Hidden Issues of the Heart
May 31, 2016
Luke 18:18-29
18A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 19″Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 20You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.'” 21″All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said. 22When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 23When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. 24Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” 26Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?” 27Jesus replied, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” 28Peter said to him, “We have left all we had to follow you!” 29″I tell you the truth,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God 30will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.”
Hidden Issues of the Heart
We never truly see the fiber and the substance of our being until we are stretched beyond the boundaries of our comfort and norm. There we see the flaws often hidden from sight. We can oftentimes see ourselves much like this rich young ruler if we are willing to acknowledge it. We love and have a zeal for God. We try to keep His word and commandments. We feel in our hearts that we truly love God. We want to serve Him and we hunger and want more of Him. We acknowledge that we have already done the fundamental requirements.
“We have done all of these Jesus, what more do I need to do?”
When Jesus puts His finger on our true heart issues. He goes where we don’t want Him to go. He goes to those little sanctuaries and strongholds of self that hold our affections. It is those areas that often we don’t even realize how much they mean to us until we are asked to give them up. For the rich young ruler it was his riches and wealth. It had become what defined who he was and his identity was in his position and wealth rather than in God. When Jesus touched on His heart issue it made the young man very sorrowful. The Greek word here conveys that it was sorrow as to cause one’s death, a deep grief and grieving. Jesus asks him to exchange his riches on earth for the riches of the kingdom of heaven. He couldn’t bring himself to do what Jesus asked of him.
Most of us want to continue on and be content with where we are spiritually. When we begin to really hunger for more of God and ask God for more, then we have to be willing to pay the price. We have to be willing to deal with our heart issues and the little strongholds of self that we still want to hold on too. It grieves us to give them up, but we can never give up something, but what He will not give us so much more, if not in this life, then in the life to come.
When the Lord allows circumstances and people to come into our lives that stretch us out of our comfort zones. It is there that we begin to often see how shallow our love really is, how easily we are often offended and put out with those who step on our toes and our rights. What God shows me is that there is far more of me there than I want to acknowledge and lay claim too. When He stretches me and proves me and sounds the depths of my heart that is when I often find how shallow the waters of His love are in me. If we want more of God then there is always more of a relinquishment of self. The way of obtaining and walking in resurrection life is through the cross and through the death of this former man. We can mentally and spiritually aspire to it, but it has to become substance in our lives.
There is an old saying that “no one can get your goat, unless you have a goat to be got.” How many goats are we still hanging onto? We must not fail the challenge that the rich young ruler had. The things of this earth are perishing and passing away, but His life is eternal and His riches endure forever. “What is impossible with men, is possible with God.” Lord help us to not turn from you, but press into You even when it cost us everything. Help us to do what seems impossible to us, because with You all things are possible.
Blessings,
#kent
Our Eyes Lifted Up
September 30, 2014
John 17:1
These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
Our Eyes Lifted Up
When we lift up our spiritual eyes we see as Jesus sees. We see the Father, His will and purpose. In Luke 6: 20 it says, “And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed [be ye] poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.” When Jesus lifts up His eyes today upon His disciples and followers, again He sees kingdom in those who are poor in spirit, meaning they are emptied of all desire except for more of Him. When we lift our eyes we want to see the King of kings and the Lord of lords. When we lift up our eyes as Jesus lifted His eyes we see the will and purpose of God. We see His calling to glory and glorification.
When we come into the presence of the Father we may see many things through the Spirit’s eyes. In Matthew 17 Jesus took Peter, James and John with Him up into the mount where He was transfigured. They saw Moses and Elijah there with Jesus who had been transfigured into His glory. It is interesting that as they spoke together, Peter speaks up and says, “Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.” These temporary booths called “Sukkah” by the Hebrew and were used to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, the post harvest feast of rest, thanksgiving and remembrance of the time in the wilderness when the Lord’s temple or tabernacle was a temporary dwelling. This is a whole study in and of itself. In Christ Jesus was the fulfillment of the Law and the Spirit represented there in the person of Moses and Elijah. Then the voice of God intervenes, “While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.” When they heard the voice of God, “they fell on their face, and were sore afraid.” Jesus then touches them and tells them not to be afraid. The next verse is significant in Matthew 17:8, “And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.” When our eyes are lifted in the Spirit one thing should be certain we should be seeing no man, but only Jesus. In this passage of Jesus’ transfiguration and glorification I believe the Lord was giving us a glimpse of what He is bringing us into when we see the full redemption and full salvation of body, soul and spirit.
Whenever Jesus lifts up His eyes a significant spiritual thing happens. We see Him speaking the kingdom, feeding the multitude and speaking in John 17 of His glory as He lifts His eyes to heaven. When we truly lift our eyes toward heaven and see by the Spirit we see and comprehend the things of the Spirit. In Revelations 4:1-2 says, “After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.” When we lift up our eyes and see the glory we will know that we are passing from this life into His life. We will have His vision and His purpose burning within our hearts and we will be as Hebrews 12:2 speaks of Jesus, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of [our] faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” When we lift our eyes we see the glory, but we also see that the way into the glory is through the cross, even as Paul reminds us in Romans 8:17, “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” We must be willing to glorify Him, that He may glorify us. Whatever the cost, may we with joy endure it gladly as we lift our eyes unto heaven and see only Jesus.
Blessings,
#kent
Rags to Riches
September 2, 2013
Rags to Riches
Colossians 1:27
To whom God would make known what [is] the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
As kids we often would muse, “if you had three wishes, what would you wish for?” As adults today, if we had one wish, what would we wish for? Would it be fame or fortune, health or peace, beauty or strength? I would say the majority of us, while having our needs met, wouldn’t consider ourselves rich or beautiful or famous or wise. If we stopped to really evaluate the ways in which we are rich or we are poor, what would we conclude? Many of us would smile and say; I’m rich with family, or in relationships I have with others. We might be rich in the joy and satisfaction we receive from serving and blessing others and making a difference in their lives. We have often gotten into the mindset that riches means having millions of dollars, but is a millionaire always rich?
Proverbs 13:7 says, “One man pretends to be rich, yet has nothing; another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.” In order to be rich, must one always have the tangible substance of material things in their possession?
When we discovered Christ, the Son of God that has freely provided so great a salvation, we discovered a vein of the most precious substance known to man. It runs so deep and so wide and it runs from the earth beneath to the heavens above. So many of us still haven’t really grasped how rich we have become in having Christ. Our concept of riches it still focused on outward possessions. It is fine if you have outward possessions and wealth, but if that is all your heart is content with then you are indeed most poor. There is no greater poverty than the leanness and depravity of one’s soul. In Matthew 16:26 Jesus poses the question, “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?” When we found that relationship with Jesus Christ, we went from rags to riches, rather anything changed outwardly or not. What is the price for eternal life in the riches of heaven with our almighty loving heavenly Father? What is the price for having all of my sins and faults and failures forgiven and my debts cancelled? What would it cost to have the Christ, the Spirit of the living God, dwelling in me? Does anyone possess that kind of earthly wealth that they could purchase these priceless gifts? Yet Christ died to pay the price that He might freely give them to all that would believe. You and I are so rich beyond measure and yet we are so often focused on what we don’t have. If we truly tapped into what we do have we would realize that there are no limitation on what it is possible for us to have or to do? While we are very, very rich through Christ, we have limited understanding and wisdom in how to use the wealth we possess in the fullness of how God has intended, so we are in school. The school of life is teaching us to practice the principles of the Kingdom that is ours. In order for us to come into the fullness of our inheritance we must learn the ways of kingship and godly rule. In order for us to rule like the King, we must come into the nature of the King. How did our King demonstrate His kingdom to us? Philippians 2:5-8 tells us, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”
We have gone from rags to riches when we fully comprehend that this Christ is in us. He became poor, of no reputation and endured the death of the cross so that you and I might possess so great a riches. Will we miss the greater by always focusing on the lesser? We spend the majority of our lives and resources pursuing that which is perishing while we neglect that which is eternal and priceless. We are the sons and daughters of Most High God; let us begin to dress ourselves in the rich garments of His righteousness. The world may despise us, but they don’t possess what we possess. We, like our example before us, must become void of self, so that we can bring others up. We want all of those around us to experience this “rags to riches” story. We want them to come out of the poverty and emptiness of their soul into the riches of God’s love and grace. There are not any greater riches in all of earth or heaven than “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Blessings,
kent