Things are not as they Appear

2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Things are not as they Appear

All around me it grieves my heart to see so many people even the family of God struggling financially, out or work or underemployed. Especially when I see that they are faithful men and women of God. They are not lazy or looking for a free ride, they are just struggling in their finances and often in other areas as well. While this is a difficult time for many it is causing us as a people of God to get our eyes back upon Him as our supply. It is bringing us into a greater inner reliance upon the body of Christ to come together to meet one another’s needs. I believe this is a God thing. It is often in our poverty that we obtain the greatest wisdom to handle wealth. I believe a breakthrough is coming and wealth is coming upon the body of Christ, but we are in a training period. This is where we learn that wealth and blessing aren’t just about our needs and wants, it is about learning stewardship to administrate what God gives us for the benefit of others.
Quite frankly, there may be many out there that feels, as Paul, like they also are wasting away. That outward wasting is to bring an inward renewing of your faith and trust in the limitless supply of all that our God is.
“So if God loves me why isn’t He sharing the wealth?”
He is imparting a greater wealth of learning to operate and lay hold of His life and substance in present sufferings and trials. Remember the children in Daniel that were thrown into fire heated seven times hotter. Because they knew who they were in their God and entrusted themselves to His faithfulness rather than bow the knee to idolatry they had to go through this fire. While the fire consumed the strong men that threw them in and burned off only the ropes that bound them, the flames did not harm them or even leave the smell of its presence upon them. The furnace of affliction is for our purification that God may bring us forth as fine gold in the likeness of His image and nature. Don’t allow yourselves to fear the fiery afflictions that you face, ‘for these light and momentary afflictions are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.’ See in the fire the One who stands among them, like unto the Son of Man. Your life is hid in Christ and the only things the fire can touch are the corruptible things that perish with the using.
God is replacing our natural eyes with spiritual eyes and our fears with faith, as we look not at things, which are seen after the natural man, but the unseen things, which are eternal. With this kind of faith vision it is like night vision goggles that allow us to see in the darkness what the natural eyes cannot see. Faith vision is the same way; it sees the Word of God as the reality in the darkness. Take heart and know that God is training you up for greater things. Right now He is causing you to know your heart and where your affections are. Are they upon the things of this world or are they upon Him. God can’t entrust His glory and power to a people that are not of His heart. Even now He is separating out unto Himself those who are His. Faint not in the day of trial, but see beyond to the glory that He is bringing you into and to the victory and blessing that are yours in Christ.

Blessings,
#kent

Living Out of the Unseen

2 Corinthians 4:18
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Living Out of the Unseen
Natural eyes, physical sounds, human reasoning, life circumstances, what others tell us, five senses, human conditions, perceptions, surroundings and our understanding all feed into what we perceive as real. In the moment and with all that processes through our being, that may be what seems real and factual. As believers, the word teaches us that there is a realm beyond just human natural perception. This realm is not ruled and governed by the same principles that govern our earthly realm. This realm is not dictated by earthly facts or circumstances. This is a realm that God wants us to more and more operate out of, because it is the realm of the kingdom of God and its principles are truth. Its government and dictates are spelled out in the Word of God. It supercedes that which is natural, for what we currently perceive and understand as reality is passing away. It is temporal, but that which now unseen will take its place for it is the eternal.
Currently, we see in part the invisible realm invading the natural realm, but until it has ran its course in fullness of Father’s time, we will not experience the fullness of the currently unseen realm made manifest. 1 Corinthians 15:50 tells us, “I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” In this present corruptible world we can not inherit the fullness of that kingdom which is incorruptible until death is swallowed up with life. This is currently taking place in measure even now as Christ comes forth in us and we live out of His life. His life is swallowing up the death in us.
Before the apostle Paul says this he gives us understanding of the state that we have been in and that which we are moving into. “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As 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. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.” Now while we may see Jesus as the last and only Adam to presently demonstrate the fullness and likeness of the man of heaven, the Word of God and the message of Christ reorients the mind of the believer to not just be operating out of this earthly realm. Ephesians 2:6 says, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” Colossians 3:1-4 declares, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
In light of these scriptures we can see how our spiritual position has changed as we have died to the old Adam and are raised up in the last Adam. In that spiritual identification we see that God has positioned us in heavenly places and in that unseen realm that is eternal. From that position, what does He tell us to do? ” Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” While our physical perspective and position hasn’t changed, our spiritual position has. Now you tell me, which one does God want us to live out of?
Romans 8:5-11 teaches us this, “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. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” You can see where we run into conflict; we find ourselves in two different states, but in Christ we have made a declaration and a statement of faith to disenfranchise and disown our former natural man even while we still abide in this earthen vessel and have put on Christ and identification with His eternal life. That is the position we are to operate our physical lives out of. Even though we don’t see the fullness of that yet manifest we are as Romans 8:22-25 states, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
In that patient hope we aren’t focused on the temporal, corruptible and that which is passing away, but we are embracing the eternal as we declare and decree by faith the Word of God and its promises. It is out of these kingdom principles we now live, move and have our being as we walk by the Spirit and live no longer according to the dictates of the flesh. We are a new creation being made conformable in the likeness of Him who has translated us from darkness into His marvelous light, from death into His incorruptible life.

Blessings,
#kent

Lying Vanities

Jonah 2:8
They that regard lying vanities Forsake their own mercy.
Lying Vanities

What is a lying vanity? That is what I wanted to know as the first half of this scripture was coming up in my spirit this morning. As I pursued this phrase I found the scripture in Jonah 2:8, “They that regard lying vanities Forsake their own mercy.” Other translations state it this way; “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.” We often think of idols as those false gods of wood and stone that pagans worship, but in truth it can be anything that is not God focused and of eternal value. When we look at our lives, our ambitions and our priorities in light of this definition most of us would have to admit that there are probably a lot of lying vanities in our lives. So much of our lives are caught up in the temporal and temporary things that consume our time and energy but produce no lasting or eternal results. Lying Vanities, these are the idols that get our eyes off of our kingdom purpose and distract us from our true destiny. Their rewards are like a breath that is fleeting and quickly vanishes away. For many that lying vanity is the wealth of this world. Proverbs 13:11 says, “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shall increase.” Wealth in itself is not a bad thing, but our wealth should be a God thing. When we are pursuing “getting rich quick” it is wealth received by vanity and it doesn’t last. What we obtain through our faithful labor and acknowledgement of the Lord shall be blessed. Our true increase comes from our faithful service to the Lord. When He is the center of our world and the object of our time and pleasure then He is our reward. Our lives are then about the Father’s business, rather it is in the market place or in church, He is the reason we live, we move and have our being.
As I was having a business meeting with the Father this morning, He has been speaking to me that true wealth is found in love. I had been thinking of ways of business built upon man’s basic needs, such as food, security, sex, sleep and the basic things man needs and depends upon. What I heard the Father say was, “The greatest need man has is love.” We all have the need to be loved. Love is what gives us worth and value. At the time I thought “love?” how can that be a business concept. True love is something that you give away; it is not something that you get. That is where I am wrong. True love, given away, produces a greater harvest of that which is given. True love, God’s love, is not a lying vanity, but an eternal reality. It is what humanity needs most in this life, as well as in the life to come. Only true God lovers can give forth the true love of God. God’s love is what sweeps away the lying vanities that have caused us to forsake His mercy and grace.
It is a time for a new paradigm and way of thinking. My needs are met as I seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, then all of these things shall be added unto me. Our mistake is that we have been putting these lying vanities in front of God’s kingdom, thus we have forsaken our own mercy and blessings. Love is the currency of the God’s kingdom, not the vanities of this world. When we deal in His currency it will affect our temporal lives, as well as our eternal lives. It is time to take these lying vanities, whatever form they take, and put them behind us, for they are considered idols to our God. It is a new day and our heart is to walk in Kingdom ways, to openly be the expression of His love as Christ is expressed through us.

Blessings,
#kent