Sanctification

  • January 5, 2018
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Sanctification

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Category : Gospel , Uncategorized , Words of Wisdom - Biblical Truth

Our most innocent moment in life is when we are born.  At our birth, all that we are acquainted with is the One who breathed life into us and intimacy with our Mother – we’ve yet to be tainted by anything that the world may send our way…  Since the time of Adam and Eve, we are born into a fallen state, which is why Jesus said that we must be born again.  This is very apparent when we observe our children, as wonderful as they can be.  Jesus is the last Adam who has redeemed us from our fallen state if we choose to be born again by His Spirit.  I might write more about this another time, but all of creation is waiting for us to represent our Father and live the redeemed life, because Jesus has redeemed the entire world.  However, He gave the dominion back to us that we had relinquished to Satan in the garden, and He has left it up to us to believe Him, follow Him, represent Him and resurrect all that has fallen, by the power of His Spirit living in us.

Sanctification is what I am writing about today, and the revelation of the fact that it should be a joy to be sanctified.  We get to become like Jesus – not when we die, but in this life!  If we can’t be free from sin until we die, then death has become our savior instead of Jesus!  Jesus laid down His divinity and did all that He did as the son of man relying upon the same Holy Spirit whom He has sent to live in us.  He paid the ultimate price for us to never utter the words “that was Jesus, not me”, or “well, I’m not Jesus”.  Jesus’ life was an example to us of what our lives can look like if we submit to our Father and His will and leading.  This is how we resist the devil – we submit to our Father.  It’s a one-step program!  James 4:7 says “Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you”.  We don’t resist the devil in our own strength.  When we are submitted to God, the devil is resisted automatically, and we don’t even need to give him any attention.  In fact, Satan loves attention, and he is actually enlivened the more we give him attention and focus on him.  Father desires all of our affection and attention, and if He is for us it doesn’t matter who is against us!  I say all this because it pertains to our sanctification process.  We must be completely submitted and sold-out to God.

If we rest in the Lord and do all that we do from rest in Him, sanctification can be a joy.  It’s God doing the sanctifying, so all we need to do is spend time with Him and rest in Him.  Anything else is striving from our own strength.  If we are in Him, then we will do from our being, rather than be from our doing.  If you’re like me, you may get frustrated and impatient with the sanctification process.  We all want to be like Jesus right now!  I realize though that this frustration can come from a place of striving.  I don’t know why some people seem to be sanctified more quickly than others, but God wants to use every step in our sanctification to bring Him glory and reveal His goodness to others.  That’s a joyful thing!  As we testify to others about how God has transformed us, He uses it to draw them to Him.

God is not at all surprised by our mistakes, and if we acknowledge them, they exist no more.  It’s only when we hang on to them and allow guilt, shame and condemnation from the enemy to rule our minds that we distance ourselves from our Father.  This is why we are to be renewed in the spirit of our minds daily.  He is right there desiring for us to be fully convinced that we are forgiven, righteous and empowered by His grace to have victory over our failures and to be more and more sanctified as we keep our eyes fixed on Him.  Beating ourselves up over our failures becomes very self-focused and counter-productive to what Father desires to do in our hearts.  If He doesn’t see us that way, then neither should we.  In fact, it’s when we spend time with Him that we begin to see ourselves the way He does and He is able to transform our hearts into hearts of love and sanctify us.  We then have Father’s love in our hearts and are able to walk like Jesus and truly love those in the world around us.  Our sanctified hearts allow us to feel the same love for people that our Father does.  So I hope that we can all learn together how to simply enjoy the sanctification process and truly be joyful in every victory, as well as every learning experience(failure) – trusting and knowing that He is transforming us into His image and likeness of love.

  • September 25, 2017
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HUMILITY

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Category : Uncategorized , Words of Wisdom - Biblical Truth

Matthew 18: 3 “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven”.  We don’t hear much preaching about humility today, but Jesus said that without it we will never enter the kingdom of heaven!  The Gospel of Mark refers to it as the kingdom of God, because he was not writing to Jews as was Matthew so he was not hindered in the usage of God’s name.  Either way, the kingdom is the kingdom and entering it is the beginning of eternal life – we will not spend eternity with God if we do not enter His kingdom while here on earth!  It sounds to me like humility is crucial!

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” – 1 Peter 5:5.  If there’s one thing I know, I do not want to be opposed by my Father!  I want to dwell in His presence all the time and walk out His purpose for me by His grace.  God’s grace is what empowers us to walk in the true identity He created us with.  Knowing our identity as children of God is vital to our relationship with our Father, and part of that identity is humility.  Jesus Himself, THE Son of God was the perfect example of humility.  He modeled this as a servant leader when He washed His disciples feet – what a picture!  When we serve others, we are actually showing that whatever “dirt” they may have from places they’ve gone and things they’ve done is washed away, and we are helping to enable them to go and do what God has for them – to walk out their calling.  Of course Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is the greatest example of humility – And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross – Philippians 2:8.

Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall – Proverbs 16:18.  If we walk in pride, we will fall and be destroyed, but if we humble ourselves before the Lord and man, He will exalt us.  Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you – 1 Peter 5:6.   The Apostle Paul says in Romans 12:3 – For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.  Jesus said in Matthew 11:29 – Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  He was saying that if we receive His humble teaching, we will rest in Him.  Every day can be a day of rest in our humble Lord Jesus!  It’s always the proud who work from a place of striving, rather than a place of rest.  They boast of their own accomplishments, but these things will be burned up like wood, hay or straw…  If we work from a place of rest in Christ Jesus, we will be empowered by His grace to accomplish what He asks and it will be easy.  Like gold, silver and precious stones, it will not be burned up because it is built on the sure foundation of Jesus Christ!

There are many, many more scriptures concerning humility.  It is clear in Scripture that even though we ought to be confident in our heavenly Father’s love for us and who He created us to be, it is not by anything we have done or anything we can boast about.  We are who we are by the grace of God and His strength being made perfect in our weakness.  But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us – 2 Cor.4:7.  Thank you Jesus for accomplishing for us what no one else ever could!

  • August 1, 2017
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UNITY

Tags :

Category : Gospel , Uncategorized , Words of Wisdom - Biblical Truth

John 17:20 “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. 21 I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.22 “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.

Jesus cared so much about the unity of His church that He prayed to the Father about it!  He never desired the disunity and division that has risen up in His bride because of differences in understanding of Scripture.  This is why He desired a unity in His Spirit – Ephesians 4.  His Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, who leads us into all truth.  If we are being led by God’s Spirit rather than our carnal understanding, our individual conclusions will be homogeneous, or at least synergistic with the conclusions of our brothers and sisters.

Throughout the history of the church, God has been speaking loudly to His people about the things that concern Him ie. Martin Luther broke away from the Catholic institution and church system and tried to bring the church back to its roots found in the book of Acts, though he ultimately failed in that task.  His primary contribution to the church was understanding justification by faith, without which it is impossible to please God.  The Baptists came with a focus on the importance of water baptism, which can’t be emphasized enough and seems to have been forgotten for the most part by the church…  John Wesley and the Methodist church came with a focus on the sanctification of the believer – so important.  The Adventists came with a focus on the second coming of Christ, and who wouldn’t want to be prepared for that?!  Charles Finney and DL Moody came with a focus on baptism with the Holy Spirit, without which we aren’t empowered to walk in holiness and obey the Great Commission.  Pentecostalism came with a focus on the gift of the Holy Spirit – He is my best friend, and I am nothing without Him!  The Apostolic church came in the early 1900’s with a focus on the five-fold ministry in the church – apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are all critical to the body of Christ being built up and functioning as it was designed to.

There are and has been many more denominations and influential people in the church as a whole, but the reason I mentioned these few is to show how God has has used all of them but did not intend for them to become denominations with a near-singular focus.  They were intended to build upon each other, or inter-connect like building blocks to bring about a fuller expression of Jesus in the church.  All of these focuses are great and were never meant to stand alone.  If we could glean the good from all of them and humbly combine our knowledge, wisdom and understanding, the church would be amazing!  It would be a beautiful, unified bride that Christ would excitedly present to the Father!  My wife and I attended a public multi-church worship and prayer event recently, and it was awesome!  It was so good to see these churches from different denominations unifying under the banner of Love for God, each other, and the surrounding community.  This is desperately needed in the church today if we are to move forward as Christ’s body and advance His kingdom in all the earth.  Let’s arise in unity body of Christ and take back territory for our King!

 

 

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