I am what it says I am, I can do what it says I can do!
November 6, 2015
I am what it says I am, I can do what it says I can do!
Joshua 1:6-9
“Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. 7 Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”
The word and promise that the Lord gave Joshua so many years ago is as applicable today for us as it was for Him. The greatest limitations we have are our failure to see and believe God. “All things are possible to him that believes (Mark 9:23).” If we can see it, it is possible.
James 4:1-3 says, “1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” What we need is a heart, mind and soul that are in alignment and purpose with Him to whom we belong. In order for us to have good success we have to come out from under the darkness and lies that rob us of the truth and into all of the richness heaven holds for us. We are still conformed to the world in many ways of our thinking and reasoning. Our perspective is not often one of praying from the mind of the Spirit and the Word of God. Aren’t most of us caught up in our agendas rather than the Father’s? We are living this life, so we still need things to work our way; that is often the perspective from which we pray.
God is going to take us through battles, trials and testings to possess our land. We can not do it if our reliance is upon the natural man. That is why we meditate upon the Word day and night, so that we may have the mind of Christ. That is why the Word of God must not depart from our mouth, because it is our authority of truth that dispels the lies and darkness of the enemy. The spoken Word of God in our mouths drives the stakes and establishes the boundaries of our faith. Satan can not dwell in light, so light must flood our souls to dispel the deceitfulness of sin. We have the spiritual armory of God’s Word and its application to defeat our foes. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 tells us, “3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
God has told us, as He told Joshua, that there are great and mighty things that we are to do. There are enemies to conquer and victories to be won. There is a land to possess and promises that need fulfillment. 2 Peter 1: 2-4 makes this bold proclamation, “3His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” Our God is calling us to be a people of divine nature. We are after the image of our Father; we are called to be the sons of God, a royal priesthood and a holy nation. Yet, we ignorantly and constantly cling to the attributes and thinking of this lower nature. It isn’t because God hasn’t provided the means for us or that Christ didn’t die to make it a reality. It is we ourselves, that fail to grasp the vision, the faith and make the commitment to possess the impossible through the power of God that makes all things possible to him that believes. Everything in my life has to come into alignment with God’s Word so that the higher principles and laws of the Kingdom of God may take affect in this natural realm. Your are what the Word of God says you are and you can do what the Word of God says you can do. Do we really believe that and will we fully act upon it?
Blessings,
#kent
Count it all Joy
December 8, 2014
James 1:2-4
Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations. 3Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience. 4But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing. (Amplified)
Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. (Message)
Count it all Joy
I don’t know about you but I think most of us think about joy and gladness coming with blessing, prosperity, good health and divine favor. So when the Word comes and says count it all joy, a sheer gift, when trials and temptations come upon you, that goes against the grain of most our thinking and paradigms. Why should I be glad about that? That is exactly what I have been praying to get out of.
As much as we all love the good times and the blessings of this life most of us know by now that it isn’t in these places that we grow spiritually. In fact it is in these places that we usually grow complacent and our heart generally moves away from God and onto ourselves. It becomes about us and not Him. The joy of the trials, temptations and tribulations is that it exposes our weakness, but reveals His strength. It forces us into that place of dependence and trust in Him to do in us and through us what we could not produce in ourselves. The “sheer gift” of our trials is the working of the divine nature in us, because we are compelled into a place where we must walk by faith and not by sight.
Does it seem joyful at the time we are going through it? Probably not, until we see God show up. When he shows up in the midst of our weakness, our failures and our struggles then we so appreciate who He is in us and what we are not in ourselves. These trials and testing are the boot camp of our faith. They strengthen our resolve. They train us for war. They teach us how to endure with patience under pressure and hardship. They reveal to us our true nature and where we are at with our walk in Father. When we see where we truly are then we can see where we truly need to be. As we start moving in the direction of godliness and dependence we are being exercised and finding more and more that Father is our strength and provision in these difficult circumstances. The circumstances of life are not our enemy; they are simply the tools to exercise and increase our faith and maturity. The old saying goes we can never have a testimony unless we have first had a test. God wants to show His faithfulness to us. We will never experience His rest until we come to the place where we realize that our self-efforts and abilities can never measure up to produce what only God Himself can produce in us and through us as we yield fully and unconditionally to Him.
I am of the firm conviction that many of us in the body of Christ are going through great financial hardship in this time so that we may learn the rest and faithfulness of Father. It is pressing us into a place of maturing in areas where we may have always had plenty. We have grown up with our dependence upon the economy of this world and now God is weaning us off of that bottle and beginning to feed us the meat of a kingdom economy that operates out of faith and not works. Most of us are out here crying, “Give us back our bottle Father”. The earthly things are passing away and Father wouldn’t be showing us His love if He left us in that desolate place. Rejoice in Him, because He loves you so much He is teaching you a higher way and we have to relinquish the old to embrace the new. While we may be struggling now, we will be those who help others who are struggling when this world economy fails. Your struggles today are God’s answer to someone else’s struggles tomorrow. Because of your testimony to the faithfulness of God and the principles that He has taught you someone else is lifted up to where you are. God brings us into maturity not for our benefit. Maturity means you are moving from selfish to selfless. You are the giver and not the taker. You are the example and not the follower.
Precious people of God, get down and get happy because all of the various trials and temptations are here to perfect your faith, teach you endurance, mature and develop you into your destiny and purpose. Rejoice, for these are the tools that bring forth the Christ in you!
Blessings,
#kent
The Cream
February 26, 2014
Exodus 22:29
Thou shalt not delay [to offer] the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me.
The Cream
During the depression my grandfather had a farm and in order to make ends meet they used to sell cream. I never really saw it work, but I remember on the farm was a shed we called the milk house. In that shed was a machine called a separator that would separate the milk from the cream. The cream was the richest and most valuable part of the milk. The cream was never really discerned or seen when it first came from the cow. It was the process of separation that brought it to the top.
I believe God is looking for the cream of His crop. Our world is like a separator that spins us, tries us, and test us. God is looking for those individuals that are laying hold of the fabric of His life through the midst of our life’s tests.
Has it ever struck you that in Revelations 2 and 3 where the Spirit is speaking to the churches, at the end of each exhortation to each church there is a promise to the overcomer? The Spirit is saying to him that gives heed to my correction and exhortation in obedience and faithfulness I have a special promise. Now the promise doesn’t come without a condition and requirement. The Lord is talking about more than just salvation here. He is talking to those who stand the test of separation and who rise to the top.
Paul speaks in Philippians 3 about running the race. He forsook all else in pursuit of the prize, the prize of the high calling that in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14 says, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.” The “perfect” used in this scripture refers to maturity in spiritual matters. God has a higher calling that He is calling those who are mature into. There are promises to Him who overcomes. This is a different calling than just a salvation experience, this is a calling into the first fruits, the first ripe of Christ, that will come into His image and likeness.
How great is your vision? Are we content in our spirits with just our salvation or do we hear a trumpet that is calling us to come up higher? The overcomer hears that trumpet and responds to it. Do you hear a higher calling in your life today? It will come through the Separator.
When We Doubt
February 12, 2014
When We Doubt
Colossians 2:8
See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.
When We Doubt
There is a thief the comes to steal,
The identity he says that is not real.
He brings with him doubt, fear and unbelief,
He comes to rob my faith because he is a thief.
What if all my faith is in vain?
Then I can hold on to all my guilt and shame.
What if this message of the cross is just a lie?
Then wretched and most miserable of men am I.
Let me return to the sin and death from which I came,
Let me forsake life and hope if God’s Word is just a game.
Let me return to when my heart was perverted and my walk was lame,
If all roads lead to God, then Jesus why did you come to die in vain?
The Jews passed down the account of all the works that God had done.
They did this so they would not forget all the battles by Him they won.
Take some time to recount all of your blessings, one by one.
You will be find yourself amazed at what the Lord has done.
Intellects want to rob your faith through philosophical clatter,
But what you know in your heart is really what does matter.
What you know to be real in your heart, let no man steal,
Christ in you, redeemed by the blood, that is what is real.
Satan and man can throw up all kinds of smoke and mirrors,
But in the end it is the power of Christ that removes all doubt and fears.
If you embrace the lie it is to your shame,
You’ve been stripped of the truth of why Christ came.
There remains no other sacrifice to take away your sin,
You’ve been robbed of life and power that is only found in Him.
Beware of your reasoning that tells you that Christ is a fairytale,
Lest in that time when all hope is lost, your heart will begin to fail.
If Christ be a lie I will still embrace Him until the end,
Because I have experienced His love and know Him as my friend.
No, I don’t understand the mystery of all of His ways,
But I believe when He calls me up, in Him I will be raised.
So you go ahead and embrace the lie if you will.
But I choose to embrace my Savior still.
I have identified with Him, and so I am no longer my own,
I am becoming flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone.
I will not let fear, doubt and unbelief rob me of the identity that is mine.
In Him my life is hid and out of His righteousness my life will shine.
I know who I am and I will not let anyone take that from me.
For in Christ I live and through His blood I have found my liberty.
Poor indeed is the man that let his faith be robbed,
In the day of judgement bitter tears he will sob.
Stand your ground and hold fast the truth proclaimed,
When faith has stood the test, His promises you will claim.
Kent Stuck