Your Treasure
January 9, 2015
Matthew 6:19-21
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Your Treasure
The true joy in life is not in what you possess, but in Who you possess. The true blessings in life are not in storing up possessions, but in sharing the treasure of Who you possess within. If Christ is the treasure of your storehouse then the depth of your being is determined by where you live from. The more you share out of the treasure and storehouse of who you are in Christ, the more incorruptible treasure that is added to your account. What you value most, is what your heart pursues.
As human beings living in this world we are often short-sighted and short-circuited into believing that the pursuit of earthly gain equals security, joy, happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction and all of those emotions that we believe we will find at the end of our rainbow. In reality, what we find, is that this is as much of a myth as the pot of gold.
When you check out at the grocery store and you see all of the tabloids. There are stories of the rich and famous, but I don’t read or see stories about their joy and deep fulfillment. These are the people that are where most of us think we would want to be, but without Christ it is all empty vanity. In so many ways, you who have Christ, are so much richer than any of them. You can find in Christ all of the things the world is pursuing by natural means. The wonderful thing is that it is not through all of our works, efforts and scheming. It is not even through our goodness, talents or abilities. It is all about faith and resting in the arms of Him who desires to give it all to you. I have found a truth in my life that the more I put Him first, the less I lack. I found that He is my sufficiency, my provision, my healer, my Redeemer and the greatest friend I could ever imagine. I don’t get up and pray early in the morning because I have too, I do it because I love hanging out with Jesus and being in His presence. I love sharing my heart with Him and asking Him to share His heart with me. I love the things He shows me and the words He gives to me as I just trust Him. I can never brag about what I have, my abilities, my belongings, my gifting, my writings, because it isn’t mine to brag about. All that I have, I owe to Him. He is my treasure and life is so rich because He is in the center of it. When we truly find Christ and our relationship with Him, then we understand we don’t have to value what the world values, because our treasure is so much richer, rewarding and fulfilling.
What the world doesn’t so often see is what Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 4:7-12, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. 12So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” God doesn’t promise us an easy life, but a life that often crushes the grapes of our natal man to produce the sweet wine of His life. That crushes the petals of our rose, to release the fragrance of His life within us.
In Christ we are not given to the natural affections and desires of this world, we have been transformed to dwell in the heavenly realms and part of that is allowing the natural to be touched so that the heavenly can be released. Let us never lose sight of who we are, where we are and where our true treasure is; for through your life and mine are released into the earth the treasures of heaven. The world is a richer place because we are in it and Christ is in us.
Blessings,
#kent
The Secret of the Kingdom
November 7, 2014
Mark 4:10-12
When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. 11He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12so that, “‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”
The Secret of the Kingdom
Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables which were stories of word pictures that carried within them kingdom truth. Now to many in the multitude they either didn’t understand or they may have just caught the natural understanding of what was being said. What Jesus was telling His disciples is that these parables carry kingdom mysteries and truths that are meant to be revealed by the Holy Spirit to true believers and followers of Christ. As we come to an understanding and revelation of kingdom truth it is to teach us how to live out of that truth and not what we see in the world. The blind follow the blind, but those who have spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear, pursue the truth that the Spirit wants to reveal and not just what their natural mind perceives.
What I believe Jesus was saying is that a lot of what He was sharing wouldn’t make a lot of sense or have a lot of meaning unless you have a real heart for the kingdom and the truth that is contained in these parables. A lot of us, through personal revelation or the teaching, we have heard through the years have some grasp of the these kingdom truths that Jesus spoke. What He spoke for His people to really hear was how to change your paradigm and thinking from the worldly culture you have grown up in to the heavenly culture of the kingdom. The secrets of the kingdom are keys for transformation from what we have been, into what we have been called to be. Many of us hear, but don’t put into practice what Christ taught. They just remain noble ideas, but they fail to transform our culture and paradigm because we haven’t become kingdom minded.
Jesus expresses it well in His parable in Matthew 7:24-27, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
Kingdom building in our lives establishes Jesus Christ as the foundational rock upon which all of our life values, principles and cultures are built. Many will sit in church or hear the messages of the kingdom and give mental ascent, but fail to put into practice these truths. What Jesus is saying is, ‘it is not what you hear and agree with as being truth that makes you wise, it what you begin to apply and walk in that builds the kingdom in you. God’s kingdom can not be moved, but every pretense of it will be washed away. That is the foundation of sand. Sand is believing something in your heart, but never acting upon it to cement it into your life. This is where many “so called” Christians are deceived. They acknowledged the reality and truth of Christ, but denied the power of its life changing ability within them, by only coming and hearing, but not putting it into practice.
The secret of the kingdom is stepping into what you know with the grace, the power and direction of the Holy Spirit. Christ in you is not just in word, but it is in power, love and a faithful walking into kingdom truth.
Blessings,
#kent
Dressing with Your True Identity
April 4, 2014
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.
Dressing with Your True Identity
A young boy had grown up into manhood in poverty. He had never had enough to eat. He only had dirty rags for clothes to wear and was dirty and smelly from lack of hygiene. He was always looked down upon by others. When given the opportunity he would always take and horde whatever he could get because of his constant want. He learned to talk rough and hold his own in world. He even sometimes would steal when no one was looking. He had no father, no real mentor or example but the world and the school of hard knocks to teach him how to survive. All he had was an orphan spirit.
This young man would travel by catching freight trains and bummed around the country. One day he encountered a man in which he saw such love as he had never seen before and when this man looked upon him, he didn’t see him with disdain and judgement, but with love and compassion. This man took the young man to his home. He offered to adopt this young man and provide him with the opportunity for education. He offered to feed, cloth and house him, but even more importantly to bring him into relationship as a member of his family and home. The young man was overwhelmed by the man’s generosity and had such feelings of unworthiness to be brought into such a home and adopted as a son.
One of the first things the man to taught him was to bath and use proper hygiene. He gave him cleaned and pressed suits and garments to wear and began to educate him as an investment banker.
While the young man was very grateful for all that this generous patriarch offered him, he was still prone to want to put on the old dirty rags and go hang out around the railroad tracks and the slum areas. When he did he would tend to hang around the old crowd, drinking and cursing and living his old life.
His new found father set him down one day and shared with him that he could not maintain two identities. “Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” Every day you have to get up and dress with the identity of who you truly are. If you don’t acknowledge daily your true identity and dress accordingly you will soon find yourself slipping back into the identity of who you were, not who you are. That former life has to be gone with all of its attitudes and ways. It represents the antithesis or direct contradiction of what you now are. The old filthy rags have to be burned and your back turned to that former way of life. Even more importantly is to start your day dressing in the identity of who you now are and confessing what you now have. That old way only brought you misery and destruction, but “I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).” “Be made new in the attitude of your mind; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” It is in the attitude of the mind that battles are fought and won or lost. The former ways have no place now in who you are, but only you can daily dress your attitudes with the identity of who you truly are.
“By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. (1 John 4:17).”
Blessings,
#kent
Why did Jesus Weep?
December 11, 2012
John 11:35
Jesus wept
Why did Jesus Weep?
Well before we can answer that question we need some background about what has taken place. We need to read John 11 to get the context of what has taken place. Briefly we will summarize, but there is so much here I fear we do an injustice in doing so. Many of you are familiar with the story that Larazus, the brother of Mary and Martha of Bethany, had fallen sick. They were all close friends with Jesus. Mary and Martha had sent a messenger to Jesus saying, “Lord, him you love (so well) is sick.” When he says sick, he is not talking a head cold, he is talking as in sick unto death. Jesus then says, “This sickness is not to end in death; but [on the contrary] it is to honor God and to promote His glory, that the Son of God may be glorified through (by) it.” So even though is it says Jesus loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus dearly, he staid where He was for two more days before traveling to Bethany. Now Jesus finally tells His disciples plainly that Lazarus is dead, but then He says this, “And for your sake I am glad that I was not there; it will help you to believe (to trust and rely on Me). However, let us go to him.” When He gets there He finds a mournful scene as Lazarus has died and He meets up with Martha who has heard He is coming.
Now you can imagine the feelings that Mary, Martha and the rest are going through. They know who Jesus is as the Messiah, they know He has the power to heal and yet even when they called upon the one who says He loves them, He didn’t show up. In their hearts and minds they are hurt, disappointed, maybe even angry. Jesus, you didn’t answer my prayer. Perhaps there have been times when we have been in that place of Mary and Martha. We know and love the Lord, but at some crisis or need we prayed, but He didn’t come through for us as we thought He could have and should have. We have thought, “Lord, if you had only showed up I know the need would have been met.”
Martha converses with Jesus saying, “Master, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. 22And even now I know that whatever You ask from God, He will grant it to You.
23Jesus said to her, Your brother shall rise again.
24Martha replied, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
25Jesus said to her, I am [Myself] the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in (adheres to, trusts in, and relies on) Me, although he may die, yet he shall live; 26And whoever continues to live and believes in (has faith in, cleaves to, and relies on) Me shall never [actually] die at all. Do you believe this?
27She said to Him, Yes, Lord, I have believed [I do believe] that You are the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One), the Son of God, [even He] Who was to come into the world. [It is for Your coming that the world has waited.]” Martha has a revelation of who Christ is. She knows Him as the Savior and she knows Him as the Healer, but she doesn’t really yet know Him as the Resurrection and the Life. Sometimes for a new revelation to come forth, the former one has to pass away. We have to let go of old paradigms and understandings in order to grasp a greater revelation of the unveiling of Christ. Jesus is speaking to her of this, but she does not fully comprehend it yet.
Martha goes to let Mary know Jesus is here and she comes running to him, followed by the group that have been mourning with them. It says in verses 32-38, “When Mary came to the place where Jesus was and saw Him, she dropped down at His feet, saying to Him, Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.
33When Jesus saw her sobbing, and the Jews who came with her [also] sobbing, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. [He chafed in spirit and sighed and was disturbed.] 34And He said, Where have you laid him? They said to Him, Lord, come and see.
35Jesus wept.
36The Jews said, See how [tenderly] He loved him! 37But some of them said, Could not He Who opened a blind man’s eyes have prevented this man from dying?
38Now Jesus, again sighing repeatedly and deeply disquieted, approached the tomb. It was a cave (a hole in the rock), and a boulder lay against [the entrance to close] it.” I believe Jesus really felt and had empathy with their sorrow and pain, but I think that it also grieved Him that they could not see beyond their disappointment and they still doubted Him. It reminds me of the times Jesus would say, “ Oh faithless generation, how long must I endure you?” Jesus wept because of their sorrow, but He also wept because of their doubt and unbelief.
If we really believe Romans 8:28, that, “all thing work for the good of them that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose,” then we have to be able to rest and trust Jesus even when we don’t understand why things happen as they do. Sometimes it is those crisis moments that create significant life changing events. They challenge our faith and belief system. They stretch us beyond our ability to explain and rationalize what has happened. Then we are faced with, “do I get angry and turn from Him, or do I trust Him.” Trust isn’t based in understanding; on the contrary, it is often trusting in what you don’t understand.
Jesus then had them roll back the stone where Lararus was buried for four days. He looked to heaven and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. 42Yes, I know You always hear and listen to Me, but I have said this on account of and for the benefit of the people standing around, so that they may believe that You did send Me [that You have made Me Your Messenger].” And then He shouted, “Lazarus, Come forth.”
“44And out walked the man who had been dead, his hands and feet wrapped in burial cloths (linen strips), and with a [burial] napkin bound around his face. Jesus said to them, Free him of the burial wrappings and let him go.
45Upon seeing what Jesus had done, many of the Jews who had come with Mary believed in Him.”
The Lord is taking us from glory to glory. He is resurrecting us into a new mind and way of thinking. He is loosing us from our formal burial cloth of religious thinking and ideology. He is raising us up into newness of life.
On this journey we sometime must relinquish the old so that we can embrace the new. The worse thing we can do is to believe things are as they have always been. This is what religion does. It builds its city on a truth, but becomes so cemented in it that it can never move on in the continual unfolding of the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Some of you need a spiritual healing where there has been disappointment, hurt and maybe even anger against God. God still loves you more than you can know. Even when you don’t understand His hand, trust His heart. Sometimes it is these seeming failures that really lead us into the greater glory, even as it was with Mary and Martha. Hold fast you faith. He will never leave you or forsake you.
Blessings,
kent