Grateful Heart Carries its Own Blessing

The power of gratitude is an amazing thing.  The Scripture says that we are to be led by the Spirit of God and not by our own flesh, or if you will our natural mind.  The Power of Gratitude is that it transforms us from the inside out!  When I look at the world and see the obvious effort of the enemy to discourage and frustrate the family of God, it is good to know the Truth.  The Truth is that our God never changes—He is always kind, loving, merciful, listening, faithful, almighty, holy, and so much more.  Praise and Gratitude that rises from the Spirit man or Spirit woman is simply an affirmation of who our God is so that even though circumstances change–He never does.  So that no matter what it looks like in the natural—-we always win!  We are always victorious in Christ!  Praise and Gratitude to our God for who He is, as it is proclaimed by the Spirit,  speaks to our minds, emotions, our wills–building faith and literally transforming us from the inside out.  Praise Him!  Live with an attitude of gratitude in your heart for who He is and feel its transforming power change your life and your circumstances!  His Name Is Jesus–Praise Him!

Gratefull–emphasis on full

Each day is a day where I am reminded of  how Great our God is and how Full His Love is for us–there is no emptiness in His Love!  Some years ago (about 35) I discovered how important it is to live with an Attitude of Gratitude in my heart for the Nature of my God!  That kind of lifestyle changed my life forever–Praise Him, just Praise Him!  I had surgery on Monday to remove a rather nasty skin cancer from my face–the surgeon promised to make me look like Joan Rivers–now that’s a thought!  I’m good but now I look like a beat up,one eyed pirate.  I am so grateful that even though this thing I live in constantly needs some repair, my inner man–my Spirit man is being renewed every day and I am becoming more like Jesus!  He is a Mighty God!  Thanksgiving will bring all of our children and grandchildren, along with my mom (90) and Jo’s mom (89) together for a meal and a day of sharing thanks to Jesus!  Folks, our Daddy deserves all of the Praise and all the Glory–Praise His Holy Name!

Ordinary Moments…

“It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God – but we do not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people – and this is not learned in five minutes.”     Oswald Chambers

Discipleship is a process. It’s moment by moment. It’s the ordinary things that produce the character necessary to support the Great Moments. The exceptional things I may have the privilege of doing for God are only in proportion to the character built in the ordinary things. This is the stuff that qualifies you for the doing of exceptional things for God.

Living only for the exceptional moments in life will leave you with an emptiness most of the time. You will live in nostalgia, vicariously living through a few moments of your past or miss life all together being driven to achieve one moment of elusive greatness.

Discipleship is about character built through relationship. To be a disciple is to live so deeply and intimately with Jesus in every ordinary moment so when the time comes for me to do something exceptional, I will by nature be ready and not falter – even if my greatest moment is the cross.

How are you doing in the ordinary moments?

What ordinary thing hae you done lately?

Are you following Him?

Brace yourself.  I am haunted by what you are about to read. 

So I don’t take away from these words I will not say anything else except, please excuse my lack in poetic structure.  I copied this by ear.  The words are correct but may not be written out like it should as a poem. 

When I became a Christian I said “Lord now fill me in;

tell me what I’ll suffer in this world of shame and sin.”

And He said, Well your body could be killed

and left to rot and stink.

Do you still want to follow me

and I said, “Amen –  I think.”

I think Amen. Amen I think.  I think I say Amen.

Look I’m not completely sure.  Could we just run through that again.

You say my body could be killed and left to rot and stink.

Oh yeah that sounds terrific Lord I say, Amen I think.

But Lord, look there must be other ways to follow you I said,

I would really prefer to end up dying in my bed. 

Well yes He said you could put up with sneers and scorn and spit. 

Do you still want to follow me.  And I said Amen – A bit. 

A bit,  Amen.  Amen, a bit.  A bit I say Amen. 

Look I’m not entirely sure. Could we just run through that again. 

You said I could put up with sneers and scorn and spit. 

Well yes I made up my mind and I say Amen, a bit. 

Well I set back and thought a while; I mean I tried a different ploy

I said now Lord the good book says Christians live in joy. 

That’s true He said.  You’re going to need the joy –  to bear the pain and sorrow. 

Do you still want to follow me?  And I said, Amen – tomorrow.

Tomorrow Lord I’ll say it then.  Tomorrow’s when I’ll say Amen.

You see I’ve got to get it clear could we just run through it again.

You said that I will need the joy to bear the pain and sorrow. 

Well yes I think I’ve got it straight I’ll say Amen, tomorrow. 

He said look I’m not asking you to spend an hour with me,

a quick salvation sandwich and a cup of sanctity. 

The cost is you.  Not half of you.  But every single bit. 

Now tell me will you follow me?  And I said Amen.  Now I quit. 

I’m awfully sorry Lord.  I said I’d like to follow you

but I don’t think religion is a manly thing to do.

And He said, you forget religion then and you think about my Son

and you tell me if you are manly enough to do what He has done? 

Are you man enough to see the need?  Are you man enough to go? 

Are you man enough to care for those that no one wants to know? 

Are you man enough to say the things that people hate to hear? 

And battle through Gethsemane in loneliness and fear?

And listen are you man enough to stand it at the end,

the moment of betrayal by the kisses of your friend?

Are you man enough to hold your tongue?  Are you man enough to cry? 

And when the nails break your body, are you man enough to die? 

Man enough to take the pain and wear it like a crown. 

Man enough to love this world and turn it upside down? 

Are you man enough to follow me?  I ask you once again? 

I said, Lord I’m frightened, but I also said Amen. 

Amen. Amen.  Amen, amen.

I said Lord I’m so frightened, but I also said, Amen.

 

(English friend of Michael Frost, taken from one of his sermons.)

How’s your love walk…

“…whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”  John 15:5 (ESV)

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails…”  1 Corinthians 13:7-8 (ESV)

In John 15 there are several things Paul said we should be abiding in and one of those was love.  I John 4:8 tell us that “God is love.”  So if we are abiding in Him we should be bearing fruit – the fruit of love.  This is not the kind of love that we see even on the world’s best day.  It’s a love on a much higher level.  God is our standard for love.  This love is so hard that we cannot do it without God’s help.  If we don’t abide in Him, we cannot love.  If we don’t love, we are not abiding in Him.

We have all been abandoned by what we thought were once loving relationships.  This is why love was meant to be first received from God and then given away.  If we look for the love of people to satisfy us before finding our security in God’s love first, we will be left wanting and hurting or become unstable and abusive in our relationships.

How should we love? 

Love bears all things.  The Greek translation for “bear” means to roof over or cover in silence, to endure patiently.  Bearing doesn’t mean you can maul people to death or act like a bear. It also doesn’t mean developing a callous heart but rather a covering of grace.  No matter what comes against you love still remains.  It covers over any situation with love and does so with no expectation for self without saying anything or justifying yourself. 

Love believes all things.  This does not mean that we believe everything we hear about people or situations.  But, it means believing the best about people and situations.  Our love is not dependant on what we know about people, but rather on God himself.  Because He is love, we believe all things about Him and therefore respond in love to all things.  If we truly know God we have no choice but to always respond in love to people.  See what I mean by this being impossible without Him.  It’s a higher love.

Love hopes all things.  Hope here means to expect and trust with confidence and pleasure.  This is not an expectation from people but from God as it relates to people and things.  It means we love with an expectation and trust in God that all things are going to be according to His will and purpose.  The hope is in Him so we are free to give all our love to people even when they are not doing what we think they ought to do.  Dependency on Jesus frees us to fully love.

Love endures all things.  This means love is behind and under all things.  It suffers all things.  God’s love can handle anything.  It has no limits.

Love never fails.  Every where our love fails, it was not God’s love.  We fail to love when we are not abiding in Him.  We fail to love when we seek something for ourselves in others.

“God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him.”  John Piper

If we are satisfied in God, if He is all I need in every situation then He will be glorified in and through me and my life.  If I seek satisfaction in any other thing than Him alone, then I will glorify myself. 

So, How’s your love walk?

To love, someone must die…

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, than someone lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:12-13  (ESV)

There is a high price for love.  You can have it for free but it will cost everything.  You cannot love without paying the full price.

God will allow us to choose to live our lives on a lower level than He has called us, but there is a price to pay.  If we do so we will never really and fully know Him nor experience the fullness of the life promised to us in Him.  There is a higher and GREATER love.  Love of this magnitude can only be received, experienced and given away through death. 

There is no greater love than when we die to self, lay ourselves down for someone else.  God wants us to walk in a greater love.  Greater love is received when someone else had to die in order for us to receive it.  Jesus laid down His life to break the barrier that would keep us from receiving the Father’s love.  It was the ultimate expression of love. 

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Romans 5:8  (NASB)

Jesus broke the barrier of our sin with the laying down of His life.  It doesn’t get any greater than that.

In order for us to have Greater Love, we must die, laying ourselves down for people.  We must die to being right about people or things or we will defend our rights and find an excuse to not love.  We must put away personal justice or we will punish people and seek to justify ourselves in the eyes of others, when Jesus said He was just and the justifier of all.  We must overlook faults or we will keep records of wrong suffered and not love.  Ouch.  Ouch.  If we die to self, we can release GREATER LOVE.  If we don’t, we will love self and then others when convenient.

Are you dying to give GREATER LOVE?

Wait

In my dad’s previous post he made reference to Joseph Sasser’s song “Wait”.  I thought I would post the lyrics for you!

If I could just wait, in the presence of the Lord

If could be still and know that You are God

If I could just hold back my tongue and listen to your voice

If I could just wait in the presence of the Lord

Wait on the Lord, wait and be still

Until you’re secure and His hands you can feel

Wait at His feet and gaze into His eyes

Until love swallows fear and His heart becomes mine

Wait, Wait on the Lord

Wait, Wait on the Lord

You will mount up with wings as eagles

You will be renewed with strength

You will run and not grow weary

You will walk and not faint

for those who wait . . .

John’s on Wed Nite

Being home this evening allows Jo and myself to go over to John’s for his small group meeting, and, quite frankly, I’m stoked about it.  Mom is recovering from her surgery and is planning to go with us tonight.  It is not often that I get to have mom and BJ  with me on an evening.  I have been living in Proverbs lately and am being challenged with “trusting God with my whole heart.”  I’d like to think that I always do that, but when I look around our country these days I find fear trying to creep in–but, then I meditate on His Love and things change.  I am reminded of a line from Joseph Sasser’s song, “Wait,” which says “if I could just sit at His feet and gaze into His eyes until love swallows fear and His Heart becomes mine.”  The power of  His love is an amazing thing!

What A Day

We began a weekend of prayer at Liberty on Friday evening and had prayer 24 hours through Sunday morning until the morning service started at 10:30.  It is absolutely awesome the difference in the atmosphere of the morning service when prayer has fervently been sewn into the house.  What a sweet spirit!  I remember saying to the congregation that it is really dumb to have to have a “prayer” weekend.  Now don’t go get  excited on me!  Having a prayer weekend to draw folks together to seek God and hear His voice is a good–incredibly wonderful and productive thing, but what about praying without ceasing.  What about developing our prayer lives so that each day, moment by moment we are talking to our Daddy. I  believe that the fundamental truth is that Oswald Chambers is right when he says that “prayer doesn’t prepare us for the greater work–prayer is the greater work.”  What we experienced this morning in a corporate setting we can experience day by day and moment by moment if we will be a people of prayer.

Thank you

Betty Jo and I knew when we decided to follow Doctor’s orders and pull off the road for about 5 months that there were some financial needs that were going to have to be met  and the Lord, as always, has provided in a great way.  In our ministry for 30 years we have felt that if we shared our need with the Body of Christ that the Lord would use folks who loved us to help in time of need, and that has always been the case.  So BJ and I wanted to  simply say thank you to all of you who have given and have prayed for us  during this time.  We still have Oct-Dec to go  but we have been encouraged and blessed by your response and just wanted to say thank you!  As always this is the  day that the Lord has made and we will rejoice and be glad in it!