1 John 4:7-11 – “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”  NKJV

This passage is a much quoted passage.  I recall having a person say to me once, “You Christians quote scripture about love but do not demonstrate it much.”  That hit me squarely in the face and the Holy Spirit took me to the spiritual woodshed to apply the board of education more fully.  LOVE is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God as per the above passage.  Therefore, I must conclude that love is more than we typically understand for we all know some lost people who demonstrate what we call love.

Two things come to mind as I consider this and wish to share.  LOVE is from God. The imagery is that you are standing before a living spring and see it bursting out of the earth. John stands before God and says:  “Love is from God!”  It pours forth from who God is.  It comes from His nature.  Then, he backs up his first assertion saying, “For God IS Love.” 

That is incredibly important to note.  It does not say:  “God has love.”  It says:  “God IS Love.”  I may have money but I am not money. I may have water but I am not water.  I may have food but I am not food.  I may have health but I am not health.  Out from God comes LOVE!  Therefore, if you KNOW God, if you say you LOVE God we will know that because you LOVE!  It is impossible to KNOW God and not LOVE!  That is not up for discussion it is not debatable and there are no exceptions to the rule.  You do not have to try you will because of Who He Is!

If God IS Love and Love is FROM God and I say I KNOW God then I LOVE!  I did not say “know about” God I said “know” God.  The word is the biblical word for intimacy and carries the understanding of penetration. So, if we say we KNOW God it means we have PENETRATED God and He has PENETRATED us.  At that point of intimacy we LOVE for it is the most natural thing to do.  Therefore, we can readily declare that the mark of the Christian is LOVE!  Jesus said:  “By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, that you LOVE ONE ANOTHER!”

Most or many Christians are overly fascinated with finding the will of God for their lives.  Many seem to think it is some highly veiled hidden secret that God keeps from us rather than thinking it might be incredibly obvious and easily found.  Oh no!  It has to be mystical and maybe even weird right?  God would surely never tell us to do something that was obvious and what we wanted to do would He?   He would never tell you to minister to your neighbor next door rather He would send you to the bush of Africa.  Nothing wrong with that if that is what God desires but it might be more obvious and closer to home.

Before God springs His will on anyone He prepares the heart and a heart that is not attuned to LOVE cannot possibly fulfill the purpose and destiny God has for that life.  God wants us to become a demonstration and manifestation of HIM.  He wants us to convey Who He Is to the world around us.  So, Who Is God?  He is LOVE!  He is Almighty.  He is Power but first and foremost He is LOVE!  If He were not none of us would have access to Salvation and the Cross would never have been an option.

God is Love and Loves us!  That is a most incredible and amazing truth and one that should put a spring in your step, a song in your heart and a smile on your face.   Let’s look at this a little more but pause for now.  May the Lord be with you as you go through this day!

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.”  NKJV

This is one of the most powerful and seemingly often misunderstood passages in the New Testament.  Realizing that I cannot do it justice in such as short space I want to break this down and hit the high points of the truth being presented for our edification, encouragement and comfort.  One sentence that carries life changing truth if we can grasp it, receive it and apply it in our daily lives.

• AND WE KNOW…

That makes it a family matter and somewhat a family secret or for those who are initiated into the family of God.  WE is speaking of believers for that is the audience to whom Paul was speaking or writing.  It is a collective ‘WE’ and applies to ALL BELIEVERS of that era and every generation to follow.  It is a message to family, fellow believers or The Body of Christ.

• ALL THINGS… 

How much is ALL?  What does that encompass?  All things would cover everything that comes into our lives and we encounter.  I do not know how much more comprehensive you can get than that.  So WE KNOW something about ALL THINGS, but what?

• WORK TOGETHER…

The believer knows that all things work together or in harmony for a purpose in our lives.  The composite of ALL THINGS are working toward a specific purpose and has a determined objective.  God is using ALL THINGS to produce something for the believer, but what?

• FOR GOOD…

Now we are getting somewhere.  The believer knows that all things are being formed together or compiled together for good.  Please understand it did not say that ALL THINGS were GOOD but that ALL THINGS were WORKING TOGETHER for GOOD.  The finished product is what should come into view here.  The end result will be good not that each individual item is good in and of itself.  Truthfully, we know that some things in our lives and our experiences are anything but good in themselves but when mixed together will every other thing the finished product is GOOD.

• TO THOSE WHO LOVE GOD… CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE… 

Now we are getting to the nitty gritty of this nugget of truth.  If we love God and are called of God (all believers are) then we can know that everything in our lives and experience are being mixed together by the Spirit of God for good.  That is powerful.

If you can receive it I like to illustrate it in this manner:

It is like mother or grandma baking a chocolate cake from scratch.  She carefully takes the various ingredients for the purpose of producing a moist delicious chocolate cake.  In that process there are some individual items that by themselves would be less than tasty or good.  I personally would not want to sit down to a bowl of flour, baking powder or soda, the bitter baking chocolate, eggs or even the sugar used to sweeten the cake mix.  The milk might be okay to drink by itself but just the salt would not.  So we find that there are numerous ingredients that are less than desirable but she would take the flour blend in the eggs, milk, chocolate, baking powder or soda while adding a pinch of salt, etc. and once the ingredients are in the bowl she would beat them until they blended together.  (Remind you of life?)  Then once she had blended them thoroughly where they were indistinguishable from each other and no longer isolated individual items she would place them in a baking pan and put it in the oven and bake it a high heat for a period of time.  (Isn’t that just like life?  Just when you think you can’t take any more the heat is turned up.)  Then once the proper time has transpired she removes the cake from the oven and applies the icing and you have a wonderful chocolate cake.  That is what God is doing in our lives.  The FINISHED PRODUCT IS WHAT HE IS AFTER.

All things are working together for good!  Therefore we can take heart that no matter what we are facing we can know that this with all the other things that have and will transpire in our lives are being used by God to bring us to that place of ultimate victory He calls GOOD!

            God bless you as you go through your day!

Psalm 116:15 – “Precious in the sight of the LORD Is the death of His saints.” NKJV

Most of you are aware that recently my mother passed from this life into her eternal reward and as with most who lose a loved one there is a heavy loneliness and a certain emptiness that comes to our hearts.  The knowledge that they have, as Paul declared, “…fought a good fight, finished their course and kept the faith” does not totally alleviate the sense of grief or loneliness but it most assuredly helps.

I have talked about my mother’s passing to some and been told, “Don’t go there death is too morbid to talk about.”  I can understand the desire of some to reject the reality that this experience will come to all of us but I feel compelled to turn our attention to how the Bible describes God’s view of the death of His children and it is anything but morbid.  If God considers the death of one of His children precious how can we call it morbid?  Could that mean our view of death and our own mortality is flawed? 

In tribute to my mother she lived 95 years 5 months and 3 days on planet earth and her life was not just long but good.  She had a full life and her faith never faltered nor did her love for her family.  I have stated that she was truly a Proverbs 31 woman and I say that without fear of contradiction and she nor my father feared talking about their ultimate encounter with that experience.  She did not view death with finality or as a morbid experience or topic but as what the Bible rightly terms ‘sleep’.  She believed, as do we, that you go to sleep in this life and wake up in Eternity in the Presence of God and there continue our eternal existence but in a changed state from the present deteriorated fleshly condition.

My family misses her incredibly but we rejoice that she has completed her race or fight and we now must continue ours and one day join her in the eternal presence of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Solomon made a statement in Ecclesiastes 7:1 that many have difficulty with as he declared that the day of death was better than one’s birth.  WHY?  It is rooted in the Psalm listed above and the teachings of the Bible as to what death really is for a believer.  It is not the end but the beginning.  When Jesus prepared to ascend to Heaven He comforted those with Him and all generations to follow by saying, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.  In My Father’s house are many mansions; if I were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.  And where I go you know, and the way you know… I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.”  

We should all reach the point in our understanding and confidence that physical death for those who believe is simple a transition from one realm to another and the new realm is free of pain, sorrow, sickness and sin.  It should be a time of excited anticipation and when a loved one crosses over we will have sorrow but we should also have joy knowing that they have finished their earthly journey and found the City that is made without human hands the City of God.  They truly have arrived and we must yet wait for our change to come.  Therefore if we view the death of a saint the way God does we will find an incredible source of comfort in the midst of our personal pain.  I am rejoicing today in that confidence while my heart is hurting missing my mother and I’m sure that I speak for the rest of the family in that. 

So no matter what your loss know that God’s plan does not fail and Jesus’ promise is an absolute guarantee and our loved ones are enjoying the reality of that promise now.  We can join King David in the knowledge that we cannot bring them back but we can go where they are.  One day our change will come and we will enter into the joys of our Lord.

Thank you for your prayers, support and love.  God is truly our comfort, strength and refuge.  God bless you as you go through your day!

Psalm 23:1-6 – “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. 3 He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.  4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the  shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over.  6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever.”  NKJV

This Psalm has long be one that the Lord frequently takes me to for ‘refreshing’ and ‘correction’ .  In this Psalm we are brought face to face with the truth that my personality, outside of Christ resists fervently.  We are SHEEP!  A sheep is noticeably a dumb, docile and dependent creature and outside of Christ that is the highest level we reach.  No matter how much we protest and argue differently that is about it.  This Psalm also reminds us that He is our ‘provider’ and ‘provision.’  He gives us ‘rest’ and ‘restoration.’  He leads us through the Valley of the Shadow Death and is our TOTAL SUPPLY.  We are reminded that ‘without Him’ we can do NOTHING!  In Him we live, move and have our being for truly we are dependent creatures!

But there is another aspect of this Psalm that I have found incredibly refreshing.  He ‘restores’ my soul.  That is both wonderful and difficult.  It is wonderful that he does restore my soul and difficult that my soul needs refreshing.  Everything in God begins in REST and if we are to truly and fully enjoy the provisions of the LORD in our Christian walk we must come to know that we are SHEEP.  We must come to the place that we truly and fully realize that we are ‘dependent’ upon the shepherd.  We have to grow to the place that we develop a mentality and lifestyle that ‘looks through circumstances’ rather than ‘looking at them.’  We do that by BEHOLDING HIM! The I AM is our source, strength, enabler, provider and life.  As He IS we ARE (1 John 4:17) The life we NOW LIVE in this flesh we live by the faith of the Son of God.  (Galatians 2:20)

We live in a world that is a complete mess and God is not one bit worried.  We worry and fret but He is not standing looking over the banister of heaven’s balcony with white knuckles gripping the rail in anxiety.  So as we gaze upon God and receive Him for who He is in our lives we enter into that peace that is beyond human comprehension and rest.  The Peace that passes human understanding keeps our hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.  (Philippians 4:7)  As a sheep we enter into that peace by beholding Him who is peace.  Our minds are ‘fixed’ upon Him not the circumstances or the Devil’s activities.  We do not focus on circumstances, people, situations, or potential problems we focus on HIM, the Shepherd.  (Isaiah 26:3)  That is the beginning point of our walk in Christ.  We must begin in REST! 

The question then becomes, “How do we move from REST into ACTIVITY?”  Clearly you cannot rest forever and eventually you do have to act.  He ‘restores’ our souls.  You must catch the picture that something happened.  We were in the lush green pastures drinking from the quiet still stream being refreshed but now something has caused the soul to need refreshing and restoring.  If you study the life of a shepherd you will realize that at noon the dew has burned off the meadow and if the sheep are left exposed to the heat of the sun they will die.  The shepherd has to move them from pasture to pasture and when the heat of the sun comes he has to have them in a position to be ‘restored.’

If we learn to ‘rest’ and ‘fix’ our eyes upon Him we will move from pasture to pasture, problem to problem, answer to answer and find RESTORATION as it is required.  The LORD is our shepherd and in the difficult times He IS.

            May the Lord be with you as you go through your day!

Numbers 6:22-27 – “Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 23 “Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, ‘Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them:

24 The LORD  bless you, and keep you; 25 The LORD  make His face shine on you, And be gracious to you; 26 The LORD  lift up His countenance on you, And give you peace.’  27 “So they shall invoke My name on the sons of Israel, and I then will bless them.”  NASU

I love dealing with, studying, teaching and preaching Blood Covenant.  It gets my motor running at top speed for it describes the heart of God and His purpose for mankind and is deeply misunderstood or under-appreciated by much of the Christian world.  The more I study it the more I know I have only scratched the surface and the gold mine is deep and filled with incredible treasures God wants us to enjoy, experience and include in our lives.

In the lives of the Hebrews, the Blessing of the Covenant was prayed or spoken over them every day and multiple times each day.  The High Priest would raise his hands and invoke this blessing on the children of Israel at the morning and evening sacrifices.  It was not some religious incantation but they fully believed, and so do I, that those words were a conveyance of power to their lives.  The words being spoken from God conveyed power!  This was a release from the Spirit of God to enable them to become successful.  It moved from the inside where true prosperity begins to the exterior and material things.

To be blessed meant to be prosperous.  It is speaking of ‘prosperity of the spirit’ and moves from the heart to the actions to the involvements to the material.  It meant to enjoy ‘physical’ and ‘spiritual’ health. It mean to have a long life.  It meant that those so blessed had an aurora about them that the world could never quite understand and often misunderstood.  It is what produces a certain strangeness in Christianity and causes the enemies of our soul to flee.  That is the Blessing!

THE LORD BLESS YOU AND KEEP YOU – – [v.24]

That is the beginning that you are kept by the Lord.  We are walking in the midst of an alien world and in that darkness light lives inside us.  Jesus assured us that the world would hate us because of His presence in us.  You live constantly in the keeping power of God!

In the castles of Europe you go through ‘the keep’.  It is the first gate of the castle and you accessed the castle proper through it.  If an enemy tried to access the castle they were filtered through this area and if you looked up you would notice that guards were on the balconies and from there they defended the castle.  Getting through the Keep would be a formidable task.  Picture that when you hear “the Lord keep you.”  He is on guard and keeping us!  Remember in Zechariah 2:8 where we read, “…he who touches you touches the apple of My eye.”  Imagine that!  Everything stops until this assault is dealt with.  You can stub your toe, bruise your arm, cut yourself and keep on working but get something in your eye and you shut down until you deal with that.  That’s God and if something touches us it is like getting something in His eye and He will deal with it!  You are KEPT!   The only problem is too often we do not really believe that truth!

Psalm 23 and 27 are based on the concept of The Keep and Keeping!  David wrote them in traumatic times in his life.  He was being chased by a demonized king who wanted his head.  There were times when it appeared he would succeed but God continued to KEEP him.

I dare not stop here so let’s hit the pause button and pick up in the next post about this powerful and wonderful truth from God’s word.  May you walk blessed kept by the Power and Grace of God!  Blessings!

Ephesians 6:5-8 – “Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; 6 not by way of eye service, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. 7 With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men, 8 knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free.”  NASU

I want to talk about BEING RELEASED and I have a growing appreciation for this passage as a profound revelation from God.  I must put this in context for it is most assuredly not a ‘standalone’ passage.  This passage is placed within a set of passages that deal with the tense and difficult aspect of living the Christian life.  It begins with ‘husbands’ and ‘wives’, one of the most significant areas where your Christian life is tested.  Then, it deals with ‘children’ and next ‘slaves.’  All can be special areas of tension.  However, it begins much earlier in Ephesians 5:18 where we are advised,“…do not get drunk with wine… but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs…”  It is a directive to be ‘filled’ with the Spirit of God and allow the heart to be overflowing with praise to God and this text is how being ‘filled’ with the Spirit works out in daily life.  It works out in relationships, therefore what we are really talking about is what it really means to be filled with the Spirit.

That being said, there is an even greater context to consider.  In Ephesians 6:10 it deals with ‘spiritual warfare’ which is the finale of the Book of Ephesians.  Thus the passage regarding ‘slaves’ is really the end of what Paul has to say in Ephesians regarding ‘spiritual warfare.’  Everything in the book comes to a conclusion here and that alone makes it incredibly important.  I am convinced that if you understand the message here you will NEVER again be a victim of circumstances or people.  Interested yet?

THE CHARACTERS:

We know from the historical record that ‘slaves’ made up most of the Roman Empire in that time.  To the Romans one ceased to be ‘human’ once they were pressed into slavery and it was virtually permanent.  Slaves, to them, were not humans or animals they were machines!  Interestingly many of the slaves continued doing what they had done before as a vocation or job but it no longer had any meaning they were in bondage even if it was only in their heads.  They developed a sense that they DID NOT MATTER.  The only value a slave had left was their Performance.  It was all about what he did and how he did it.  Their significance came from pleasing their supervisor and have them smile.

They learned to become ‘men pleasers’ craving the smile, praise or simplest recognition and it became the oxygen that the lived by.  They became addicted to the praise of men.  Simply it was: Performance + What Someone Thinks = Worth.  The person in the predicament learns to try to read the minds, faces, actions, body language of those they are seeking to please.  We have all met ‘enslaved people’ and may have been one ourselves in this sense.  If a person is in the condition then if someone expresses or demonstrates any rejection it becomes incredibly traumatic and they fall apart.

Others become entrapped in ‘eye service’ or they only work when the boss or overseer is watching.  They seek to do minimum work for maximum return.  They serve the ‘eyes of men’ and come to view themselves as ‘victims’.  It is tragic that here in the ‘Land of the Free’ we have a large population of ‘Enslaved’.  Remember I am talking about being ‘Filled with the Spirit.’

             The RELEASE comes in knowing you are UNCONDITIONALLY LOVED and become secure in the Love of God realizing your importance and worth is not based on what you do but because of who He is.  Then you are able to relate to others from that position and are FREE!  Some become addicted to work or something trying to fill the hole inside that can only be filled by God.  Paul did not tell them to ‘rebel’ but to ‘obey’ for that was their way to FREEDOM.

People change jobs, houses, cars, and spouses trying to solve this issue but nothing changes by changing things.  Freedom comes when we change!  Obedience is a choice. Victims do not choose but Free Men/Women do.  Victims comply but Free Men/Women choose.  You have to make a choice!   Remember God chose to love you and in Christ you are NOW seated in heavenly places in Christ.  At that point we can ‘perform’ not to be accepted but because we are accepted in the beloved.  You ‘perform’ not to be loved for you cannot be loved more than you are in God.  You do not ‘perform’ for praise because you could not be more important than you are in God.

If you see this you will be RELEASED from bondage and LIVE FREE in Christ!  The spiritual application of this is not physical bondage to another but learning to be RELEASED in GOD!  God bless you as you go through your day!

Psalm 19:14 – “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.”  NKJV

This prayer of David is another reason I can accept God’s declaration that David was a man after His own heart.  Too many times we focus on David’s flaws and failures wondering how it could be possible that God would so speak of Israel’s great king.  But if we allow the Holy Spirit to open the prayers of David we will being to understand what God was declaring.  We must always remember that God does not look on the exterior but the interior (heart).  (1 Samuel 16:7)

This prayer in Psalms 19 is one of many that reflects the ‘heart’ of David.  Imagine a man whose greatest concern was that his ‘words’ and ‘thoughts’ be acceptable and pleasing to God.  He is a man rising in power having ascended to the highest position of authority in the land and yet his ‘heart’ cries out to PLEASE GOD!  In my studies of the life of David and other characters in the Bible I find that one of the central parts of the equation for greatness was having a ‘tender heart’ before God.  They were strong men and some men of war but their heart’s desire was to PLEASE GOD.

God is always looking for hearts that are open, receptive and have a willingness to obey His purposes.  He chose Abram who became Abraham and one of the central characteristics of Abraham’s life was his ‘heart’.  We are told in Genesis and Romans that Abraham ‘believed’ God and it was accounted to Him for righteousness.  Likewise we are instructed that ‘without faith’ it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God.  These men, such as David, were men who trusted, received and exhibited a willingness to obey the Word and Spirit of God.

David repeatedly revealed his humanness and in many churches of today would have been disqualified as a result of his failings as would most of the other Biblical Patriarchs.  Yet, God chose to use these men to establish a nation and a lineage from which the Christ would come.  He continually confounds the wise, the religiously self-righteous and questioners using things and people we would not have chosen and their hearts crying out to Him brought about glorious results for the Kingdom of God.

If you only review the exterior or actions of another you will likely miss what God is doing or working in their lives and through them.  You will reject the messenger and thereby miss the message.  No wonder Jesus said to those who brought the adulterous woman before Him, “Let him that is without sin cast the first stone.”  No wonder we are told, “Get the log out of your own eye before you try to remove a splinter or speck from the eyes of another.”  I have experienced the Holy Spirit opening my eyes to a spiritual truth through people and in places I would not have anticipated that happening.  He has taught me to not look at the packaging but the product.  It is not the marketing but the message that is important.

My heart cries out that the ‘words’ of my mouth and the ‘thoughts’ in my heart be acceptable and pleasing to My Lord.  I ask and continue to ask, Lord set a guard over my mouth.  “Lord, keep watch over the door of my lips guarding my heart from evil.”  That is a daily prayer and the desire of my heart.  I want to be a man after God’s own heart.  I want to be a vessel usable for His purposes.

May God be with you as you go through this day!