I was made to gaze, all of my days, to gaze on beauty.
I want to see the Beauty of the Lord. The beauty of my Beloved.
I cannot begin to describe the wonder and awe of the Lord, my Jesus.
He is the grandest obsession we can have. It is so wonderful, to fall deeply in love with him. It is the best thing you can ever do.
Not the best thing you can ever do. It is the most important relationship you will ever be in. Your relationship with Jesus Christ defines everything about you. You are consumed with it.. whether you believe it or not. The day you stand before his holy throne is the day you will give an account.
Suddenly everything else you ever pursued in your life besides him.. becomes worthless.. you finally have a deep revelation and sorrow of how much more time you could have spent with him.
However you were too busy seeking success.. popularity.. even "ministry"
If we forget the point of why we are here on earth.. if we forget that its ALL about JESUS, we lose everything.
Paul knew it. He states it bluntly in Philippians!
Philippians 3:8
"What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the SURPASSING GREATNESS of knowing CHRIST JESUS my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ."
Beautiful..
Paul understood the Joy of surrender!
When we truly understand.. the greatness of the love of God. When we understand how much the Lord Almighty loves us.. how much Jesus.. our High Priest and intercessor loves us.. suddenly.. everything else in our lives become nothing in comparison to knowing him.
When you are in love.. you go to great lengths to please your loved ones.
Not even please them.. just do little things to make them smile.
I don't think I am explaining this properly.
When you love someone.. going out of your way to do something doesn't even matter to you. Because you love them. It's like.. when your friend or loved one travels miles and miles throughout the night or something to meet you.. its like driving for hours without sleep and then its all worth it because you just get to see their face.
This is what Paul is saying. Suddenly.. laying down your live for Jesus.. becomes nothing! Because you know the reward is Him.
Once we truly understand the greatness of the Love of Christ for us and this wonderful beautiful perfect relationship we are in.. that is when we can begin to follow him whole heartedly.. with our heart, soul, mind and strength.
Okay.. so my point in all of this.. is
I don't even know.
haha
This whole thing is extremely unorganized and that makes me sad.. but I feel like the Lord is preparing all of us for something.
Obviously.. our Nation is in a time of change. I believe that the United States is straying further and further away from the Lord... and something needs to change.
I haven't watched the news in months so I am not talking about anything political necessarily.
We look around and we see that there is a lack of God.
Where people "claim" God is.. His presence isn't truly there.
Many of us call ourselves Christians but fail to follow out that lifestyle very well.
Whatever.. God is on the move .. the end times are near .. and we need to prepare ourselves as the bride of Christ.
Regardless of how soon that is .. it doesn't matter. Jesus will not return to a Bride that is not calling out to him day and night and isn't love sick.
We need to begin to listen to God.. and hear what he is telling us.
My prayer is this.. that you would begin to prepare your Bride! Purify our hearts! Let us begin to walk in pure and holy ways.. sanctify us God. Increase our capacity to love you.. to be longing for you and your return. Things are not okay with how they are! We want to see the kingdom of the Lord come to Earth. Let your Kingdom come and your will be done. Jesus.. we want you. So raise up hearts like Davids and Marys!
God help my heart long after you! After your sweet presence, Jesus, we want to know you better. I want to hear your voice. I am terrified, Jesus, that I don't know you well enough. I don't want to be thrown out with the weeping and gnashing of teeth. I want to be a sheep.. a stupid little sheep that just follows after my Good Shepherd. I am not my own god.. The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob! That is the God I want to serve and be obedient to..
So Lord strip us of ourselves.. that we would long to sit in your presence.. that we would have hearts like Davids and Marys.. those who truly see the value of your love! That your love is all we need.. that we lay down our live to know your love and fight to understand the surpassing knowledge of that.
God prepare us to do your work.. that we would be in step with the spirit. Again.. to hear your voice.. like a sheep knows his Shepherds voice.. that we would know you so well Jesus.. that we would only respond to you.. that we wouldn't respond to the voices of this world God. But that your Bride would rise up.. that she would become unified and one! We want to see the Kingdom come to earth.
Give us burdened hearts Lord.. to see the world through your eyes.. so see your children who are so deceived walking in darkness! Oh that they would see the great light!
Jesus that you would break the deception that this world has of you, it breaks my heart Jesus.. that people don't know you like I know you! My Beloved one. Jesus that they do not acknowledge you as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.. or they claim it but don't live it at all!!!
You say Jesus, "if you love me, then obey my commands," Help us.. give us the grace and the holy spirit to obey your commands. We confess lord.. that we are dependent on you and your strength to walk out our salvation. Jesus we need you! We must fill ourselves with you every single day to do anything. If we don't mediate on your love.. then we are lost.. we have nothing. We cry out as Moses did.. God if your presence doesn't go with us.. then we won't go. Don't send us without your spirit.
We can do nothing without you, Jesus. But I want to know you better God. How can the world know Jesus if we who profess ourselves as Christians don't even know him. If we don't know you.. then we can't truly love you.
Open our eyes .. give us the grace to see you for who you really are. Give us further revelation of your Love Lord.. our hearts cry out to you.. make our hearts cry to you. Day and night.. to prepare ourselves for the Return of our Loved one.. the glorious creator.. alpha and omega, king of kings and lord of lords.. everlasting father, prince of peace, wonderful counselor, mighty God.
We need more of you. Show us what that looks like Jesus.. let that truly be the cry of our hearts. To know the love that our beautiful savior has for us.
I ask you to examine your heart. Do you long for Jesus.. to meet with him daily?
It is the MOST important thing you will ever do. Spend time with him. Fall at his feet and love him. He longs for that more than you ever will.
God longs for you .. more than you could ever long for him.
Satisfy Him today by entering into his courts. He is waiting for you. Your beloved is waiting.
Step into your role as a bride anxiously awaiting your bridegroom.
You were made to gaze on beauty.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Friday, December 9, 2011
a call to obedience
The Lord Almighty calls His followers to Obedience. That we would pick up our cross and deny ourselves of everything expect Christ.
We must seek Jesus with everything that we have. I don't think in this culture it is necessarily materialistic things. I think we have so much junk that we honestly don't value very much of it. In my life personally I don't think I have idols of anything materialistic that I have. (I want to be careful saying that because I don't want to deceive or blind myself) But over all I believe the main thing that strikes me when I read the verse Luke 14:33 "In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has CANNOT be my disciple."
What? Jesus! Come on man.. Jesus I can't have anything? You really want me to deny everything and have nothing but to follow you? That is a little over the top don't you think?
We think this way. I think this way. I don't want to put Christianity into some cute little feel good religion thing, as we have done in the American culture all too often.
Jesus demands everything we have. I am going to kind of use and example of something that Dana Candler said the other day in relation to Jesus being the Husband coming for His bride.
The example was the first and greatest commandment is to Love the Lord your God will all your mind, soul, heart.. strength right?
She said that normally we get almost offended sometimes like.. God is selfish or something. That is a very demanding thing to ask. But think of it this way.
(I think i may have blogged on this a little before) But if you are going to get married, and your spouse tells you that they only want .. ehh 20% of your love. They say.. you can do whatever else you want with the other percent. You can love someone else.. another man or woman. Or something. I only demand 20% of the full capacity of your love. Is that okay sweetie? Do we have a deal?
I hope I just got that point across to you. Like we would feel "genuinely unwanted" if that is what Jesus asked of us. Would we feel special? Would this Love be the deep all consuming fire that it is if it didn't require EVERYTHING.
In the same way that Jesus requires all of our heart soul mind and strength he requires all of us.
Oh that we would be a people to quickly deny ourselves of our wants and desires and to seek the Lord and His will for our lives above all things.
So going back to the Verse about giving up everything to be Jesus's disciple.
If Jesus isn't worthy of giving up our "everything" then he wouldn't be worthy. If he only required us to lay down part of our lives to follow him WHAT is the point?
So now the call to obedience. I believe being obedient to the Lord is what I have been convicted of lately.
That is my personal conviction. I want to please God. I want to follow the will He has for my life as closely as I can that way I don't miss the things and tasks He has planned for me.
I feel as though.. God is preparing me for something, and that if I miss the things that he is calling me to do, then I will miss the end goal.
This is true for EVERYONE. God has a plan and specifically designed and created each and every one of us to be a part of advancing His kingdom.
When I am talking about this Obedience business.. I am not that excited about it. haha It isn't going to be glamorous. I don't think I am going to be tested by the Lord where I will be called to do something great and see an immediate fruit or harvest from it.
God will begin to test me in small ways. In the little things of life. Depending on how I respond to what I am being called to do will determine in the end if I am going to have the opportunity that I have been essentially training for.
I just thought of a soccer season while writing that. It's like this. You have practices, games, and then BIG games.
Practices. Going to practice is how you cultivate discipline. Basically our practice is getting into the Word. Spending time with the LORD. God time. Practice is meant to PREPARE you for the Games.
So then Games come.. this is the little stuff that God is calling you to be obedient in. I don't have any specific examples. Pray about it if you want to know what your games look like and let the Holy Spirit speak for you. The Game is when we have the opportunity to be obedient. Its at this moment when we have been called by the Coach. We have heard the Lords voice. He has called us to go into the game to do something. A specific position. Do we go in and complete the task or not?
Hearing the coach (God) and then actually listening and responding to that is different.
I believe we can distinguish the times in our lives that are like the Games when we have that "feeling".. you know? the one where you feel like you need to do something? At that moment.. this thing you feel God is calling you to may be silly or stupid or pointless but we have a decision to make. Will we respond and be obedient to the voice of the Lord?
You decide.. (Keep in mind God is preparing you for something.. Testing you to see how you preform! Just like a coach would track how well you do in completing what he is calling you to do on the field.)
Now.. comes the Championship game. This is the big test of Obedience .. the thing that you will see immediate fruit for! You have been preparing yourself for this. You weren't prepared before all of the practices and games. If you didn't push through those then there is no way you would have even made it to the Opportunity that the Lord has presented you with!
God has been tracking how you preformed in the games.. hard work in the practices. (Keep in mind also that when you are going to a championship game.. none of the steps stop. They continue to build on each other. You don't stop practicing once you start playing games..)
Same thing.. you must continue to spend time with the Lord every day. The little Stuff! Hear the voice of the Lord! You won't be able to be obedient if you don't give him an opportunity to speak to you!
Anyway.. back to the Championship game. You have been preparing for this. You have been intentional with the Games .. you have been expectant to be there!
That should be motivation for us! When we don't want to be obedient keep in mind you are working towards something! So my point is.. be expectant. Say this to God, "I don't want to do this right now, but even though I don't see the point of it.. I will trust in you God because you have a plan for me, and I will press on to meet the time when you are calling me to something great."
God is calling us to some great things. great great things. We should want them to be greater things than we could imagine! Let's not limit the God of the ages. He can do the impossible through us! How lucky are we.
Anyway.. stay the course! BE obedient in the small things that way the Lord can trust us to be obedient in the big things.
I want to be obedient. I want to hear God's voice and respond quickly.
I was reading today the story of Christmas a little bit. Joseph was told to flee with Jesus and Mary to go to Egypt to escape Herod.
IF JOSEPH HADN'T DONE WHAT GOD WANTED HIM TO DO. WHAT GOD HAD TOLD HIM TO DO AND QUICKLY.. THEN THE LONG AWAITED MESSIAH WOULD HAVE BEEN KILLED.
What? I mean I am sure God would have done something about it.. or I don't even know! What if Jesus had been KILLED? Would God have sent him again?
We must be quick to hear the word of the Lord and act on it. The rest of our lives might look dramatically different just by missing something the Lord was speaking to us.
Deny ourselves of everything for the sake of the Lamb. He is worthy.
Hear the Lord's voice and act on it quickly.
John 10:27 "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me."
I want Jesus to know me. I want to know Jesus. I want to follow Jesus.
Jesus wants to know you, and he wants you to follow him!
That's all
-Mali
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
a time of testing
Hello all!
This is just me talking about Jesus. I don't know if it is anything in specific.
It has been quite sometime since I have been blogging. I need to update part three of the Gospels. (Sanctification) Which is a big deal and is basically evidence in your life to test and approve your salvation. Good to know I would think!
Anyway I just wanted to let you all know that we are called to be SO obedient to the Lord.
Now this is a challenge but it is something that we need to strive for and press on. We need to FIGHT to know Jesus and who he is. There is no such thing as being stagnant.. you are either gaining ground or losing it.. (Dan Perkins was talking about this the other day) How in 1 Peter I believe the enemy prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. That is what we are up against as Christians.
We are playing against.. the dirtiest, roughest.. bunch of cheaters and malicious.. catty team you can think of!
There are no rules.
The enemy wants to crush you.
We need to be walking in Jesus's protection. His will for our lives and pursing the Lord protects us. Follow the Lord! FLEE from sin.
Paul says that all the time. FLEE from immorality. Not turn away, not walk the other direction. No, we are called to run away from things that will tempt us.
Jesus longs for us to sit in his presence. Jesus is a person.
He is a PERSON! We think of God as this big idea or .. concept and it is really hard for us to love a concept. It isn't hard for us to love a person.
It is hard for us to love someone we don't know.
Same thing with Jesus, get in the word! Read about how Jesus answered questions! His wisdom, his love and compassion for the lost and sick! He loves you!
The more we know about something the more we love it.. its true.
I seriously encourage you all to spend time with the Lord.
OWN YOUR FAITH. IT IS YOURS! DO NOT GET FED BY ANYONE ELSE.
don't live off of someone else's food and relationship with the Lord.
Do not think that because your friends know Jesus and you go to youth and you sing the songs and all this stuff that you KNOW Jesus.
We need to spend time with Jesus on a personal level. Lets think of it this way.. So Jesus died for you.
Specifically you, and so .. he clearly wants to have a relationship with you. He wants to spend time for you to get to know him.
He loves it when his children meet with him at youth, but guess what.
Let's turn this into a personal relationship.
With your best friend or your boyfriend or girlfriend.
Do you want to spend time with your friends alone ever? YES.
If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend you go on dates because you want to be intimate with that person, get to know them on a one on one level!
JESUS WANTS TO GO ON DATES WITH YOU.
How shallow of us to just meet with him when .. "well everyone else is going to be there."
wait. okay i have an idea. hopefully i can get my point across.
So .. your boyfriend/girlfriend wants to hang out with you..
He invites you to spend time with him/her.
You say.. yeah.. I will.. but who all is going to be there?
I mean is anyone else going to hang out with us? Or is it just going to be me and you? Cause I kind of think it would be more fun if other people were there. (Youth) I don't want to go if its just going to be me and you.
This is what we do to Jesus, we are good at meeting with him at .. "movie night" or a "party" but .. ehh I don't really know if I want to hang out with you alone Jesus.. that could be awkward.
We are friends.. in groups but .. not THAT kind of friend..
Do you guys no what I mean?
I am not trying to be like accusing but I really think we just want to spend time with Jesus when everyone else is doing it.
Pursue the Lord!!!
He is eagerly waiting for you. Get to know his voice! He is calling you! We just can't hear it.
It was weird .. the other day I was just sitting with Jesus thanking him for how much he loved me, and I was crying. I got down on my knees and was bowing before him.
But suddenly.. for some reason.. I had this feeling, I my head I thought..
"get up my child, I want to hug you, don't kneel before me, this isn't the time."
WOAH. haha It was kind of crazy I broke down crying! The Lord LOVES LOVES LOVES US! He wants to wrap his arms around us. There is a time and a place to worship him! and there is a time and a place to RECEIVE his love!!!
It was like.. Maybe the Lord was speaking to me.. "I know you know I am worthy of being praised.. but how about you just sit in my love for a second and soak it up."
It was good stuff.
This is a very random post.
But give Jesus the time he deserves. He loves it and smiles when you turn your face to his. He CAN see you. He is always watching .. more intently than Santa Claus..
He see's you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake.
He wants you to look up to heaven and seek his face! Look to the sky! Say Jesus! I am looking for you where are you! I can't see you but I know you are there! But I am a little kid, I am trying to see you but I just can't yet!
Someday we will see him. How glorious it will be.
Do you want to be someone who had been looking for his face all the days of your life? So that when he finally reveals himself and comes down from heaven.. He will feel your appreciation and excitement.
Or will your reaction be.. oh! Jesus you surprised me I wasn't expecting you.
or YES!! HERE YOU ARE! MY MESSIAH! My Savior!!!! Lover of my soul!!!!
YOU ARE HERE!!!!
I have no idea if this stuff makes sense. I think it does haha
Anyway .. that's all.
-Mali
This is just me talking about Jesus. I don't know if it is anything in specific.
It has been quite sometime since I have been blogging. I need to update part three of the Gospels. (Sanctification) Which is a big deal and is basically evidence in your life to test and approve your salvation. Good to know I would think!
Anyway I just wanted to let you all know that we are called to be SO obedient to the Lord.
Now this is a challenge but it is something that we need to strive for and press on. We need to FIGHT to know Jesus and who he is. There is no such thing as being stagnant.. you are either gaining ground or losing it.. (Dan Perkins was talking about this the other day) How in 1 Peter I believe the enemy prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. That is what we are up against as Christians.
We are playing against.. the dirtiest, roughest.. bunch of cheaters and malicious.. catty team you can think of!
There are no rules.
The enemy wants to crush you.
We need to be walking in Jesus's protection. His will for our lives and pursing the Lord protects us. Follow the Lord! FLEE from sin.
Paul says that all the time. FLEE from immorality. Not turn away, not walk the other direction. No, we are called to run away from things that will tempt us.
Jesus longs for us to sit in his presence. Jesus is a person.
He is a PERSON! We think of God as this big idea or .. concept and it is really hard for us to love a concept. It isn't hard for us to love a person.
It is hard for us to love someone we don't know.
Same thing with Jesus, get in the word! Read about how Jesus answered questions! His wisdom, his love and compassion for the lost and sick! He loves you!
The more we know about something the more we love it.. its true.
I seriously encourage you all to spend time with the Lord.
OWN YOUR FAITH. IT IS YOURS! DO NOT GET FED BY ANYONE ELSE.
don't live off of someone else's food and relationship with the Lord.
Do not think that because your friends know Jesus and you go to youth and you sing the songs and all this stuff that you KNOW Jesus.
We need to spend time with Jesus on a personal level. Lets think of it this way.. So Jesus died for you.
Specifically you, and so .. he clearly wants to have a relationship with you. He wants to spend time for you to get to know him.
He loves it when his children meet with him at youth, but guess what.
Let's turn this into a personal relationship.
With your best friend or your boyfriend or girlfriend.
Do you want to spend time with your friends alone ever? YES.
If you have a boyfriend or girlfriend you go on dates because you want to be intimate with that person, get to know them on a one on one level!
JESUS WANTS TO GO ON DATES WITH YOU.
How shallow of us to just meet with him when .. "well everyone else is going to be there."
wait. okay i have an idea. hopefully i can get my point across.
So .. your boyfriend/girlfriend wants to hang out with you..
He invites you to spend time with him/her.
You say.. yeah.. I will.. but who all is going to be there?
I mean is anyone else going to hang out with us? Or is it just going to be me and you? Cause I kind of think it would be more fun if other people were there. (Youth) I don't want to go if its just going to be me and you.
This is what we do to Jesus, we are good at meeting with him at .. "movie night" or a "party" but .. ehh I don't really know if I want to hang out with you alone Jesus.. that could be awkward.
We are friends.. in groups but .. not THAT kind of friend..
Do you guys no what I mean?
I am not trying to be like accusing but I really think we just want to spend time with Jesus when everyone else is doing it.
Pursue the Lord!!!
He is eagerly waiting for you. Get to know his voice! He is calling you! We just can't hear it.
It was weird .. the other day I was just sitting with Jesus thanking him for how much he loved me, and I was crying. I got down on my knees and was bowing before him.
But suddenly.. for some reason.. I had this feeling, I my head I thought..
"get up my child, I want to hug you, don't kneel before me, this isn't the time."
WOAH. haha It was kind of crazy I broke down crying! The Lord LOVES LOVES LOVES US! He wants to wrap his arms around us. There is a time and a place to worship him! and there is a time and a place to RECEIVE his love!!!
It was like.. Maybe the Lord was speaking to me.. "I know you know I am worthy of being praised.. but how about you just sit in my love for a second and soak it up."
It was good stuff.
This is a very random post.
But give Jesus the time he deserves. He loves it and smiles when you turn your face to his. He CAN see you. He is always watching .. more intently than Santa Claus..
He see's you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake.
He wants you to look up to heaven and seek his face! Look to the sky! Say Jesus! I am looking for you where are you! I can't see you but I know you are there! But I am a little kid, I am trying to see you but I just can't yet!
Someday we will see him. How glorious it will be.
Do you want to be someone who had been looking for his face all the days of your life? So that when he finally reveals himself and comes down from heaven.. He will feel your appreciation and excitement.
Or will your reaction be.. oh! Jesus you surprised me I wasn't expecting you.
or YES!! HERE YOU ARE! MY MESSIAH! My Savior!!!! Lover of my soul!!!!
YOU ARE HERE!!!!
I have no idea if this stuff makes sense. I think it does haha
Anyway .. that's all.
-Mali
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
The Gospels, Part Two (Justification)
Recap..
God is Holy and Just.. meaning that if he is Just righteousness is rewarded and wickedness condemned.
We are wicked (Man) we have fallen short and missed the mark and the plan God had for us. We are sinners.
So if God is a Just God, how can we be in his presence.. how can we reach the Father? We come to the Crisis Moment.. where we understand we are desperate NEED of a savior. And we realized Jesus Christ is the only way we can be justified.
Justification is a court term.. you are either Justified, or Condemned.
So.. God is more holy and just than we can ever imagine.. we cannot begin to fathom it..
We need to properly understand (more like try to understand) all the different attributes of God. Or not attributes necessarily.. we need to know who God is .. and everything that he is.. or strive to know the REAL God.
We know that God is love, he is kind, he is, slow to anger, but we also need to remember that the LORD is HOLY, and RIGHTEOUS, and JUST. (don't create an idol)
Now yes the fear of the Lord is important.. but we do not come to repent because we are.. scared of him.. and that he is some mean ruler.
We are drawn to the Lord because of the kindness we have received through his great love for us.
If you have a hard time understanding or viewing God in a certain way.. or one of his.. qualities or attributes of who he is.. then ask the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you!
Ask for the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom while reading the bible or a better understanding of what is being said.
So God hates sin and hates evil because it hurts us.. same thing.. Tyrel said that if someone was trying to hurt his child.. he would pay. Tyrel wouldn't let someone hurt his little girl.. and then get away with it.
Or there is a strong desire to protect our loved ones from things that hurt them.
God hates SIN. Sin hurts us. Sin keeps us from God. God hates sin because he loves us.
(hate the sin, not the sinner)
So.. Justice is us getting what we deserve.
When wickedness is justified and righteousness is condemned it is an abomination to the Lord.
In this world.. I think we see it pretty often.. we see things Glorified.. we see sin in our lives in the .. media or wherever.. schools.. Sin is glorified.. Wickedness is "okay" and doing the right thing is either made fun of or .. condemned.. looked down upon in our culture and GOD probably HATES it.
It is stripping Justice by rewarded evil. That is not just. Anyway.. that isn't really the point of this Blog its about OUR justification and being made pure through the sacrifice of Jesus.
But this is kind of one of the points.. we are not justified through God's kindness..
God wasn't like okay well i love you children.. so i am going to just pardon your sins because of the kindess i have on you.. NOPE.
God is Just : righteousness must be rewarded and wickedness condemned.
Our sin is NOT pardoned through kindness.
Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the GIFT of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
We should be dead. The payment of sin is death. We sinned.. we should be eternally damned.
We don't understand the GOOD NEWS of the gospel because we don't truly understand how fallen we are..
I was thinking about this the other day.. or while he was talking about all this.. and I was like you know what its absolutely true.
Ever since we are little.. we hear about Jesus..
We already know the good news.. we don't understand the magnitude of the sacrifice!
Our culture.. our our era's view on like the bible is we skipped ahead to the climax and the ending of a movie. We know what happens! We are like everything is okay! If we would have grown up reading the bible from front to back (obviously when we are little we wont understand) But like if we read the bible like a book. From beginning to end.. i feel like we would understand the LONG AWAITED MESSIAH a little better.
People were waiting for thousands of years! They were living under the law having to sacrifice animals and try and live a perfect life! They couldn't do it, and it was hard! But then! Prophets like Isaiah speak of a messiah.. someone who will come and set them free!
The people asked Jesus.. like John the bapstist.. "are you the one we have been waiting for?!" is it you! Is it true? has the time come!?
Jesus is HERE!!! He has come to set us free from our sins and our transgressions!
I think we take the bible for granted. At least I have.. I want to read about Jesus today.. okay yeah.. lets see here what do I want to read.. Mark? Luke? hmm i read Mark yesterday.. how about John!
We can just flip open the New Testament and read about him! and people before him were longing for him to arrive!
Anyway.. sorry about the tangent.
We are condemned Criminals being declared Justified (innocent) in the eyes of God.
1 John 2:1-2 "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense -- Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world."
(pretty sure i have been spelling atoning "attoining" WAY incorrectly haha whatevs learn something new every day)
So how thankful should be be! Jesus speaks in our defense! Awesome, thank you thank you thank you Jesus!
In other versions it says he is our Advocate which is like a mediator or helper. His sacrifice has been appeasement for our sin. He has made amends and reconnected what has been disconnected.
So then in Isaiah 53 Well first of all you should absolutely read it. But the Lord was PLEASED to crush Jesus. Pleased to put him to grief. Because at that time.. Jesus bore the weight of all of our sin. God hates sin.
Blood must be shed for our sin.. someone must die. Jesus shed the blood and died for us. Pure, holy, Jesus, his blood has washed us clean. Nothing more precious.
Leviticus 16:8-10.. Read it.. but I am going to summarize
So there are two Goats.. one must be sacrificed for payment for the sin.. and they other is called the scapegoat.. they send the scapegoat into the desert and that symbolizes that all of their sins are carried away from them.
So Jesus is both of those for us. He payed for our sin.. and bore our sin.. he took all of our sin and took it away from us. Or this Goat thing is symbolic of Jesus.
Okay so.. Justification. Jesus died for us ONCE and for ALL! no more sacrifices.. no more payments. it is done, it is finished. we are made pure through him and accepting him as our LORD and SAVIOR.
Again.. Matthew 5 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven." We must must must acknowledge that we are poor in spirit. We are depraved. We are sinners, and evil and bad and have fallen short of the glory of the Lord! But the Lord so loved us God so loved us that he sent his one and only son.
So that we could become purified again and take part in the Kingdom of Heaven.. to have relationship with the most Holy and Almighty God. Wow. How great is this love?
The love of God is the most powerful thing in the universe.
Romans 8:31 "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, not any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Like .. you know the sacrifice made.. that is the representation of God's love. God's love is seen through Jesus! We get to .. have a glimpse at the Love of the father.
Ephesians 3:18-19 "may have the power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that you may be filled tot he measure of all the fullness of God."
Amazing, our Lord's love for us surpasses our knowledge.. I think my only response is why. Why? Why? What can we offer you Lord! I must offer you my life and dedicate my life to Glorifying you for you have given all for me. Thank you Jesus.
By the blood of Jesus alone we are saved.
Thank you for dying for us that way we could inherit you Kingdom!
Let my life be pleasing to the sacrifice you made.
-Mali
Monday, October 31, 2011
The Gospels, Part one: Sin (Don't read this if you aren't going to read parts two and three)
Alright, this is a three part Sermon. Tyrel Koenes spoke on this stuff, it really was amazing. So good to know why we believe what we do and just to really break down the Gospels and learn why we NEED a savior and pull out all of the truths and the depth of the things that sometimes we quickly forget to acknowledge or overlook.
Sin.
So, I think that all Christians would agree that they believe God is both Holy and Just.
Okay, so God is Holy. He is Holier than Holy.. we cannot even begin to understand how holy he truly is. The elders in heaven fall face down before him and sing day and night "holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come."
-He's HOLY.
Now our God is also Just God.
Meaning.. basically He will condem wickedness and reward righteousness. (You get what you deserve)
Let me look up the definition of Justice. one moment.
Justice : The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.
Right, so God has these laws that he created. They are set.. The punishment for sin is death. We KNOW this.
So in a nutshell those are just two really important things that we know about our Lord.
He is holy, and he is just.
So what about us.. who are we?
Well we have fallen short of the glory of God. We have failed. We have sinned.. that means we are condemned.
God's will for our lives.. is a bullseye after a bullseye after a bullseye after a bullseye.. like PERFECT PEOPLE. Not just a bullseye but the very center of the bullseye. God is holy, he demands holiness and perfection. God cannot be around anything that is sin.
So all of us. Every single person. It is made clear in the bible that everyone has fallen short of the Glory of God! Therefore, we are rightfully condemned.
We deserve death.
We have sinned.. we are not holy anymore. God is holy we should not be in his presence.
God is just! So justice will be served. We are wicked and wickedness is condemned. We should have eternal damnation.
(Now if anyone is reading this and is like.. wow why is God making this so hard, why is he so uptight.. you need to acknowledge the Lord a little better. It is not up to YOU to decide what is fair and unfair .. and easy and right.. you are not God this is not your universe.. you are a creation of his Glory. So stop there. We need to understand that. We must understand our proper place in accordance to him.)
So a little story that Tyrel used to make us be able to understand this Justice thing with God.
Okay you, me, and about 30 other people watch a man shoot and kill another man.
We go to the trial as the Jury or something.
We all declare, "yes we saw the guy shoot the other guy."
The murderer is declared Guilty! (rightfully condemned.)
But then, after the judge declares him guilty.. he just lets him go free, no penalty. Just go.. its fine.
WHAT? we don't like that do we?
So here comes our problem.
This is the dilemma.. how can a Just God.. declare someone who is guilty innocent??
That is when Jesus comes in.. but that isn't this time that is in the next blog. (This is important I think. We need to really understand how much we need a savior.. we are going to continue to acknowledge our sin and how wretched we really are.)
So back to our sin.. (yay I know, but it is essential to understand our sin.. understand who we are without Jesus..)
By nature we are sinnners.
Titus 3:3-7 "At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, DECEIVED and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteou things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life."
So yeah, we sin.. we have been deceived.. If you don't think you sin you have been deceived.. (we shouldn't be offended by our sin either!) We should not get all .. annoyed when we hear we are sinners.. we should be sad yes. But we should not try and defend ourselves. We sin. We are not righteous.. we don't throw bullseyes, many times we miss the whole board. I do at least haha.
Romans 3:10
"As it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one;"
Kind of repetitive.. I think Paul wanted to let us know that no one is perfect, .. not one of you people on earth is perfect.. and again if you didn't catch that .. NOT ONE OF YOU. Not even one.
Okay!!! we know i'm sorry.. haha
but really.. we just.. fail! We failed we failed. We cannot do it on our own..
God says in Genesis.. Genesis 8:21 "every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood." He is talking about man.
EVERY INCLINATION OF OUR HEART IS EVIL FROM CHILDHOOD. God knows what he is talking about.. and the only good you have in you. It comes from God! The grace of God .. God revealing himself to you.. that is what holds us back from doing evil.. its this law of nature, Moral Law.. (ask C.S. Lewis.. Mere Christianity..)
So do we see how fallen short we are? We are evil, wicked little things. (Its okay if you hate yourself haha) But it isn't really hating yourself it is acknowledging the sin in you.. and then GET MAD AT THE ENEMY. HE IS WHY WE SIN!
We need to just walk in this conviction.. that wow. We suck and I hope something comes along to save us! Its a "sober judgement" like in romans.. just "don't think of yourself more highly than you ought."
So.. because we are sinners now the Lord has to give us the Law. Something to keep us in check and keep us from not killing each other.
Romans 7:7 "What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, 'Do not covet.'"
Okay, so it seems like God gave us the Law to identify our sin.. to know what right and wrong was!
Galatians 3:24 "Therefore the Law has become our TUTOR to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor."
Again.. the law was given to us.. that way we can Learn how to try and live holy and righteous. The law are these standards that we strive to meet. It keeps us in check basically.
The Purpose of the Law has NEVER been to save.
The purpose is to expose sin.. so that we will stop hoping in ourselves and start hoping in God.
ROMANS 12!!! what what?? ;) okay
so it says. "In view of God's mercy!"
okay stopping there.. if we understand his mercy.. that he sent his son to justify us... because of his great mercy on us! .. then it says. "offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to god, this is your spiritual act of worship."
The only reasonable thing we can do in response to his mercy.. the mercy we have recieved is to offer everything we have to him. That is how we worship him is through our actions.
-It is because of what Christ did for us that we are able of anything, our hope is in what He's done for us.
-We can only appreciate what Christ has done for us by understanding who we are without him.
-IT'S ONLY WHEN WE COME TO THIS REALITY THAT WE MAY BE SAVED.
If you don't understand and acknowledge that you are in NEED of a savior. Then you cannot be saved. You have to not "want" a savior. You need one. We come to a crisis moment in our lives.. when we understand God's glory and Holiness.. how we don't match up and we go.. "oh no, I am doomed.. eternally damned, what can I do?"
Jesus did everything. You just respond to his action.
Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.
We must recognize that we are poor in spirit.. we are depraved. We are wicked.. We need a savior. We cannot possibly do anything holy on our own. It's through Jesus.
Do you ever onder why it seems that those that were drug addicts, alcoholics, thieves, prostitues, etc. seem the most radical when they come to the Lord? Because the have a deep revelation of who/what they are without him!!!
That is how we need to be people!! DO NOT COMPARE YOURSELF. NEVER COMPARE YOUR SIN. "Do not think of ourselves more highly than you ought, but rather think of ourselves in sober judgement in ACCORDANCE to the Measure of FAITH God has given you."
its like this.. i memorized Romans 12 right.. and I am like yeah! don't think of myself better than I am .. think of myself in sober judgement.. but you know how you do that?? yeah its that moment that part after.. Paul says.. in accordance to the measureof faith God has given me.. so the better i understand God. the better I understand how holy he is.. that is the degree that I can understand the truly think of myself with sober Judgement!! Cool right? The accordance of faith I have in the Lord.. the more i understand the Lord and myself.. the better i can understand how short i have fallen.
We are all equal to murderers, thieves and prostitutes.. do not DECEIVE yourselves.
(think about where you would be 1,000 years without God.) I know where I was when I was 17.. you know?
Luke 7 "Those that have been forgiven much love much."
We need to really understand how lost we are.
So.. The Law was given that we might identify what sin is and realize that we CANNOT save ourselves.
The only appropriate response is surrender, confession, and repentance.
And then he talked about Atheist and how he doesn't believe they are real haha.. so if you want to know about that ask me! It was really interesting his view of people who don't "believe" in God.
Ask me about it and I will break it down for you..
Anyway this is part one. Sin.. He encouraged us to make sure we listened to the other parts of his sermon to make ourselves feel better haha because this isn't the GOOD NEWS!
JESUS COMES AND SETS US FREE OF THE LAW AND OUR SIN!!
but first we must come to that somber realization that we have failed and have no hope unless God does something to show mercy.
You are a sinner. But God loves you anyway.
That's all
-Mali.
Sin.
So, I think that all Christians would agree that they believe God is both Holy and Just.
Okay, so God is Holy. He is Holier than Holy.. we cannot even begin to understand how holy he truly is. The elders in heaven fall face down before him and sing day and night "holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come."
-He's HOLY.
Now our God is also Just God.
Meaning.. basically He will condem wickedness and reward righteousness. (You get what you deserve)
Let me look up the definition of Justice. one moment.
Justice : The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.
Right, so God has these laws that he created. They are set.. The punishment for sin is death. We KNOW this.
So in a nutshell those are just two really important things that we know about our Lord.
He is holy, and he is just.
So what about us.. who are we?
Well we have fallen short of the glory of God. We have failed. We have sinned.. that means we are condemned.
God's will for our lives.. is a bullseye after a bullseye after a bullseye after a bullseye.. like PERFECT PEOPLE. Not just a bullseye but the very center of the bullseye. God is holy, he demands holiness and perfection. God cannot be around anything that is sin.
So all of us. Every single person. It is made clear in the bible that everyone has fallen short of the Glory of God! Therefore, we are rightfully condemned.
We deserve death.
We have sinned.. we are not holy anymore. God is holy we should not be in his presence.
God is just! So justice will be served. We are wicked and wickedness is condemned. We should have eternal damnation.
(Now if anyone is reading this and is like.. wow why is God making this so hard, why is he so uptight.. you need to acknowledge the Lord a little better. It is not up to YOU to decide what is fair and unfair .. and easy and right.. you are not God this is not your universe.. you are a creation of his Glory. So stop there. We need to understand that. We must understand our proper place in accordance to him.)
So a little story that Tyrel used to make us be able to understand this Justice thing with God.
Okay you, me, and about 30 other people watch a man shoot and kill another man.
We go to the trial as the Jury or something.
We all declare, "yes we saw the guy shoot the other guy."
The murderer is declared Guilty! (rightfully condemned.)
But then, after the judge declares him guilty.. he just lets him go free, no penalty. Just go.. its fine.
WHAT? we don't like that do we?
So here comes our problem.
This is the dilemma.. how can a Just God.. declare someone who is guilty innocent??
That is when Jesus comes in.. but that isn't this time that is in the next blog. (This is important I think. We need to really understand how much we need a savior.. we are going to continue to acknowledge our sin and how wretched we really are.)
So back to our sin.. (yay I know, but it is essential to understand our sin.. understand who we are without Jesus..)
By nature we are sinnners.
Titus 3:3-7 "At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, DECEIVED and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteou things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life."
So yeah, we sin.. we have been deceived.. If you don't think you sin you have been deceived.. (we shouldn't be offended by our sin either!) We should not get all .. annoyed when we hear we are sinners.. we should be sad yes. But we should not try and defend ourselves. We sin. We are not righteous.. we don't throw bullseyes, many times we miss the whole board. I do at least haha.
Romans 3:10
"As it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one;"
Kind of repetitive.. I think Paul wanted to let us know that no one is perfect, .. not one of you people on earth is perfect.. and again if you didn't catch that .. NOT ONE OF YOU. Not even one.
Okay!!! we know i'm sorry.. haha
but really.. we just.. fail! We failed we failed. We cannot do it on our own..
God says in Genesis.. Genesis 8:21 "every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood." He is talking about man.
EVERY INCLINATION OF OUR HEART IS EVIL FROM CHILDHOOD. God knows what he is talking about.. and the only good you have in you. It comes from God! The grace of God .. God revealing himself to you.. that is what holds us back from doing evil.. its this law of nature, Moral Law.. (ask C.S. Lewis.. Mere Christianity..)
So do we see how fallen short we are? We are evil, wicked little things. (Its okay if you hate yourself haha) But it isn't really hating yourself it is acknowledging the sin in you.. and then GET MAD AT THE ENEMY. HE IS WHY WE SIN!
We need to just walk in this conviction.. that wow. We suck and I hope something comes along to save us! Its a "sober judgement" like in romans.. just "don't think of yourself more highly than you ought."
So.. because we are sinners now the Lord has to give us the Law. Something to keep us in check and keep us from not killing each other.
Romans 7:7 "What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, 'Do not covet.'"
Okay, so it seems like God gave us the Law to identify our sin.. to know what right and wrong was!
Galatians 3:24 "Therefore the Law has become our TUTOR to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor."
Again.. the law was given to us.. that way we can Learn how to try and live holy and righteous. The law are these standards that we strive to meet. It keeps us in check basically.
The Purpose of the Law has NEVER been to save.
The purpose is to expose sin.. so that we will stop hoping in ourselves and start hoping in God.
ROMANS 12!!! what what?? ;) okay
so it says. "In view of God's mercy!"
okay stopping there.. if we understand his mercy.. that he sent his son to justify us... because of his great mercy on us! .. then it says. "offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to god, this is your spiritual act of worship."
The only reasonable thing we can do in response to his mercy.. the mercy we have recieved is to offer everything we have to him. That is how we worship him is through our actions.
-It is because of what Christ did for us that we are able of anything, our hope is in what He's done for us.
-We can only appreciate what Christ has done for us by understanding who we are without him.
-IT'S ONLY WHEN WE COME TO THIS REALITY THAT WE MAY BE SAVED.
If you don't understand and acknowledge that you are in NEED of a savior. Then you cannot be saved. You have to not "want" a savior. You need one. We come to a crisis moment in our lives.. when we understand God's glory and Holiness.. how we don't match up and we go.. "oh no, I am doomed.. eternally damned, what can I do?"
Jesus did everything. You just respond to his action.
Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.
We must recognize that we are poor in spirit.. we are depraved. We are wicked.. We need a savior. We cannot possibly do anything holy on our own. It's through Jesus.
Do you ever onder why it seems that those that were drug addicts, alcoholics, thieves, prostitues, etc. seem the most radical when they come to the Lord? Because the have a deep revelation of who/what they are without him!!!
That is how we need to be people!! DO NOT COMPARE YOURSELF. NEVER COMPARE YOUR SIN. "Do not think of ourselves more highly than you ought, but rather think of ourselves in sober judgement in ACCORDANCE to the Measure of FAITH God has given you."
its like this.. i memorized Romans 12 right.. and I am like yeah! don't think of myself better than I am .. think of myself in sober judgement.. but you know how you do that?? yeah its that moment that part after.. Paul says.. in accordance to the measureof faith God has given me.. so the better i understand God. the better I understand how holy he is.. that is the degree that I can understand the truly think of myself with sober Judgement!! Cool right? The accordance of faith I have in the Lord.. the more i understand the Lord and myself.. the better i can understand how short i have fallen.
We are all equal to murderers, thieves and prostitutes.. do not DECEIVE yourselves.
(think about where you would be 1,000 years without God.) I know where I was when I was 17.. you know?
Luke 7 "Those that have been forgiven much love much."
We need to really understand how lost we are.
So.. The Law was given that we might identify what sin is and realize that we CANNOT save ourselves.
The only appropriate response is surrender, confession, and repentance.
And then he talked about Atheist and how he doesn't believe they are real haha.. so if you want to know about that ask me! It was really interesting his view of people who don't "believe" in God.
Ask me about it and I will break it down for you..
Anyway this is part one. Sin.. He encouraged us to make sure we listened to the other parts of his sermon to make ourselves feel better haha because this isn't the GOOD NEWS!
JESUS COMES AND SETS US FREE OF THE LAW AND OUR SIN!!
but first we must come to that somber realization that we have failed and have no hope unless God does something to show mercy.
You are a sinner. But God loves you anyway.
That's all
-Mali.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Do you know the way you move Jesus?
Do you know the way that you move Jesus?
Do you understand the immense love that he has for us?
Do you understand the Grace we have received? That we are no longer under the laws of sin but of Love and Grace?
To be thankful of everything that God has done for us, we must really and truly understand how short we have fallen of his perfect plan for our lives! That we have missed the mark..
It isn't that we want a savior but it is that we NEED a savior. That is something that is crucial to understand.
The ways that we move Jesus in his love for us! Ah! He smiles looking at us. He smiles to pursue us. It's like this.. and I want to be careful of how I say it. It probably is going to be a duh moment like I already knew that.. haha But anyway I was thinking about it last night. It's like this. Jesus didn't die for our sins. (The motivation wasn't to die for our sins.) It was to die so we can be with him. When I type it it is so obvious again. For some reason.. its just deeper in my mind maybe. (I will just go with that ;)
But how great is the Love for us?
Completely unimaginable. We cannot comprehend the just unending love that he has for us.
The Love of Christ is MOST powerful force in the universe.
Nothing can come between it and us.
Romans 8:38 "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
You cannot escape God's love ... you can only deny it and ignore it. Every single person on the planet. His love is all encompassing. It surrounds you. It is the air. It is as great at the highest height and small as the lowest low.
It is so great that it can be defined as everything.. and as nothing. Because we can't even grasp what nothing is!
The concept of nothing is just as powerful as the concept of everything. Try and think about what nothing is!!! What like the gaps between space? Gaps between the air molecules or atoms or whatever the heck I am breathing in!
Nothing .. NOTHING can separate you from the Love of God!
You can only deny his presence.
Because it is all around you.
Its up to us to aknowledge it. The more you speak about God and testify with one another and talk about him and get in the word. The more you see him move. You tap into the spirit and see what is going on divinely around you.. too often we focus on the physical of the world and we completely miss what is going on in the spirtitual relm.
Just get into the word more. God has placed an incredible description of himself and his majesty in front of us. It's called the Holy Bible. :)
We should read it more and more and feed on it. That should be our inspiration.. daily, to seek his face and KNOW Jesus.
There is so so so much. The word of the Lord is flawless. Just ask to look upon the face of Jesus. Pick a verse and meditate on it. Sit on it for a while and pull as many truths out of it that you can.
Do we know the way we move Jesus? What does he think when he looks at us. Even though our love is weak to him it is so pleasing. Do we know the things that we cause Jesus to do!? He is always with us.. longing for us just to turn to him.. just for a second. That he could feel that small glimpse of our love shooting up to him. He is just waiting and sucking it in once we do.
Jesus came and died for you to look at him!!
Jesus came for me and died for me .. a wretched sinful person .. because he just wanted to experience and feel my love for him.
Let me not ever hold any affections over him. Above him. Anything worldy should be below my hearts and minds desire of God.
Psalm 16:2 "I said to the Lord, 'You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.'"
I have NOTHING good apart from Jesus.
good.. not great.. i don't even have one thing that is good.
Anyway..
seek Gods love! Seek his face! Listen to the song "Do you know the way you move me?" by Cory Asbury. That is Jesus singing to us.
And what else.. Listen to "One Thing Remains" Jesus Culture. DO IT.
Powerful songs conveying only a glimpse of Jesus's love for you.
That we would earnestly seek your face God! That our hearts longings would be to "know this love that surpasses knowledge."
That's all.
-Mali
Do you understand the immense love that he has for us?
Do you understand the Grace we have received? That we are no longer under the laws of sin but of Love and Grace?
To be thankful of everything that God has done for us, we must really and truly understand how short we have fallen of his perfect plan for our lives! That we have missed the mark..
It isn't that we want a savior but it is that we NEED a savior. That is something that is crucial to understand.
The ways that we move Jesus in his love for us! Ah! He smiles looking at us. He smiles to pursue us. It's like this.. and I want to be careful of how I say it. It probably is going to be a duh moment like I already knew that.. haha But anyway I was thinking about it last night. It's like this. Jesus didn't die for our sins. (The motivation wasn't to die for our sins.) It was to die so we can be with him. When I type it it is so obvious again. For some reason.. its just deeper in my mind maybe. (I will just go with that ;)
But how great is the Love for us?
Completely unimaginable. We cannot comprehend the just unending love that he has for us.
The Love of Christ is MOST powerful force in the universe.
Nothing can come between it and us.
Romans 8:38 "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
You cannot escape God's love ... you can only deny it and ignore it. Every single person on the planet. His love is all encompassing. It surrounds you. It is the air. It is as great at the highest height and small as the lowest low.
It is so great that it can be defined as everything.. and as nothing. Because we can't even grasp what nothing is!
The concept of nothing is just as powerful as the concept of everything. Try and think about what nothing is!!! What like the gaps between space? Gaps between the air molecules or atoms or whatever the heck I am breathing in!
Nothing .. NOTHING can separate you from the Love of God!
You can only deny his presence.
Because it is all around you.
Its up to us to aknowledge it. The more you speak about God and testify with one another and talk about him and get in the word. The more you see him move. You tap into the spirit and see what is going on divinely around you.. too often we focus on the physical of the world and we completely miss what is going on in the spirtitual relm.
Just get into the word more. God has placed an incredible description of himself and his majesty in front of us. It's called the Holy Bible. :)
We should read it more and more and feed on it. That should be our inspiration.. daily, to seek his face and KNOW Jesus.
There is so so so much. The word of the Lord is flawless. Just ask to look upon the face of Jesus. Pick a verse and meditate on it. Sit on it for a while and pull as many truths out of it that you can.
Do we know the way we move Jesus? What does he think when he looks at us. Even though our love is weak to him it is so pleasing. Do we know the things that we cause Jesus to do!? He is always with us.. longing for us just to turn to him.. just for a second. That he could feel that small glimpse of our love shooting up to him. He is just waiting and sucking it in once we do.
Jesus came and died for you to look at him!!
Jesus came for me and died for me .. a wretched sinful person .. because he just wanted to experience and feel my love for him.
Let me not ever hold any affections over him. Above him. Anything worldy should be below my hearts and minds desire of God.
Psalm 16:2 "I said to the Lord, 'You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.'"
I have NOTHING good apart from Jesus.
good.. not great.. i don't even have one thing that is good.
Anyway..
seek Gods love! Seek his face! Listen to the song "Do you know the way you move me?" by Cory Asbury. That is Jesus singing to us.
And what else.. Listen to "One Thing Remains" Jesus Culture. DO IT.
Powerful songs conveying only a glimpse of Jesus's love for you.
That we would earnestly seek your face God! That our hearts longings would be to "know this love that surpasses knowledge."
That's all.
-Mali
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Heart Inclination
So an awesome man of God spoke to us last Thursday.
He has been walking with Jesus for fourty one years.
He has never listened to secular music.
He has encountered the Holy Spirit.
We need to have pure hearts to encounter Jesus.
We were not BOUGHT by the PRECIOUS BLOOD OF JESUS to ENJOY this World.
Our hearts must be like a compass.. they need to always point the same direction.
"David was called a man after God's own heart." We know this, and we also know that David messed up sometimes.. but his heart was immediate to turn back to the lord.
Our hearts need to be like a compass because.. even though sometimes the needle sways back and fourth a little.. (that would be when we sin and mess up) It never turns a different direction than north.
Matthew 5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."
Psalm 15!!! The whole Psalm basically.. it starts out..
"Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary?
Who may live on your holy hill?
He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous,
who speaks the truth from his heart and who does his neighbor no wrong.. ...
He who does these things will never be shaken."
Our heart inclination is so important. Everything comes down to our motives and heart motive.. If our acts are done not for the Lord then it is wrong. It doesn't matter. Our "good deeds" are cancelled out if our hearts are in the wrong place.
"If a ship doesn't have a rudder it doesn't do anything. Or it can't go anywhere important or planned. It is worthless it does not matter how fast or how much power the ship has. If the rudder isn't working the ship is useless."
"The rudder size relative to the ship is a very very small part; yet, the rudder is one of the most important parts." Our hearts are the rudder.
Galatians 6:7-8 "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life."
Friends, let us not deceive ourselves. We WILL reap what we sow. God cannot be mocked. That is powerful stuff.
Okay so what are we planting in our hearts? (We don't want to sow poision ivy.. that wouldn't make sense.. but we do it anyway.)
-Music
-Social Media Craze
-Everything that isn't of God.
It sounds radical and harsh but really. If it isn't of God then it is evil. God cannot be mocked. Let us not deceive ourselves.
We must pay attention to the things that we are sowing in our hearts because if it is of the secular world it is a weed and yes weeds grow faster than Godly things.
1 Corinthians 6:19 "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."
The way he was describing this was really convicting..
We were bought with the most precious thing ... ever, in the entire universe, and we have the nerve to think that we can enjoy and put all this crap into our bodies. Once we understand that we are children of God and bought with a price we better be honoring that.
Honor God with our hearts and minds and spirit and everything that the body is.
So lets talk in greater depth of the seeds. God made the seeds. The seeds are perfect. Each seed has a different purpose. God will do all of the work if we just plant the seed. God will make the seed grow.. he will made the harvest but we have the choice of which seeds we plant.
1 Corinthians 3:6-9 "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building."
We are God's field..
okay lets break this down.
So we are the field.. and a field holds different crops.. it isn't just one thing.
Our job is to grow the things of God. We bear the fruits of the spirit! Make sense!
That is why we are here on earth.. our bodies are supposed to produce God's Spirit and goodness.
(That is kind of a high standard to be held to.. that is why we shouldn't be planting junk in our lives.)
"Clean heart isn't the end, it's the beginning."
This is so true.. we strive to be pure.. and righteous and holy.. but let us not think that is the end of what we need to do. Once we accomplish that .. that is when we begin to receive the Holy Spirit at its fullness.
Having a pure heart is the beginning of our journey of learning who God is.
If we have a pure heart we can start to reach our full potential.
Okay so we have purified our hearts through the blood of Jesus! That is wonderful.
But then we begin to let sin slip in again. We have prepared this crop to grow. So the soil has all of its nutrients.. there is nothing else in the way! It is perfect for planting.
So what happens when we plant weeds in that garden. You better believe they are going to grow even more than they would have if it wasn't prepared and good nutrients. Its like if we are empty.. whatever we fill ourselves with is going to grow quicker. Clean slate and then letting sin in = bad.
The bible talks about the areas of our heart as a field. So some of us must be really good at understanding God's love and his peace and who knows what attributes he has.. but we don't really understand his Wrath and righteousness.
This is a problem. We need to have pure hearts all around. We need to understand every aspect of God, because if we don't then we are limiting God.. or even creating an IDOL of who we "think" God is.
BADD.
"do not deceive yourselves."
So then the day after this was spoken to us by this guy who walks with Jesus daily (I am super convicted at this point) the next day at the MILL which is a college ministry the pastor was talking about.. yes how our body is a temple.
Again what are we letting in our bodies!?
Junk? Crap? Jesus didn't die for us for us to continue to feed ourselves poison.
Isaiah 1:5-20 Get out your bible and read this.. It is too long to type but basically it is the Lord saying.. "I really really do not care one bit about your little times that you come and meet in my name, because all the other times you are messing around and not seeking me.
It says this! "Stop bringing me meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my sould hates."
"When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will HIDE MY EYES from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; was and make yourselves clean."
Wow. The Lord is saying quit being hypocrites. I hate you all. You act like you love me at church and then you are off living in sin the rest of the week?
I won't even listen to your prayers. I will turn away.. we are destestable to God when we do this.
So here we go again.. its this little thing called faith with out actions is dead.
He used an example of verbs and like sentense structure.
You need a verb + a subject to make a complete sentence.
Verb + Subject = Complete.
so...
Beliefe + Action = Complete.
"Out of the abundance of your heart the mouth speaks."
Let us examine our hearts and really see what we want. What our motives are.. and you bet your bottom dollar you better be looking at your actions to see if they are pleasing to the Lord or not because he will NOT TOLERATE this half faith stuff..
WE DO NOT PICK AND CHOOSE THE TIMES THAT WE SERVE JESUS. WE ARE NOT OUR OWN WE WERE BOUGHT AT A PRICE. HONOR YOUR BODY.
We need to wake up and quit thinking we are better than we are. "Do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourselves with sober judgement."
I pray that our modern day christianity is pleasing to God.. cause it is possible we might be living lives that are destestable to him and that .. he is not even listening to our prayers.
We must strive to be holy.
-Mali
He has been walking with Jesus for fourty one years.
He has never listened to secular music.
He has encountered the Holy Spirit.
We need to have pure hearts to encounter Jesus.
We were not BOUGHT by the PRECIOUS BLOOD OF JESUS to ENJOY this World.
Our hearts must be like a compass.. they need to always point the same direction.
"David was called a man after God's own heart." We know this, and we also know that David messed up sometimes.. but his heart was immediate to turn back to the lord.
Our hearts need to be like a compass because.. even though sometimes the needle sways back and fourth a little.. (that would be when we sin and mess up) It never turns a different direction than north.
Matthew 5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."
Psalm 15!!! The whole Psalm basically.. it starts out..
"Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary?
Who may live on your holy hill?
He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous,
who speaks the truth from his heart and who does his neighbor no wrong.. ...
He who does these things will never be shaken."
Our heart inclination is so important. Everything comes down to our motives and heart motive.. If our acts are done not for the Lord then it is wrong. It doesn't matter. Our "good deeds" are cancelled out if our hearts are in the wrong place.
"If a ship doesn't have a rudder it doesn't do anything. Or it can't go anywhere important or planned. It is worthless it does not matter how fast or how much power the ship has. If the rudder isn't working the ship is useless."
"The rudder size relative to the ship is a very very small part; yet, the rudder is one of the most important parts." Our hearts are the rudder.
Galatians 6:7-8 "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life."
Friends, let us not deceive ourselves. We WILL reap what we sow. God cannot be mocked. That is powerful stuff.
Okay so what are we planting in our hearts? (We don't want to sow poision ivy.. that wouldn't make sense.. but we do it anyway.)
-Music
-Social Media Craze
-Everything that isn't of God.
It sounds radical and harsh but really. If it isn't of God then it is evil. God cannot be mocked. Let us not deceive ourselves.
We must pay attention to the things that we are sowing in our hearts because if it is of the secular world it is a weed and yes weeds grow faster than Godly things.
1 Corinthians 6:19 "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."
The way he was describing this was really convicting..
We were bought with the most precious thing ... ever, in the entire universe, and we have the nerve to think that we can enjoy and put all this crap into our bodies. Once we understand that we are children of God and bought with a price we better be honoring that.
Honor God with our hearts and minds and spirit and everything that the body is.
So lets talk in greater depth of the seeds. God made the seeds. The seeds are perfect. Each seed has a different purpose. God will do all of the work if we just plant the seed. God will make the seed grow.. he will made the harvest but we have the choice of which seeds we plant.
1 Corinthians 3:6-9 "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building."
We are God's field..
okay lets break this down.
So we are the field.. and a field holds different crops.. it isn't just one thing.
Our job is to grow the things of God. We bear the fruits of the spirit! Make sense!
That is why we are here on earth.. our bodies are supposed to produce God's Spirit and goodness.
(That is kind of a high standard to be held to.. that is why we shouldn't be planting junk in our lives.)
"Clean heart isn't the end, it's the beginning."
This is so true.. we strive to be pure.. and righteous and holy.. but let us not think that is the end of what we need to do. Once we accomplish that .. that is when we begin to receive the Holy Spirit at its fullness.
Having a pure heart is the beginning of our journey of learning who God is.
If we have a pure heart we can start to reach our full potential.
Okay so we have purified our hearts through the blood of Jesus! That is wonderful.
But then we begin to let sin slip in again. We have prepared this crop to grow. So the soil has all of its nutrients.. there is nothing else in the way! It is perfect for planting.
So what happens when we plant weeds in that garden. You better believe they are going to grow even more than they would have if it wasn't prepared and good nutrients. Its like if we are empty.. whatever we fill ourselves with is going to grow quicker. Clean slate and then letting sin in = bad.
The bible talks about the areas of our heart as a field. So some of us must be really good at understanding God's love and his peace and who knows what attributes he has.. but we don't really understand his Wrath and righteousness.
This is a problem. We need to have pure hearts all around. We need to understand every aspect of God, because if we don't then we are limiting God.. or even creating an IDOL of who we "think" God is.
BADD.
"do not deceive yourselves."
So then the day after this was spoken to us by this guy who walks with Jesus daily (I am super convicted at this point) the next day at the MILL which is a college ministry the pastor was talking about.. yes how our body is a temple.
Again what are we letting in our bodies!?
Junk? Crap? Jesus didn't die for us for us to continue to feed ourselves poison.
Isaiah 1:5-20 Get out your bible and read this.. It is too long to type but basically it is the Lord saying.. "I really really do not care one bit about your little times that you come and meet in my name, because all the other times you are messing around and not seeking me.
It says this! "Stop bringing me meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my sould hates."
"When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will HIDE MY EYES from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; was and make yourselves clean."
Wow. The Lord is saying quit being hypocrites. I hate you all. You act like you love me at church and then you are off living in sin the rest of the week?
I won't even listen to your prayers. I will turn away.. we are destestable to God when we do this.
So here we go again.. its this little thing called faith with out actions is dead.
He used an example of verbs and like sentense structure.
You need a verb + a subject to make a complete sentence.
Verb + Subject = Complete.
so...
Beliefe + Action = Complete.
"Out of the abundance of your heart the mouth speaks."
Let us examine our hearts and really see what we want. What our motives are.. and you bet your bottom dollar you better be looking at your actions to see if they are pleasing to the Lord or not because he will NOT TOLERATE this half faith stuff..
WE DO NOT PICK AND CHOOSE THE TIMES THAT WE SERVE JESUS. WE ARE NOT OUR OWN WE WERE BOUGHT AT A PRICE. HONOR YOUR BODY.
We need to wake up and quit thinking we are better than we are. "Do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourselves with sober judgement."
I pray that our modern day christianity is pleasing to God.. cause it is possible we might be living lives that are destestable to him and that .. he is not even listening to our prayers.
We must strive to be holy.
-Mali
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