace are sufficient for every need and trial.   He is there for us, not always to deliver us in a miraculous ways, although that is certainly always within His power and discretion, but to empower us in spiritual flight. He is there to bear us up on eagle’s wings above our life’s storms and to give us vision to see beyond the storm into the peace of a new day. 

Even when I can’t love myself, He loves me.  When sin and shame would cause me to turn and run from Him; He is the glory and the lifter of my head.  He washes me in the water of His Word and cleanses my sin with His blood.  Oh, what a friend I have in Jesus, my Savior forever.  How blessed and highly favored we are in Christ, for He has separated us from the nations and made us a holy nation unto Himself.  He corrects us, patiently loves us and writes His precious ways upon the tablets of our hearts.  Oh the extravagant love of the Father towards us and the tender and extreme love of Jesus.  Who can comprehend the love of Christ, that would experience such suffering and death for us when we were but enemies and aliens to Him, yet with the sacrifice of His own life and shed blood He has reconciled us to Himself. 

God forbid that we should neglect or take for granted so great a salvation as this.  Oh, the riches of His love and the great things He has prepared for those who love Him and embrace Him.  This life’s afflictions and trials are but for a brief moment and should only serve to prepare us for the great things that He is bestowing upon those who love Him and keep His ways.  “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” 

Take heart when life is difficult.  You are not alone.  In the storms, press into the inner sanctuaries of His presence.  Meet with Him in the temple of your spirit.  You are exceeding rich and well favored, but gold hidden in the earth is often not perceived by others and too often, not even by us.  Just know that His treasure is stored in earthen vessels and you are such a vessel.  You are a portion of the riches that are hidden in Christ Jesus.

 

Blessings,

#kent