I Delight to Do Thy Will

 Delight thyself in the Lord

Jesus changed everything.  He is a fresh revelation of God's heart desires.  Hebrews 10 5-9 reports that He takes away the first that He may establish the second.  When He came into the world, He said: "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me."  So instead of burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, in which God had no pleasure, God is seeking those who choose to do His will.  Not only do His will, but set their heart to delight in doing it.  Jesus established this "second" way, which is the heart response that Psalm 40:8 reveals, "I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart."

The central issue is the cross.  Just as Jesus prayed "Not my will, but Your will be done,"  The cross represents where God's will and our fleshy desires cross.  Life and death are set before us, so we get to decide whether to take the path that leads to life.  Choosing God's way is life, going the way of our flesh is death.   Jesus said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.  

It seems like it is a contradiction.  Those who lose their life will find life.  "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." 1 Corinthians 1:18  Yet to a believer, there is life and peace to set our minds on the spirit.  So in the words of Paul, we make it our aim to please God.  

In His final instructions before His death, Jesus reminds us that if we love Him we should keep His commandments.  Then He further points out, "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full." (John 1:11)  Obedience always results in life, joy, and blessing.  What God calls He also blesses.  Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandments. 

There is no substitute and no better choice than to get up in the morning setting your heart and mind to delight in doing what pleases God.  It is a simple step, today I choose to delight in whatever I believe God wants me to do today.  1 Thessalonians 5:18 tells us to give thanks in all circumstances, so start the day giving thanks and setting your mind on things above, knowing that God works all things for good to those who love Him and to those who are called according to His purpose.

We serve an awesome, wonderful God.  Choose to delight in His ways and enjoy His mercy and goodness all the days of your life.

Open the Presents!

Can you imagine sitting around the Christmas tree with abundant presents carefully planned for you.  The giver is eager to see you open them and respond with excitement at what He purposely picked out for you to enjoy.  Yet for some reason in this scene, you are only admiring the beautiful wrappings, but not actually participating in opening the gifts.  There is a disconnect, and you won't let yourself really believe these are all for you.   

Many people look at Jesus in this way.  We say He is good and has done wonderful things, but somehow it doesn't translate to working directly in our lives.  Something has to change!    

Consider how Jesus spoke to His disciples the night before He was crucified (John, ch. 14-16).  He shares that He will not leave them orphans, that He is going to prepare a place for them, that He is going to the Father, but will come back to get them.  He desires them to be with Him forever.  Then He promises to send another comforter, the Holy Spirit, and makes this amazing statement, "He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.  All things that the Father has is Mine.  Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you." (John 14:15-16)  It is not hard to believe that Jesus is worthy to receive all that the Father has, but none of us have totally grasped that Jesus has also given that same gift of "all the Father has" to us.  Yet the Holy Spirit is declaring that it all belongs to us! The Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus by revealing to us what Jesus has accomplished and has given to us as His joint heirs.

In this light, Scriptures like "all power and authority are given to you in My name" or "He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." have awesome reality.  Clearly we have been given glorious life and position in that He "made us alive together with Christ and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:5-6).   Who can fathom that the Father loves us with the same intensity and perfect love that the Father loves Jesus?  With this resurrection life, the love of God, and the power of the Spirit, we are able to fulfill the instruction of 1 John 2:6, "He who abides in Him ought himself to walk just as He walked."  

Wow!  We need to quit just looking at the gifts, and begin to open them up and enjoy His wonderful provsion.  It is important, even crucial, that we let the Holy Spirit show us the reality of who we already are in Christ, what we already have as heirs of God, and how to live in this fullness of life.  Colossians 3 reminds us that we are to set our minds on the things above, rather than letting our minds and hearts be consumed by thoughts and feelings from our flesh.  The flesh represents all the doubts, fears, condemnations, and negative thoughts that make us "feel" unworthy and rejected.  As a man thinks, so is he. It tries to convince us that "God doesn't love me enough to give all He has to me." On the other hand, Romans 8:13 provides hope in declaring that by the Spirit we can put to death the deeds of the body.  We can put on the new man where we have the mind of Christ. We can let the Holy Spirit renew our minds with the Word of God so we can demonstrate the perfect will of God. 

One ultimate motive: we exalt the Lord Jesus by receiving His presents and using them to not only walk victoriously, but also to be a light to a darkened world that needs to see what a great, loving God the Lord Jesus really is.  He is worthy to be praised!

  

 

Flight Overcomes Gravity, Faith Overcomes the World

 The massive passenger plane gently lifts off the runway and majestically rises through the clouds to 30,000 feet.  However, make no mistake, gravity is still operating.  It is just that the thrust of the powerful engines and the lift of the airflow over the wings has overcome the force of gravity that would keep the plane on the ground.  Even at 30,000 feet, if for some reason those engines stop, gravity will instantly engage to bring that plane down.

Faith works the same way.  Paul, in Romans chapters 7 and 8, points out that our flesh does not submit to God's laws and is at emnity with God.  Fallen-nature man cannot please God.  No wonder Paul cries out almost in desperation, "Who is going to deliver me from this body of death?"  Yet he answers his own question "I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!"  Jesus has overcome sin, the flesh, and the devil through His victory on the cross, and by the same power of the Spirit that raised Jesus, we are able to put to death the deeds of the body and live.

Keep the engines running!  Keep the Word in our mind and heart. 

Man is spirit, soul, and body according to 1 Thessalonians 5:23.  When we are born again we become a new creation, our spirit that was dead because of man's sin, is born again to partake of God's nature.  Our body remains fallen until we die and are given a new glorious body,  However, the crucial part of man is the soul, usually defined as our mind, emotions, and will.  The soul must be transformed by the truth of God's Word which enlightens the mind, renews right feelings, and causes us to delight in choosing to do God's will.  When we choose to hear God's Word and let the truth come in that we are sinners who need Jesus Christ as savior, we are born again. However, just like the seed sown on rocky ground, if it is not allowed to get rooted, the heat and pressure will overcome the plant.  Or in the third situation of the parable of the sower, the weeds such as the cares of this world and desire for riches choke the good plant.  Therefore, it is a necessary to continually nourish the good soil of our hearts by simply accepting the truth of the Word, asking the Holy Spirit to help us understand it, and by faith holding it fast so it can bear fruit.   

Jesus came to give us life, overcoming abundant life.  Romans 5:17 even declares that those who receive the free gift of righteousness will reign in this life.  The point is Jesus has defeated the devil and restored to man all that was lost by the sin and fall of man.  Salvation means being saved from, or delivered from all man lost.  The key is that as long as we let the Word of God abide in us, and abide in Jesus Christ, we will bear fruit and overcome. The seed of God's Word grows naturally in our good ground.  God told Joshua that if he would not let this Word depart from his mouth and keep it in his heart to do it, that he would make his way prosperous and have good success. God is not a respecter of persons, the same prinicple is true for all of us.

Colossians 3 reminds us to set our minds on things above.  On the other side of the coin, Romans 8 warns that to set our mind on the flesh is death.  When we allow the cares of this world or negative thoughts, feelings, or desires to dominate our thoughts rather than the truth of God's Word, it is like turning the engines off on the airplane.  So the crucial decision, or discipline in our lives, is whether we live by the Word of God or by the thoughts and wisdom of fallen man.  

Faith, which comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, overcomes the world.  Jesus said we live in the world but are not of the world or controlled by the world.  Every time you take a flight or see a plane flying overhead, remember that is a physical example of overcoming gavity just as your letting the Word dwell in you richly builds you up to overcome the world.  In the same way Jesus answered the devil with the Word of God, we must declare God's truth over doubt, fear, condemnation, and whatever negative the enemy throws at us.  Praise God for the gift of the Word and the Spirit to continualy work this Word in our hearts and minds.  We are so blessed to be free to fly.

      

 

By Faith We Understand

 Very few verses sum up the awesome work of Jesus like Isaiah 53:4-6.  Today I just want to reflect on these verses with you.  "Surely He has borne our griefs (sickness, weakness) and carried our sorrows (pains)."  The emphasis is on "He", inviting us to get our eyes off ourselves and focus on Him and what He has done.  The only way to effectively deal with problems is to look to Jesus, in His light we become light, or beholding Him we are changed from glory to glory.  

"Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted."  Someone said they could never believe that Jesus was the Messiah, because surely God would not allow Him to go through such torture, it must be a judgment for something terribly evil.  In the natural it does look like a cruel and unusual punishment.  However, we do not look through our puny, finite minds, but by faith we understand (Hebrews 11:3).  Notice that this chapter in Isaiah starts out with "Who has believed our report?" 

"But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities."  In other parts of the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for iniquity is rebellion or guilt.  A good summary of the human condition after the fall is rebellion, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one to his own way."  God laid our rebellion and the punishment it deserves on Jesus - It pleased the Father to crush Him, so that He could "justify many."  I always like the simple play on words, justified- "just as if I'd" been perfect and never sinned. 

All of these verses declare the great exchange, His life for our life.  "The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes (or wounds) we are healed."  Our peace, or shalom, is defined to be much more than the English word for peace meaning absence of war or harmony.  Shalom is total peace, a wholeness of spirit, soul and body, completeness, even perfection.  He who knew no sin became sin that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21)  Or consider Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me."  Jesus gave Himself for me so I could live in Him.

Our limited human minds may never grasp completely everything Jesus did for us, but we can receive by faith what He declares is ours.  In Hebrews 2:14 it reveals that Jesus shared the same flesh and blood as the children of men and again in chapter 4:15, He could sympathize with us because He was in all points tempted as we are.  The point is that He became exactly like us, like our nature, so He could bring us to the Father exactly like Him, partaking of divine nature.   By faith we understand, that only an infinitely loving God would willingly lay His life down so we could live with HIm forever.  Glory to God in the Highest!

Hope you also are freshly enjoying the benefits of His death and resurrection, washed in the blood from all guilt, and walking in abundant life by the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead.  Feel free to share your thoughts and any prayer requests on which you wish for us to agree.  My prayer is that His transforming work in us would allow us to be good witnesses of Him to those around us.  In the name and glory of Jesus, Gene

 

Rejection to Acceptance

"My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"  The greatest evil known to man is to be excluded and separated from God, the source of life.  We were designed to be connected, to be in relationship as part of the family, part of the team where we work, involved in what God is doing, a signficant person that gains value from connecting to the lives of others.  However, man's fallen nature separates us from God, and ultimately others.  This is due to the nature of the fallen man, our flesh, which is a rebel that cannot be reformed or submit to God (Romans 8:7) and continually resists the very purposes of our creation. There is only one solution to the old man, the flesh, and that is to put it to death.    

Notice how Ephesians 2:12 describes the old man "that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." We were without Christ, clearly sin separated us from God and we did not have Christ who is the only One who could bring us back to God.  We were aliens or strangers to the family of God where there is love, joy, and peace.  The promises of God did not apply to us, so we had no hope or future.  We were without God in the world so our entire existence was without purpose or meaning. 

Let's reflect for a second.  Nobody likes to feel like the black sheep of the family.  Often displaced people groups forced to leave their country suffer from a sense of not belonging and no place they can call home.  We may have been at gatherings, parties or meetings where we just simply didn't fit in and nobody even bothered to talk to us.  No one wants to be the odd man out.  How much worse when we consider such a state of total rejection and alienation for eternity. 

Good News: Jesus came to rescue and restore.  He became sin so we could become the righteousness of God.  He paid the just punishment for sin so we could be holy and blameless before God (Ephesians 1:4) and broke down the barrier that separated us from God.  His good pleasure, His perfect will, was to take upon Himself all the misery, pain, and rejection that sin caused, and cause us to be "accepted in the Beloved."  He makes all things new.  When we accept what Jesus has done for us, the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, declaring that our life is now hidden in Christ.  We are eternally joined to Him.  In other words, through faith we have died (I have been crucified with Christ.). Through faith, we have been buried with Him in baptism (Romans 6), and finally "were raised with Him through faith in the working of God." (Colossians 2:12).  We are united with Him in His death (death to self, the old man, the rebellious flesh) and then united with Him in the resurrection.  What an awesome God whose amazing love has taken us from rejection to acceptance in the Beloved!

Secondly, He has given us the Spirit and the Word to reveal and establish this truth in our hearts and lives.  The Holy Spirit teaches us all truth and brings to our remembrance what Jesus taught.  Romans 8:11 declares that the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead gives life to our mortal bodies.  Likewise, by the Spirit we have power to put to death the deeds of the body. (Romans 8:13)  In other words, He enables us to put away all thoughts and feelings of rejection and the guilt that separates us from God and others.  Now we can walk on the earth with the life and love of Jesus, or as Galatians 2:20 says "the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me."  Nothing can separate us from this abundant life.

Today, Good Friday, as we gratefully acknowledge Jesus taking our place on the cross, may the Spirit freshly reveal to each of us that everything that separated us from God has been removed, and that we have total acceptance before God forever.  God's ultimate purpose for us has been accomplished and it is His pleasure to unite us to His resurrected life where we experience perfect love and acceptance.  Isaiah 43:1 decribes Jesus' heart toward you this way, "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine."