God, On Our Terms

1 Corinthians 3:10-16
10By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. 16Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? 17If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

God, On Our Terms

Most of you who are reading this know Christ as the sure foundation of your life. We have received Him into our hearts by faith and we place our trust in Him. We have the sure foundation of our lives, which He is. The question then becomes as the apostle Paul addresses here, “what are we building upon this foundation?” Paul indicates that there are different materials that can be used to build this temple which we are. Some of them are fireproof and others are not, but He does warn us that there will be the Day that will bring to light what our house is made of.
Perhaps it is not so unlike the little story of the Three Little Pigs. Each one’s house was tested and those that were made of sticks and straw did not stand. The little pigs verily escaped by the hair of their chinny-chin-chin. I don’t think that this is how we really want to build upon this foundation that we have in Christ. Yet we have to consider the quality of the materials and the work that is going into building this temple.
Many of us have embraced Christ as our Savior, but do we really know Him as our Lord. Many of us have faith, but we still want God on our terms, rather than ourselves on His. We must understand that with the building of the temple there is a continual demolition of the old. While the grace and mercy of God builds us up we are allowing the cross to crucify and tear down that which is of the natural man and that which is not eternal, but will pass away. If we continue to build a corruptible temple on an incorruptible foundation, then there will be a day the building of our lives will come to ruin and destruction. What we invested our lives in building will come to naught, because it was on our terms and not His. We built with wood, hay and stubble instead of the nature of God, the redemption of God and His precious truth. God will allow us to build our house with whatever materials we choose, but their will come a day of final inspection and if we haven’t built according the blueprint and the materials declared in His word, then we can’t expect our house to pass inspection. Which of us wants to come to the end of our lives and then find out there was nothing lasting, permanent or of eternal value in what we did?
Jesus taught us that the foolish man built his house upon the sand and when the floods came it was washed away, but the wise man built his house upon the rock, the sure foundation of Christ. The same materials that have been used in the foundation must continue to be used throughout the building of the house. Then we will know and have confidence that it will stand and remain in the day of testing and fire. Consider that unless we know Jesus as the Lord, the One we relinquish all control too and are in true submission to His headship, then we are building with corruptible materials that will not be of lasting value or substance. That is the price of having God on our terms.

Blessings,
#kent

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God’s Love though You

1 John 4:8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

God’s Love though You

Inherent in the nature of God is love. Jesus Christ is the personified expression of God’s love towards us. God is “agape” love, unadulterated, pure, undefiled, unselfish expression of affection and good will. 1 John 4:9-12 goes on to exemplify this love that God wants to see manifested in our lives, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” We see expressed in this love of God the sacrificing of what is most precious to Him on our behalf. God is looking first to our interest and need. This love is not earned or deserved, it is simply expressed and freely given. Through this love we see the true heart of God toward us. He is working in our best interest and in what will bring us out of death and into life. Now He is saying this same love that you see exemplified from Me through Jesus Christ My Son, is to be your expression and your nature. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 defines for us the attributes of this love, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails.” As the children of God this is our legacy and the expression of the Father that is now resident in us, because Christ is in us. This attribute, above any other, is what should define us, as God’s own. God is telling us that if this is not actively working in our lives then we don’t truly know Him. God is saying for us to know Him is to become like Him and that which most defines Him is His love. Most of us would agree that we probably fall desperately short of being the expression of God’s love, but here we see the commandment, not the request of God in 1 John 4: 7, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” Our very ability to express this love is a God thing. We are able because of Christ in us. If we are missing it, it is because He is not the fullness of our heart and desire. When we are the expression of love to others, we are in affect loving on God, because to be the expression of His love is to love and honor Him. The world needs the fresh expression of the love of God through a people that are not looking for anything in return, but just want to bring glory and honor to the One who has first loved them. This love must first be resident within the household of God and how we treat and care for one another. We all have our personal agendas, but God’s agenda for us is that we be the expression of His love. Let us be cognizant of His nature within us and not stifle it with our own self-interests and agendas. He is our first priority and His first priority of us is that we would love others as He has first loved us.

Purpose

Ecclesiates 3:1
To every [thing there is] a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

Purpose

Each season is created and set forth in the time and purposes God. We are a blessed people in that we live in the fullness of time. Everyone is created for a purpose, but not everyone will be the full expression of God’s purpose. God has a people that have sensed the stirring of His Spirit within their soul. They have sensed and perceived the Almighty’s hand upon them. It may be hard to explain to the average person, because it may not be a greatness that seen with the outward eye or understanding. There comes to be a knowing within your heart that you are here in this season for a reason and that reason is for His purpose.
Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose.” Are we called according to His purpose? One of the things that will signify your calling in Christ is your love for God. “All things work together for them that LOVE GOD.” The love of God is pronounced because it is His love that will help you stay the course through all of the things that are working good in your life. While the outcome of what is working is good, the process of working that good may be very difficult and trying. That is because it is processing out the old man, as the new man in Christ Jesus is coming forth. A golden vessel is a good thing, but the process of getting it from the ore hidden in the earth to that beautifully crafted golden vessel was a process of crushing, fire, being pounded upon by the smith and shaped by the goodness of it craftsman. Throughout so much of that process no one could have seen what it would ultimately be but the Master Craftsman that purposed it.
Many of us have been called and purposed. We have a destiny to fulfill in Christ, but we must stay the course as Father brings us through the process unto our perfection. Even with that knowing that is within us, we sometimes become discouraged, disillusioned, distracted and sometimes discontent.
Father is speaking unto His people in this hour to stay the course. Press into your purpose with all of your heart and being. The promises to the churches in Revelations were not just to the called and purposed, but to the overcomer. The overcomer will stay the course, because he no longer lives, but Christ in him. Old things are passing away, behold, all things become new. Embrace your new creation man and even the processing that comes with it for you were created and purposed for such a time as this.

Blessings,
#kent

 

Fire

1 Corinthians 3:12-17
If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
16Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? 17If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

Fire

The gold goes through the fire for purity. Your faith, which is much more precious than gold, is tried in the furnace of affliction for your purity. When it is not longer you that lives, but Christ in you, then the fire is no longer destructive, but only creative. Creating in you the nature of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The inner workings of gold, silver and precious stone is the richness of My nature and character in you. Self mourns the lose of self, but spirit rejoices when all is brought into the spirit and life realm. There, there is no dichotomy of natures or selfish ambitions. There love covers all and is the motive through which the character of God in you operates out of.
His life now has divine expression, as the self has been consumed in the fire.
In that fire, you become the sacrifice, as all that you formally valued and worshipped is consumed. Idols are broken, self ambition is quenched. Life has become the expression of Life and love orders it course.
What God is calling us to, few are able to lay down. It is the willingness to become nothing, that He might become everything. It is the baptism of fire where all else is consumed that is not in the likeness of Him.

Blessings,
kent

The Love of God through Us

1 John 3:16
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

The Love of God through Us

I would imagine that most of us know John 3:16 by heart. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” It is interesting to note the parallel between 1 John 3:16 and John 3:16. Both of them deal with the laying down of one’s life. Now, in 1 John it is telling us that even as Jesus did that for us, we now ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
Why?
Because this is what love is and this is how love acts. Romans 5:6-8 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.” He didn’t just talk about His love for us, He showed it to us in one of the greatest examples and expressions of love a being could ever give, the life of His only begotten son for the life of another. Christ willingly became that sacrifice for our sin. Why? Because of love.
If this same love now indwells us through Christ in us, then it follows that it will demonstrate itself in its willingness to be poured out and to lay down it’s life for others. Self will be poured out in selflessness as it seeks to meet the needs in others.
1 John 3:17-20 further defines itself this way, ” If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”
We know that we belong to the truth by the love that is expressed through our actions toward others. God is not just a God of words; He is a God of actions and His actions define His nature, which is love. True Christians are not defined by what they say, but by what they do, because we are becoming like our Daddy. This same Spirit of love now resides in us and it is in the giving of our lives that we define ourselves in Him.

Blessings,
kent