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."

All In One

Good Morning!! Remember back in school how there was always one kid who asked the question that everyone was thinking, but everyone was too scared to ask because it sounded dumb? And remember how grateful you were for that person? Well, the disciples were no different, and Philip was that kid. Jesus had just told the disciples something truly amazing in John 14:6: " I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." It was a stunning truth, a paradigm shift in all of their brains. But Philip pipes up and says, " Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us" (v. 8). You can almost hear the frustration in Jesus’ voice in His response:

Jesus answered: "Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.—John 14:9-10 (NIV)

We similarly miss the message once in a while. We see Christ do amazing things in lives all around us, and yet, we still tend to “miss the point” or fail to see the implications of this mystery. Jesus is the revelation of the Father to us. When we see the Son, we see the Father too,...a supernatural unity with Jesus in the Father and the Father in Jesus.
The point is that we have becomes sons and daughters of the Father too.

We have been adopted into the family,...where we share in the intimacy and fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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Father God, stun us with the reality of Your truth. Touch our souls with the spiritual reality that the Son is in the Father, the Father is in Son, and that through Jesus only, we can come to the Father in the same way. We praise You and thank You for what You have done. We bow in awe and worship. Amen.

" Just know this;  God's loving care is all around us,...even when we don't sense His presence."

Dependence

Good Morning!! When my kids were little, they were totally dependent on me for everything; Food, clothes, shelter, love,...all of it. They couldn't do anything without my provisions.  When we think of dependent people, Jesus probably doesn’t even make the list, that comes to mine. But He was,...and Big time! The granddaddy of all the passages that teach that Jesus was dependent on the Father during His time on earth is John 14. It’s a beautiful picture of the dependence of a son on his father,...of the Son on the Father, showing the intimacy Jesus and the Father share,...that same intimacy He invites us into. In verse seven, we get a glimpse of something deeper:

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him."—John 14:6, 7 (NIV)

Jesus was teaching His disciples that they shouldn't just look to Him to get stuff,...because there is no other way, no other path, to the presence of God. How easy it is, to lose track of why we worship. Many of us tend to worship Jesus because of the stuff we think He'll give us, in return. It doesn’t work that way. He offers us not only heaven later, but the Father now. It's that simple, and it's enough.

Jesus is our only access to the Father,...and by knowing Him, we get to know the Father.

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Father God, we praise You that You offer so much more than simple provision. You offer us access to You, through humble dependence, and Your Son,...and that's enough Father. You are enough for us. Amen.

" Just know this;  God's loving care is all around us,...even when we don't sense His presence."

Miracles

Good Morning!! Miracles are without question, the thing we notice first, and want to see most. But the fact that Jesus performed miracles was not reason enough to believe that He was God. Elijah and Moses performed many miracles, but they never once laid claim to be a deity. Christ Himself was adamant that His miracles were not just evidence of His deity,...but of His dependence on the Father. He never downplayed the miracles He performed, He just wanted to make sure the people understood how and why He was doing them.

But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."—John 10:38 (NIV)

Miracles do point to the fact that the Father was in Him, He was in the Father, and He was dependent on the Father. Jesus didn’t need to come to earth as a man just to do things in His own divine power. God had already been dealing with man in that matter. (Things like giant pillars of fire and floods covering the earth come to mind!) Jesus is fully God, but on earth He wanted to demonstrate physically to the people what it was like to so totally depend on the Father for everything that all else would fade.

"As Christians we are perpetual miracles."—Charles Spurgeon

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Lord Jesus, the miracles You performed were amazing. We believe. We don't think of them as just cheap magic tricks, to dupe people into believing in You,...but instead we know them to be tangible manifestations of Your power,...when we depend on You completely. Strip away our false independence, Lord.  Thank You for showing us Your might, and what life can look like in dependence on the Father. Amen.

" Just know this;  God's loving care is all around us,...even when we don't sense His presence."