Love, Dependence, And Obedience

Good Morning!! We love God, and we want to be obedient,...but we don't want to be dependent on Him, or anyone else. We tend to say, "I love God, thus I must obey!" "I want to please God, so I will obey Him." We often skip a vital part,...dependency,...and try to do it in our own strength, in order to please God,...rather than by faith, and trust, in God. Our love for Him = dependency on Him = obedience to Him.

By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.—Hebrews 11:7 (NIV)

How do we know Noah  had faith? We see his faith, because he built a boat. True faith will display itself! Likewise, our faith should lead to action,...as Christ lives His life through us. The Christian life is not lived on the couch, flicking through the channels with a spiritual remote. Christian faith leads to action in the power of Christ, through us,...as we trust in Him.

Our identity in Christ is not determined by our deeds,...our identity in Christ is displayed by our deeds.

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Father God, we love You! Break the independent desires of our flesh. Give us the wisdom and faith to depend on You with increasing trust. Then, God, we ask that You would enable us to follow You in joyful obedience, into any work that You have prepared for us to do. Amen.

"So even if we've chosen the Lord God in the past,...the real challenge; like Joshua is to choose This Day, whom we will serve."

A Faith Fight

Good Morning, My Friend!! Living out who we are in Christ, and experiencing who Christ is in us, is a challenge. There are reasons this does not come easily! Every step requires faith, and that faith has some powerful enemies. We battle at lease three things that keep us from trusting God:

• Christian dogma and philosophy
• Paralyzing fear
• Our own personal fleshly desires
  

And each of these " foes of faith " carries thoughts and ideas that war with our minds,...daily.

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.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.—2 Corinthians 10:4,5 (NIV)

If your desire is to please God, the way you accomplish that is by trusting Him. It is through faith that we bring pleasure to Him. If we wake up today and say, " I'm going to trust Him today, I'm going to trust Him moment by moment," we're going to end up in quite a fight! But thank God, that we do not fight this battle for the mind alone,...because just as He was with the Israelites, He is in us.

" The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you, in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing."—Zephaniah 3:17

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Mighty Warrior, as we head into this week, we praise You for Your presence in us, and around use. We proclaim Your victory. In the days ahead, reveal the philosophical, fearful, fleshly enemies that attack our faith, and quiet our hearts in Your love. We trust in You to fight this battle. Amen.

"So even if we've chosen the Lord God in the past,...the real challenge; like Joshua is to choose This Day, whom we will serve."

Who And What, Do You Trust?

Good Morning!! The problem with questions, I'm almost positive that no one liked the idea of having to choose between those two questions from yesterday. They seemed to be boiling down to this:

1. I can choose to trust in myself, and in my own efforts in order to earn God's pleasure.
2. I can choose to trust in Christ, allowing Him to live His life through me, to enable me to live a life that is pleasing to God.

At first, it seemed like a very subtle difference. Maybe this was all just a little word game?

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.—Psalm 139:23 (NIV)

But the more you think about it, the more the significance of this choice impacted you.

• The question revealed what you believed about your own abilities outside of Christ.
• The question revealed you true beliefs about God's grace and mercy.
• The question revealed a lot about the natural tendency all humans have towards self-righteousness.
• The question revealed what you believed about God, and how you think He sees you in Christ.

" You are doomed to make choices. This is life's greatest paradox."—Wayne Dyer

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Holy Spirit, You are our counselor. By the truth of Your living Word, and the reality of Your presence inside of us, we ask that You would lead us this week. Lord, we stand aside and ask for You to work in our hearts and minds. Give us the willingness to allow You to search our hearts,...and reveal our thoughts so You can answer our questions correctly. Amen.

"Revival restores our first love for the Lord, and brings unquenchable joy of service."

You Have Questions, God Has Answers

Good Morning!! Imagine you’re walking through the woods on a quite narrow path, and you go on that path for quite some time, and all of a sudden it comes to a Y, and there’s a path going off to the right, and there’s a path going off to the left, and there a sign right down the middle;…the marker leading to the left, says simply, PLEASING GOD! The one leading to the right, reads TRUSTING GOD! It's hard to choose one over the other because both roads have a good feel to them. We discover there's no third road, and it becomes obvious that we need to choose one,....we are not able to jump back and forth, only one, and the one we choose will indelibly mark the way we live.

Give careful thought to the, paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways.—Proverbs 4:26 (NIV)

Which way is the right way? Before we start to search out the answers, I only ask that you would pause and pray and ponder the question. Which road are you on? Which one will you choose for the future? Are you trying to live a life that is pleasing God? Are you choosing to trust Him?.

There are only a few answers to the vast majority of the spiritual questions, that people are asking today.
Many times we are asking the wrong questions, or we have become dulled to the answers that really make a difference.

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Holy Spirit, You are our counselor. By the truth of Your living Word, and the reality of Your presence inside of us, we ask that You would lead us this week. Lord, we stand aside and ask for You to work in our hearts and minds. Give us the willingness to allow You to search our hearts,...and reveal our thoughts so You can answer our questions correctly. Amen.

"Revival restores our first love for the Lord, and brings unquenchable joy of service."

Why Do We Seek To Obey?

Good Morning!! Do you tend to serve because you are afraid God will reject you if you don't? Do you serve because a preacher stands at a pulpit and makes you feel inferior if you don't? I hope not, because that will end badly. Service by guilt is decidedly not the best way to go. Guilt-induced obedience, tradition-based ritual… it's all just an empty shadow of how we have been designed to live in Christ. It's just generally a bad idea to serve for any other reason than being filled with love.

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.—Hosea 6:6 (NIV)

Within all our hearts at times, can lurk false and destructive motives. Take a little inventory,...what is your true motivation? Pleasing people, insecurity, fear, guilt, tradition, obligation or something else all together. Our motive should make a threefold cord of protection. One motive is pure. One motive will keep you from burning out when the task is huge. One motive will keep you from condemnation when you fail. One motive will keep you from self-righteousness when you succeed.  That pure motive is the love of God itself,...the source of all true worship and service. That launches "The Threefold Interlock" life of faith.

"God's commands are designed to guide you to life's very best."—Henry Blackaby

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Lord, we want to serve You with our whole heart,...a heart full of Your love. Free us from false, destructive motives.  Fill us with love and affection for You. Empower us to become ever more dependent on You. May Your love be the power behind every move we make, for Your glory. Amen.

"Revival restores our first love for the Lord, and brings unquenchable joy of service."

Our Reason To Obey

Good Morning!! As eager as we can be to obey God, leaping in too quickly can often become a problem. In modern evangelism, we can occasionally skip over love and empowerment,...the necessary first two steps,...and dive right into action. Without the motive of love, or the power of dependence on Christ, we blast away and cause more harm and damage.

Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.—2 Corinthians 9:13 (NIV)
So now you can see what obedience done right, looks like. Others will see it and praise God. Is obedience important? Yes! Do we produce it out of the flesh? No! Apart from a heart that is truly learning to love God, we will have no motivation for obedience,...other than the abject fear of punishment. A lack of understanding of love, and dependency always leads to legalism, and in turn, trouble.

"It is for each of us freely to choose whom we shall serve, and find in that obedience our freedom."—Mary Richards.

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Holy Spirit, give us the proper perspective on being obedient to You. We don’t want to jump in too quickly, nor do we want to miss it if You are nudging us. Teach us, and guide us. Break us, if needed, to strengthen our dependence. We stand ready to let Your love move in us today. Amen.

"Revival restores our first love for the Lord, and brings unquenchable joy of service."

Obedience, Out Of Love

Good Morning!! Being loved and empowered by God should lead us into obedience to whatever He asks of us. We ought not ever just begrudgingly submit to His commands,...like He's some far-off tyrant. We don’t have to obey to earn His favor or acceptance, or be fearful or tentative when our efforts fall short. That’s not the way God designed it to work,... It’s meant to actually be joyful!

And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.—2 John 1:16 (NIV)
In our human terms, we don’t normally equate love with obedience. But that’s just how God set it up. Since He loves us so much, we are hardwired to return that love by joyfully obeying Him. If we have experienced His unconditional love, we will love Him back,...and if we love Him, we will naturally follow His lead.

True joy, is not in quick-fix earthly stuff, but in a steady relationship with our Heavenly Father.

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Father God, we yearn to walk in obedience, but it gets tough if we see You only as some sort of killjoy. We tend to resist when we feel like we have to perform to earn Your love. We ask that You hower us with an experience of Your unconditional true love,...so that, that love, may empower us to serve in heartfelt joy! Amen.

"Revival restores our first love for the Lord, and brings unquenchable joy of service."