What is God’s Heart for You?
July 2, 2015
1 John 4:8-15 (Amplified)
He who does not love has not become acquainted with God [does not and never did know Him], for God is love. 9In this the love of God was made manifest (displayed) where we are concerned: in that God sent His Son, the only begotten or unique [Son], into the world so that we might live through Him. 10In this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation (the atoning sacrifice) for our sins. 11Beloved, if God loved us so [very much], we also ought to love one another.
12No man has at any time [yet] seen God. But if we love one another, God abides (lives and remains) in us and His love (that love which is essentially His) is brought to completion (to its full maturity, runs its full course, is perfected) in us! 13By this we come to know (perceive, recognize, and understand) that we abide (live and remain) in Him and He in us: because He has given (imparted) to us of His [Holy] Spirit. 14And [besides] we ourselves have seen (have deliberately and steadfastly contemplated) and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son [as the] Savior of the world. 15Anyone who confesses (acknowledges, owns) that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides (lives, makes His home) in him and he [abides, lives, makes his home] in God.
What is God’s Heart for You?
God’s heart is and ever has been that He loves you with a love so massive it defies comprehension. Until we fully embrace and come into the love of the Father for us, we can’t really know Him, for His identity is LOVE. Which of us would willing lay down our life for another, much less give our only son to die for someone else. It was through this demonstration of love that the Father and the Son corporately as one gave their life for the very humanity that had become their enemies; despising, rejecting and living in rebellion and opposition to God. Romans 5:6-11 says, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” That is God’s heart for you!
Now what is our heart for God? 1 John 4:15 says, “Anyone who confesses (acknowledges, owns) that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides (lives, makes His home) in him and he [abides, lives, makes his home] in God.” God’s heart for us has so consumed us with His love that we embrace the gift of His love by our faith in Christ. His Holy Spirit comes into our heart to bear witness that we now belong to Him and the evidence of His presence is that we continually grow in His nature, which is love. After all, verses 16 and 17 go on to tell us, “And we know (understand, recognize, are conscious of, by observation and by experience) and believe (adhere to and put faith in and rely on) the love God cherishes for us. God is love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues in him. 17In this [union and communion with Him] love is brought to completion and attains perfection with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment [with assurance and boldness to face Him], because as He is, so are we in this world.”
What is He? He is love! What are we? His love exemplified through word and deed.
The question we all must ask ourselves is when others see me do they see God’s love, because I am His expression of love to others. If the answer isn’t positive then I must ask myself, “Am I so abiding in His love that it can’t help but show up through me? If we try and just do God’s love then it will always fall short, because it is out of conditional human effort and ability, but if we can become so lost in Him, that we just start to become like the One we worship and abide in then it will it come out of our being and not our doing.
The law of the kingdom of God is contained in this one word LOVE. When LOVE is what rules our hearts, our desires, our motives and our actions then God’s kingdom has come in us. When God’s love rules over all that we do then there are no limitations on what He can manifest through us in His power and glory, because it is all of Him and for Him. This is the heart of God for us and this is the kingdom we were called to live into and out of.
Blessings,
#kent
Passion for Your Lover
March 23, 2015
Song of Solomon 1:2-5
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth— for your love is more delightful than wine.
3 Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the maidens love you! 4 Take me away with you—let us hurry! Let the king bring me into his chambers.
Passion for Your Lover
Is your Christianity a routine? Has it become stagnant with the same old ritual and habits? Do you feel like going to church is just going through the motions and doing what you are supposed to do? If our Christianity has become mundane, boring and uneventful to us then we are missing the passion for the greatest lover that ever was.
The virgins and the friends of the bridegroom may have a more distant relationship with the Bridegroom, but for the bride He is her passion, He is the air she breathes, the song she sings and the dream that she dreams. All of her hopes are in Him. He is whom she lives for and pursues with all that is within her. Why, because it is required of her or it is what she is suppose to do? No, it is because she is so passionately in love with this bridegroom that it is all that she can think to do. He fills her thoughts, her dreams and aspirations. Oh, to be with Him and to come into union with Him. What adjectives can describe her love and desire for Him?
She has discovered what so many have missed. She is in love and nothing else matters around her compared to Him. Oh, how she languishes for His love to be poured out to her. He is the one that puts the butterflies in her tummy. He is like sweet smelling perfume, she just wants to breathe Him in and His name is like perfume poured out. With the fragrance of His name there is life, healing, deliverance and salvation. It is the name above every name and the name that is the sweetest fragrance in all of the earth. No wonder so many love him.
She cries to Him, “Take me away with you, let us hurry!” In John 14:3 the Bridegroom tells His bride, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, [there] ye may be also.” As the Bridegroom has prepared a place for her, so she has prepared herself for Him. Now she is ready and crying out to Him. It is not about escaping or running away from all that is happening around her, for her it is the union with Him. “Let the King bring me into His chambers.” It is about union and intimacy that produces life and a manchild that is in the image of his Father.
The fruit of her loins the enemy despises, seeking to devour and destroy this one who comes forth in the image and likeness of the King. This child is he (many membered he) that rules and reigns with Christ and becomes His government in a new heaven and a new earth. It is this bride that desires that seed. His seed of life and godliness that shall prevail and overcome, that will set creation free and bring all of humanity into the emancipating liberty of Jesus Christ.
What is your passion today? If you want to know this kind of love, then pursue Him. Often He may seem evasive as we seek His presence. He is looking for those who will not be discouraged and will not take no for an answer. He is looking for those who are not easily distracted and set their affections upon other things. He is proving her whose heart is perfect toward Him and who will not allow her love to be denied. Are you such a person of passion and purpose?
Blessings,
#kent
Descended to an Ascended Life
February 26, 2015
Descended to an Ascended Life
Ephesians 4:7-10
But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)
Jesus came down that He might bring us up. The Son of God became the son of man so that He might bring the sons of men to be the sons of God. Christ came down and imparted Himself into humanity that He might bring us into His ascended life. It is a life that is marked by the same attributes as the One who has gifted and imparted it to us. It is a life wherein we die to live, a paradox that the world doesn’t comprehend. Just as a caterpillar dies to it’s old ways in the cocoon of transformation, so we are transformed and changed from glory to glory, even into the same image, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18). While we live the blessed life, in the favor and fellowship of the Spirit of God, we, at the same time, may be living out the trials and tribulations that are facing us in this world. Again, we find a paradox that we can find peace and joy in the midst of trials and tribulations. While we descend in a spirit of humility into the lives of those that God has placed within our influence, loving them in Christ and meeting them where they are at, we are living an ascended life that is drawing us into the presence of the Father. With eyes and heart set upon things above, we are not an island unto ourselves we are a light and a ladder to bring others to ascend with us in hope and in faith.
The Lord, when He ascended up on high, led captivity captive and gave gift unto men. These gifts He gave us, were not for our glory, but for His. He is glorified when these gifts serve to bring others into this ascending life. While we are ascending up into Him in spirit, we are being poured out and offering up a spiritual sacrifice in the natural. The abundance of God’s glory is manifested in our weakness. When we are operating out of an ascended life then others will see Christ; they will not see us, because the ascended life is not about us, but about Him. We become a usable commodity spent upon a higher good and calling. We spend and are spent that others might taste and partake of that ascended life.
Allow me to leave you with the Apostle Paul’s definition in 2 Corinthians 4:7-19, of the ascended life and how he also descended that he might ascend, but not without hope and not alone.
“7But this precious treasure–this light and power that now shines within us–is held in perishable containers, that is, in our weak bodies. So everyone can see that our glorious power is from God and is not our own.
8We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed and broken. We are perplexed, but we don’t give up and quit. 9We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going. 10Through suffering, these bodies of ours constantly share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.
11Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be obvious in our dying bodies. 12So we live in the face of death, but it has resulted in eternal life for you.
13But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, and so I speak.” 14We know that the same God who raised our Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself along with you. 15All of these things are for your benefit. And as God’s grace brings more and more people to Christ, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.
16That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. 17For our present troubles are quite small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last forever! 18So we don’t look at the troubles we can see right now; rather, we look forward to what we have not yet seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever.”
Blesssings,
#kent
Container of God
December 11, 2014
John 14:9-14
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. 12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Container of God
Philip asks a rather superficial question of Jesus that evokes a response from Jesus that unveils all that He is. “Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Philip, like so many of us, is only focused on the outward and so he, like so many of us, misses the real truth. The truth was the Father had been there all of the time in the person of Jesus. Their lives and identity are woven as one and you can’t have one without the other.
What is the relationship that Jesus Christ is communicating to His disciple in these last hours that He has with them. Their is such a powerful truth here that we so often read over it, but like Philip, we really haven’t grasped its reality. Jesus tells Philip (paraphrasing), “I am the expression and the manifestation of my Father. He who is Spirit is revealed to you through my flesh.” What we see in Jesus, His life, His words, His love and His expression is Father’s nature and character expressed through humanity, into humanity. No one had ever gotten closer to touching and seeing God than when they beheld and touched the life form of the Father in Jesus. What Jesus expresses here and through his Spirit anointed prayer in John 17 are truths that we seldom dare to truly believe and embrace. In John 17:20-23 Jesus prays, “”My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.””
Jesus came into the world hidden from the world’s view, because He was nothing significant or important as the world views it. Those who truly know their identity in Christ are most often like Jesus, insignificant in the world’s eyes. What sets the true people of God apart is that they are embracing the reality and truth that as the Father was in Jesus, so Christ is in us. Even as Jesus grew up obscured from public view. Luke 2:52 says, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” God is maturing Sons (both men and women) that are the expression of His divine character and nature. These Sons are not their own. They have relinquished self for sonship, even as Jesus was not His own. What He heard the Father speak, He spoke and what He saw the Father do, He did. As the Father had expression through the Son, so the Son has expression through us as we will yield our beings to Him. Jesus relinquished His will for God’s will, just as we must also relinquish our will for His. Jesus, through His prayer to the Father and later through the giving and imparting of the Holy Spirit into us as believers, He came into us with the purpose of being one with us.
Can we hear that today or are we like Philip who could only see the superficial relationship, but hadn’t truly grasped that Jesus Christ and the Father were one? We see and often view the Father and Christ as up in heaven and if we keep looking up we will see him come back some day. That is a Philip mentality. The Christ is right here with you. He is residing in you. Many of us have just lacked the revelation of who we are in Christ. We are still identifying ourselves in an old Adam mentality. We are still looking into the natural mirror and seeing Adam reflected back rather than looking into the mirror of God’s Word and seeing Christ reflected back. Who are you going to embrace and believe?
Ephesians 2:5-6 declares, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” Why are we looking up to heaven when we are already seated their in Christ? Even as Jesus Christ was the kingdom of God come into the earth, He wants to establish His kingdom through a many membered Christ. Unless the His kingdom is come and His will is done in you first how can it be made manifest to the world?
Has the Son been with you all this time and yet you have not seen Him? Jesus makes an almost incomprehensible statement here in John 14:12-14, “12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” If you have the spiritual eyes to see and the faith to receive, then Jesus is telling you what He has just demonstrated through His life, you can do in like manner through yours if you know who you are in Him. This not about you being God or having a God complex. This is about you being dead and Spirit of Christ being released to live through you. It is all right there, resident in you now if you be in Christ. Embrace the identity you have in Him, for He created you and purposed you to be a container of God.
Blessings,
#kent
Love Your self
October 27, 2014
Galatians 5:14
The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love Your self
It is interesting sometimes as a photographer to see how people view themselves. Often, when viewing family or individual photographs people can be very critical of themselves. Most often it is the women. They can see and magnify weaknesses or faults that most everyone else considers normal and a part of them. It is not uncommon that great family portraits will fail because mom doesn’t like the way she looks.
In today’s age of technology we have the skills and abilities to actually go in and alter the way someone looks. We can lift and tuck some of the sagging parts, hide the blemishes and soften the wrinkles, but the real issue may not be how we look to ourselves outwardly, but how we perceive ourselves inwardly.
On the other hand I have photographed attractive ladies who may have had a scar that could have easily been removed. I find it is often best to ask people what they do and do not want taken away, because assumptions can get you into trouble. These women that I refer too wanted their scars to remain, because to them they were a reminder of what they had been through and the gift of life that they still had. In today’s world many of us feel the pressure to live this façade of a perfect life, have a perfect body, beautiful looks, a perfect home, children and husband or wife. The truth is that that is not the real world. We all have scars, wrinkles, handicaps and weaknesses whether they are outwardly evident or not. Brushing or photoshoping over them isn’t going to take the reality of them away, nor should it. These blemishes upon our lives are the evidence that we have lived and experienced what life had to offer and that it wasn’t always nice or kind.
The Lord tells us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, but some of us don’t really love ourselves, so how can we love our neighbor properly? Understand that all real people have weaknesses, faults and frailties. That is a trait of our humanity. Don’t be ashamed of yourself and don’t boast in yourself, but rather see the completeness of yourself in Christ. Christ is not a crutch; He is the fulfillment and the completion of our humanity. The scars, the wrinkles and experiences that we share all testify that by the grace of God we survived them and we are still taking hold of life. The wonderful thing about our relationship with Christ is that where we end, He begins and where we are weak, He is strong.
Don’t be so harsh and judgmental of yourself. I know that sometimes I think, “God, why am I stuck with being me?” It is because in my weakness He is made strong and His grace is sufficient for all of my needs, my infirmities and my weaknesses. If you are down on yourself today it is because you don’t have your eyes on Jesus. Take courage, take heart and know that you can do all things through Christ that strengthens you. Love yourself as Christ loves you.
Blessings,
#kent
Spirits of Influence
June 28, 2014
Romans 13:12-14
The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to [fulfil] the lusts [thereof].
Spirits of Influence
There are three primary wills that are operating in our lives today: the will of God, the will of man and the will of satan. We have the right and the good on one side, the evil and the darkness on the other and we are in between. We know that we are a spirit being, with a soul made up of mind, will and emotion. Then we have a body that is able to physically and outwardly express that which is resident in our spirit and our soul. We find that our souls are the battleground for that which possesses our spirit and that which manifests itself through our outward man.
As a Christian we have asked Christ to come in and indwell our spirits. This is the beginning of our salvation experience. While we have given our hearts and spirits to Christ, what we find is that there still remains spirits of influence in our outward man that continue to seek to find a place of residence and expression through our mortal man.
Why is it that as Christians we still display so many attributes of the flesh? It is because there is still a mixture in our soul of flesh and Spirit. When the Lord brought the children of Israel out of Egypt and into the promised Canaan land, it was filled with inhabitants already. The inhabitants were an idolatrous and wicked people. The absence of the presence and working of the Spirit of God in that place had left it like a fertile field overgrown with weeds, thistle and thorns. The possession of the land was through a physical and spiritual dispossessing of the former inhabitants and the spirits that possessed them.
In our souls today we may well be struggling with spirits of influence that may be quite contrary to the Holy Spirit. Each one of us has strongholds and weaknesses that the enemy seeks to infiltrate and exploit to his sinister end and purpose. There may be areas that we are able to overcome relatively easy and have no real power or influence over us, but there are other areas that we struggle with and may feel constantly defeated in.
Satan feeds on flesh. In Genesis 3:14 the Lord curses the serpent, satan and says, “And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou [art] cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” If we ask the question, “what dust does he eat?” we find the answer in Genesis 3:19. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.” Our bodies and our flesh are the dust that the serpent and his demonic host feed upon. When we are in Christ, satan’s only right to us is through our flesh. Satan had nothing in Jesus, because Jesus didn’t operate out of the flesh, but out of the Spirit. This is why Romans 13:14 exhorts us to, “put on you the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lust thereof.” What we feed, grows. When we give place to those areas in our lives that are our weaknesses and areas of temptation then they grow stronger and stronger the more we give them life and place. The stronger they become the more they bind and imprison us. This is how the enemy gains a foothold in our lives and through time is able to destroy our testimony and faith. This is the purpose and the goal of the enemy, to rule us with condemnation, guilt and shame. The more these strongholds gain place the more isolated and unworthy we feel of God, thus the more we are separated through lack of faith, fear, doubt and condemnation.
The reality is God has never stopped loving us and caring for us. The blood of Jesus has never lost its power of forgiveness, but satan has found occasion through our sin to cause a separation between our God and us.
Freedom is in laying hold of the key of faith that will unlock the door to our prison. God has already set us free in Christ. It is our minds and the deception of the enemy that holds us captive. The Word exhorts us to denounce the works of darkness. Romans 13:12 exhorts us, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.” Our liberty is in putting on the armor of God’s Word and truth by faith. ‘There is no more condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. We will no longer walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit in Christ Jesus.” By the Spirit we will put to death the deeds of the flesh and we will take back the land of our soul and mortal bodies through the authority and the power of Christ in us. We have reckoned ourselves dead unto sin and alive unto Christ. We will press on, overcoming in that truth. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)”
Don’t allow the spirits of influence to rob you of your destiny and your purpose in Christ,
“ But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to [fulfil] the lusts [thereof].”]
Blessings,
#kent
His Wisdoms
March 28, 2014
His Wisdoms
Job 26:14
Lo, these [are] parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power who can understand?
Never stop being passionate about who you are.
You were created for a distinct reason and purpose
And your purpose can only be fully revealed by the One who made you.
Your gifts and the talents He gave you can be used in many ways,
But they are best used and humanity best served by using them His way.
He has created you unique, special and one of a kind.
There will never be another you and that is why you are highly collectable.
God sees you as His treasure and desires to purify you into your most refined state.
How often do we insult our Maker by despising and disliking what He has made?
If you have weaknesses they can be a blessing,
They keep you constantly dependent and reliant on the One who is your strength.
Not even the best of us are complete in ourselves.
If we become an island, then we become disconnected and disjointed.
We fail to give out and take in the breath of other human lives.
Just like breathing our lives are a series of interactions of giving out and taking in;
It is the breath of life, blessings and struggles of other human beings.
As we breathe God in through our spirit we exhale Him out through our souls.
His people feeding and breathing in His life are the breath of life to the world they touch and live in.
Hope is based not on what we see, but on what we believe.
Faith is the wings that allows hope to fly into our reality.
Love binds the universe.
While hate destroys and tears asunder,
Love is the creative force that brings light out of darkness;
That overcomes and triumphs over all that is evil.
Love is the blood flow of God’s heart and it courses throughout His creation,
The Cross is the doorway through which the blood of Jesus, His Love flows.
God’s heart has been broken by our sin, but His blood poured out to cover them.
Because we are washed in the blood we are the instruments of His love.
He is our destiny.
His life is our reality.
His love is incomprehensible.
Blessings,
#kent