Wednesday, April 27, 2011

A Proverbs 31 Woman's Life: Don’t Move

A Proverbs 31 Woman's Life: Don’t Move: "There is an instinct that all living beings have, it is called “fight or flight”. It is the thing we do when adrenalin kicks in. It can be..."

Don’t Move

There is an instinct that all living beings have, it is called “fight or flight”.  It is the thing we do when adrenalin kicks in.  It can be instigated by fear or pressure or stress.  It is a natural part of our make-up.  It is what we do without the leading of the Holy Spirit.  We either run or stand firm against the attack. 

However, if we are rooted in Christ we will always stand firm.  Let this scripture go down into your heart, “Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers.  But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.  They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.  In all he does, he prospers.”  Psalm 1:1-3 (NRS) (Emphasis mine)

Now, consider that you are that tree and the Holy Spirit is the river that your roots are drinking from as they are deeply rooted in the soil of Christ.  No matter what storm or disaster comes at you, you don’t budge.  You stand firm, as do the other trees around you creating a forest of security for those who enter into it.

Yes, you may lose some leaves, a bit of fruit or even a limb or two in the onslaughts of the in-climate weather, but your roots and trunk are still there, aren’t they?

There will even be seasons when you go dormant, your leaves and growth seemingly dead, but this is actually a time of refreshing and renewal.  When the Spring comes, you will have new leaves and fruit.  Each year more abundant than the last.

To truly be able to stand firm, you have to keep yourself from the ways of the world.  “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” 1 Thess. 4:11-12 (NIV) (Emphasis mine)  In the world everyone is always in everybody else’s business.  Judging and criticizing, this is a critical spirit and is not of Christ.  If you find yourself doing this….your moving…  “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” 1 Cor. 15:58 (NIV) (Emphasis mine)

How completely are you giving yourself to the work of the Lord?  Do you give Him the time leftover in your day, week, or even your month?  Psalm 1 states that we can stand firm if we meditate on His word day and night.  Not just when things are going poorly, or when we are at church.  Our pursuit of holiness must be consistent.  We have to inundate our lives with Him, as He inundates His thoughts with us.  If He didn’t we wouldn’t exist.  He never forgets about us for one nanosecond, can we say the same?  When we hear something are we praying to ask God how we should be responding to it, rather than just having a knee-jerk “old-mind” reaction?  If not, we are moving, not standing firm.

If you want to stand firm and not be moved you have to dig deep into His word and drink deeply of what the Holy Spirit has to give.  There is a reason Jesus used the metaphor of “living water” when He referred to Him.  (See the story of the woman at the well in John 4).

Would you like to live a life where the situations and circumstances of life do not move you.  Become like the tree in Psalm 1 by reading, meditating, praying, and communing with God day and night.  Walk as one with Him, and as He promised, “but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."  John 4:14 (NIV)  This water allows us all to grow, bear fruit, and stand firm.  Because, we can’t bear fruit if we are always moving.  At the very least, it will fall off from the motion of our own movement.

From Light for My Path – Prayers & Promises

Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.  1 John 5:5 (NIV)

When worldly temptations press in on me, I’m glad You gave me this promise, Jesus.  It’s hard to be in the world and not fall into its traps.  But as I believe in You, who have overcome the world, I overcome it, too.  I don’t have to settle for giving in to the world’s temptations and wickedness.  You’ve given me the ability to fight back, in You – and to win through You.

I want to enjoy Your blessings for this life without being trapped in wrong thoughts or actions.  Where You have overcome, I don’t need to be defeated.  Keep me faithful to You, Jesus, and my battle will be won.

In Jesus name,

Amen.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

A Proverbs 31 Woman's Life: Man Pleasers

A Proverbs 31 Woman's Life: Man Pleasers: "“On the contrary we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our he..."

Man Pleasers

“On the contrary we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel.  We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts.” 1 Thes. 2:4 (Emphasis mine).

When you get up in the morning I am sure the first thought that goes through your mind is NOT, “How can I please my spouse, my children, my boss, etc.. today?”  For many of us it is not even about how to please God.  Our first thoughts on waking are about the issues and problems of the day ahead.

However, this is a form of “man pleasing.”  Why?  Because you are putting the things of this earth before God.  No matter what was coming at Paul, Silas and Timothy they always looked to God for their direction and instruction.  The trial or issue that you are going through is nothing more than a test to show you what is most important to you.

God already knows what is in our hearts, but so many times we do not.  We think that we are doing the Christian walk.  In fact, it is pretty simple to be a Christian when all is well.  It is easy to say, “Bless you sisters, God be with you brother,” when all is right in our world.  Even, “Let me pray for you,” comes easier when we are not going through something.

The true “test” of God in your heart is when you are going through a trial.  This is when you will discover if you are a man pleaser or a God pleaser.  Men pleasers are focused on themselves.  They are concerned with what people think of them and what they do.  They are quite often trying to make an impression, get a compliment, or “seem” pious because people say so, even trying to get people to focus on their problems, exclusively.

God pleasers on the other hand are not concerned for their own well-being.  They are consistently looking to show the love of God to others.  Even if it means putting themselves out, (that is called sacrifice), they will do it.  Whatever is going on in their own lives takes second place to helping others achieve and maintain their faith in Christ.

This doesn’t mean that you are not “aware” of what is happening around you.  Paul quite often recited all that he had been through, but then he amended it by bragging about the fact that all these things only proved that he was weak and God was strong, that he was dependent on the One who created him in the beginning.  That he trusted the Lord for all things, and no matter what he was going through he knew that Christ was the goal.

Read through his letters, most times they were written from prison.  He had been flogged, stoned, shipwrecked, lost at sea, the list goes on, yet not once did he ever say, “Woe is me.”  He even had a physical ailment that he said God would not heal him of, (for those who are of the mind that God heals every ailment if we believe enough, the key is for us to be in line with His will wherever it leads, not focused on the cure for the disease.)  He says that the answer to his petition to God for relief was, “But He told me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” 2 Cor 12:9

God will give you the grace to get through whatever it is that comes at you.  The key is to stay focused on Him and not your circumstance.  This takes a humble and contrite heart that is willing to be completely dependent on God and not our own abilities to rectify a situation. “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 (Emphasis mine)

What is in our heart is the key, for this is where we all act and react from.  When His word has saturated our hearts, it pumps out like life blood to others.  This can only happen when He is the reason for our actions, then we can be assured that we will be God pleasers and not man pleasers.

From Light for My Path – Prayers & Promises

Father, sometimes I get things backward, thinking that if I am successful in life I will be of better service to You.  I’ll have more money, more time.  Then people will listen to me; I’ll have influence and power to use for Your kingdom. Sometimes it does work out this way, but normally if I become successful, I end up doing no more work for You then I did before.

Help me to realize that humility and doing Your will should come first, no matter what my present situation is.  Help me keep my eyes on You, and the rest will take care of itself.

Monday, April 11, 2011

You Have a Spirit of Power, Love, & Self-Discipline

 

So many people can recite the first part of the verse from 2Timothy 1:7 on fear, “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity…”, but often the second part of that sentence that Paul wrote in his last letter to anyone is forgotten.  “but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.”  It is very important that you see the contrast. This is the NIV translation of this verse.

In the Amplified translation, it says it this way, “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but (He has given us a spirit) of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.

WOW!  What this word meant in the Greek was not simply timidity, but cowardice, to be a craven, cringing coward, trembling in fear from what others might think of us.  That is what this verse is about.  Paul was instructing Timothy to keep the fire alive in him that God had originally sparked by imparting gifts or talents in Him to help him to bless others through teaching and preaching.  Letting him know to not worry about what others think, and do what God had called him to do regardless of what anyone else might think.

The Holy Spirit in us fills us with power, love, and self-discipline.  These emotions and thought patterns by their very nature override any type of fear that could try to assail us. 

Like Timothy, we are all put into a position, when fulfilling the destiny that God created us for, we become a little afraid, sometimes a lot afraid.  That’s okay, we have to go on in spite of that fear.  Two scriptures scream to the forefront at this sentiment.  Romans 8:28 and Philippians 4:13 – “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” and “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”

It really doesn’t matter what outcome we are shooting for, our aim and purpose should be to bring people into a relationship or closer relationship with Christ and not worry about ourselves or what they may think of us for speaking up or using our God-given gifts. 

We have a society that is so concerned with what others think that our kids are now going to school and shooting each other because they were humiliated in front of other.  Or, entire reputations are being destroyed by viral photos or videos that were taken at inopportune moments.  Why?  It’s funny, it’s fun to point fingers at someone else… 

How about the fact that there are drugs that have been created to incapacitate a victim so you can rape them and then make sure that they can’t press charges because it wipes their memory?

These are the norms, not exceptions to the rules.  Jesus said that our society would basically start to crumble in on itself and it has.  We as Christians don’t have to give in to that, however.  We are to be “as wise as snakes, but as gentle as dove,” according to Matthew 10:16.  This means to be aware of the evils, but not get involved in them.  We have nothing to fear from anyone in the world, because “…If God is for us, who can be against us?”  Romans 8:31b

We don’t have to behave as they do.  We are to hold ourselves to a higher standard.  With the spirit of power, love and self-discipline we can do just that.  Power, love and self-discipline are all contrary to fear.  There is no power in fear, there is no love in fear, and there is no self-discipline in fear.  The two cannot reside within you at the same time, you must give up one spirit for the other.  Either you can have the very shallow one-dimensional spirit that will keep you under its thumb and from moving forward or you can kick him to the curb and embrace and use the Holy Spirit with all the abilities He gives you to use the gifts you have had within you from the time you were born.  He gave you the dreams, let Him fulfill His promises that He gave you when He put them in your heart, with the talents to fulfill them.  Oh, and stop listening to Satan or his disciple the spirit of fear or cowardice.  Just a hint…they LIE!

We are at war, there is no room for people who are cowards when fighting a war.  It doesn’t mean you won’t feel some fear, that is natural, but you charge into the fray anyway no matter how afraid you are.  Spiritual warfare means using all that spiritual power to render the enemy defenseless, use spiritual love to love them into salvation, and spiritual self-discipline to have the wisdom to pick your battles properly.  See, after all that there is no room left for timidity.

 

From LIGHT FOR MY PATH – PRAYERS & PROMISES

How wonderful, Father God, to know that even my most feared enemy does not have final control over me.  Even if he put me to death, he could not part my soul from Your love.

I’m not facing death today, but I face fears that feel like death.  That killjoy, Satan, tells me that by following You, I kill off every chance to fulfill certain hopes and dreams.  A thousand small deaths attack my soul. 

Keep me obedient to Your love; help me trust that You will bring me good things.  I need faith to see blessings instead of fears.