Continue in What You have Learned

2 Timothy 3:12-17
In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Continue in What You have Learned

If you want an easy road to travel then being a true disciple of Christ is not one you would probably choose. We like to focus on the blessings, but the reality is that this is also a road of sufferings and persecutions. Many like to wear the label of Christian when it benefits them, but if they really have to start enduring the cross, then they are out of here. In this day and age we are moving into that time when evil will become more forward and perverse, from bad to worse, just as the scripture says. We need to be aware and have come to the commitment, that though it cost us everything, we have decided to follow Jesus. When the Lord winnows and thrashes the wheat in His judgement. He is separating wheat from chaff and is judging who is really His and who is not. If our faith is just about God’s blessings then we might want to exit now. Romans 8 tells us “if we suffer with Him then will we be glorified with Him.” Jesus is the pattern Son; the prototype of what He is conforming us into. Certainly His life was not without suffering and persecution. He even told us that if we were of the world the world would love us, but because we are not of the world the world will hate you. This is why it is so incredibly important that you have a revelation of who you are in Christ. When the fire comes it will reveal what the house is made of. All that is wood, hay and stubble will be consumed and only that which of gold (God’s nature), silver (His redemption) and precious stones (His glorious truth) will remain. If our house is not built upon the rock it will perish. So it doesn’t matter how much we know or how often or long we have been going to church. If you don’t have the inward relationship of obedience and trust, you will not stand. Jesus didn’t tell us that if we love Him we would hear what He had to say, He said if we love Him we would keep His commandments. If Christianity is just churchianity and knowing the truth, but not living the truth, then that will not preserve you when persecution comes. The baptism of fire is purification; it brings to the surface the dross so that it can be purified. God is judging His own house today to allow us to see the dross in our own lives and deal with it, before we must truly be judged for it.
If you want to live “godly” in Christ Jesus then expect persecution and don’t be surprised when it comes upon you. Let us be as Paul exhorted Timothy, “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” The Lord has imparted Himself into us through His Word and through the Holy Spirit. We have all that we need to endure and make us wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. We know that Christ is synonymous and one with the Word of God, because, “ in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. (John 1:1-2)” Paul testifies of this truth as he states, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” We are the Lord’s army in training, preparing for the day of battle. Our battle is not with flesh and blood, although it will most likely be manifested through them, it is with principalities, powers, rulers and dominions of darkness. But Revelations 12:11 reminds us, “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” One of the things that is very difficult for us, especially in this western culture, is our love and affection for self and the flesh. For us everything is about survival and preservation of the natural man. God has simply given you this natural body as a cocoon and preparation to carry you into your eternal being. When and if we are ever faced with the choice of our faith or preserving our natural man, what could be more glorious and a greater opportunity than to offer ourselves up as a sweet –smelling sacrifice to our Lord. Walk with Him, obey Him, honor Him and “KNOW HIM” without doubt or reservation in your inter-most being.

Blessings,
#kentGod, go

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Power through the Word

 

Power through the Word

1 Corinthians 4:20

For the kingdom of God [is] not in word, but in power. 

We live in a world full of philosophies and religions.   Some would say God is too big for any one religion.  It is man that has deviated from God’s way to invent his own.  God has always had a plan and “the Way” that brings us to Him.   I’ve heard it said that, “religion is merely man’s search for God.”  Many religions and cults, Islam being one of them, take the Word of God for their premise, but then twist and pervert it to be their own.  True Christianity isn’t just a religion made up of a lot men’s thought, ideas and dreams.  It is an inspired book, written by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration and direction.  It is not just a book about men of God who could do no wrong.  It is about ordinary, sinful men who often stepped out and believed the Word of God to them.  Because they dared to put their faith in this God of the Bible they often saw great and mighty things accomplished.  

If God was going to write a book about His people why would he put in this book their failures, their shortcomings and their sins?  You don’t read any of those things about Mohammed. The Bible isn’t a book about great men.  It is a book about a great God working through weak and ordinary men.  The Bible is not a great book because it is good reading or just has inspiring stories.  It is great book because its words are backed by the power of God.  You could burn all the Bibles you wanted, but you could never destroy the Word of God, because it is not just words on a page.  It is a living Word and Testament of a living and powerful God.  That is what sets it apart from any other book or religion in the world.  There may be a lot of truisms in other religions, but it is satan’s little bottle of poison in a lake of truth that brings death, that makes it null and void.  If it doesn’t line up a hundred percent with the Bible, it ain’t the real thing.  

Why does God tell us to study and meditate on the Word of God?  Joshua 1:8 says, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”   Psalms 1:1-2 tells us, “Blessed [is] the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight [is] in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” 2 Timothy 2:15 instructs us “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 3:16 also says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

These are but a few scriptures that encourage us not just to read the Word of God, but to get it down in our hearts and spirits.  Why, because it is life and power.  When we have a “revealed Word of God” plus “faith” to believe that word, it equals “Power” and the move of God.  This is why weak, ordinary men and women like you and me have the potential to do supernatural things.  It is a power, like dynamite, which resides in you, because, by faith, you asked Christ and His Holy Spirit to come into you.  When He did He brought the power of God into you.  You are a keg of dynamite and a potential explosion of the move and power of God.  There was an old saying back in the days of powdered fire rifles and guns.  It was “keep your powder dry.”  Wet powder was ineffective and lost its power.  It is the same with us when we let the world, compromise and unbelief come into our lives.  We become like wet powder, ineffective.  

Luke 17:21 tells us, “Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”  As a believer in Christ, you are a loaded gun.  When you are primed with the Word of God within you and the Spirit of God moves upon you there are no limitation to what He can do through you.  That is because the kingdom of God is not in word, it is in power.  It is the living Word of God ignited by His Spirit.  It will move mountains; it will bring the high place low and the low places high.  It will bring down the kingdoms of this world and it will establish the kingdom of our God.  You are a part of that.  You are the rifle through which He fires that bullet.  We are corruptible old earthen vessels until the power of God gets inside of us that, as 2 Corinthians 4:7 says, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”  It doesn’t matter about the circumstances of life that work around us; it is the power of God that is at work in us.  It is the very resurrection life that raised Christ from the dead that now dwells in you and gives life to your mortal bodies also (Romans 8:11).   We do not believe and put our trust in a dead and ineffective word, but in the ever living and ever powerful Word of God, that through faith becomes substance and power to us.  

 

Blessings,

kent

The Will and Do of His Good Pleasure

The Will and Do of His Good Pleasure

Philippians 2:13

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure.

You and I are a work in progress. How many times would we just like to give up and say, “it is no use, I’ll never change?” The Lord is encouraging us to do one thing, look to Him. It doesn’t matter what we see; it doesn’t matter what others say about us or to us. It doesn’t matter that satan is the accuser of the brethren and is forever parading our faults and shortcomings before us. God hasn’t called us to be the works of our own hands, “for it is God, which worketh in you both to will and to do His good pleasure!” God not only wants too, but it is at work in your life in ways you don’t even see or know. What is that saying, “a watched pot never boils?” When we are looking at our lives we don’t often see the many obvious changes, but the Lord is working in us over the course of a lifetime. The more we are willing to submit these vessels to the will and do of His good pleasure the faster that work can be accomplished. The Lord is always steadfast and faithful; the problem is, we aren’t. We so often want to take these little rabbit trails that depart from His perfect will for us and get off doing our own thing rather than His. Yet He is faithful even in that to work in us and use the errors of our ways to correct us, teach us and instruct us in righteousness. So many times we are like our children, we can’t just take God’s Word about what is best for us, we have to do it our way and then endure the consequences of our stubbornness and disobedience.

God never loves us less or desires less for us. He has His perfect plan for our lives. Our greatest joy is to find the center of His will for us. When we are abiding in that place and find the center of His good pleasure we are fulfilled and content as well. It is like when we realize that it is in blessing others that we are blessed and that there is no greater joy than bringing joy and blessing to others. We can never be as content doing our own pleasure as we can be in fulfilling God’s good pleasure for us. This is true success in life. It doesn’t even matter what the outward surroundings are, “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, [therewith] to be content (Philippians 4:11).” 1 Timothy 6:8 says, “Having food and raiment let us be therewith content.” It isn’t in the abundance of the things we possess that we ever find our contentment, that is only found in the center of God’s will. We have a concept in our Christian culture today that if we aren’t wealthy and prosperous we aren’t living the “blessed life.” How many of the apostles and prophets do you see in God’s Word living the “good life” by the world’s standards? If you are and that’s where God has you, that is great. There is nothing wrong with being blessed materially in this life, but that isn’t the essence and meaning of our lives. That essence and meaning for our lives is only found in the center of God’s will. That is where we find true riches. It may be in some stench filled hovel in India or in the kitchen of your home raising these crazy little kids. If you are in the will and do of God’s good pleasure then you are experiencing the riches of heaven.

Even if you are in that place of discouragement where you are looking at your life as just a failure and waste then you are discounting and denying God’s great love and purpose for you. Sometimes we have to get off of our pity pots of self-doubt and failure and get our eyes on the Lord and not on ourselves. We all are cracked pots with weaknesses and failures, but we serve a mighty and perfect God that loves us never the less, in spite of those weaknesses and failures. Let it always be in our prayers that God will work “the will and do of His good pleasure in us” to the end that we might, in return, bring Him pleasure and blessing.

“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)”

Blessings,

kent