Let There be Peace

On June 12, 2017   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Galatians 5: 26

Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.

This verse captured my attention last week. It’s one of those which I think we read and nod our heads in immediate agreement. We shouldn’t boast or brag, okay. Envy is just wrong, okay but what of challenging one another. What does that mean?

I was intrigued by this verse when I read it from the Amplified version, “Let us not become vainglorious and self-conceited, competitive and challenging and provoking and irritating to one another, envying and being jealous of one another.” So, I think we pretty well understand that we are not supposed to present ourselves in conceit and arrogance. Envy, yeah we’ve got a handle on that too. However, would you have said that God has spoken about competitiveness, provocation, and irritation? It is pretty easy to cast your thoughts abroad and remember instances when each of those has created a less than Godly environment. I am very competitive by nature but I really don’t like being around people whose competitiveness takes the fun out of life. You know what I am talking about. That does not foster a sense of love and peace.

And of course you may know someone who loves to provoke people. I knew one of those. He especially liked to say provocative and hateful things to women. I always thought he must be a bit of a coward to try to pick on and harass people who were not likely to make him pay for his comments in any meaningful way. Had he tried that with men, eventually he would have encountered one who was not feeling particularly righteous that day and would have decked him.

What about the irritants? Are there people who are just a thorn in the flesh of those around them? They are like a burr under the saddle, aren’t they? You just want to get rid of them.

All three of these are symptoms of brokenness. Emotionally healthy people do not have to resort to any of the characteristics described in today passage. We can certainly pray for these folks and you know they need prayer. Sometimes, you may need to gently confront them. Their damage should not become your burden but you may need to let them know where your boundaries lie and what is appropriate and what is not. God did not call you to fix them, he didn’t even call you to hang out with them, which is my third thought. You might consider significantly limiting your association with them. If you are following peace, as we know we should, then you are not going to find it in their presence. These behaviors are every bit as sinful as adultery. Importantly, God has not called you into that environment. Hear this – He has called us out of it.

God is the healer. If we are the ones who are conceited, arrogant, envious, self-absorbed, irritating, competitive, and provoke others into anger or other ungodly thoughts and words, then we must turn to God and receive healing. Only a broken, damaged person does these things, but we serve a mighty God who will deliver us.
You were destined to live in peace and harmony. You are meant to live in loving and caring environments and you deserve that. It is part of what Jesus died to give you so demand it for yourself. Except nothing less!!!

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That’s Life

On June 9, 2017   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Romans 8: 5 – 6

For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.

I hope you have been enjoying this abbreviated look at the life Christ bought for us and I hope you have a bigger idea of what your life now is supposed to be like. It is a Deuteronomy 28 and beyond lifestyle and it is all yours in Christ. Once you die to your old ways and thoughts, you can move into the new life in Christ.

The Greek word used here and translated as “life” is zoe. There are other Greek words which also are translated as life. The use of this particular word is significant, though. Zoe, means the God kind of life. Vine’s Expository Dictionary says this is “life in the absolute sense, life as God has it, that which the Father has in Himself.” We have become partakers of God’s life through belief in Jesus as the Messiah.

We had one kind of life before Christ. We can continue to live in that kind of life even after salvation if we so choose but for those who decide to crucify the flesh, there is newness of life and that is this zoe, or God life. The life force of God is available to those who decide to give up self and live to Christ.

I don’t think we are even beginning to understand this life of God and the impact it can have on us when it becomes resident in us. I know I cannot fully appreciate it yet because I still worship self too much. I still think my old way at times, react in old ways and have my wants and desires enthroned in the temple of Ivey instead of making Jesus the absolute center of my world.

What happens in a life that truly is abandoned to God? What could our lives really be if we could learn to crucify our self-centeredness? I don’t know but I believe we could live way beyond anything we are currently experiencing, beyond what we can imagine. I don’t think it would be life as we know it. It is easy to think that if we have God’s actual life force at work in us then nothing would, or even could, be impossible.

I hope this week’s verses have caused you to ponder the possibilities. As Christians, where are we now? Where could we be? What could life hold for us and those we may impact if we could wrap our heads, or better, our spirits around the concepts found in these verses? What would it mean to your personal existence if the life of God filled you to overflowing? I want that for you, for all of us. I would also love to hear your thoughts on this subject. Post a note or send a reply. I pray zoe for you.

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Manifested Life

On June 8, 2017   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

2 Corinthians 4: 11

For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

As we have seen all week, death is life. In order to live, we must die. Scatter the ashes of your old self at the feet of Jesus and live the abundant life Jesus came here to give you. That was his mission, you know, to bring you abundant life. Consider John 10: 10, “The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly.” What does abundantly mean but plentiful supply; more than sufficient; ample. Another definition says: abounding with, rich. This definition as well as Jesus’ use of the word abundant puts me in remembrance of the 23rd Psalm where our cup “overflows” or as it says in the King James version, “Our cup runneth over.” This is the picture of the life Jesus came to give us. Or I like what God said to tithers in Malachi 3: 10, “I will . . . pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it” (NIV).

My point is this, from the beginning God had a plan to pour out upon us abundant, rich life. When we couldn’t receive it through the old covenant, He sent Jesus to earth to gain that abundant life for us. Still, many of us, though we confess Jesus as Lord, fail to receive cup runneth over life. The reason why, perhaps, is that we have failed to die to self and live to Christ. We are trying to live to Christ, I appreciate that, but we cannot live in the newness of life until we crucify and bury the old life. So we try and try to live the saintly life; we pray for the abundance promised us but we never seem to move into the richness of life promised us. The reason is that although we are sincere in our endeavors, our reasoning is faulty. We can never receive the new life of Christ and the richness of blessing that come with it until we put our self-absorbed old man in the graveyard. When we do, though, all of the life of Christ is able to rush in and fill us. Then the life of Jesus will be manifested in us.

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Say “Yes”

On June 7, 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 gave Himself up for me.

Here is the result of our death and burial. We have a new life. This newness of life came with our communion with Jesus in his resurrection. What, though, makes our new life any different from our old life? I mean, what is the point of a new life if it looks like the old one that we buried? Paul points out the way. This new life, the life that Jesus bought for us but that we are living out in our mortal bodies is not one of solitude, isolation or independence. The life we now live is the life of Christ within us. We live by faith and in the love which he showed when he gave up his life for us. Now, we give up our life for him. Our lives, these lives which we have dedicated to the Lord, this life which he bought for us at Calvary, we live intertwined in the Christ who loves us and gives us life. We live his life because he is alive within us and we are renewed. We say, “Yes,” to Christ and he fills us with his resurrection power of life and liberty.

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him,” (Colossians 2: 6 NIV). These verses make sense on the surface of our brains but when we really consider them, they are much more complex than we may first appreciate. However, this verse really is at the heart of the Christian message. This life we live we live in and through him. Doing just that makes all of the difference in our existence.

I was thinking yesterday about raising teenagers. There are so many things that you want to caution them about; drugs, sex, alcohol. I found myself thinking that loving them could end up sounding like a litany of “don’t’s.” How effective is it, I wonder, just telling children not to do this and not to do that. There must be a better way. Then I thought, maybe they need to understand that they are too valuable, too prized to damage their lives with things that will hurt them. Then I realized this is the same message that pastors must consider.

It is no good for pastors to spend Sunday after Sunday telling their congregations what not to do. Besides, we all know the list of the things we ought not be doing. The real message is you are too beloved to do these things. I want you to say, “Yes,” to Christ, to living in him. Christ is true liberty. He is true peace and happiness. When we focus on loving him and, just as importantly, his love for us, then we don’t need those things. We don’t even want them. In truth, they become repugnant to us. And if you want to know the whole truth, they are weak copies of the true pleasures in life. Getting drunk or high will never give a person the high they can experience in the presence of God. If one ever experiences being in the manifested presence of God, then alcohol and drugs lose their attraction. All of the world’s pleasures attempt to mimic the exultation we feel in Christ but they always fall woefully short.

So, my plan is to continue to encourage you into an ever deeper relationship with Christ. Crucify and bury the old man with his fleshly desires. Receive the fullness of the renewed life that you have in Christ. It’s not about saying, “No,” to sin; it’s all about saying, “Yes,” to Christ. If you do and if you continue to, then you will not have a sin problem. Those things will just lose their hold over you.

Christ is calling. What will you say?

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Newness of Life

On June 6, 2017   /   Word of the Day   /   1 Comment

Romans 6: 4

Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

Yesterday we looked at the sixth verse of this chapter which was about crucifying our old self. As we see today, that is not the end. After self is crucified, it is supposed to be buried. The problem many of us have is that we keep digging up that old man. The newness of life, however, is in our death, burial and subsequent resurrection, not in digging up the dead.

We die “so we too might walk in newness of life.” Picture the old you, the you that you grew up knowing, nailed to the cross with Jesus. It may be a bit macabre but it also highlights an important spiritual reality. Watch as the deceased “old you” is removed from the cross and laid in a tomb with Jesus. You are dead and buried. Then see what happens when Jesus arises from the dead. Are you awakened by his stirrings? You arise with him. The old life is gone but here is a new life, a renewal through Jesus. You are born of his resurrection and of his new life. You are a new creature in Christ, old things have passed away.

Get a picture in your mind of how this new you looks. Is there a new countenance to your face? Do you perceive something new or different about yourself? This dying to self and burying the crucified flesh is not just a cute story or analogy. God would tell you this is the real deal. He is trying to show you the reality of what is happening in the spiritual world. You can have newness of life – you were meant to, but it comes in this strange wrapping of death, burial and resurrection, I mean actual death, actual burial and actual resurrection. Although these are spiritual realities that does not make them any less real than physical realities and in truth, they are more powerful than the physical because the spiritual realm trumps the physical.

If you can wrap your head around these verses and not treat them as mere analogies, then you can arise with new breath and every fiber of your being will react to the new life within you.

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Funeral Pyre

On June 5, 2017   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Romans 6: 6

Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.

I had a dream last week which I would like to share with you. As the dream opened I saw myself carrying what I understood to be an urn of human ashes. I did not know whose ashes they were but knew that I was supposed to spread them for the deceased. Suddenly, there appeared before me a statue of Jesus. Have you ever seen a statue of Jesus? I have not but I imagine it would be one of him humbly attired, standing with an expression of peace and compassion adorning his face. This was not that statute. This was a statue of a heroic Jesus. He was standing with one foot on a rock, head lifted and chest thrusted out much the way Captain Morgan commercials depict people. I was surprised at this pose. Jesus’ hair was shorter than expected and his face looked toward the horizon with a slight smile and a victorious expression. I remember thinking, “Well, that makes sense,” even though I was initially surprised. Then I understood to scatter the ashes all around the base of the statue, which I did. That was the end of the dream. Okay Joseph, what does it mean?

It wasn’t until I awakened that I realized the ashes were mine. Have you heard the expression, “dying to self?” God was calling me to crucify the old man, incinerate his ideas, plans and ways. I was drawn to lay the charred ashes of my former self at the feet of the victorious Christ. You and I are supposed to stand with him in victory but we cannot do that in our old selves. We must cast off the old man and be renewed in Jesus’ victory and resurrection.

We fight bitterly to hang on to our old selves but in the end, there lies the path of destruction. When we stand with Jesus, the ashes of our former self trodden under foot without a thought, we stand on high ground reaching toward the horizon ourselves. No sin, no pain, no slight or injury from our past mars the glory which shines upon our faces because they have been incinerated. Our faces reflect Jesus and the glory the Father has given him since the beginning of time. We are in Jesus and have already overcome. Just die and you will live. You will truly live for the first time in your life. All of the shackles will fall from your heart, your body will feel light, young and strong and you will have the wind of the Holy Spirit in your lungs. Just die, it is the healthiest thing you can do.

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New Covenant

On June 2, 2017   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Hebrews 8: 10

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

First things first, recognize that because of Jesus, you are now the house of Israel, so God is talking about you. There are many other passages, in both the Old and the New Testament, which speak to this new contract. In fact, one can see God’s plan unfold through the whole Bible. I could easily spend an entire week on just this aspect of God’s master plan but I will restrain myself. Just know that He has been putting the pieces in place for thousands of years.

The key here, as I see it, is that God is moving into our hearts. We are stepping into a relationship with God. I really like how this same thought is articulated in the book of Revelations, “Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children (Revelation 21: 7). God’s plan from the beginning and now was to raise a family. It ultimate goal is to have us in intimate, close relationship with Him. In the Old Testament, God was with the Israelites. He led them through the desert in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. He had an improvement plan on the drawing board though. In Joel 2: 28 He said, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all of you!” This was the foretelling of the New Covenant and the new way people would walk with God. No more is God in the cloud. With this pouring out, He has come to live in us. “Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” (1 Corinthians 3: 16).

God’s word is alive in us. He has come to earth and made a home in our hearts and spirits. No longer do we need to look outward to clouds or to an ark to behold our God. God has come to make His abode with us. We are the new Ark of the Covenant. Jesus has made all of this possible and we should seek God in our hearts and get to know Him as an intimate. He is our God and we are His people but as He has said, we are His children. The New Covenant is the indwelling presence of Almighty God and the intertwining of His spirit and yours. Get wrapped up in Him today.

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