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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How Sweet, How Hight, How Rich is Your Love?

How Sweet, How High, How Rich is Your Love?

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

4Love 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.

               When we look over God’s definition of Love, how much of us do we see there?  It is not to condemn us, but to show us the way up is the way down.  The way down is in humility and the esteeming of others above ourselves.  How many of us justify our actions and responses to others based on their behavior towards us?  True love of God is not a response; it is an action to respond unselfishly and unconditionally to another.  It truly must be God’s love in us and through us that brings some into the Kingdom.  Even ones we have loved and cared about may have brought us such heartache, disappointment and hurt, that in the natural, it is impossible for us to love them anymore.  We want to wash our hands and be done with them.  Yet in the back of our spirit arises that scripture from Romans 5:8 that tells us, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  If our God were not a God of tremendous and intense love then surely there would be no human race left.  God would have given up on us long ago and gone with a different plan.  How can a God love us so much that He would be willing to sacrifice His own Son to redeem us from our sin and willful disobedience so that we might return and have fellowship again with Him?  Who can comprehend such a love?  He doesn’t want us just to comprehend it, but to put it into practice in our own lives.  The love of God, that “agape” love, is not an attribute of the natural man, but it is the fruit of His Sprit that He longs to see produced in us.  What is flowing out of our lives today, mercy or judgement, longsuffering or impatience, hope and perseverance or giving up?  Sometimes you have to put some people away from you to avoid being injured or destroyed yourself, but never stop loving them, praying for them, forgiving them and believing for them.  It is that love of Christ in you that covers them with mercy and grace, and extends God’s love to them even though they may fully reject Him. 

               God is wanting to work a greater measure of His love in us than most of us have ever known before, but the exchange for that love happens at the cross.  In order to love with His love we must die His death.  It is a laying down of our life for others, not because they deserve it, but because we are the extension of God’s love toward them and for them.  Jesus tells us in John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  After the death and resurrection of Christ, His disciples laid hold of this revelation and their mission became the same as the Master’s, to lay down their lives so that others may know Him, whatever the cost. 

               Do we have that love in us that goes beyond our prejudices that we so often deny, that extends past our comforts and pleasures, that goes even deeper than our limitations can take us?  Only Christ in us can produce that depth and measure of love, but He is taking us deeper than we ever wanted to go and yet at the same time we are going higher than we have ever been before.  The way up is the way down and the highest heaven is often reached through the lowest hell.  Only the love of God in us can take us and preserve us through the extremes of His love. It will never be found in the comforts of our complacency, it can only be found as we get caught up in the radical love of God.  His love will sound our depths, but it will also expand our borders to be what we never thought we could be capable of being.  How deep is the Love of God in us today?  How deep, how wide and how high are you willing to go?

               “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what [is] the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.” (Ephesians 3:17-19)

Blessings,

#kent

Sacrifice

Sacrifice

Romans 12:1

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, [which is] your reasonable service.

               Sacrifice is a reoccurring theme and subject throughout the Word of God and at the core our faith.  The simple definition of sacrifice is “victim”.  Those who are familiar with the Bible see the progression of sacrifice from the first time in the Garden of Eden when animals were sacrificed to clothe Adam and Eve after they had sinned.  We see it as a means in which man approaches God through sacrifice or offering something as a means of establishing relationship and atoning for sin.  Then there is quite an elaborate structure of sacrifice that is established under the Law of Moses. 

The message here was “the wages of sin is death”, sin carries with it a death penalty.  If the person committing the sin does not pay it then a victim or sacrifice must pay it.  Hebrews 9:22 says “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.”  God’s economy requires blood (representing life) to be shed for sin.  Jesus, of course, was the ultimate lamb and sacrifice for men’s sins.  Everything before Him was only a type and shadow of the only one whom could take away our sin through His precious, sinless blood.  He became the victim for us.  He took the death penalty for us so that we would not have to spiritually remain dead and separated from God, but now could be united with Him through Christ to experience divine life and relationship with our awesome God.

               This has all been a prelude to the question: “If Jesus was the sacrifice and paid the price what further meaning does sacrifice have for us?”

               Jesus is the prototype or firstfruits of all that should follow Him.  The Cross, which is the symbol and implement of Christ’s suffering and death, becomes the believer’s as well.  United with Christ by faith we identify not only with His resurrection life, but also with His suffering and death as well.  There is both bitter and sweet in this walk with Jesus.  The first thing we must recognize, which the scripture from Romans 12:1 brings home to us, is that we are not our own any longer, nor are we the servants of sin and death any longer.  We were bought with the price of the Blood of Jesus and we are now His servants.  Servants of righteousness, which means our lives are given willingly, lovingly and obediently to live for His purpose and for His glory, being conformed to the mind of Christ.  We become the living sacrifices, which is our reasonable or expected service to God.  The long-standing joke in the Church world is “the trouble with living sacrifices is they keep crawling off of the altar”, which is humorous, but sadly true.  Presenting ourselves a living sacrifice is our pledge of allegiance and commitment to our Lord.  It is saying the life you gave me both physically and spiritually I now give back to you in obedience and submission to whatever you would require of me.  The life I now live, I live as a sacrifice to Your glory and honor, no matter what the cost.  Christ sacrificed all for us, shall we offer back less to Him?

Blessings,

#kent

Shame and Guilt Anoints Love and Mercy

John 12:1-3

Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. 3Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

Mark 14:3

While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.

               Guilt and Shame

My choices have filled me with guilt and shame,

Now pursues me mental torment, anguish and pain.

How could God forgive all that I’ve said and done?

Could there truly be complete forgiveness through His Son?

Though His gift is something I could never deserve or earn,

Because of His grace, from darkness to light I’ve now turned.

Washed in the blood of Christ I’m now set free,

Guilt and shame no longer have a hold on me.

Kent Stuck

Shame and Guilt Anoints Love and Mercy

               Mary was a product of God’s grace and love through Jesus.  It becomes evident as we read further in the scripture that Mary was a woman of reproach, looked down upon by many of those who thought themselves far more righteous than she. 

               I saw Mary here as that alabaster jar.  Beautiful stone, but hardened by sin, shame, guilt and rejection.  We can only guess at what might have brought her to this place, but what Mary illustrated for us is that those who are forgiven much, love much.  As I see Mary here breaking this alabaster flask, I see her braking open her very heart.  Out of that formerly hardened heart flows a fragrance so rich, sweet and fragrant that the whole place is filled with it sweet aroma.  Mary doesn’t stop there.  She demonstrates the fruit of true repentance, humility, brokeness, love and adoration.  She pours out upon Jesus not only the sweet fragrance of this perfume, but the deepest expression of worship she could hope to give to Him and show Him.  It wasn’t just about the costliness of the perfume for Jesus, it was about a life, so precious to Him that would be purchased and fully redeemed through Calvary as He became that alabaster container that would be broken and the fragrance of His precious blood would be poured out to anoint all of humanity with the gift of forgiveness from guilt and shame.  “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) 

I’m not guilty any more because the sweet fragrance of His mercy and sacrifice eradicated forever the stench of my guilt and sin.  When we get a real revelation of what that is then we will feel what Mary felt as she anointed Jesus and washed His feet with her hair and tears.  We will become worship poured out on the One who is so worthy of all the praise, glory and adoration that we can pour out upon Him.  We will no doubt be ridiculed and resented by the crowds and the religious without who operate out of pretense, rather than heartfelt worship. They have no real clue of what this love affair is about. 

               Mary gave materially, without reservation, of the most costly possession she owned because it represented the gift of herself, her all, her very heart and soul poured out and given to Him who alone was worthy.  Shame and guilt had come to anoint Love and Mercy, because Love and Mercy no longer regarded or held her guilt and shame against her.  If ever there was a love story this is it.  It is a spiritual love exchange like no other.  Instead of her body, she comes to express the giving of all of her heart and soul.  She shows all of us that higher level of worship where what we do is no longer to earn or please, but to express gratitude and worship to the One who took all of our guilt and shame upon Himself and in exchange, allowed us to become partakers in His righteousness, which alone is acceptable to the Father.

               Are we willing that our lives would be broken open for Him, that all that we are might be dispensed to His glory and honor?  Do we have that heart of immense gratitude, love and worship for all that He has done for us?  Mary was an example to all us how that former guilt and shame can anoint Love and Mercy.  It is loving Him, even as He first loved us, giving Himself for us.  We are the products of the Lord’s grace and mercy.  No greater love should we have, than for Him who withheld nothing, and gave everything for us.  Should our lives, like Mary’s, be any less for Him?

Blessings,

#kent

We are Right in Our Own Eyes

We are Right in Our Own Eyes

Proverbs 21:2-3

Every way of a man [is] right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.

To do righteousness and justice Is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.

                Isn’t it a fact that most of us are justified in our eyes for our behavior; the words we speak and the attitude and actions we carry out?  Most likely, if others are offended or hurt it must be their problem, not ours.  That is because we have that wonderful rational mind that is so skillful at justifying what we do, the words and attitudes we communicate and how we live.  Even if we do see and acknowledge some of our faults we may well try and offer a little sacrifice to compensate for it.  We want to give token gifts that cover over our offenses and sins.  We can rationalize “it is okay if I do this and this and the other, if over here I do this and this and the other. “They will balance each other out and I will be okay”.  The mind is a funny creature; it rarely really likes accountability for it’s own actions.  Are you ever amazed with all the excuses we can come up with when things go wrong?

                The truth is these games don’t fly with most people very long let alone God.  He is looking into the true motivation and attitude of our heart.  He sees right past all our little diversionary tactics to justify us.   Like the prophet Samuel ask King Saul in 1 Samuel 15:14, ” What [meaneth] then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?”   The command of God was to utterly destroy the Amelekites and all that belonged to them, but here we find compromise because King Saul had allowed the Amalekite king and the best of the flock to be spared on the pretense of sacrificing them to God.  When I read this I think how many times have I compromised God’s Word, by rationalizing in my own mind why it would be okay or if I did it just a little different.  If you read or are familiar with the rest of this account and exchange you know that Samuel makes the important point to Saul in 1Samuel 15:22-23:

“And Samuel said, Hath the LORD [as great] delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey [is] better than sacrifice, [and] to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion [is as] the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness [is as] iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from [being] king.”  The lesson is, it can cost you everything to have a heart that is set on compromise and disobedience.   The Lord simply requires of us obedience to His Word.  We must be willing to look honestly at ourselves and our motives in the light of God’s Word and ask the Holy Spirit to honestly reveal them to us in the light of His truth.  There we must deal with them with the blood of Jesus through repentance,  submission and uncompromised obedience to the will of God. 

                “Lord, help us today to have right motives in all that we do and please reveal it to us if we be otherwise minded.  Help us to yield all of our ways and allow You to have your complete way in us through our uncompromised obedience to You.”

 Blessings, 

#kent

Hidden Issues of the Heart

Luke 18:18-29

18A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 19″Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 20You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.'” 21″All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said. 22When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 23When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. 24Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” 26Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?” 27Jesus replied, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” 28Peter said to him, “We have left all we had to follow you!” 29″I tell you the truth,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God 30will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.”

Hidden Issues of the Heart

We never truly see the fiber and the substance of our being until we are stretched beyond the boundaries of our comfort and norm.  There we see the flaws often hidden from sight.  We can oftentimes see ourselves much like this rich young ruler if we are willing to acknowledge it.  We love and have a zeal for God.  We try to keep His word and commandments.  We feel in our hearts that we truly love God.  We want to serve Him and we hunger and want more of Him.  We acknowledge that we have already done the fundamental requirements.  

“We have done all of these Jesus, what more do I need to do?”  

When Jesus puts His finger on our true heart issues.  He goes where we don’t want Him to go.  He goes to those little sanctuaries and strongholds of self that hold our affections.  It is those areas that often we don’t even realize how much they mean to us until we are asked to give them up.   For the rich young ruler it was his riches and wealth.  It had become what defined who he was and his identity was in his position and wealth rather than in God.  When Jesus touched on His heart issue it made the young man very sorrowful.  The Greek word here conveys that it was sorrow as to cause one’s death, a deep grief and grieving.  Jesus asks him to exchange his riches on earth for the riches of the kingdom of heaven.   He couldn’t bring himself to do what Jesus asked of him.  

Most of us want to continue on and be content with where we are spiritually.  When we begin to really hunger for more of God and ask God for more, then we have to be willing to pay the price.  We have to be willing to deal with our heart issues and the little strongholds of self that we still want to hold on too.  It grieves us to give them up, but we can never give up something, but what He will not give us so much more, if not in this life, then in the life to come.  

When the Lord allows circumstances and people to come into our lives that stretch us out of our comfort zones.  It is there that we begin to often see how shallow our love really is, how easily we are often offended and put out with those who step on our toes and our rights.  What God shows me is that there is far more of me there than I want to acknowledge and lay claim too.  When He stretches me and proves me and sounds the depths of my heart that is when I often find how shallow the waters of His love are in me.  If we want more of God then there is always more of a relinquishment of self.  The way of obtaining and walking in resurrection life is through the cross and through the death of this former man.  We can mentally and spiritually aspire to it, but it has to become substance in our lives.  

There is an old saying that “no one can get your goat, unless you have a goat to be got.”  How many goats are we still hanging onto?   We must not fail the challenge that the rich young ruler had.  The things of this earth are perishing and passing away, but His life is eternal and His riches endure forever.  “What is impossible with men, is possible with God.”  Lord help us to not turn from you, but press into You even when it cost us everything.  Help us to do what seems impossible to us, because with You all things are possible.  

Blessings, 

#kent

I Come to do Thy Will

I Come to do Thy Will

Hebrews 10:8-9

Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and [offering] for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure [therein]; which are offered by the law.  Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.

Do we live Old Testament or New Testament lives?  Do we live to please and appease our God or are we like our Lord who came to do His will.  Much of the Old Testament thinking was about pleasing God, making amends and sacrificing objects to Him.  It wasn’t the motions of keeping the Law that the Father longed for, it was the sacrifice of “will”.  When Jesus came into His ministry there were more than a few times he offended the religious people by not “keeping the law”.  What they didn’t comprehend is that this man was the fulfillment of the law.  He was what they could never be or ever accomplish, because of the inherent weakness of the creature that tried to live up to it.  Creatures weakened by a state of sinfulness.   It wasn’t through the offerings and burnt sacrifices that God took pleasure in, it was in the sacrifice of His Son that took away the first order to establish the second.  

We think of Calvary as being the sacrifice that Jesus offered, but it was only the consummation of the sacrifice of a life that “came to do Thy will.”  Romans 6:5 –7 says, “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also [in the likeness] of [his] resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with [him], that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”  For he that is dead is freed from sin.”  When we became identified with Christ, we became identified with His death to sin.  Sin comes forth out of the will of man; therefore our will was crucified together with Christ that we might no longer live to the will of the flesh, but to the will of God.  We took up the identify of Christ in that “we came to do Thy will, oh God.”  King David caught the revelation of this truth in Psalm 40:6-8, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced; burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require. 7 Then I said, “Here I am, I have come— it is written about me in the scroll. 8 I desire to do your will, O my God; 

your law is within my heart.” According to Exodus 21:6 if a servant willing gave himself to serve his master the rest of his life his ear was pierced to mark him as free will servant.  That is what we are called to become, free will servants, having offered our will for His, not my will, but Thine be done.  2 Corinthians affirms this calling upon our lives, “And [that] he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him whichdied for them, and rose again.”  Again, in Galatians 2:20 Paul defines the sacrificial life, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

The Father is not looking for our offerings, our works and our tributes of religious service, He is looking for the hearts that are saying, “Here I am, I have come and I desire to do Your will, oh my God!”  The place I start is on my face, emptied of self and seeking You to fill me and order the steps my life each day

Blessings,

#kent

Obedience is better than Sacrifice

 

1 Samuel 15: 22-23

But Samuel replied: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD ? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king.” 

Obedience is better than Sacrifice

Most of us have grown up in religion that operates as king Saul did.  It is more about doing than obedience.  We have developed numerous programs to do things for God and about God, but how much of it comes out of direct obedience to the Spirit to do all of these things.  It seems good.  It sounds good, but does it produce the life and Spirit of God in others.  What God does and what He builds will have this characteristic.  It will produce life and it will accomplish the purposes of God.  If we build something in the flesh, no matter how good or noble it may seem, then we have to maintain and support it in the power of the flesh.  What God has commissioned, He will provide for.  

Saul, like so many of us, is justifying to Samuel how he did good.  Listen to how we often respond to God in how Saul answers the Word of God through Samuel in verses 17-20, “Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel. 18 And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.’ 19 Why did you not obey the LORD? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the LORD?” 

20 “But I did obey the LORD,” Saul said. “I went on the mission the LORD assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. 21 The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the LORD your God at Gilgal.” 

How many of us have had directives of the Lord either personally or through His Word and we have compromised what He has instructed us to do.  We have made it subject to our interpretation and justified our manipulating of what God has instructed to best meet our needs or purposes rather than His.  Religion always acts in the name of God, but is not always subject in obedience to the express will of God.  Many of us in our religious spirits, put on our outward vestures of obedience and righteousness, while inwardly we work things after the will of our own devices.  

God has a strong word for Saul and for us who are being religious, but not obedient.  God calls it rebellion and He says it is like witchcraft.  It is where we purpose to manipulate and control what God has spoken to us to do.  We are not honoring and worshipping Him in this process, we are honoring and worshipping our agendas and ourselves.   God doesn’t delight in our pretenses at what is good; He delights in our obedience.  Through this kind of stubbornness and rebellion God rejected Saul as king.  Now Saul didn’t cease to sit in the place of kingship from that day even as Adam didn’t literally die in the day that he partook of the forbidden fruit, but in both cases something happened in the spirit realm that brought death.  When God withdrawals His Spirit from a thing it will eventually whither and die.  

God has withdrawn His Spirit from religion because it is only a pretense of godliness, built upon the letter of the law and not the Spirit.  He is not looking for those who have a form of godliness, He is seeking after those who will worship and walk in Spirit and in truth.  He is looking for those whose obedience is pure from a heart of love.  They are not interested in what makes them look good or what benefits them.  They are only interested in what glorifies the Father, so they will do things in His time and in His way.  If God doesn’t move, then they won’t produce their own agenda to make up for it.  They have put on the harness of the Lord and they will only move as the King directs them.  

Are we operating out of this spirit of obedience or are we still a lot like Saul, manipulating godliness to what best suits our ends?  Our stubbornness and self-will has no place in the kingdom. 

Blessings,

#kent

The Love of God

John 3:16-21
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”

The Love of God
John 3:16 is one of those scriptures that many of us as young Christians memorize. Sometimes in its simplicity we forget or miss how profound it truly is. How many of us as fathers can really grasp what it would be like for us to give our only son as a sacrifice for someone else’s misdeeds? Romans 5:6-8 tells us, “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.”

So even if you could be willing to allow your only son to be sacrificed for someone would it be your enemy? Would it be for the one who deserved your wrath and judgement rather than you love and mercy? When we really stop to analyze and think about God’s love for this world it should just blow us away, because it makes absolutely no sense to the natural mind or reason. How can we take this manner of love so lightly? How can we even regard it as common or ordinary? Our God is such an extraordinary God that works through such a supernatural and incomprehensible love towards us and the world rejects it. So many times, even we, as the people of God, treat as common place and ordinary this holy love, displayed and sacrificed for mankind. If we do, it is because we don’t truly comprehend it or have it operating fully within us. Those who go willingly and offer their lives as willing sacrifice for the gospel of Jesus Christ have come into a revelation of that love. They comprehend that if this love is so great that even the holy Son of the living God and Creator would lay down His life for us then it is worth our laying down our lives as well. Most of won’t even sacrifice our comforts let alone our lives.
One of the things a true revelation of God’s love will bring us too is that there is something so much greater at stake than just us. It will give us the heartbeat of God for creation. It will empower us to love the unlovely, the rejected and the destitute. It will cause our hearts to hurt for the lost and dying, just as Father’s heart hurts and longs for them to come to Him.
As human beings perhaps one of the things we like least is having our darkness exposed. We are often comfortable in our sin and deception even though it only brings us misery and pain. We don’t want to see ourselves for what we are and as God sees us. The capacity of the love of God is to see past our faults and see our need and it is to that need that He addresses Himself. He created mankind to rule and reign with Him, but we exchanged the truth for a lie and righteousness for pleasure. Romans 1:21-25 says, ” For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.”
“For God so loved the world.” What a blessing and a privilege that we have come to an acknowledgement and acceptance of this love by our faith in Jesus Christ. Is our love now so shallow that His love towards us stops with us? No, an immature child is one that is only concerned for their own needs, but when one comes into maturity they learn to become the givers and not the takers.
What is our revelation of God’s love in us today? Are we still just content to take it and not give it? God didn’t build us to be reservoirs to horde and store up for only ourselves, us four and no more. He is wanting to impart His heart of love into us that we may become the conduits and pipelines of His love and blessing. We are the salt of the earth and a city set upon a hill. We are the outshining of his glory and the expression of His love. If not us, then who?

Blessings,
#kent

Appeasing or Pleasing

Appeasing or Pleasing

Hebrews 11:6
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
I think that I may not be so different than many others who earnestly love God, want to have an intimate relationship with Him, but are often tempted to make compromises to please the flesh rather than to please God. I was meditating this morning on how much appease and please sound alike only they are different. If we examine our hearts we will probably find that there are many times we actually try to appease the Lord, rather than please Him.
“So what’s the difference?” you might ask.
I’m glad you asked that question. The dictionary defines appease as, “To pacify or attempt to pacify (an enemy) by granting concessions, often at the expense of principle.”
Now we don’t think of God as our enemy, but He is the enemy of our flesh and when we are trying to appease God that is usually where we are operating from. Romans 8:5-8 tells us, “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.” When we get out of faith and into the flesh then we begin operating out of a mindset that wants to appease God rather than please Him. We want God to wink at our sin and to let us slide. We want the favor and blessing of God, but on our terms. Maybe we start to bargain with God. “God, if you will just let me do that, or have this or grant me that, then I’ll do this.” Maybe we give more and try to do good things. Usually we are not only trying to appease God, but our conscience as well. It is not that we want to forsake God or not serve Him and believe in Him anymore. It is not that we want to displease Him, it is just that we want our way more than we want His way. What we don’t want to acknowledge and submit too is, that it is always our ways that lead us away from His. It is our ways that separate and break fellowship with Him and it is our ways, the natural mind, that hinders us from God’s highest and His best for us.
Like King Saul of the Old Testament we become headstrong about doing things our way rather than God’s way. Listen as Saul attempts to appease God rather than please Him. 1 Samuel 15:13-26 says, “When Samuel reached him, Saul said, “The LORD bless you! I have carried out the LORD’s instructions.”
14 But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?”
15 Saul answered, “The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the LORD your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.”
16 “Stop!” Samuel said to Saul. “Let me tell you what the LORD said to me last night.”
“Tell me,” Saul replied.
17 Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel. 18 And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.’ 19 Why did you not obey the LORD ? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the LORD?”
20 “But I did obey the LORD,” Saul said. “I went on the mission the LORD assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. 21 The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the LORD your God at Gilgal.”
22 But Samuel replied:
“Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD?
To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king.”
24 Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the LORD’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them. 25 Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I may worship the LORD.”
26 But Samuel said to him, “I will not go back with you. You have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you as king over Israel!”
Whenever we compromise what God has instructed by doing it our way rather than His, we only are deceiving ourselves and leading ourselves to heartache and misery. Hebrews 10:5-10 says in contrast, “Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; 6with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. 7Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, O God.’ ” 8First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). 9Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
Father is now asking the same of us. He doesn’t any longer want our burnt offering and sacrifices, our concessions and appeasement. He wants our lives, our obedience and our faith to trust and walk with Him wherever it is that He chooses to lead us. We can no longer seek to appease our Lord; we must walk in the faith and obedience that pleases Him.
“No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of [this] life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.” (2 Timothy 2:4)

Blessings,
#kent