All Things

Paul said this in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”   When Paul said this, His total reliance was on the Lord not on his ability.  Paul had learned to be content in every situation he found himself in, whether in want or in plenty, he was satisfied and content.  Paul knew his own ability was no match for the Lord’s ability and Paul did not rely on himself, nor should we.  Paul knew that if He stayed close to the Lord and was willing to put aside everything and be obedient to the Lord and walk in faith he could accomplish whatever the Lord’s will was for his life and I believe He did just that.  Paul was shipwrecked on more than one occasion and he suffered many trials but overcame all of them because of the faith he had in the Lord and the strength that he received from the Lord.

Read 2 Corinthians 11:18-33, “Seeing that many boast according to the flesh, I also will boast. For you put up with fools gladly, since you yourselves are wise! For you put up with it if one brings you into bondage, if one devours you, if one takes from you, if one exalts himself, if one strikes you on the face. To our shame I say that we were too weak for that! But in whatever anyone is bold—I speak foolishly—I am bold also.

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ?—I speak as a fool—I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness— besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation?

If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. In Damascus the governor, under Aretas the king, was guarding the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desiring to arrest me; but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.

Also read 12:1-10, “It is doubtless not profitable for me to boast. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord: I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a one was caught up to the third heaven. And I know such a man—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— how he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such a one I will boast; yet of myself I will not boast, except in my infirmities. For though I might desire to boast, I will not be a fool; for I will speak the truth. But I refrain, lest anyone should think of me above what he sees me to be or hears from me.

And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Paul experienced many hardships but through his faith and the strength the Lord gave him, he overcame all of them, and in the end he was beheaded for his Lord.  He had finished the race and kept the faith.  Read what Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:6-8, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

What about us, are we doing all the things that the Lord has for us to do in His strength or are we trying to do His work in our own strength and what are we accomplishing?  Something to think about!  Have a super day and may the good Lord bless you and yours!!

Bearing Fruit

This came to mind this morning in my time with the Lord, “unless the Lord builds the house, we labor in vain that build it.”  Unless the Lord works through us, we will accomplish nothing.  

Read what Jesus said in John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”

In the spiritual world the Lord is the vine and we are the branches.  The only way we can bear fruit is to be connected to the main source which is the vine (THE LORD) and that can only be done through a personal relationship with Him, which is commonly known as being ‘Born-Again.’   If we are attached to the vine we can bear much fruit.  We can try to do things in our own strength but we will accomplish very little.  Think of this, Paul had a relationship with the Lord and he bore much fruit because of it, so did all of the disciples that walked with Jesus.  

Now think of the sons of Sceva, read Acts 19:11-16, “Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, ‘We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.’ Also there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so.

And the evil spirit answered and said, ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?’

Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.”

These men tried to use Jesus’ name but they had no relationship with Him and were severely beaten.  Paul on the other hand, had a close relationship with the Lord.  Read what fruit he bore that day because of it in verses 17-20 as well as the prior verses that you already read, “This became known both to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds. Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed”

When we stay close to the Lord, we will bear much fruit.  We can read all through the Word that those who stayed close to the Lord accomplished much fruit.  How is your fruit bearing going?  If you are kind of bare, maybe you are struggling in your own strength and not depending on the true vine (The Lord) or maybe you are not connected at all.  Maybe you need to spend more quality time with the Lord or maybe you need to repent of your sins, turn from your wicked ways and confess them to the Lord who seeks the humble and contrite, repented heart.  He will freely pardon you and you will become a child of God; then you can start bearing much fruit.  

The choice is yours!  I hope you make the right one.  Something to think about!  Have a super day and may the good Lord bless you and yours!!

Are You Sure

I read a devotional this morning by Rick Renner that told of a startling truth which is very important and should not be taken lightly, so I thought I would add my two cents, so to speak on this subject.  This may shock some people, but there may be some people, and maybe many that go to church weekly, that think they are born-again but are not.  There are people that are full of religion but they have never had a personal relationship with the Lord.  This is the most important question you will ever ask yourself, am I truly born-again?

In 2 Corinthians 5:14-17 it says this, “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

Born-again believers, or Christians, are brand new on the inside.  The Holy Spirit has given us new life and we are changed, not just rehabilitated or just reeducated, we are a new creation in Christ with God’s seed within us.  We haven’t just learned the language and we don’t just walk the walk or talk the talk because of just learning it by mimicking someone else or by being around others that are believers, no, we change because of God’s seed within us.  I am not saying if you are a true believer that you should never learn from other godly people and let them be examples for you, but if all you’re doing is imitating them, then you haven’t been truly changed on the inside.  People can put on a front and even act, talk and dress like a Christian at times when others are watching, but what about the times you spend alone or times when you are not in church, are you like a chameleon, changed by your surroundings trying to fit in?  Do you just conform to whatever situation you find yourself in at that time?  Let me ask you this; do you still habitually sin?  Have your perspectives and attitude changed or are you still doing the same things you used to do?

Read what it says in 1 John 3:3-10, “And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.”

When you are born-again, you won’t habitually sin or make a practice of it.  So if there is no change taken place in your life and you are sinning like you did before you claimed to be born again, then you better do as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.”

Just because you find a mouse in the cookie jar, doesn’t make him a cookie anymore than a person that just goes to church makes Him a believer.  Like I said, don’t treat this lightly, it will make the difference where you spend eternity; with the Lord or forever separated from Him in a place of torment.  If this message bothers you, don’t get angry, proud and puffed up, but humble yourself before the Lord and repent, which means to turn away from your sins, and ask the Lord to forgive you and to be your Lord and Savior and to come into your heart and life and make you a new creation.  Take your time and let the Lord fill you with His peace, love and joy and then go forth rejoicing and share with others what the good Lord has done.  Find a church that preaches the Word of God and start growing in the faith.  May you have a super day and may the good Lord bless you and yours!!

Crucifying the Flesh

Question: what takes place when someone or something dies?  They cease to exist as they did before and they can’t function anymore.  There is no heartbeat, no pulse and no sign of life; they are powerless to do anything.  You might say they are free from all bodily functions.  

Sometimes as believers, we still struggle with sin and the repetition of doing the same sins over and over again.  Maybe it is because we haven’t heard this or understood what it means, to crucify the flesh, to nail it to the cross.  When Jesus was crucified, He ended up dying, He wasn’t in a deep sleep or a coma, He was dead and His lifeless body was placed in a tomb where dead bodies were placed in the days when Jesus walked the earth.  Before you became a believer, you were spiritually dead and a slave to sin because of your sin nature, like everyone else that ever walked the face of the earth outside of Jesus who never sinned.  We were all born with a sin nature and all of us have sinned many times, but when we met the Savior and were born-again we were baptized into His death.  

Read Romans 6:4-19, “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.”

We should consider our old nature dead if we have been born-again.  If we really look at it that way it may help us to resist sin, for we have been set free from the bondage of sin; we are enslaved to it no more.  Plus when the temptations come, God has provided a way of escape from it so that we can overcome any temptation in our lives.  Read 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”  We can resist any temptation because God will always help us if we seek His help.  The problem is we don’t seek His help when we need it at times, then we end up falling into temptation.  

We can learn a lesson from Joseph when Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce him.  What did he do?  He ran from the temptation; sometimes that is the best response.  Read Genesis 39:6-12, “Thus he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand, and he did not know what he had except for the bread which he ate. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. And it came to pass after these things that his master’s wife cast longing eyes on Joseph, and she said, ‘Lie with me.’ But he refused and said to his master’s wife, ‘Look, my master does not know what is with me in the house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand. There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?’ So it was, as she spoke to Joseph day by day, that he did not heed her, to lie with her or to be with her.

But it happened about this time, when Joseph went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the house was inside, that she caught him by his garment, saying, ‘Lie with me.’ But he left his garment in her hand, and fled and ran outside.”

Throughout the day there are many thoughts that come to our minds, but the thought isn’t the sin, it is what we do with the thought that is important.  We can take them captive unto the Lord and rebuke them, or we can meditate on them, helping us to lust and act on them in a way that we shouldn’t.  A pastor friend told me this, years ago, “You can’t keep a bird from flying over your head, but you can keep him from building a nest in your hair.”  The tempting thoughts will come, deal with them properly and you won’t allow them to cause you to sin.  Sometimes we have to flee temptation without discussing anything; just plain run.  Something to think about!  I hope it has helped you in this area.  May the good Lord bless you and yours and may you have a super day!!

Persistent

How many times have you started a project and given up before it was completed?  There are people that start projects but they get bored with them or impatient or a number of other things and give up before they complete whatever it is they were working on.  To accomplish anything you will always have to start with the first step and take as many steps after that, that it takes to finish the goal or project you are working on.

I know a lady that made a commitment to lose weight about a year ago and to this date she has lost at least 150 lbs. and she is determined to lose whatever her goal is and I say praise the Lord.  It takes a lot of stamina, and I believe a lot of faith, to help her reach her goal and I believe she will.  It also takes sacrifice and determination in many cases and a no-give-up attitude.  I believe it will take getting the Lord involved, which I am sure she has since I believe her to be a believer and a person of prayer as well as a beautiful person inside and out.

I said all this to encourage you not to give up on your goals or the things that you are praying for. The day we give up praying for something may be the day the answer will come.  We need to come before the Lord boldly and let our requests be known with faith and never give up no matter how long it takes.  You may hear the enemy whisper in your ear that the Lord doesn’t care, He is never going to give you your request so stop praying for it and just give up.  If the Lord doesn’t tell you to stop, then don’t stop, keep praying and believing.

Jesus told a parable about a persistent widow in the Word of God in Luke 18:1-8, please read it, “Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart, saying: ‘There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. Now there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for me from my adversary.’ And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.’

Then the Lord said, ‘Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?’”

We need to realize that God loves us and He does not grow weary when we seek Him in prayer.  No matter how many times we ask, He answers because He loves us, not because He is tired of us pestering Him and God is just, not unjust as this judge was. He always answers prayer; He may answer no, not now, ok or wait.  Sometimes He may make us wait so that He can work some things out in our lives first because we are not ready quite yet.  Sometimes it is our flesh that cries out and we pray selfish prayers that will hinder us and not help us.  God loves us and remember this in Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”  Praise God!!

So, never give up praying and let God be God.  He knows what is best for our lives and He will accomplish whatever it is, if we don’t faint and give up!!  Something to think about!  May you have a super day and may the good Lord bless you and yours with His peace, love and joy!!  And don’t forget to thank and praise the Lord!!