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Multiply, Amplify

Ivey Rorie On October 13, 2017 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

Mark 4: 24

And He was saying to them, “Take care what you listen to. By your standard of measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides.”

This verse has almost unlimited application. It applies to your giving, to judgment and even the way you treat others. One other application is in regards to the Word. The measure of thought, study and attention you give the Word will determine how much you get out of it.

The first part is easy. I send you a morsel of the Word every day. You don’t even have to go mine those nuggets for yourself. Then here is your part. The amount of thought and meditation you give to that word is directly related to how much you will ultimately get out of it. It reminds me of school. The amount of effort you put in is directly related to what you get out of it. Have you ever taken a class and then at the end of it weren’t sure what you learned? You retained enough for the final exam but then it flew from you.

It is the same with the Word of God. What you read, even in the Word of the Day, is only the appetizer. There may be great inspiration in the Sunday sermon but what makes it stick is the thought you give to it afterwards. The Word of the Day is meant to feed you but the thought you give it is what will change your life. If you meditate on them and integrate them, these tidbits from God can revolutionize your life.

You know, this is not far afield from the singular principle which guides a life with God, sowing and reaping. What you put in is multiplied and then returned to you in the form of a harvest. It works with food. It works with money. Now we find it even works with revelation from God. If you will take the bit of inspiration and revelation you get from your devotionals and services and sow it into your own heart by thinking about it and meditating over it, you will find the multiplication factor works there too. You will get back more than you put in.

Now, go back and read the verse one more time and be blessed!

Where Am I?

Ivey Rorie On October 12, 2017 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

Galatians 2: 20

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.

This is a beautiful verse, one full of the grace of God and the sacrificial love of Christ. Yet, there was a day when the ideas expressed here challenged me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to die. Even though I pursued God relentlessly, there was a part of me that held back. There was a part of me who had reservations. What does it mean to die to self and live to Christ? What happens when we completely give our lives over to Christ so that the life we presently live is Christ in us?

When I was a young Christian I was on fire for Christ but I wasn’t sure what this meant. Maybe many of you have grown past this but perhaps there are just a few who can relate to the challenge I wrestled with. I wanted to be with Christ. I desired deep, meaningful fellowship with Jesus but I didn’t want to give up who I was. I wondered, “If I give myself to you wholly will I get lost? Where am I if I am in you? Am I afraid of losing my identity? Who will I be? Will I be me?” For all my faults, I liked who I was and I wasn’t sure I wanted to stop being me.

This may sound silly to you but I wondered if I would still get to do the worldly things that I enjoy doing such as kayaking and bike riding. I had some thoughts in the back of my mind that I could not be holy and enjoy these activities. Of course, you know the answer. Jesus loves kayaking and Father is an avid cyclist. We do those things together. In fact, many times I rather ride or kayak without other people because that is Dad time. When we all get to heaven, I fully intend to go kayaking with Jesus. I may do it every day. Who knows? They enjoy all those things. The Scriptures say that God “richly supplies us with all things to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6: 17). He isn’t trying to take these things away from us. He is the one who is supplying them. The meaning of a life in and with Christ is that we get to do all these things with the Father, the Son and the Spirit. These activities are actually more fun now than they were because I get to spend that time with some of my very best friends.

I am still me even though I have given myself to Christ. I am just becoming a better version of me. I am Ivey 2.0. The life of Christ is in me. It is coursing through my veins, suffusing my muscles. He is even in my breath. He isn’t taking away from my former life. He has given me new life, more life, and better life. I am dying to the brokenness of the world and being reborn daily by the renewal of my mind in Christ. He opens new doors in my heart, mind and spirit and with each one he breathes new and abundant life into me.

If you have ever been concerned about getting lost in Christ, I have only encouragement for you. There is no downside to letting your former self pass away because the reborn, renewed self is so much more fun to hang out with. If you truly die to self, you will arise with healing in your wings. Jesus will only move into the rooms of your heart which you allow though. You may have been a Christian for 40 years by now but there may still be areas of your heart that are verboten to God. My advice is: throw open the doors and invite Him in. It is all good.

Move the camera

Ivey Rorie On October 11, 2017 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

Hebrews 10: 2

Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins?

This is a discussion about sin consciousness versus righteousness consciousness. The author of Hebrews contrasts the sacrifices of old with the sacrifice of Jesus. The Old Testament sacrifices were not able to completely erase the sin stain which is why sacrifices had to be made every year. The sacrifice of the perfect, unblemished lamb, however, has once and for all, cleansed the saints, completely removing even the smell of former sin. This author writes that we have been made perfect by the sacrifice Jesus made, “For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Hebrews 10: 14). That is you. You are the one who has been cleansed, sanctified and perfected. Because of Jesus’ perfect sacrifice, even the memory of our sin has been blotted from God’s memory. If we are cleansed, then, we should “no longer have . . . consciousness of sins.” But we do, don’t we.

Here is where the idea of moving the camera comes into play. Imagine yourself as a major Hollywood director. The actors are on the set, all is in readiness and you tell the camera operator to begin filming the scene. At the end of the scene you realize that the placement of the camera tells a different story than the one you intended to convey so you shift the camera just a little and eureka, an entirely different tableau is revealed. This is what we have to do with sin, forgiveness and our consciousness of each.

If we have the camera positioned on ourselves all of the time, our failures, sins, short-comings and brokenness are going to play like a melodrama if not a horror story. However, we can move the camera. So take your camera and shift it until Jesus is in the frame. What do you see now? What kind of movie will that camera shift make? It should be an adventure movie of heroic proportions where the hero saves the day and saves the lives of every person. It is Superman on steroids. Our hero saves us and even blots out the thoughts of the calamity which loomed so heavily before us. The difference in watching a film where we are poor sinners and one where we are saved is all in moving the camera just a tic. We change so that the lens is no longer focused on us but rather on Jesus and that makes all the difference in the world.

I find this teeter-totter between sin consciousness and righteousness consciousness to be a bit like the old glass half empty/half full proverb. Half empty people are focusing on themselves and what they see would frighten anyone. Glass half full people have abandoned their close-up for a shot of Jesus. When we focus on him and what he has done, it becomes ludicrous if not insulting for us to talk about our sins or even remember them. We have all failed. That is a fact. But the bigger and controlling fact is that Jesus took away all of our failures and laid them at the foot of the cross. Unless you are so important that your sin is bigger and more important than Jesus, then you have permission today to be completely free from every sin your ever committed. You have been cleansed. If Jesus cleansed you, why do you keep looking at yourself as dirty?

It’s all about him and what he has done. You have never done anything big enough to eclipse his victory. You have been sanctified and perfected by Christ so your thoughts should no longer be about YOUR sin, but rather about HIS righteousness. You should embrace righteousness consciousness and leave sin consciousness behind. It is an affront to the blood of Christ. All you have to do is to move your camera just a bit. Put Jesus in the frame and he will put you in his glory.

The Wisdom of the Wise

Ivey Rorie On October 10, 2017 / Word of the Day / 1 Comment

Proverb 34: 30 – 34 NIV

I went past the field of the sluggard, past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins. I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw: a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest – and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.

This passage reveals two principles of success, the more obvious, perhaps, the lesser of the two. The clear message of this text shows that it only takes a little slumber, just a little bit of laziness to bring poverty upon us quickly. The bigger lesson to me is how Solomon gained this wisdom.

Solomon made a real world observation. He saw the thorns and the dilapidated wall. That, however, is only information. The wisdom came later. Solomon wrote that he applied his heart to what he observed and from that he learned a lesson. Revelation came, wisdom came because he applied his heart to what he observed.

It is surprising that Solomon applied his heart rather than his mind to the data. I mean, what does that even look like? You can probably easily picture a person thinking over what they saw. What picture forms in our minds of a person applying their heart to the situation? Could it be that Solomon meditated in his heart about what he saw? Did he take the information before God and ask His explanation?

Solomon was the wisest person to have lived. He wrote the entire book of Proverbs. We know that when God gave him the opportunity to ask for whatever he wanted, he asked for wisdom. Was it the operation of that wisdom which taught him to seek answers with his heart rather than his mind? From the exercise of his heart, he gleaned further wisdom. It is like a seed which keeps producing a new harvest especially as seed from the harvest is reinvested.

The long and short of this is that we must connect with God if we are to walk in wisdom. Our minds are valuable in their own right but the communion with God must take place in the heart. This truth necessitates that we cause our hearts to be tender, not tough. We also have to learn how to go into our hearts and listen to what is going on there. This is not the way most of us are trained so it requires a proactive effort on our part to train ourselves in this mode of thought. You have heard the expression, “soul searching.” We know this process is available to us. Now, we just have to train ourselves to that we can jump into our inner self at any time.

The greatest truths are not in what you think. They are in what you glean out of your spirit as you commune with God in your heart. Practice “applying your heart” to situations and you will walk in wisdom too.

Magnified

Ivey Rorie On October 9, 2017 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

1 John 4: 8

God is love.

Every congregation around the world has talked about this passage of scripture. We have heard time and time again that God is love but its deepest truths have yet to permeate our Christian cultures and our individual hearts.

To know God is to love. Every person who says they know God must have come to know Him as love. We must, at the very deepest levels, understand that He loves us, but further, we must grasp what it means for God’s nature to be love. Anyone who does not know love, does not know God. It is that simple.

I am listening to an audiobook, a work of fiction. The fictional world in which the characters live is populated by many different people all, who serve different Gods. The overtones of religious hypocrisy are rampant. It caused me to think of our God and our expression of who He is. The atrocities perpetuated by the characters in the book in the name of their Gods, unfortunately, mirrors the same challenges the church of Christ has endured. For me this has become a simple matter, at least theologically. Evangelism must be based in love and motivated by love. All else is both meaningless, at best, and damaging.

In driving through town one day, I saw a car painted with, what was clearly meant to be, an evangelical message. However, the words did anything but magnetize one towards Christ. In fact, I, a Christian, was repelled by the message, even offended. Presumptively, the person driving the car, the one who painted the message, was attempting to populate heaven. The message was not filled, however, with the essence of God which is love.

Sooner or later the church must decide and subsequently adopt an attitude and philosophy of love. We must first, give ourselves over to God’s love, allowing Him to love us in our deepest thoughts and feelings. As we allow ourselves to receive uncompromising love, we will be competent to tell others about the love of God. Only love draws people to God. Theology does not and hell does not. Even the promise of heaven is too vague for most people to appreciate and fathom. We needed acceptance when we were lost and flailing. We found that in our Father who accepted us as we were, even with all our scars and blemishes. We fail, however, to extend that same grace to others and I believe it is because we have yet to fully immerse ourselves in the love the Father offers us.

To my way of thinking, there is no evangelism outside of love. The world does not need us criticizing and damning them. They are not drawn to condemnation nor do they see us as more holy than they when our dialogue is full of hateful expressions instead of love. Don’t tell me you love God when you spit vitriol at His children. It is a vulgar lie. We can no longer afford the luxury of pious self-promotion while people are dying and going to hell. Others are leaving the church because they see hate and judgment. If the church is to grow and function as it was meant to, then we must make the choice to love. It is not our job to decide who goes to hell. Our job is to make hell a wasteland. Eventually, as a body and as individuals, we must embrace love and allow it to color our lives. If God is love, then our only choice is to exercise love. If we are to march in the name of our God then we cannot kill, steal or destroy in His name. This is the message of our times. The first step of this age is: embrace love. Let it fill you and let it be reflected in you. We can’t be mean-spirited and imitate Jesus. We can no longer afford to cause harm in the name of Jesus. That is not his way nor our commission. The gospel is good news and all people, when they encounter us, should have a brush with unfathomable love. Jesus told people that the Kingdom of God had come near them. People will only see the Kingdom and its power when we accomplish step one, adopt love. There is no step two until we achieve step one. Let love guide you, let it fill you. Let God be magnified by magnifying love.

Anti-aging Pill

Ivey Rorie On October 6, 2017 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

Isaiah 40: 31

Those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint.

I have written to you before about the most literal sense of this verse but allow me to remind you and then we are going to see the application of it. At its most basic level this verse invites us to become intertwined with God. There are many synonyms I like for this: interwoven, intermeshed and integrated to name just a few. Isaiah communicates to us that if our lives, even our very existence, is intertwined with the life of God, then our strength will be renewed. We will soar on the wind with wings like eagles. We will run and not become weary. Enmeshed in God means we can walk without fainting. It all sounds great but is there any real world, applicable truth in it? Absolutely.

I am living in God’s grace and I bless His Holy name that this verse is true. Your body responds to God’s word. Your spirit yearns for interconnectedness with our God. And if you want the fountain of youth, I honestly believe you are going to find it between Genesis One and Revelation twenty-two. The more we connect with the trinity, the more we are interwoven with “the life.” That life within us is giving life to our mortal bodies (Romans 8: 11). It’s true!

As I said to a friend of mine one time, “Jesus looks good on you.” I honestly believe that who he is in you affects the way you look and the way your body performs. He is the life so when he makes his abode in you, then good things happen. I remember Gloria Copeland and Billye Brim talking about their skin and appearance and they agreed that the life in you helps keep you looking younger.

Okay, so here is the caveat. This isn’t your garden variety, cultural Christianity where we say the sinner’s prayer and then wait for the trumpet blast. This is interwoven life. The life of God intermeshed with all that you are. Remember the Word of the Day titled Lord of the Lunge? It is that idea, applied. Everything we do, say and think we integrate with and involve our Lord. He becomes the very present “now” in our lives. When you wake up with Him, and talk with Him, and go to bed with Him, He can’t help it, He brings more life giving momentum to your world. Honestly, some people even have a hard time dying because they are so filled up with life. That life oils your joints and produces lanolin for your skin. Maybe you will turn gray more slowly or not at all.

It’s great to have good genes. It is even better when you have a revelation of being DNA coupled with the Holy One. Let Jesus run around in your DNA chain. Then let’s talk about our genetic history and make-up. You are genetically tied to the life giving force of your heavenly Father so let’s get excited about this. Get on those eagle wings and soar. Run hard and fast. Live strong. Breathe in the life of the blessed with every breath. Let Jesus truly live his life in you but not only in your spirit. Give him your body. This really isn’t a radical idea. In fact, it isn’t even a new idea. The apostle Paul beat me to it by, oh, a couple of thousand years when he wrote, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship (Romans 12: 1). Get a revelation on this now. Be like John so full of God that the enemy can’t kill you.

You can still be young and beautiful in your eighties, nineties or beyond when you know the secret of the anti-aging pill. Take this verse daily for skin care and for strength in your body. Get yourself all tangled up in Christ and enjoy this great life!

Sanctuary or Prison?

Ivey Rorie On October 5, 2017 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

2 Corinthians 10: 3 – 4

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.

Today, we hear God tell us that the weapons of the Spirit are divinely powerful and will destroy fortresses. Think of the word fortress also as stronghold. The Word of God will utterly destroy the stronghold of the enemy. But, guess who else has strongholds. Sure, all of us. We have mental and emotional strong holds that need to be defeated. The Word of God is sharp and sure and you can use it to destroy your own strongholds.

What are some strongholds that people often have? Well, we carry around all kinds of emotional baggage for starters. Strongholds can be little areas we retreat into when we are threatened. Strongholds can also be old and outdated traditions. Sometimes we adhere strictly to traditions that no longer make any sense. Maybe you lock yourself away in a fortress of fear. Even sickness and injury can be strongholds. Frankly, sometimes it is easier to be sick than to get up and fight to get well or whole. I know. Perhaps you rely on someone else to your own detriment. There is always a balance between leaning to heavily on others and being self-reliant to a fault. There are probably innumerable strongholds that we hide away in but the Word of God is strong enough to destroy all of those secret fortresses. While we have used those strongholds to protect ourselves, in truth they are keeping us from being whole. They have a high cost. They keep us disabled. They prevent us from reaching our true potential. Most importantly, they rob us of ever having healthy relationships with our Father and with others. They were convenient for a season but now it is time to break out of all those little dark fortresses we have built up within ourselves. They keep us from truly experiencing the freedom that we could have in Christ. Most of them are built out of lies and misconceptions anyway.

You no longer need a made up fortress to protect you from hurt. You are an adult in Christ now and you can take on the biggest baddie that the devil ever created because you don’t have to fight anything in your own might any longer. You don’t have to hide away in fear any more. When the light of the son shines on those old fears, you will see them for the lies they are. You will see how much greater the son is than those problems. You can truly be free and you can develop into the person that God intended you to be before those things interfered with your development. Let the light of the Word shine and vanquish those little demons that have plagued you for so long.

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