The Power Agreement

Agreement is the place of power; one of the prominent statements in my notes from church this morning. Consequently: Disagreement is the place of powerlessness. No wonder the strategy of divide and conquer is so popular; it displaces agreement.

We are free to choose who we agree and disagree with. So why do we agree with the negative things and the lies in our lives? We’re in agreement with the father of lies; the one who comes to steal, kill and destroy.

We need to agree with Truth. Quoting Henry Blackaby, ‘Truth is not just a concept to study. Truth is a Person. Jesus did not say, “I will teach you the truth.” He said, “I am … the truth”’ (John 14:6)

We need to investigate what God’s Word says about us, about our lives and God’s will for us and come into agreement with it. This is where the secret to power and purposeful living come alive for us.

Do we agree with those we believe or do we believe those we agree with? There is a political movement in America now that has many people coming together. Many agree with those taking a stand, but don’t know really what they’re agreeing with because the beliefs within that movement vary. Some of what they say sounds very good, but some of what they’re saying sounds hateful, even sinful, to me. But there’s power in the agreement going on. Voices are louder; points of view are noted. I admire the coming together.

In Genesis 6:11 (AMP) we read about this kind of unity: ‘And the Lord said, Behold, they are one people and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do, and now nothing they have imagined they can do will be impossible for them.’

So why is the Christian voice not louder? Why is there so much disagreement within the body of Christ? The discord and distrust, the backbiting and bickering, the legalism and lies believed make our enemy mock us and laugh at us. Our own thoughts and words make his labors of evil easier to accomplish as we turn on one another.

Pick up your Bible today and find something to agree with God about. Do it again tomorrow and the next day. Make a habit of it.

Peace

I miss my dad. He would have celebrated his 80th birthday today if he hadn’t already left this world for heaven. I wonder what he’s doing there. I wonder if he can see me. I wonder if he’s already seen the future revealed…

With my feet still planted here on Earth, I watch as my father-in-law takes strides, some great and some ugly, to live the way he wants to; the way he’s used to. The great things include his body healing. The ugly things include his violent demands to get his own way. I suppose we all want our own way in most circumstances. Some of us are demanders and others of us are submitters.

I’ll admit there are times it makes me feel incredibly selfish to want my own way. I can justify both sides of pretty much any argument (something which has frustrated my husband for years now). But for example:

It’s Christ-like to be selfless and give everything I am to others ~ VS ~ I have other people who depend on me, too, and giving all my energy and time to one person knowing others need me is too draining.

God will supply all my needs ~ VS ~ I don’t always want to be Wonder Woman and handle it all.

I can honor the present while God deals with the past in His own ways ~ VS ~ Sometimes I just don’t want to!

I’m being loving ~ VS ~ I’m being manipulated and used

The bottom line is seeking and accepting what God wants of me and submitting to Him, not to the confines of what man demands I think, say or do.

This is where I’ll actually find peace.

'Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.' –Philippians 4:4-7 (NIV)

This Mountain Won't Stop Me

Apparently learning the big lessons in life isn’t easy. The enemy has plans in place to fight you all the way. It’s normal to feel like a failure when you recognize your struggles seem to form a repetitive pattern in your life. I find myself asking if I’ll ever make it over this particular mountain. Then I can’t decide whether to laugh or cry, thinking that once I reach this pinnacle, the next one is liable to be an even bigger leap.

But some things I know. I know them because God has declared them to be. I don’t have the understanding yet that backs everything God has decreed, but one great thing I have going for me is that I’m determined not to give up; that what is before me is greater than what is behind me. When I come through this life, I will have ‘fought the good fight of faith’ and reached out for the wisdom and knowledge and understanding that we’ve been promised.

In Proverbs Solomon writes: ‘My son, if you receive my words, And treasure my commands within you, So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding; Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will understand the fear of the LORD, And find the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;’ (Proverbs 2:1-6 NKJV)

Read all of Proverbs chapter two – it’s empowering to know what we’ve got coming to us. It makes the search and the struggles worth it. The worth of our lives isn’t based on our past and every battle we perceive we’ve already lost. We have to look forward to the ultimate goal. Like Paul, I too choose to ‘…press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.’ (Philippians 3:14 NKJV)

I want to be like Jesus. I want to love like Jesus – and I’m not giving up until I do. That’s my goal. I’m looking past all the earthly hindrances that try to stop me, because I AM God’s ezer, His image bearer, He perfects me, He completes me. I just need to stay in the game ‘being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;’ (Philippians 1:6 NKJV)

One Little Revelation

‘Being’ love is easier than ‘doing’ love. When love makes up who we are, how can it be hard to love someone?

Food for thought, apply it somewhere if you can:

‘He came into my life disguised as a man with a past. Should I have been able to tell? Should I have recognized him? Now I see he wasn’t simply the man I thought he was. But then, it’s only revelation when you’re the one it’s revealed to.’

This short story has brought me one step closer to being a truly loving person.

Jesus said, ‘What you do unto the least of these, you do unto Me.’ (Matthew 25:31-46) Did He mean: when you love the least of these, you love Me? At this point in my life I add yet another layer of knowledge and wisdom to my repertoire as I apply this revelation to the disguised man that came into my life to expose God’s truth to me, though in reality, he doesn’t know God at all.

Who are ‘the least of these’? Perhaps they are the people we would be least likely to choose to rub elbows with, the ones we look away from when, suddenly, there they are right in front of us, without warning.

Might God choose to visit us in their skin?

Years ago, I heard God say to me, ‘Would you still love me if I was ugly?’ I heard this while looking at a poorly made wall hanging of Jesus with a flock of sheep. The person who made the hanging clearly took little pride in their work. The Jesus looked like a Star Trek alien, and not a pretty one.

Can I look beyond my reservations to see God in every human soul I encounter?

Do you hear me wrestle when I blog?

Intimacy

Everything I’m reading in my current studies relates to and resonates within me and shakes something up inside of me. In another book that I just finished, the author asks God to unsettle her. That's what I feel is happening to me, I'm being unsettled. I feel like God has just pulled the covers off me and proclaimed, 'Come on, get up. Get out of your sleepy [Christian] bed and follow me, stop laying there saying you're a Christian with your eyes closed and your body at rest.'

Some days it seems that in becoming a Christian, all I did was climb into bed with Jesus and find comfort there - but now there's work to be done and He's [more than gently] nudging me. And those aren't slippers next to the bed for me to slip on; they're leather sandals waiting for me to break them in...

Before I can do anything with God or allow Him to do something through me, it’s essential that I have ‘climbed into bed with Him…’ He requires an intimate relationship with His people. Before we can serve Him, we need to know Him. A few years ago I read a great definition for the word intimacy. I may have already mentioned it at some point – because I really love it: Intimacy = in-to-me-see. When I share intimately with someone, I’m allowing them to see into me. A truly intimate relationship requires them to allow me to see into them as well. That’s what God wants with us! He wants to share His heart and mind and purposes with us, intimately. Since He sees into us with or without our permission – vulnerability is completely void in this relationship. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I love how the psalmist declares God’s knowledge of him in Psalm 139:1-18 (NIV):

1 You have searched me, LORD,

and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue

you, LORD, know it completely.

5 You hem me in behind and before,

and you lay your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,”

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place,

when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;

all the days ordained for me were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!

How vast is the sum of them!

18 Were I to count them,

they would outnumber the grains of sand—

when I awake, I am still with you.

How can we not join the psalmist in crying out?.....

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? -Psalm 42:1-2 (NIV)

Tripping On Number One?

Which of the Ten Commandments do we break most frequently? Do you lie every day? Perhaps steal on a regular basis? Commit adultery, even if it’s ‘only in your mind’?

In Exodus 20 we read the commands God gave Moses. God wrote them Himself on stone tablets (Exodus 31:18). God begins with what might look like the obvious, but the first commandment is one we commonly break, without even thinking about it.

‘And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ –Exodus 20:1-3 and yes, I’m quoting the King James Version because it just sounds holier.

While reading Lysa Terkeurst’s Made to Crave this week, I’ve marked numerous quotes and even shared some on Facebook. I never realized how many verses in the Bible are, or can be, related to eating, quite fascinating, really. Think about it – the very first temptation Satan ever used on humans was food!

But at one point in the book she brings up the story of the rich young ruler that approaches Jesus saying he’s kept God commands since birth (quite a righteous man, isn’t he?) But he asks what more he needs to do to obtain eternal life. Many of you know the story, Jesus tells him to sell all he has and then to come follow Him. Many of us have been taught that this means God doesn’t want us to have money. Like Lysa, I don’t believe that for a minute. It was simply that his money came before his love for God, or he’d have been able to give it up and follow Jesus.

The ‘other gods’ we put before God are more than statues. Take a minute and ask God what you’re putting first, it may surprise you. I know it did me.

It Depends...

Two city girls driving down a country road saw a shirtless farm boy carrying two large buckets of water. His muscles brought on the giggles as they pulled over, calling out, “How heavy are those buckets?” Without looking up, he hollered back, “Depends on how far you have to carry ‘em.” Insulted, one girl approached him asking, “How far do you have to carry them?” Glancing her way he said, “Depends where I’m taking ‘em.” Intent on his attention she boldly asked, “Do you think I’m pretty?” He smiled, “Depends on how tired I am.” He put the buckets down and walked toward her with quick, long strides. She laughed coyly, and backed up toward her car till he was chasing her. Wide-eyed, she climbed in behind the safety of her door, and asked, “Are you crazy?” Tossing his head back with friendly laughter he replied, “Depends on how long it’s been since I’ve seen a pretty girl!” 

Depends….                                             

Am I a good person? …depends on who you’re comparing yourself to.

Is there a purgatory? …depends on which religion you’re asking.

Once I’m saved by grace, can I do anything I want? …depends on who’s doctrine you’re going by.

Will I go to heaven when I die? …depends on where your faith lies.   

That farm boy knows it and so do we, our questions wear more Depends than folks with bladder control issues. If you’re anything like me, one question leads to another. Answers that include the word ‘depends’ leave me frustrated. Aren’t there absolutes in this world? Again, we can say, “Depends on _____” and fill in the blank with any number of answers. I’d say; depends on whether or not you’re willing to accept the absolutes. Sometimes black is simply black and white is simply white. And sometimes we have to face things we’d rather not look at, believing it’s easier to hide in a ‘depends…’

Some of us believe we’re ‘not so bad’ – ‘basically good’ people. Good and bad are both relevant words, and words we interchange as time goes on. (Younger generations use the word ‘bad’ when referring to something they think is very good.)

Ponder this:                                                                

There are (at least) four verses in the Bible that make the point: “there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” (Psalm 14:3; Psalm 53:3; Romans 3:10; Romans 3:12)

And First John, verses 7-10 tell us that: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (KJV)