Meticulous

Exodus 25:9
9       “According to all that I am going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, just so you shall construct it.
New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Ex 25:9.

This week I have been in Exodus as apart of my bible reading plan. After I read this verse, I started to see how God specifically told Moses and Israel how he wanted everything built. In our culture we don't have the level of seeing things don't with excellence. It is even in the church we have put grace at a place in our lives that we have become lazy in doing the things specifically the way GOd has asked us to. The New Testament model that we are suppose to follow and be built like is Jesus. We use high sounding rational arguments of why we should not try to be like Jesus because He was perfect. It is true that we can never be perfect, but we can have the fruit of the spirit in our lives that people see Jesus through our lives. Do you look like Jesus or like church culture? Are we truly free in the Spirit or are we free in our flesh saying everything is ok for us? Questions I wrestle with everyday!!!

Prayer

In the last few weeks I have a overwhelming sense that without a major change in our commitment to pray, things are going to be very difficult. I have made a decision to discipline myself to pray three times a day. It has changed my life and personal attitude in how I see things. God has already provided everything needed for us to accomplish the task ahead of us. I believe prayer is the relationship part of the war which rages in us so that we have a change in mindsets to see things from God's perspective. His voice is louder and I do less things from my perspective and I do more from His perspective. I see the fruit of my life lining up with what the scriptures say is what we should exhibit. It is a discipline to get up and sacrifice time and sleep and our priorities to minister to the Lord and build His Kingdom. Seek first the Kingdom of God and then these things will be added to you. Are you praying???

Clearing the Brush

Three weeks ago we cut a bunch of limbs from a tree and bushes to give more light to some areas. Our lilac had been pushing out of the shadows into the light into the yard. It is looking great and the lilac has responded well to the change. In the process though I had a lot of cut limbs beside the house. It has rained several times and the limbs were wet and getting moldy. Our neighbor is hooking us up in having someone get rid of it for us. The question for this morning is after you have forgiven or been free, is their cuttings from the issue still laying around in your life. We have to get rid of the old thought process that go with that old pain.

2 Corinthians 10:5 We 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.
The Holy Bible: New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), 2 Co 10:5.

Many times these old thoughts are just hanging around in our flesh. We have to clear them out and not let them clutter up our lives. A way we can do that is to change our thought process. To change the way we think or what we dwell on is a major part of the freedom we receive. I use 2 Corinthians 10:5 for this in my own life. I choose to bring my thought life under the authority of Jesus because that is His best for me. It clears my mind and my creativity and focus explode in a new and powerful way. Have you cleared the brush???

Memorial of the cross

Waking up this morning I heard The Lord say He wanted to build a memorial of the cross in my heart. I saw it as a remembrance for the one who paid the ultimate price for all of us. He gave us the greatest freedom of all and restored our relationship with the Father. So today remember what God has done for us.

What would happen?

I served in the military and I have many friends who have. We gave a part of our lives to this country to serve it. There are some who gave all and died for their country and this weekend is about remembering their sacrifice for us as American's. Their is another group of people who are dead and serving Jesus across our world. They are the missionaries at home and abroad, they have to die to so many things to accomplish what the Lord has put in front of them. We are all as Christians are suppose to die to the things of this world. But if you look at social media we are wrapped up in so many cultural things that at the end of it all in eternity to do not matter. I love movies and sports, the Lord has been taking the love for them out of my life and replacing it with a passion to see people come into relationship with Him. I am not totally dead yet but I am heading that way. I am trying to laser focus on things that really matter in the scope of eternity. What would happen if the church got this concept?

Obedience

As a child if I didn't do quickly and exactly what my Dad wanted the hammer was coming down. My father always said I was a good boy. Unknowingly my Dad shaped how I saw love and it has shaped my very soul. I obey God from a standpoint of fear that if I don't He will remove His love and blessing from me. I did it from a wrong understanding of Love and fear. This way causes striving, worry, and in security to be the fruit of my life. This morning the Lord revealed this to me and showed me the other side.  His love that removes this fear of loss and failure to something much deeper. I want to be obedient because He is my God and I love Him. I haven't figured out what the Godly fear looks like or what the fullness of His love is. I do know that God took my very soul and removed all fear and now I need to walk in love and retrain this flesh to do things from this new perspective.

Who will you tell about Jesus?

In Matthew 1:35-51 we see the beginning of the ministry of Jesus and the forming of the twelve disciples that would follow Him. First John the Baptist calls out who Jesus is and then two men follow Jesus. After they spend the day and night with Him they go to tell others. These others come and check Jesus out for themselves and Jesus reveals Himself to each one differently. Do you see the pattern a person gets the revelation of Jesus and runs to tell another who gets the revelation of Jesus. The group grows as the word spreads. If this is the biblical pattern of reaching those who do not have the revelation of Jesus will it still work today. Come on tell someone about Jesus today and lets reach those who do not know Him.

Do you know Him as Lord?

 Exodus 6:2-3  2  God spoke further to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD;
   3 and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, LORD, I did not make Myself known to them.
New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Ex 6:2–3.

       There are two trains of thought here one generationally and one personally.
             In every generation we hear of what God has done before, and we try to mimic and know God that way. I think in every generation God wants to reveal himself in a different way. HE wants to show Himself to that generation in a way that will bring the greatest impact upon them because He knows every generation and what they need.
             In every person He wants to reveal Himself as the deliverer of their individual situation. Because of situations in our lives we do not always recognize the power of God to heal or deliver us. So HE wants to reveal Himself in our personal lives so that we know Him in a more powerful way.
             The different names of God carry within them the very character of God and who He is. In ancient Hebrew culture they understood this. Today we have lost that idea culturally. His name is who He is and what He will or has done for us.

Is God trying to speak to you in a new way in this season of your life?

Does He want to reveal Himself to you in a way that you do not know Him?

How do we treat the God head??? 5/21/2013

   Jn 1:1       In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
   2       He was in the beginning with God.
   3       All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
   4       In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
   5       The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Jn 1:1–5.

In the church we have so many different things that we focus on. You have two camps of people those who focus everything on the person of the Holy Spirit and those who focus on Jesus. Many times we are reacting to something that happened in our life to bring that mindset on. They are not in competition with each other they work in cooperation with each other. The Holy Spirit points to Jesus and Jesus points to God the Father. They operate in complete cooperation together. If only the body of Christ could also operate without  competition with each other. Pointing to the great things that each part of the body is doing.

Sons of God!! 5/20/13

   Heb 12:7   It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

The word discipline carries so many different connotations. Today I want to talk about discipline as in getting your priorities in line with the way Christ does things. In life we have many long times where we feel like we are in the dessert. I think this time is for God to trim things off of us and get us focused on exactly what we are to be doing. The time of discipline is many times a pruning that we hate and it hurts us so much. Our emotions run the gambit of why is it happening, I found that the season is going to last until we get quiet before the Lord and ask Him what He is trying to tell us.That doesn't mean the season is over it just means that we now know why we are going through it.

Faith pleases God

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that HE is and that HE is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

Faith and grace have always gone together. They coexist in the same area of time and space. Why you may ask, because we have to have faith that the blood of Christ and His grace upon us allows us to go before the Throne of God in prayer. The law has been fulfilled in Christ Jesus, it has done it's part pointing to the only one who can save us. But we many times place the law upon ourselves and others to why we have not received something from God. We hold up the reasons that God cannot reward our faith because we have unaccomplished things and un submitted areas before God. We look harder at those areas than at the rewarder of those who seek Him. I am doing that right now in my life, not looking to God to help me but going through all the reasons in my heart why He should not. That is not a good place to be because it causes us to worry away our prayers. I am making a decision to seek God and believe that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. No one is perfect and God doesn't reward us for doing everything right. Grace fills that gap and opens the way for us to receive a reward from the Father. That doesn't give us the right to make grace cheap and just do whatever we want, but it does free those who are walking with God to live this thing out.

Ephesians 6 18-19

     Eph 6:18-19  With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel,

It has been a couple of months since I have blogged and the frequency is about to change.

When you hear about the amour of God the teaching usually stops at the sword of the Spirit. I wonder what would happen if we went a little deeper and grabbed a hold of the next two verses. To pray without stopping  in the Spirit not for yourself but for all of the saints. That they would be protected and preserver. Not for ourselves but others this is warfare ie. battle armor. Then we are to pray that each other has boldness to preach the gospel to those who do not know Him. You see we need to remove the enemies powerbase by taking those he controls away from Him. Jesus says seek ye first my Kingdom and righteousness and then all of the things will be added unto you. We need to be prayers and proclaimers to really effect the world for Christ.