The Essential Thing We Tend to Avoid

The Essential Thing We Tend to Avoid

Mark 8:34

And when he had called the people [unto him] with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

               As we prepare for our day, don’t forget that essential thing we need daily, “the cross.”  In that cross is contained all of the essentials for spiritual life.  Meditate on what it is and what it means in your life.  It is the cost of discipleship and the reward of obedience.  It is death unto Life.

Blessings,

#kent

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The Travail of Discipleship

The Travail of Discipleship

Galatians 4:19

My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,

               Discipleship is a birthing process.  It is a function that comes often with much pain and travail.  Like childbirth it is often much too slow and arduous for our liking.  Most of us, as Christians, love to see people get saved.  It is exhilarating when God uses us to lead someone into the kingdom of God.  What we fail to often realize is that this is like impregnating someone without the responsibility of seeing it through to the birthing.  The Word of God is a life giving seed.  Planted in the fertile ground of a ready soul it will conceive a Christ life in that individual, a redeemed spirit, born again from above.  While this is cause for great joy it is not the end of the matter; it is only the beginning.  The Lord wants us to take some responsibility for what we have helped to produce.  A precious seed that has been planted needs some nurturing to grow up into maturity where it can also produce life in others.  It is far to easy when we have helped lead someone to the Lord, to then pass all the responsibility off to a church or pastor.  The church and ministry become, in effect, a type of surrogate mother to birth this child into Christ.  That is not to say that they are not to be involved, but it also does not take the responsibility for discipleship off us.

               Paul was a father.  He planted many Christ seeds that saw a wonderful harvest of souls.  He was also a mother.  He nurtured that which he helped produce.  He poured into them his life, his faith, his example, and his revelation of who Christ is, so that they in turn might grow up into Christ in all things.  Many times, it was disheartening.  Like the parable of the sower of seed in Matthew 13 there are always many elements at work that want to rob, kill and destroy the life of the seed.  The good soil is the solid Word based and Spirit led teaching of the doctrine of Christ.  It is not an organization or denomination or an institution.  It is a nurturing and feeding of the Word of God that plants believer’s feet on solid ground and gives them a firm foundation for their faith.  It is a travail and labor of love and prayer over them until they have a true revelation of Christ in them and who they are in Christ.  Many of us are still grasping that revelation and truth. 

               Jesus gives us an example of the difference in the two attitudes between one whom is simply scattering seed and one who is like a farmer who nurtures his crop.  John 10:12-13 says, “But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.”  The real difference is the love and commitment we have toward the newborn in Christ.  Our love is shallow because it is not His love; it is our love.  Our love will run away when things get unpleasant, uncomfortable or too difficult.   Christ’s love is unconditional and constant.  He doesn’t just love us when we are good and obedient; He loves us the same all the time.  Even the love of God in us is an acquisition of faith and not feeling.  The Word teaches us that the two greatest commandment upon which all of the law and prophets rest is Matthew 12:29-32, ” And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments [is], Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this [is] the first commandment. And the second [is] like, [namely] this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”  These commandments must become the confession of our faith as we live them out by God’s grace and love in us.  For the Word of God to become substance in us we must confess with our mouth and believe in our hearts (Romans 10:10), this is the development and maturing of our salvation through faith.   We are constantly hearing the Word, receiving the Word into our hearts, receiving the revelation and quickening of that Word by the Holy Spirit and then in turn imparting and communicating that Word of Life to others that they also might grow up into Christ in all things.

The travail of truly birthing others into Christ is hard; emotionally, physically and spiritually, but it is a labor of love that yields precious and lasting fruit in the kingdom of God.

Blessings,

#kent

Clothed and Walking

Deuteronomy 8:1-6

Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. 2 Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.

Clothed and Walking

               If we truly want to know God’s provision in every circumstance in our lives then we must experience what it is not to have.  We have to experience the night before we truly appreciate what it is to have the light of day.  Often, we don’t always understand the things we must go through, the losses that we must endure and why sometimes God doesn’t seem there for us.  We all have our own wilderness journey in one form or another.  Through it all we have been tested to see what was in our hearts.  Would we continue to trust God, even when He didn’t seem to show up, meet our need or answer our prayer?  When things didn’t go our way, did we blame Him?  Many of life’s heartaches and hardships have really tested us to see if when we couldn’t understand His hand, we would trust His heart.  Yet in those times as we look back, we see the subtle grace of God at work helping us, comforting us and giving us strength when we had no more of our own. 

               Some of us are at this place in our walk right now.  We are struggling with finances, with health, with relationships or job issues.  Sometimes we reach that point where we want to just rebel, get mad or give up.  Your heart is being tested.  It is not out of meanness or lack of caring, but when a muscle is stretched and pushed beyond limits, it must continue to grow in order to meet the demands placed upon it.  It is not easy.  It is painful.  What we forget is that we are not just an ordinary people, we are an extraordinary people.  We are becoming that because God is taking us the extra mile and stretching us beyond our human limitations.  He is preparing us for extraordinary times. Yet, as we will respond to Him in faith and obedience, we see His grace at work in supernatural ways in other areas of our life. 

God is separating us from our reliance upon our flesh and our dependence upon this world.  He is stretching us to know supernatural provision and strength.  We don’t find that when we are in pursuit of worldly goods or earthly fame and significance.  We find it in the humility of walking in His discipline and discipleship.  We will never fully appreciate the bread that is our provision until we first pursue and find the bread that feeds our spirit and our soul.   We could say, “seek ye first the bread of life, and all these things shall be added unto you.”  Jesus tells the following that pursued Him after He fed the multitude in John 6:26-27, “Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” Jesus is the fulfillment of that manna which came out of heaven.   It is not in the attainment of physical needs and wants that we are filled and completed, it is in our partaking of Him in personal relationship, faith and obedience that we find the true bread of life.  When you have truly found Him, then all of your superficial needs are met as well.   That need that we have is not always seen and met in the present tense, but it is met in faith as we embrace Him.

               God is our loving heavenly Father who disciplines us as His sons.  He is often willing that our flesh would suffer so that our spirits may grow.  Most of us are here and now kind of people.  We are most concerned with what we are facing right here and right now.  Be not concerned with the cares of the moment, God is seeing you in a much greater role, one in which you must be tested, tried and proven.  That is just as He was doing in Joseph when through years of suffering and hardship, God was all the time preparing Him for leadership and government.  Could Joseph have faithfully and adequately done what he did for Egypt, if God had not prepared and raised Him in His purpose through strong discipline and adversity?  Like he told his brothers, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.”  You may think the devil is out to destroy you, but what he would mean for evil, God will use for good.  Romans 12:12 exhorts us, “Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer.”  If you are enduring the discipline of the Lord, then rejoice, because God has marked you for better things.  What He has called you too, He will prepare you for. 

               We are no longer walking in this worldly economy as kingdom people are; we are walking in a kingdom economy and for a kingdom purpose.  In this journey God will clothe you with His righteousness that will not wear thin and He will put the strength in your feet to walk the walk of the cross as He shods them with the preparation of the gospel.  We are people that are rich beyond measure, but our riches are not measured by earthly standards.  God is our standard and in Him there is no lack or weakness.  Let us pursue Him who is our Bread of life, provision and godliness.  In Him we will know no lack.  Even in our correction He will sustain us. 

Blessings,

#kent

Silver Dollar

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

Where’s Your Appetite?

John 4:8
(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

Where’s Your Appetite?

The Lord dropped this scripture into my heart today, because He is asking you and me, where is your appetite? What are you foremost concerned about feeding and taking care of, your natural or your spiritual man? Hunger is a good motivator; it will motivate us to go and do what is necessary to get fed. It is what motivates us to work and pursue the things that meet our natural needs. Now that isn’t a bad thing, but as kingdom people Father is wanting our appetites to change. He wants to put in us the appetite of doing the will of the Father and to focus on what is feeding and nourishing the inner man, not just the outer.
John 4 deals with Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well. He begins telling her about a water where she will never thirst again. He reveals to her that He is the source of that living water. The natural water she can drink, but she will continue to thirst, but the living water is a perpetual life stream that can be a continual well spring inside of us of truth and life.
The disciples return as Jesus is finishing His conversation with this Samaritan woman. Verse 27-38 explains the scene. ” Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
28Then, leaving her water jar (Her container for the natural water) , the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” 30They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
31Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
34“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
The Lord is moving us into a time where our appetite and our food will be like that of Jesus. Food and natural sustenance will be secondary to our heart to do Fathers will and impart life bread and water to those who are perishing. Matthew 5:6 says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Father wants to put in us a new hunger and new passion that even overrides our physical needs.
The apostle Paul shared in that kind of hunger and appetite. He often paid the price in his body for what he gave out for others. In 2 Corinthians 11:23-31 he shares a little discourse of some of what he suffered for the causes of Christ. ” Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. 27I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. 29Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?
30If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 31The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised forever, knows that I am not lying.”
Discipleship comes with a price and we have our time of growing up, but then we must do what 1 John 2:5-6 tells us, “But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” So the Holy Spirit is asking us today, “Where’s your appetite?”

Blessing,
#kent

The Love

1 John 4:7-12

7Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 9In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 12No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 

The Love

This scripture in 1John is so simple and yet so profound because it sums up who we are to be in Christ.  We are love, because He is love.  Here, we are not talking about a superficial love or even a friendship kind of love.  John is talking about an “Agape” kind of love, God’s love.  His love is not selfish, but is ever giving to the point of laying down its life for another.  

If most of us think about how easily we are offended by others we are going to catch a glimpse at how shallow the waters of our love are.  In order to love like Christ, we have to move into Christ and it has to be His Spirit and life abiding in us that enables us to love with this level of love.  We are called unto a high calling of Love.  The reality of that love abiding and operating through us will speak more to the glory and reality of God than a thousand sermons.  People in the world so rarely see the operation of that level of love and yet it should be commonplace within the body of Christ.  God’s love is a gift that is worth living for and it is worth dying for.  

God’s love is much like an expression of freedom.  It is freedom from the tyranny of sin, oppression and selfishness.  While men may come against you with all manner of hate and violence, your choice to love in Christ is something no man or spirit can take from you unless you allow them too.  God’s love doesn’t operate out of feelings; that is how our love normally operates.  Our feelings come and go, they change, but God doesn’t change.  He has continued to love us even when we least deserved it and when we were His enemies.  Can we love with that kind of love?  Only in Christ can we love with that manner of love.  It is not a love that is earned, but a love that is given.  It is not a love that seeks only one’s own good, but works to the good of those it comes into contact with.  It is not a love that is to be manipulated or used, but stands firm in integrity and righteousness.  It works to the higher good in others even when they don’t recognize and understand the means to an end.  It operates out of the wisdom of the Spirit and in harmony with the nature of Christ, for it is one and the same.

The reason this love is a testimony, to who we are in God, is because it is a love that can not be counterfeited or self produced.  It is only found and obtained as we release who we have been and are becoming what He is through a life yielded completely to Him.  The love of God in us is released in proportion to the level we are allowing the Sprit of Christ to operate in and through us. Even as your body houses your spirit, your spirit houses His Love and presence.  That, in turn, should be expressed back through our body, as we are the servants and instruments of righteousness in God’s love.

We may see ourselves as a long way from this level of love in us, but it is much closer than you think.  The only thing that stands between God and His love expressed through us is ourselves. That is why we must be willing to pick up our cross daily and follow Him.  As we are crucified, His love is released.

 

Blessings,

kent

Fullness

Fullness

Ephesians 1:22-23
And hath put all [things] under his feet, and gave him [to be] the head over all [things] to the church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

Some of us are pessimist and some of us optimist. Some of us see the glass half-empty and others see it half full. Many see what they can’t do while a few see what they can do. I would probably tend to categorize myself more on the pessimist side. I believe one of the reasons for this is that we see things often through the eyes of our perceived abilities and capabilities. While we don’t wish to be pessimistic, we see ourselves as more pragmatic and practical. While that may be of some advantage in the natural world as we move into the spiritual dimension of God’s calling and purposes that ideology becomes often impractical to our call of faith. As we read the Word and understand more and more of God’s high calling for us who believe, it demands that we leave off with our natural reasoning and thinking. This takes place as we begin to put on the mind of Christ and by the Spirit comprehend and lay hold of the mind and will of God. The Lord can often lead us in some very impractical ways according to our natural reasoning. Our faith begins to lay hold of God’s thinking and His plans and promises rather than our own. This is often difficult for us to do. The Lord says in Isaiah 55: 8-9, “For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts, neither [are] your ways my ways, saith the LORD For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” As some of us are truly grasping who we are in Christ and the high and holy calling and plans He has for us, it strains the natural mind to fully see ourselves in that place. We comprehend the concept that we are the body of Christ, but sometimes it is not as easy for us to comprehend that the body becomes the full expression of the head. We often try and see, as well as understand, this concept in terms of our immediate lifetime, but God sees it in the light of His eternity. While that may tend to put it out of the realm of our immediate grasp and concern we need to realize that the body of Christ is a culmination of Christians throughout the ages and that the body of Christ is not a function of time or space. It is an embodiment of the All Mighty, a holy temple of His divine presence, and as it says here in Ephesians 1, “the fullness of Him that fills all in all”. The divine destiny of each believer is incorporated in this truth. How we live out our individual lives in connection with the will and purpose of God is what determines what part we are in this plan. As we are yielding our hearts and lives to the life of the Spirit we are being incorporated into the fullness of Him that fills all things. “Christ in you” is your hope in glory. It is what takes you and translates you out of the perishable and corruptible into the incorruptible nature and life of God.
If we do one thing today, let’s take a moment to step outside of our natural thinking and religious reasoning and begin to grasp what it is that our God has called us too. It is that place that is so far beyond us and what we could ever hope to be in ourselves. The Lord our God has adopted us into His bloodline through Christ. The blood that flows through His body ebbs with the life of the Father of all eternity and creation. What a humble and awesome privilege to grasp that He desires to make us so much a part of Himself. Is it of little wonder, in light of these things, that He has called us to a place of separation from the world and the unclean things of this life? We have become a part of a different bloodline and lineage than that of our natural man. With the eyes of faith and confidence we must lay hold of the revelation of who we are in Christ and live our lives accordingly. Our growing and abiding relationship with Him is causing us to grasp in an ever increasing way the high calling that is ours in Christ Jesus, that even as He walked, lived, suffered and died all of those things are incorporated in our lives as we live by the Spirit. He is that hand and we are the glove in which it moves and ministers it’s divine service.
Let us open up our hearts and minds to what the Spirit wants us to comprehend right now. We need the vision of who we are and the calling that is upon us in order to pursue with our whole hearts the high and precious promises of His Word. Begin to imagine the fullness of Christ in you, for Ephesians 3:20-21 concludes with, “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him [be] glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”

Blessings,
kent

Friend or Foe

Friend or Foe

Matthew 16:13-28
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 14They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15″But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” 16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ,] the Son of the living God.” 17Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.
21From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. 22Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” 23Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” 24Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 27For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. 28I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Most of us would agree that Jesus’ disciple Peter was a friend of the Lord. He really did love the Lord and while a little rough around the edges Peter had some great qualities about him. I think most of us would say that we are a friend of the Lord’s, that we love Him and like Peter, we have committed our lives to follow after Him.
It is an interesting passage that we read today because first we see Jesus asking the question about who men think that He is. We see Peter chime in, with spirit of revelation, that Jesus is the Christ. Peter is called blessed and commended of the Lord. The Lord gives him the keys of the kingdom and the power to bind and loose in heaven and earth. Peter must have been feeling pretty good about himself about then like maybe he was just one up on the others cause he had the goods. He had the revelation of the Christ.
We then see a quick turn of events where Jesus reveals the purpose and plan of his life to suffer and die in Jerusalem at the hand of the elders, chief priest and teachers. Peter, perhaps a little full of himself, begins to rebuke the Lord and let Him know that we are never going to let this happen. Suddenly we see a friend turned foe as the Lord rebukes Peter and says, “Get thee behind me satan.” That must have really taken the wind out of Peter’s sails. Jesus goes on to explain the definition of discipleship and the exchange of life that must take place which means the death of the self life to experience the resurrection of God’s life.
I think that we are not so unlike Peter. We have a true zeal and love for the Lord. We have a revelation and understanding of many things, but we become the enemy of the cross because we want to preserve our life when we need to lose it and reckon it dead. We want to hold on to the natural things of this world rather than to die to them that we may possess the treasures of the kingdom. We are like a baby that would rather hold on to a rock than exchange it for a silver rattle. We are much like Peter, spiritual on one hand and unwilling to embrace the cross on the other. What if Peter had had his way? He thought his intentions were noble and good. He wasn’t going to let Jesus have to go to the cross. Often we view the death that the Lord is leading us into as the worse thing for us, because we see the price of suffering and sacrifice. What we fail to see by faith, is what is on the other side of that death, it is abundant and eternal, resurrection life with great reward. We may be traveling that road to Calvary today and satan may be working through agents and people that mean well, but they don’t comprehend the way we must go and why we must go there. We must be careful that we don’t allow others to turn us from our call to discipleship and the cross or that we don’t become a stumbling block to others to keep them from walking that way as well. In order to fully realize who we are we have to die to what we were. It takes two hands to embrace discipleship. We have reached out in faith with one, but we have to release our world and the things we have held dear to take hold of the Lord with the other. The things of this world keep pulling us down into death while the Lord is pulling us up into life, but it takes both hands laying hold of His for us to be pulled up into the fullness of His life.

Blessings,
kent

Poor in Spirit

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

Faithfulness

Faithfulness

1 Corinthians 4:1-5
1So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. 2Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. 3I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. 4My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. 5Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

When we received Christ as our savior and embraced the cross, we embraced and committed ourselves to a trust. Through our faith in Christ we promised to be faithful. Even as couples, at the altar of marriage, enter into a covenant with one another, part of that covenant is the commitment to faithfulness and fidelity. Likewise we are in covenant with Christ and one of the primary attributes God desires in His people is faithfulness, unswerving, unconditional and continued commitment to their faith. God is looking for faithful servants that He can commit His kingdom, his power and authority unto. If they do not prove faithful they will abuse, misuse or fail to use what He would entrust to their care. Each one of us in Christ has been given the Holy Spirit. The Word teaches us that He gives us gifts and callings and talents. We may not see ourselves as being anything or having anything, but God has placed something unique and special within each one of us. He wants us to be faithful in whatever it is that He has given to us. Some of us are still learning and searching out what our unique talents and giftings are. They have a way of coming to the surface if you will look for them, because they are all resident in you, because Christ is in you. God is not asking all of us to be a great missionary, evangelist, preacher or teacher. It is not the prominence of what we do; it is the faithfulness that God is looking upon and that we will give account for. It is faithfulness that causes the body of Christ to function and operate in a healthy manner. What is unhealthy is when someone tries to make us be or we try to be something that God didn’t intend that we were. We can get out of God’s placement and we will most likely experience a great deal of frustration and failure if we are. We don’t always get man’s approval or even the approval of our brethren for what God has called us too, but it is important that we please God and not men. Often we can look at others and make judgements about them and their place with God that we have no business making. We can even misjudge ourselves. God is the final judge and before Him we stand justified or condemned. Far too often we try and judge a fruit before it is ripe. God is working in and processing each one of us to be what He has created us to be. Our job and responsibility is to remain faithful to Him through the process.
Faithfulness is often a submission to others who are in authority and even submission as an act of love. There will be times you may be far more qualified than one who is over you and you may find that to be source of trial and irritation, but remember ‘humility is strength under control’. Faithfulness is lifting others up and not putting them down.
A faithful man is a reliable man. One story of faithfulness that impresses me in the Old Testament is the story about Uriah the Hittite. He was the husband of Bathsheba whom David became involved with and impregnated. David, in his effort to cover up his sin brings Uriah back from the battle so that he can get him to have relations again with his wife and then the child can be attributed to him. Uriah, the Hittite is actually named among David’s mighty men, which were like the elite force of David made up of thirty some men. Uriah wasn’t the most prominent of men, but there is an attribute we begin to see in Uriah that we could aspire to be like. He was faithful to David to a fault. Normally this would be a very desirable quality in a soldier, but unfortunately faithfulness was not quite the attribute David was hoping for when he brought Uriah home to his wife. Uriah was more committed to David than he was to his own wife and because of his faithfulness to David and his men he wouldn’t allow himself to even sleep with his wife. He viewed that as a betrayal of his trust while he was still committed to the battle and the other men had to abstain and be separated from their wives. Uriah was such a faithful man that David ended up ordering him into a suicide mission that would take him out of the picture. One cannot help but admire the dedication that Uriah had to David. That is the kind of faithfulness we want to have toward Christ.
So many of us are morally and spiritually loose in our faith. We are tossed to and fro. We are double-minded, trying to be spiritual and yet operating so much out of the flesh. That is not to condemn us; it is to draw attention and awareness to the state of our own faithfulness. How trustworthy and faithful are we to the Lord’s work and the mission we have to live for Him?
The one thing I think we all want to hear when we get to heaven is the Lord saying, “Well done thou good and faithful servant; enter ye into the joy of the Lord.” Are we His faithful servants? Are we responding, as we ought to the high calling of faithfulness that the Lord has placed upon each one of us? It is not for others to judge, but one day God will judge it and what will He find in us?

Blessings,
kent