Agenda for Today

Colosians 3:17
And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, [do] all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

Agenda for Today

Lord, what is on Your agenda today?
Other thoughts invade my mind as I take time to pray.
I try to focus in on what Your will is for me,
But my mind is cluttered by all the mental imagery.

I find my thoughts on these rabbit trails,
Then I catch myself only to feel like I have failed.
Help me Lord, get my soul quiet before Your throne.
Help me give myself, that I may be all Your own.

Lord, what is Your agenda today?
Give me spiritual ears to hear what You have to say.
Order my steps and help me with the choices I make.
Help me loose myself in You and do all for Jesus sake.

Fill my thoughts and be in all I do,
Let my former distracting thoughts, now be thoughts of You.
Focus me in Your will and plan for me.
In all I do, let it be done as unto Thee.

You are the ark and the safety for my heart,
Help me find in You my every portion and needed part.
Be my everything, as You are meeting every need,
Let me live in Christ and humbly follow as You lead.

Kent Stuck

Blessings,
#kent

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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

Investment

Investment

John 3:16

For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever would believe on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Our Mighty Heavenly Father invested in humanity the most precious gift He could give, His Son. Likewise, the Son willingly invested His life into humanity to the point of an excruciating and most painful death as He was beaten and bruised for our transgressions and His pure, spotless blood was shed even for the ugliest of our sins. God has quite an investment in this little planet called earth and the peoples that have inhabited it, past, present and future. Why has God invested in us so much? What has kept Him from becoming utterly exasperated with our sin and rebellion that He hasn’t obliterated the human race and started over? Could it be something we call love and relationship? Why do we get married, have children and invest our entire lifetime into raising a family? Isn’t it because of love and relationship? Our God, by nature is a “Father”. He has a Son that needed a bride, the church. That bride, by His seed, produces spiritual children. Those children comprise the family of God. Is there anything you wouldn’t invest in your family and children? Jesus laid down His life. As He hung there on the cross and his side was pierced, out flowed the issue of blood and water, the birthing fluids of the church. Our Lord and Father has invested Himself in us in awesome humility considering all that God is. Our God has given to us a privilege that is so wonderfully great we can barely comprehend and appreciate it. HE HAS INVESTED AND DEPOSITED HIS VERY LIFE INTO US! And it is all about love and relationship. He so loved us that He desired to bring us into relationship with Himself. Our God is a Spiritual Being who has created earthen vessels in which He has breathed into them His Spirit. The thing that sets us so far apart from every other creature is that we have eternal, God breathed life within us. This outward body may go back to the dust it came out of, but that inward spirit lives on. If God has sealed us to Himself by joining His Holy Spirit to ours, as we have responded in faith to Jesus and the promises of His Word, then what He is working in us is Spiritual Life that is fashioned in the image of who He is, His nature and character. Brethren, we are a natural people that have been birthed of the Spirit, brought into divine relationship with our Lord and Husband, Christ Jesus and made joint heirs with Christ. Romans 8:17 says, “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with [him], that we may be also glorified together.” Joint-heirs mean everything that belongs to Christ now belongs to you and I, but we can’t ignore the conditions of this inheritance. When we partake of the Passover Lamb, which is the type of Christ, the children of Israel had to eat all of it, the good and the bad, the bitter and the sweet. Part of our inheritance in Christ is the identification with His suffering. Jesus paid a great price in His suffering for us. While we like to focus on all of the blessings of our inheritance, there is also the side of suffering. As His children, we also may pay a great price as He calls us to identify with Him in suffering. Many who answer the call of God come to know this reality when they commit their lives, their possessions, and their families to the Kingdom of God. We also, are called to make our investment back into God as He made His investment into us. We are called to relinquish our will, our lives and all that we possess to His service. Paul says of this investment in Romans 8:18, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time [are] not worthy [to be compared] with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” We also must invest into God all that we are. That may come at a great price, but it can’t begin to exceed the eternal weight of glory that we shall possess. We are invested for the same reason as our Heavenly Father invested into us, for love and relationship. As we have come to know that love and relationship with God, so we become the perpetuators of this good news. While it is embraced of some, it will be despised by many. Even Jesus tells us in John 15:18, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before [it hated] you.” Evil hates good and darkness despises the light. What then are the purpose and the end of this investment God has made in us and has called us to make in Him?

Paul continues in Romans 8:19-23, “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected [the same] in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only [they], but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, [to wit], the redemption of our body.” What does that mean? It means that ultimately God has determined that it is through His sons, his divinely appointed children that He will liberate not only us from these corruptible bodies, but creation itself will be set free. The bondage of corruption, death, sin and sickness will be loosed and creation itself will be brought into the glorious liberty that we as the children of God have come into. Our Father will allow us to be the administrators of this great and fantastic restoration. So even if our investment into the Kingdom of God cost us everything in this life, it pales in comparison to the benefits and dividends of its return. We are God’s inheritance and He is ours.

Blessings,

kent

The Name of the Lord

Proverbs 18:10
The name of the LORD [is] a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.

The Name of the Lord

The Messenger bible states it this way, ” God’s name is a place of protection—
good people can run there and be safe.” The man and woman of God who walks with the Lord come to know that they abide in the name that is above all others. It the name of all authority, power and lordship. It is the name beneath which every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. What is so awesome to us as believers is that He has imparted His very name into us. He has birthed us in His DNA and He has purposed us to rule and reign with Him. Many of us struggle with this because we still see ourselves after the flesh with all of its flaws, weaknesses and failures, but God see us after the Spirit. More importantly than how we perceive that we are, is how He sees us for what we shall be and already are in His eyes. As we walk into our destiny we must see much more with His eyes and much less with ours. Paul even says in 2 Corinthians 5:16, ” Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we [him] no more.” It is in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that we are coming into spiritual authority and awareness. He is our place, not only of refuge and safety, but of power, authority and strength. We not only have a safe place to hide in Him. We have a mighty authority and strength to war out of Him.
Sometimes our church theology and mentality is all about escaping the woes of this world, but Jesus came and died so that He might raise up an overcoming people. We face adversity so that our hands may be trained in spiritual warfare. God is raising us up to see our victory, not our defeat. In Judges 15:11 Samson has paid back the Philistines for what they had been doing to Israel. The Philistines are coming down and the people of Israel are afraid because Samson has stirred up the enemy and the oppressors of God’s people. He has done ticked them off. “Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock Etam and said to Samson, Have you not known that the Philistines are rulers over us? What is this that you have done to us? He said to them, “As they did to me, so have I done to them.”” Many of us as Christians have this same mindset as the children of Israel in that day. We are passive and we don’t want to tick off the devil. Just leave him alone and maybe he will leave us alone. Who was really the Lord of Israel, the Philistines or the Lord God Almighty? Who is truly the ruler over us? God is raising up a people as Samson who know their might and power in the name and authority of their God. Do you know your destiny, your authority and your purpose? It is not in kow-towing down to the enemy. If you are experiencing adversity it is so that you might experience victory. If you are being put to death in your flesh, it is so the life of Christ might be made manifest through your mortal body. It is not our flesh God seeks to protect, it is the integrity of His Name.
Romans 8:1 says, ” THEREFORE, [there is] now no condemnation (no adjudging guilty of wrong) for those who are in Christ Jesus, who live [and] walk not after the dictates of the flesh, but after the dictates of the Spirit.” It is in the name, the nature, the character, the authority and the Spirit that we stand vindicated and empowered by the Lord Jesus Christ. Your life is hidden in the Rock of Jesus Christ. He is your habitation and stronghold. He has created you and called you out not to just exist in His salvation, but to triumph and overcome through it.
Fear not the enemy and the adversary of your soul. It is the Lord God Almighty that goes before you into battle. When you go forth in the authority and obedience to that Name you will not know defeat, but only victory even as David went up against Goliath. 1 Samuel 17 says, “Then said David to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the ranks of Israel, Whom you have defied. 46This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will smite you and cut off your head. And I will give the corpses of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. 47And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s, and He will give you into our hands.
48When the Philistine came forward to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.” In the power of the Name of the Lord He is teaching us, not only His safety, but His authority. He is teaching our hands to war in the Spirit. He is teaching us not to shrink back from the battle, but to run quickly toward our oppressors and giants, because the battle is the Lord’s. The Lord is a strong tower and because you are in Him you have victory in your life today. You are the head and not the tail, the blessing and not the curse, the conqueror and not the conquered and yea though all of hell rise up against us, ” Yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors and gain a surpassing victory through Him Who loved us. (Romans 8:37)

Blessings,
kent

Our Children

Our Children

Psalms 127:3
Lo, children [are] an heritage of the LORD: [and] the fruit of the womb [is his] reward.

There are perhaps fewer things in life that can bring us greater joy or deeper sorrow than our children. There are perhaps fewer things in life that can help us relate with our heavenly Father than our children. In our children we see the individual and we also see ourselves. Through our children many of us may have tried to live out a part of ourselves, our children thus becoming an extension of ourselves in their youth. We are given the awesome responsibility to raise them up into adulthood, to be their examples, their mentors, their disciplinarians, and the ones they turn too and trust in. Our heavenly Father has given us a role in a much smaller sense, yet similar to the role He plays in our lives.
Our children, while under our authority, still have a free will to make right and wrong choices. Through those choices they can either bless our hearts or break them. The Lord tells us in Deuteronomy 6:5-9 concerning raising our children, “And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” Our foremost responsibility, besides caring and providing for our children is to raise them, seeking every opportunity to instill in their hearts the Word of God. We do this through our personal instruction, our lifestyle, example, and the atmosphere in which we raise them. Hopefully we learn to instruct our children in the love and grace of God, not just in harshness and legalism. In our exuberance to have them conform to godly ways we may use God like a club to beat them over the head, using condemnation and judgmental tactics to try and control them. This may not be so different than what many of you grew up in. On the other hand some may give there children too much lee way, not providing a loving atmosphere of discipline and correction to guide them and train them into maturity. The bottom line is most of us try and do the best we can to raise our children in a right way. Being human ourselves, we are prone to make mistakes along the way and we pray God’s grace will fill in the potholes of our shortcomings.
Sometimes our children grow up fulfilling all of our expectations to our delight and joy. Sometimes our children falter, but then recover to still grow up and bless our hearts. Sometimes our children become headstrong, rebellious and turn away from the principles of right and wrong we endeavored to instill in them. They may reject our values and us to go their own way. As a result many have ended up in trouble with the law, have broken homes and marriages, have children and relationships outside of marriage, or have adopted lifestyles and behaviors contrary to the way we sought to raise them in. They may be the source of our greatest hurt and heartache today. Even as much as we disapprove of their actions we never stop loving them. Our natural tendency is to some how take responsibility for their actions and the choices they made. Sometimes it leads to marital strife and tension because one spouse blames the other because of some weakness or failure on their part. We all have shortcomings, but at some point our children choose to no longer submit to our authority as their parents. At that point they take the responsibility upon themselves for their choices. Many of us know that while we may no longer have control in the natural we continue to take our petition into the heavenlies unto the throne of our Father. We begin to identify with how we must break the heart of our heavenly Father through our own rebellion, self-will and defiance of His authority. Yet, He is our example of patience, grace and love that is unconditional and whose arms are always open to receive us back into relationship with Him.
Wherever you are at today with your children we know that God knows our heart as a parent. Hopefully your children are an area of blessing and delight to your soul, but even if they aren’t you are their greatest ally and intercessor. Rather they appreciate you or curse you, you are still the heart and example of the Father to them. They have to know that your love is unconditional even if your approval isn’t. They have to know that in their darkness you are the one that lights their candle before the Lord through your faithful prayer and intercession. As the prodigal’s father stood believing and watching in faith for his son to come home, so many of us must stand, watching and believing God to bring our children back home. Faint not, the Father knows and feels your heart. If you have planted good seed in their hearts and lives, never give up looking for the harvest. “For as a man sows that shall he also reap (Galatians 6:7).”

Blessings,
kent

From the Place of Suffering

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.

From the Place of Suffering

Some thoughts the Spirit was dropping into my heart today:

Behold, all I have given you is good.
The evil that befalls man has been the consequences of choices.
Free will always carries with it the responsibility of your decisions.
Those decisions do not affect you alone, but the lives of others as well.
The world lives under the tribulation and subjection of the god that mankind surrendered it too.
This also was the consequence of man’s choices.
My heart has always been to redeem you from all of those wrong choices.
Many want to blame Me for the consequences of sin in the world that is seen through sickness, corruption, disease, pestilence, wars, famine, drought, suffering and all of the evils that plague this world. Unless man sees and experiences what the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil produces, they will never fully appreciate the Tree of Life and the fruit that it produces.
Light is never fully appreciated till one has lived in the darkness or warmth, till one has experienced the cold, or health till one has experienced the pain of sickness.
That is why I came as the suffering savior to experience and take all of these sufferings upon Myself, not as the result of My sin, but yours. I did it that I might redeem you spirit, soul and body. I overcame it all and all of that victory is in Me and in you, if you are in Me.
I told you in the world you would have tribulation, but I also told you to be of good cheer for I have overcome the world. Your victory is not in avoiding all suffering, but in finding my strength and peace to overcome in all suffering. It is not the outward wholeness that reveals my righteousness it is the brokeness that releases My life. It is in your brokeness that My life makes you whole. It is from that place that you can minister My life into the broken lives of others.
Mary was willing to break the outward beauty of the vessel that contained the sweet perfume in order to anoint Me. She was breaking her own vessel of self-respect and dignity to pour out her love and lavish it upon Me. When you are willing to fully lose yourself and become broken, then are you best able minister to the death in others, the sweet perfume and fragrance of My life and salvation. Christianity and religion just dabs the perfume onto the humanity around them, but like Mary’s alabaster jar typified My body that was broken, so that the sweet fragrance of My blood and life could be spilled out upon humanity. You also must be willing to be broken, if you want to fully spill out My life in you. It means you meet people where they are at, not where you are. It means becoming all things to all men, if by any means you might win them for Me. It means that you are willing to die and be poured out that they may live through what I am releasing in you and through you. Christianity was never meant to be a life of glory, but the willingness to suffer along with Me that you might, through that death, be partakers of My glory. You are the sweet grapes, crushed under the feet of fallen humanity, much of it religious in nature. My purpose is make from those crushed grapes the sweetest wine that will make the hearts of men glad through their sacrificial message of good tidings.

Blessings,
kent

A Mighty Wind, A Gentle Breeze

A Mighty Wind, A Gentle Breeze

John 3:8
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

How do you know there is a God and a Holy Spirit? As I listen to the chimes outside sounding their eclectic notes both loud and soft I know that the wind is blowing. Why, because I physically see it with my eyes? No. How do I even know there is air, except that it sustains my life? Can I see the electrons flowing through an electrical wire and yet I can experience the power of their presence. The evidence of the Spirit of God is all around us. Do we see Him with our natural eyes and senses? No, not normally. Like the air and the wind He moves in our lives and in our spirits. Sometimes it is gently through the still small voice, sometimes it is like a storm that shakes us at our foundation and sometimes He is still and we don’t sense Him at all, but like the air He is always there hovering over us. It is that precious wind of the Holy Spirit that blew upon us as believers and blew back the spiritual veil of darkness that had covered the eyes of our understanding and kept us ignorant of the Truth. Then He breathed into us the breath of spiritual life and new birth. Again, it was that wind that blew upon our spirits as it did in Acts 2:2, “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.” It brought power, authority, anointing and gifts of the Spirit into the lives of believers that forever changed them and the world around them. That wind is still blowing today. Sometimes we dwell in our ceiled houses of natural thinking and living and fail to step out into the Spirit to experience the exhilaration of its wind blowing through our spiritual hair. We wall ourselves up in the safe places of our lives where we don’t have to deal with the issues of the spirit and we prevent the Spirit from dealing with us.
Open the doors and windows in your heart and life today and allow some fresh air into your soul. Let the gentle breeze of the Holy Spirit in to purge out the stench of stale air and stagnant odors that have accumulated. It is springtime! Step out into the Son and feel His warmth on your face and heart today. Breathe deep the freshness of Spirit Life and come alive in newness of spirit and commitment. The Holy Spirit is alive, moving and blowing today. Step out into the wind of His blessing. Let Him blow the cobwebs away and refresh you with the power and unction of His Being. If we don’t know there is a Heavenly Father, Son and a Holy Spirit it is because we are spiritually dead. The evidence is all around us. May the wind of His precious Spirit blow through your life today bringing renewal, revival, power and refreshing. He may ruffle your feathers and blow everything out of order in your life, but that’s okay. He is the order of the day.

Blessings,
kent

Lonely?

Lonely?

Genesis 2:18
And the LORD God said, [It is] not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

Some of us experience times of great loneliness in our lives that brings sadness that we lack companionship, friendship. Even God saw that it was not good for man to be alone, for man, like God is a relational being. He has been created to communicate, interact, and be in relationship with other beings. Sure, there are times when it is good to be alone. Some of us are so involved with people we scarcely have time for just ourselves and our thoughts. We deal with people continually on a surface level, but not on a deeper emotional level. There are times when we can have people all around us and yet live in loneliness.
I believe God wants to speak to those who are experiencing that spirit of loneliness, where they feel separated, and cut-off and out of relationship with others. You may even be married, but you feel that your spouse doesn’t really know you or care to relate to your inner needs. Loneliness is a door that can lead us to depression and despair. It is an area where we can also come into place of self-pity. That is not meant in a derogatory way, it is just, in that place, the enemy begins to feed our mind with thoughts of worthlessness, unloveliness and a sense of rejection and despair can come over us. In that place of being alone we can develop misconceptions and wrong thinking. We can envision ourselves as being the only ones going through this experience. Even Elijah, the prophet saw himself in this place in His effort to stand for God. He began to see himself as ostracized and the only one left standing, all alone in his efforts to serve God. Romans 11:2-4 gives us this example, “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to [the image of] Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.”
The truth is many of us can have tremendous feelings of loneliness even in the midst of many people. Sometimes in that place, we blame others for our loneliness. We may blame our spouse or those close to us for not meeting those emotional needs in us. We may be lashing out in anger, because we feel it is their fault for not meeting our emotional needs of companionship and fulfillment. Unfortunately, through that bitter, critical and judgmental spirit you may be driving your companion, friends or relations further and further away rather than drawing them into a place where they can relate with you. You may be causing them to withdrawal more from you as they seek to protect their emotional well-being rather than you creating a safe-haven where they can feel safe to open their hearts to you without fear of reprisal, criticism, judgement and rejection. If you want to bring a turtle out of his shell then you put him in a place that he feels safe and not threatened. Our emotional person can be much the same way. It may be that we are expecting human relationships to meet needs in us that can only really be touched on a spiritual level. You know, we are never really alone. In the clouds of loneliness, the Son is still there. He desires to shine through and touch your need where you are. Jesus was constantly surrounded by people, pulling from Him and expecting of Him, but His real place of relationship, strength and renewal was in the alone time he had in relationship with the Father. If you are feeling that loneliness on the emotional level of natural relationships, then take that loneliness to the Father. Begin to come into the place of relationship with Him that can meet the needs that man will never meet. There is a place of need and relationship that only the Spirit of God can fill. You are forever precious and lovely in His sight. He will never leave you or reject you if you are seeking to relate with Him. He will love you unconditionally and like the woman at the well in John 4, you will find the water that satisfies and that makes you to never thirst again. Drink from the well of His salvation and grace. Enter into that fellowship and closeness to Him. You may find that as you are transformed through the time spent in His presence your natural relationships may improve as well. Allow Christ to satisfy the needs of your heart today as you abide in His presence and share with Him the longings of your soul.

Blessings,
kent

Three Dimensions of Jacob

Three Dimensions of Jacob

Genesis 32:22-32
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
27 The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”
29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.

Many of us will remember this story of Jacob. We often say that Jacob wrestled with an angel. As I was meditating upon Jacob this morning I felt like the Lord gave a little insight into this man Jacob. Jacob’s life is like our spiritual journey. Consider with me some of the analogies I felt like the Lord was showing me and I know there is so much more to this than what we will share here today.
When Jacob came into this world, he came in with his first-born twin named Esau. Now Esau was hairy, red and ruddy. He was a man of the earth and field. You might say he was the adamic nature. The scripture that gives us great insight into these three dimensions of Jacob, which is type of us, is found in 1 Corinthians 15:45-49. “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. 48As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.” While Esau is a type of the body, which is pretty much self-centered and driven by its needs and wants, Jacob is a little more subtle. Jacob is a type of the soul. The soul is where our identity lies. It is our mind, will and emotion. It is expressive of who we are as a person. Like Jacob, most of us have our spiritual side and then we have our fleshly side, for our soul is a mixture of flesh and spirit. Even the name Jacob means “heel holder or supplanter”. The truth was he was an artful manipulator. Even so, Jacob had a spiritual side that hungered for the things of God and the desire for the inheritance or birthright that would normally go to the firstborn. The trouble with the firstborn is that he had little or no appreciation for the birthright. Yes, he wanted the blessing that came through the birthright, but he didn’t have a heart or desire for the legacy and the responsibility that it carried with it. Jacob on the other hand did, but he sought to gain it through unscrupulous means, even though prophetically it had been spoken that the older would serve the younger. Jacob is like us in so many ways. He was always cunning and devising in the flesh how he might obtain the things of the spirit. Whether it was his life, livelihood, his wives or his children, Jacob set about with natural wisdom and understanding to obtain them. That is not to say that Jacob did not have his spiritual side. He encountered God at Bethel in the dream of the stairway or ladder with ascending and descending angels. He experienced God’s blessing, protection and wisdom in his life, but like us, we often seem to struggle and work so hard only to come up so short of our dreams and strongest desires. We have that Labon in our lives, Jacob’s father-in-law, that is always promising so much and delivering so little. No wonder, like Jacob, so many of us are frustrated physically and spiritually.
Even though Jacob knew God and had a relationship with Him, he had his shortcomings, his fears and demons to face. His biggest fear was his brother Esau, the one he had taken the birthright and the blessing from. It is like even though we possess the promises and blessings of God we face our own mortality. Faced with who we are in the natural, we fear. In the natural we perceive our weaknesses, our failures, the ungodly part of our nature. That is what Jacob faced in Esau.
In Genesis 32 we see Jacob escaping Labon and his stronghold to return to the promise land, but there he must face his Esau. In this place of fear for himself and his family, he is crying out for answers and favor from God. Try and scheme as he will, he fears the strength of the flesh that is represented in Esau and his ability to take all that he has labored to build. While he possesses the promises and the birthright they are of little value to him in his own identity. He sends his family and the others on ahead and takes them over the ford of Jabbok, which means emptying. He sent away his family and all that he had and now, empty, he is left alone. There he encounters this third man. The scripture doesn’t say it is an angel, but it is definitely an agent of God. There, Jacob wrestles with this man till daybreak. Could this be the spirit of Christ in us? The spiritual man that we need to change our nature? The first thing that had to happen in Jacob was an emptying and laying down of all that he loved and possessed. Then there was a battle, the struggle and wrestling with that old nature of Jacob, the heel-holder, supplanter and deceiver. These two men seemed pretty equally matched for strength for they wrestled through the night till daybreak. Is this our place of prayer and intercession where we are in a spiritual battle. Have we come to the place that we are going to lay hold of God and let go of everything else unto He blesses us? Are we the overcomers that will prevail with God and man?
What is our greatest blessing? Isn’t it to be delivered of our former nature?
That morning, at daybreak, the man said, “let me go, it is daybreak.” Jacob said, “I won’t let you go till you bless me.” In Genesis 32:27-31 it goes on to tell us,” The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.” 31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.” It is there that Jacob prevailed with God and received a new name and a new nature. The new name is Israel, “God Prevails”. The man touched Jacob in the hollow of his hip, so that the sinew shrank and he crossed over Peniel, which means, “facing God”. Jacob would always walk with a limp, no longer dependent upon his own strength and ability.
We have a similar word to us in 2 Peter 1:19, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.” There is a day for our transformation and new nature to come forth in its fullness, but we wrestle on through the night till we, like Jacob, prevail with God and lay hold of the promises of our inheritance. Then, no more do we need fear our strongholds like Labon or our mortality and flesh, like Esau. No longer are we afraid to loose the things we possess and love. The losses and the wounds we suffer are a small price to pay for what we lay hold of. God’s nature and character will prevail in us if we faint not. We will see the face of God, our Lord, and live; no longer after the flesh, but after the spirit. These are the three dimensions of Jacob, body, soul and spirit.

Blessings,
kent

Oracles of Soberness

Oracles of Soberness

Luke 19:26-27
“He replied, ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. 27But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.”

The Son came to seek and save that which was lost, but many that were lost would not be found. Their rejection was their rebellion and their rebellion was their loss. Unto the faithful is more given and unto the faithless; even that which he was given will be taken away and given to another.

Fear of the Lord is the mark of wisdom, but a foolish man rails against his master. The foolish man exalts himself to be more than he ought, but the wise man humbles himself to be less than he is.

All will answer to the King, whether they accepted his dominion and lordship or not. All of us must answer for what we were given and what we have done with it. The faithful will be exalted, but the faithless will be cast out. The Lord is no respecter of persons, but He deserves and is worthy of everyone’s respect.

The God of Love is also a just and exacting God. In the spiritual realm, there are only two kingdoms. One is the kingdom of darkness and one is the kingdom of light. There is no kingdom of middle gray and compromise. The grays are an extension of darkness masquerading as light, but their deceitfulness draws men into darkness. The Lord does not compromise His own and His own cannot compromise His light with darkness.

Not everyone who says Lord, Lord will enter into the kingdom, but those that do the will of the Father. Our love for God is marked in our obedience and not in our words. Words can be deceitful and our appearances can be vain, but a heart that is given to Christ will bear the marks of His handiwork. It cannot go on unchanged, but each one must give account for the grace that was given. It is not given for a man to earn his salvation, but to work it out with fear and trembling. The garments of righteousness have been given, but it is up to each one whom receives them to put them on and wear them in faithfulness. There are no other garments acceptable before the Father than those that have been washed in the blood of the Lamb.

As in the times before many that accept God in word, reject Him in heart. “The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)” “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if [there be any] wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)” Humble yourself before the Lord, examine your heart before Him and set your life to honor Him.

Blessings,
kent