Revival God’s Way: JOY!

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4-5).

There are few things quite so boring as being a person of religious activity. But there is nothing quite so exciting as being a Christian! The greatest adventure of all times is not a trip to a certain island, or having a lot of money to spend on others, having a good mate and a good family; but the greatest of all is to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit – abiding in Jesus!

There are many today who do not understand the power of a life to live. They have come to Christ and thanked Him only for what He did for them upon a cross, but do not live in the power of Who He is. Why the disconnect?

To live for yourself is to walk after the flesh. To live to and for Christ is to walk after the Spirit. The measure of a man’s worth is the measure in which he no longer lives to and for himself, but to and for Jesus Christ. No more and no less. The life worth living is the life that is surrendered to Christ for Him to live through you! Here’s the question, “Do you have overflowing joy! If not, then it’s not God’s fault, but ours. Are you abiding continually in Jesus? Joy is in a Person! His name is Jesus

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  • The Third Day

     

    “And the evening and the morning were the third day“ (Genesis 1:13).

     

    If you notice God begins in the evening to the morning and calls it “day.” Whether it is the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth day, the Creator God named a “day” beginning in the evening and concluding with the morning. Twenty-four hours in the day that God does His marvelous work.

     

    Would it not be a good and holy thing for us to concentrate on God in the evening hours? So many times we think we must begin in the morning to set the day before us. But God sets the day beginning in the evening hours.

     

    In the evening, many times, we throw off restraints and we fall into the arms of the flesh. Child care, dinner time, tv, pjs, or special events–dinner with friends, movie, ballgame, etc. and we can neglect to rest in God’s evening day to recreate us for the whole day.

     

    Give God your evening. Meditate upon the One who began creation’s story with the evening. It just might be He wants to create His image in you to reflect His glorious creation through you. Life begins in the evening and runs through the morning and afternoon and God calls it the “third day.” May every day be His glorious image in us.

     

  • Terminal

    “Return, and tell Hezekiah, the captain of my people, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David, thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; behold, I will heal thee. On the third day thou shalt go up into the house of the Lord” (2 Kings 20:5).

    Hezekiah, the king, the captain of God’s people, was a godly man but he had great troubles heaped upon him. His country was under siege and he was deathly sick. National crisis is bad enough but to have a personal crisis is trouble piled high.

    What do you do? He turned to the Lord with tears and used the means God had given him for healing. Sometimes God will alter things in His universe just to meet our needs. Sometimes God heals on earth and other times He heals in glory.

    Friend, we do not know when we will die, but we do know we will. It is up to us to live and to live well in the power of the Spirit of the living God. To live in lethargy, complacency, or self-sufficiency, is to live with the threat of settling down in a world that is cursed with sin and death.

    This is not God’s best. God’s best is to allow our needs to continually drive us to Him upon our knees and for each of us to stay close to Him. Let your troubles drive you to Christ. This is the power of the third day. And by the way, we are all terminal, for we do not know when or where, but we do know we will not live forever in this body of clay.

  • The Christian Faith Entrusted to Us

    “As for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1).

    Biblical knowledge is meant to be both intellectual and experiential. There are two sides to the same coin and it is meant to be enjoyed together. Knowledge without response is like an incomplete sentence or a song without a chorus. We have to go beyond merely quoting the truth….to obeying it.

    Why are we to contend for the faith? Because there are false teachers, wolves in sheep’s clothing, counterfeits, apostates in our pulpits across the church scene.  Theology was important to Jude and Paul. God takes the truth seriously. We must know what and why we believe. That is God’s call on every believer.

    Our faith is not primarily a feeling. It is belief based on fact. It is more about a grounded assurance than personal philosophy. We can not simply make up facts or imagine things about God and then base our lives on those thoughts.

    Faith fads, theological trends, popular contemporary thinking, is carrying an unthinking church away from strong historical beliefs and Scripture. Just believing something doesn’t make it true. It’s either true or not, independent of our belief in it. Everything that is not Scriptural and experientially defended in our daily lives sets up misrepresentation of the God of doctrine and truth. Just ask the woman at the well in John’s gospel chapter four.

    It may feel as if the Word of God is rocking back and forth, swaying to the fads of Christianity, but it is not…for the Word of God is stable, it is not changing, progressing, or emerging. We are called to stand for and proclaim what is true, and even when necessary to expose false teaching and heresy. Always ask, “What does the Bible say? And not “Does it make me feel good, happy, or accepted by others?”

     

     

     

     

  • Serving a Friend for God

    “Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah” (2 Kings 3:11).

    Everyone needs a friend who is true. But what we need more is to be a friend who is true. Elijah had a friend in Elisha. Elisha was chosen by God to become a friend of Elijah. Though Elijah found Elisha and threw his mantle over him for the purpose that he might train him, prepare him, and lift him to the office of a prophet, Elijah’s training led to a deep friendship.

    Are you a true friend? Do you serve your friend in the Lord with compassion, prayer, and love? Will you miss this friend when he or she is gone from earth? Today in our society many people are “thankful for us” but are you “thankful for a friend.” Elisha poured his life into his aging friend. Why did he pour water into the hands of Elijah? Is this symbolism for serving Elijah? Did Elijah’s hands carry arthritis? Did the warm water help?
     
    The Master’s yoke is to led  and taught by God to become a true friend to others.     God needs you and wants you to surrender to Him so that you may encourage and build others up. We all need a friend but we need to become a friend first of all.

  • Mastering Emotions

    “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not” (Isaiah 53:3).

    There is a lot out there that can bring sorrow to your heart and life. Sorrow can numb you and cause you to shut down from God and others. We can routinely go through the pain and yet become hardened at the same time. Not realizing that we can limit the Holy One of God in our daily lives, we live withdrawn and tired. We dream about places we love, we long for something to fill, and for people to understand, and we become forlorn and miserable on the inside and it shows.

    Some people are lonely and it’s their own fault. They can live so self-centeredly and become so wrapped up in their own little lives and live as if the world should revolve around them. When we are wrapped about our lives we become a small, tight package that is about us and others are not in the picture except for our criticism.

    The lonely wants friends but usually only has a few, if any. The selfish and lonely person can make a demigod out of himself and not even realize it. He desires a circle of admirers who will compliment and admire him but usually finds he is not surrounded by any. How sad and how lonely we become when it is about us and really no one else. We judge others by our hurt (imagined or real), and we aren’t aware of the real problem.

    There is no life so empty as the self-centered life. There is no life so centered as the self-emptied life. The Lord Jesus made Himself of no reputation. He was despised, rejected, and ridiculed. The only reason we can love others is that first God loved us. When we realize His grace for us and we accept His acceptance of us then we are free to love others and then fellowship happens freely. The life of the believer is free to love unconditionally. What freedom!

    Why do we try to impress others with our gifts that God has given to each of His born-again children? Why do we work so hard for a little slap on the back by someone who notices? Why are we so dissatisfied with life and with others? Could it be that we are not dependent upon the grace of God?

    Our Savior was faced with misunderstandings, false accusations of His character, insults on His person, chicanery against Him, threats, trumped up charges, torture, abuse, and finally a horrendous death and yet in His loneliness He never became selfish. No one has ever been as lonely as the Lord Jesus. He was cut off from Heaven and earth and yet He still was not selfish. He continued to reach out to the thief upon the cross and to those who heard Him as He suffered. And He is reaching out to you and me today.

    You and I need someone to love, someone who understands, and the need to be needed and wanted. Jesus is the One who fulfills these three needs. You say, “I need someone who is real.” That’s part of our problem. He is real. He lives in you, He walks with you, He goes with you, He is our living hope!

    You may have seasons of loneliness, but that feeling does not have to master you. Because Jesus is with you, you never need to be really lonely. Recognize your problem and go to Jesus and confess your need of Him so you can love others in Jesus.

    Father in Heaven I pray for each of us. We allow too much to knock us around and to keep us down. Forgive us for knowing the stories of the Bible and even teaching them to others while we ourselves forget that You love us, need us, and understands each of us. Forgive us for not allowing You to capture us so that we may capture others in this same out-flowing of Your love through us. Oh what love you give. Can’t wait for Your name to be glorified so that we may see revival. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

  • The Most Important Word: Relationships

    “For God so loved the world that He gave…” (John 3:16a).
    There are many people who can be reached with the gospel if we are ready before God. Broken relationships hinder the work of God. When you and I set ourselves upright with God by meeting God’s conditions, then the Lord will weigh us with a burden to pray.
    Something happens which is inexplicable, humanly impossible, that only God can engineer when we decide God’s purpose is more important in our lives than our own  feelings or bitter feelings we have toward someone.
    God can bring more people into our lives to have their needs met when we are ready. We become fulfilled as we see the fruit of God’s Spirit impacting lives of those around us. Nothing ever becomes dynamic until we become specific in our doings before the All-Seeing God that we love. Love is meeting needs. God wants to reach others through us.