Silver Dollar
May 5, 2015
Revelations 3:17-19
You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. 19Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent.
Silver Dollar
Years ago the value of money was in the coin. When someone gave you a dollar you knew it was worth a dollar because it was backed by the value of the silver in the coin. Today we pass representations of a dollar around, as the real thing and put the same value on them when in reality there is nothing of substance to back up that value. I feel like the Lord is showing me that we do the same thing with our faith and our discipleship. We say we are Christians and represent ourselves as such, but does our faith and discipleship carry the same value as is represented in the Word and as seen in the early Church? Are we living out the value of our faith or are we just paper representations of the real thing? This is what the Lord is dealing with in this passage in Revelations 3 concerning the church in Laodicea. They perceived themselves as rich, having the value of the faith and in need of nothing when in reality the Lord is saying you are nothing more than paper dollars, wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. Talk about a devalued dollar, that is what they represented. Now the Lord is showing them what they are and the error of their perception not to condemn them, but to bring them to repentance, so that they might regain the value they once carried. God is at work in the Church today exposing the same things in our lives. He is exposing how religion and man’s theology has left us as a devalued dollar in the eyes of the Lord. The Lord is counseling us, His Church, to buy gold tried and refined in the fire so that we may become rich and our true value restored. It is not our talk , dress, social circles and church attendance that give value to our faith; it is the walking out of our faith in daily life. It is living out the principles and the actions of the kingdom that put value in our dollar. It is not what we think in our mind; it is what we perform out of our heart as we seek to be led and directed of the Holy Spirit. Many have settled for a “feel good” faith. It soothes the conscience and gives an appearance of righteousness. Many of the religious people of Jesus’ day had that same thing. It didn’t impress Him then and it doesn’t impress Him now. Jesus can no longer be just a token of our life, He has to become the sum and substance of our life. The Word doesn’t tell us that we were created for ourselves to please ourselves. It tell us in Colossians 1:16, For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether [they be] thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.” We were not created by Him for us, but for Him. Hebrews 2:10 also tells us, ” For it became him, for whom [are] all things, and by whom [are] all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. We are created by Him, for Him that we might be the sons He brings into His glory. Paper dollars can’t fulfill that calling. It takes silver dollars that have the value and the weight of the Son within them.
The paper dollars will fail, because they don’t carry the substance of their value, do we?
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
The Snare of Pride
December 11, 2013
The Snare of Pride
Psalms 10:4
In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God.
Pride is a stronghold that stands in opposition to God. It is centered in self and self-reliance. The prideful person is most often blind to their arrogance and is often blindsided by their own self-righteousness. A good case and point are the Jews in John 8:31-46. “31To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
33They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
34Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37I know you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word. 38I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you do what you have heard from your father.”
39“Abraham is our father,” they answered.
“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do the things Abraham did. 40As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. 41You are doing the things your own father does.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
42Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. 43Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”
Pride will blind us to sin and who we really are. Just as these Jews protested that they had always been free and that their father was Abraham, Jesus spoke to them the sobering reality that they were sinners and slaves to sin. If we are righteous, then we will first hear the words of Jesus, we will acknowledge our sin and repent of it and then we will walk and live in obedience to God’s Word. Pride will cause our ears to be deaf to hear the spiritual truth that will bring conviction. John 8:43 says, “…Because you are unable to hear what I say.” It will often even protest its religious alliance to God, but its fruits of true righteousness and obedience are barren. It is interesting in this passage that it says Jesus was talking to the Jews that believed and yet they were the ones ready to kill Him. As believers we too can have pride in our hearts that we aren’t even aware of. We can have spiritual pride as well as natural pride. It can be the root and gateway to sin in our lives. Pride will always justify itself and never want to acknowledge itself for what it is, rebellion against God. When God says, “to this man will I look, even to him that is of a humble and contrite heart,” he is looking for the man that is emptied of pride, self-reliance and self-righteousness. He is looking for the man who only has eyes for the Lord and is totally and completely reliant upon the Lord for all that He is. His willing obedience and submission to the Word of God and his love for the Lord verifies his true humility and trust. He is not trying to live a life outside of God, but totally in God.
What place is pride playing in our hearts? Are we harboring sin, are we self-reliant and self-directed? Have we truly yielded every area of our lives in obedience to His Lordship? Have we gone to the other extreme where we perceive ourselves as being more righteous and spiritual than others are? Have we unknowingly and unwittingly been caught up in the snare of pride?
Blessings,
kent
Temporal or Eternal
December 5, 2013
Temporal or Eternal
Matthew 6:19-21
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
This evening, I opened an email and one of my friends sent me something I had received a few years ago. It was sculptures made in the sand at a beach. One of the pictures was of Christ and his twelve disciples…another was Jesus on the cross and the last one was the face of Jesus. I found myself asking Jeannie, “Can you imagine spending all that time on making something that will just fade away or be destroyed by the next day?” I no more said those words when the thought came to me that’s precisely what we do everyday. We work hard in this world for money, to buy things that are temporal…those things that fade away and can be destroyed… instead of working for those things that are eternal. Why do we do this? Is it because this world has blinders on our eyes? It would have us going in every direction but on the straight and narrow road, which leads to life. Jesus says in Matthew 16:26, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Why can’t we understand and keep in mind how temporal this life is? I heard a preacher say once, “Everything we are doing now, will make a difference in our position for all eternity.” I’m sure I didn’t quote it just right, but the meaning is there. And if this is true, then why do we waste so much time? Are we building our house on a firm foundation? Or are we building on sand; and when the winds of adversity blow, what we’ve been built on, will it sink and fade away? My prayer is that each one of us would take a long hard look at our lives and the way we live, and ask ourselves what exactly our lives are about. Are we living for Christ and His destiny for our lives? Or are we living apart from Him, doing our own thing and living our lives the way we please?
Blessings,
Sharon
Poor in Spirit
September 4, 2013
Poor in Spirit
Matthew 5:3
Blessed [are] the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
There is a parable that Jesus gave about a young man who thought he was very rich. He demanded his inheritance from his father and then set out to enjoy all that wealth. We find it wasn’t a long time before he had spent up all of his money on wild living and when all was gone, so were his so called friends. In the days to follow the young man came to a startling revelation. He was no longer rich, there was no longer security, there was no longer a family, or even daily provision. He was forced to take a job caring for pigs, just to share corn husks and trash food that was feed to them.
Many of us go through life and as long as our outward needs are met and things are going well we may never come to a revelation of how poor we truly are. It is usually when we come to the end of ourselves, our resources and feel the gnawing of hunger and emptiness in our soul that we make the discovery of how poor we really are. It is in the acknowledgement of this state that we are in a position to do something about it. Like the story of the Prodigal Son, we realize we are feeding on cornhusk and the emptiness of this natural life. Meanwhile our spiritual man is wretched, blind and naked. Even as Christians we can be so caught up in playing church and pretending religion that we think we have it all and yet that isn’t the way God perceives us at all. Religion may be among the things we acknowledge in our lives or a liturgy and practice we perform out of duty to God, but it isn’t our passion, our desire and our greatest need. We may be out of position with God altogether and not even realize it because we are going through the motions of life and spirituality.
How would we evaluate our relationship with Christ today? Would it be hot, lukewarm or cold? Many of us would have to admit that we are somewhere in the area of lukewarm.
“What’s wrong with lukewarm? That’s good enough isn’t it?”
That is not a good place to be, for the Word makes it quite clear that God doesn’t enjoy the taste of lukewarm. Revelations 3:15-19 may be the Lord’s personal rebuke and exhortation to us if we are in this state. “I know your [record of] works and what you are doing; you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! 16So, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of My mouth! 17For you say, I am rich; I have prospered and grown wealthy, and I am in need of nothing; and you do not realize and understand that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18Therefore I counsel you to purchase from Me gold refined and tested by fire, that you may be [truly] wealthy, and white clothes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nudity from being seen, and salve to put on your eyes, that you may see. 19Those whom I [dearly and tenderly] love, I tell their faults and convict and convince and reprove and chasten [I discipline and instruct them]. So be enthusiastic and in earnest and burning with zeal and repent [changing your mind and attitude].” Our outward perceptions of ourselves are not always accurate and true. Many of us want to live out of a surface relationship with God like we do with many of our friends. You know how you meet an acquaintance on the street and you say, “Hi, how are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m fine. How are you?”
“I am doing well, thank you. Good talking to you. Have a nice day”
That about sums up the depth many of us may have with God. God isn’t real interested in surface relationships. He is a God of intimacy and depth. He wants to know and deal with the true and deepest issues of our heart and life, but we are always going around saying, “I’m fine, you’re fine, everything is fine.” We are living a lie. We are not acknowledging our true state before Him and He can’t meet us at our point of real need until we are willing to acknowledge how poor in spirit we truly are.
In Isaiah 66:1-2, God tells us, “Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?
2For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.” It is only the person that acknowledges how truly broken, wretched, blind and naked they are that is open and ready to allow God to meet their need. Like the story of the Prodigal Son, the Father is ever looking for the return of His son, longing for him and never ceasing to love him. He can do nothing for him until the son gets a revelation of his true state of being where he is disconnected and out of fellowship with the Father; that is us. Only in the revelation of spiritual poverty can we acknowledge our need and know that it is only in intimate relationship with the Father God that our spirits are made rich and prosper.
What is the condition of our spirit today?
Blessings,
kent
One Way Street Called Straight
July 11, 2013
One Way Street Called Straight
Acts 9:11
And the Lord [said] unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for [one] called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth,
Saul, whom we know as Paul the apostle, at the time of his conversion, had been on his way to Damascus with a commission to persecute and imprison the Christians there. On his way he had a visitation from the Lord who appeared to him in a bright light, so much so that he was struck blind and then the Lord spoke to him audibly in Acts 9:3-9, “And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: [it is] hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord [said] unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought [him] into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.” It was here that the Lord spoke to Ananias and told him to find Paul on Straight street and tell him that he is a chosen vessel and what things he must suffer for my Name’s sake.
It would seem that it is not a coincidence that the Word makes specific mention of the name of the street that Paul was on. It is the same street that the Lord wants to bring us to when we come to Him. It means a straightforward, upright, true and is a sincere path that He brings us too. It is like the word of John the Baptist, “Make straight the way of the Lord”. Straight Street is a condition of our heart where we become blind to the things of the world and our spiritual eyes are opened to the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. It is a place where we turn aside from the crooked paths of our walk when sin and self were upon the throne of our hearts.
We put braces on our teeth to straighten them out and set them in right order. The Cross will work that in our life. The Holy Spirit is continually here to conform us to this straight way if we are humble and sensitive enough to listen. Usually our problem, unlike Saul, is that we haven’t become blind to this world. Our eyes and attention is always wandering off from this place to that. As a result we suffer a worse state than that of being physically blind. We become spiritually blind. What we do see is colored by the tint of our own prejudices, viewpoints and opinions. It is God’s Word inspired and revealed by the Holy Spirit that leads us upon this Straight Street that leads us to the throne of Him who called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light.
What street are you on today and where is it taking you?
Blessings,
kent
Conviction
November 14, 2012
Conviction
Hebrews 9:14
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Do you ever find the Holy Spirit meddling with your conscience? You’re going along in life and your pretty happy with most things and then the Lord starts to put His finger on something in your life. Oh no, here comes the conviction. Usually we try to politely ignore it to begin with. Maybe it will just go away after all, what is the big deal? I guess God doesn’t like to have His garden trashy and full of weeds. Those dead works are like dead wood; they are a fire hazard. Given the right condition they can ignite and provide the fuel for great destruction. Such is the case with the dead works in our life. They are not spiritually productive to produce the fruit of Christ in our lives or in the lives of others. And so the Holy Spirit comes knocking on the door of our conscience. Often He will use circumstances, trials or other people to get our attentions and bring the conviction on our lives. Experience has shown that spouses are particularly useful instruments in this regard. They can hold you accountable in ways that rival the Holy Spirit Himself.
Whatever the means that the Lord uses to deal with the dead wood of things like bad habits, behavior patterns, addictions or out of balance lives, to name a few, He will use. Like the saying goes, “He loves us the way we are, but too much to leave us that way.” This is why it is so important that we do not harden our hearts, but keep them in an attitude of humility and contriteness so that we can be sensitive to the area’s the Holy Spirit is dealing with and be quick to repent and obey. The truth is, we, as the people of God, want to be a holy people. That means a death to the areas of affections, desires and strongholds that have taken root in our lives. Our victory and our freedom are in letting go of all that is not of Christ. The thing we have to remember is that God never takes something away, but what He doesn’t give something better back.
“Lord, help us to be sensitive to the areas of conscience, even in the small and trivial things, where we are willing to listen to the conviction you place on our hearts. Help us not to ignore and try to run away from that conviction or harden our hearts where we become spiritually deaf, blind and dead. You are the Spirit of Life, so if you are bringing areas of our lives to the death of the cross, it so that you can sow back into those areas Life and blessing. Thank you Lord for your faithfulness to help us live an overcoming life that is overcoming the issues of sin and disobedience in us. Help us to willing give every area of our lives over to Your complete control and Lordship that You might be Lord of all. Give us the strength to be willing to continually yield these areas of dealing to You. Thank you Lord, in your name we pray. Amen.”
Blessings,
kent
tricklesoftruth 