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Dwell on These Things

Ivey Rorie On June 30, 2014 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

Philippians 4: 8

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

Last Friday I went for a bike ride. I had plans to meet some people for lunch at a trailside restaurant 29 miles down the trail later in the day. I thought I allowed enough time for me to cover the distance without keeping them waiting but I have not done many long rides lately so I was a bit concerned about my mph average and arriving at our meeting spot on time.

I started out at a good pace and was really pleased to feel good at that pace. Before too long though, at around 14 miles, I think, I noticed that my average was beginning to drop. I wanted to go faster but I had also noticed that my legs were beginning to enter the conversation with input of their own. I really focused on going faster and that is when I learned this important life lesson. The more I thought about my legs the more tired I felt. But our dear Father switched my thoughts from the fatigue in my legs to thinking about my cadence and to watching the average speed display on my bike computer. I stopped thinking about my legs and began thinking about the mph. A few minutes later when I looked at the current mph indicator I saw that I was going 15 mph which was the fastest I had gone all day. I had an epiphany right there on my bike. I realized that the more I focused on the bad news, i.e. my legs being tired, the more I reaped tired legs. When, however, I put my mind on my goal, my body just achieved the goal despite the obstacles. In fact, I didn’t even feel my legs. I just achieved a new level of success simply by shifting my thinking.

As I rode I thought to myself that this must be what God is trying to teach us in this verse. Whatever is good or worthy, let your mind linger on those things. If you meditate on your tired legs you are going to reap weariness. If you let your mind camp out on the goal, you are going to reap success. I remember thinking as I rode along, “If we think about being tired, we will be tired. If we think about being sick, we are going to be sick all the days of our lives. But, if we will meditate on the healing, the success, the blessing, etc. then we will be healthy, successful and blessed.” Yahoo! Now that was a bit of practical education that I could apply immediately.

I have a few other strategies that I have developed over the years of riding that I think might work in many aspects of life. First of all, I pray at the very beginning of my ride. I say to Dad that this is our time and that I will be glad to listen and He can talk. I love to acknowledge (even out loud many times) that this is something that He and I are doing together and that not only do I invite Him to share this time with me but that He is just automatically a part of it. Then I often tell Him that we will ride together but that the last 3 miles are all His because I have noticed that no matter how far I ride it always seems that the last 2 – 3 miles become difficult. So we start out with an expectation that He is with me and is doing the bulk of the work. Those are two of my secrets but there is a third which is my emergency ration when I am out of gas and I needed it on this ride.

As I continued Friday, I began to weaken again so I put my earbud in my ear and turned on Praise music. Now I did not say Christian music because I need something more specific in these moments and it is Praise music. Say it loud! Play it loud! I start praising the Lord and listening to anointed singers glorifying the Lord and I get revived. The joy of the Lord can pump your legs even when you feel like there is nothing left in them. One caveat – trying to sing along can really be hard on your wind but then again who cares? Well, maybe some of the other people on the trail would prefer I didn’t start singing out loud but it just may make them ride faster too if only to get away from me.

The end of the story is that I did arrive on time. Actually, I was 40 minutes early. I had a great ride. I asked Dad to use the time to fellowship with me and to speak with me and He taught me this brilliant lesson about what we allow ourselves to meditate on impacting our immediate life. He used my leisure time to develop a Word of the Day teaching me that we can work and play. We had time of praise and I got some exercise. I’ve gotta say, that is a good day.

Bottom line, we can affect our lives by what we think about and those impacts are immediate and lasting. There is something we can do right now to change the outcome of today. There is a lot of power in that.

I hope you enjoyed going on this little 29 mile journey with me. To find out what my “out of gas” refueling music was check out the blog post for Sunday, June 29, 2014 at www.iveyministries.blogspot.com.

Ivey Rorie On June 29, 2014 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

My “gas tank empty” peddling music for Friday, June 27th, 2014 was:

Raygene Wilson’s Campmeeting Favorites

Many of the songs can be found on the Say Amen! album.

Die For Me

Ivey Rorie On June 27, 2014 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

John 13: 38

“Will you lay down your life for Me?”

This was a question Jesus posed to Peter? How would you answer him? Or are you just glad that he didn’t ask you this question? But then again, this is exactly what Jesus requires of each of us. We are required to lay down our life for Jesus and for the gospel. In Matthew 16: 25 Jesus said, “Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” Therefore, if we want life, then we must relinquish our life. It sounds like an oxymoron but we surrender our lives and take on the life of Christ, a life in him and of him. Paul revealed in Romans 6: 4 that “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” “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” (2 Corinthians. 4: 11).

This dying or laying aside of our life doesn’t happen once for all. It is the constant laying aside of our ego laden needs and taking up the life of Christ with its mission of love and servitude. This is not an easy task because our ego seeks always to protect itself but this is the call of Christianity, of following after the Christ and walking in his ways.

Paul further explained this idea in Galatians 2: 20 when he wrote, “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.” Our life of the flesh has been exchanged for a new life in the Spirit of God wherein we died and were reborn as a child of the Most High, a child of the Spirit. The person we were died and a new person was created in the new birth. Why do we attempt to still live as that old person if he or she died with Christ at the cross? That life we lay down and take up the new life that Christ bought for us at Calvary. That old man was dead in his sin anyway. There was nothing but corruption and decay in his bones but the new man is made in the very image of Christ Jesus, beautiful and radiant.

This is who you are in Jesus but only to the degree that you make a decision to let go of that corpse who is the old you. Believe me, the old man, that old self that each of us knows all too well is decrepit and is better off in the grave. We turned to Jesus and accepted him as Lord because we wanted this new life in him. Most of us were well aware of the state of our inner man. Most of us knew that we needed something, that we needed Jesus to take this sad thing that we were and to make something of it. And that is what he did. He exchanged our lives which were full of decay and death and gave us his life which is the picture of glory and beauty. We died, were crucified with him and were raised up with him in his glory and righteousness but we must make a decision to be renewed in our inner man. God has provided this new life but it is up to us to allow the life of Christ to be born in our inner man. It is not automatic. We have to choose to lay down our lives for Christ. He asks us just as he asked Peter, “Will you lay down your life for me?” This is a question each of us must ask ourselves because this is the essence of the new life, the reborn man and the life in Christ. This death and resurrection in Christ is what happens after we say the sinner’s prayer. We decide that to live is Christ and to die is gain (Philippians 1: 21). We choose to let our old self with all of its baggage and problems die and be put away. We give ourselves to Jesus as Lord, pledge ourselves to him and his service and we are raised up in him to a new person full of glory and righteousness.

Let go of yourself. You have died with Christ now bury that old man and let him rest in peace. Don your new life in Christ. Let go of the self-absorbed concerns and turn your life over to him. He will glorify and exalt you when you give your life to him. He will raise you up and give you the abundant life which is your inheritance and which he came to give you. Bury the old man and take up the life Christ has for you.

Giving God Away

Ivey Rorie On June 26, 2014 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

John 13: 34

“A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

John 15: 13

“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

Jesus gave us one commandment knowing if we would live by this one commandment we would fulfill all the law and the prophets. Everything that God would prescribe for us is included in this one commandment, that we love one another as Jesus first loved us.

How did Jesus love us? He loved us sacrificially. He put our needs before his even to the point of death. That is a remarkable act. Can you imagine putting other people’s needs before your desires even if it means your death? That is a tall order. Face it; most of us continuously serve ourselves even at the cost of others. How often do we cease our pursuit of what we want long enough to even consider what others need or want? It is just not our way, is it? We were not trained to serve others but rather to grab all we can get even if it means hurting others. So, what does it take for us to, even for a moment, retire our self-interest long enough to consider the needs and wants of someone else?

Whatever Jesus told us to do he has also empowered us to do. That is good news, yes? But realize too that there is no excuse for disobedience. We do not have the excuse that we cannot do what he has commanded because he always provides the ability with the command. So, if this is Jesus’ command to us, and we know it is, and he has empowered us with the ability to fulfill the love command, then why aren’t more of us living by this commandment?

God is love. He is the power and authority required to fulfill this commandment. Jesus is showing us that our grand command is to convey the essence of God to others. Did you catch that? Since our command is to love one another and God is love then the command is to “God” one another as Jesus did or to express the nature and heart of God among one another just like Jesus did. It sounds like a difficult task but Jesus provided the way. He told his disciples to stay in Jerusalem until they received the promise of the Father which would give them the requisite power (Acts 1: 4 – 8). Then he sent the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit has come to make his abode in us, to actually live in our hearts. He is the power to love and to live. The only way we can do what Jesus has commanded us to do is for us to fill up with God. We can never in our own strength or by an effort of our will love people the way Jesus has directed us. We must first let love fill us to overflowing, then we will be able to let the expression of who God is flow out of us.

So we have an absolute command from our Lord regarding how we are to treat others and he has provided the means by which we can adhere to his command. We must make a decision to obey this commandment of love. We need to understand with our minds that it means putting others needs ahead of ours. We should actually spend some time thinking about what that means and meditating on how that might appear in practice. Then we need to seek the help of the Father through prayer. We must first let Him love us. We will never be able to love others if we do not first receive the love of God deep into our hearts. His love can only flow through us once we have allowed Him to abide fully within us. So there is our starting point and perhaps where many of us fail. Make a decision to obey Jesus’ command to love others as he loved us and then earnestly seek the help of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Open your heart and let God flow into it. Open your heart and let His love flow out.

Life in the Word

Ivey Rorie On June 25, 2014 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

John 12: 47 – 50 NIV

“As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day. For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”

Jesus’ words bring life to those who find them. Jesus tells us that his father’s command leads to eternal life. Moreover, Jesus said that everything he said came from the father so everything that Jesus ever said leads us to eternal fullness of life. Everything we want, everything we need is fulfilled through Jesus’ word.

It sounds simplistic to say that everything we need can be obtained through the Word until we remember that God created the entire universe with the spoken word. Now He has given us His words. With them there is nothing which is impossible to us. If we are not where we want to be in life, then we need only go to His Word and get more life. Jesus said that he came to bring us abundant life and we know from John 1: 1 that Jesus is the Word. So the Word came to give us abundant life.

Conversely, if we are not living the abundant life, then we have not allowed the life of Christ to fill us and we need to put more of Jesus inside of us by ingesting his word. The Word of God is the seed and the soil is the heart. When we plant his word in our hearts it yields a harvest. If we fail to bear fruit then Jesus need not judge us for we are already judged. The word that he has given us produces life so our lives will show whether we have accepted or rejected Christ’s word.

Do you remember the story of the talents in Matthew 25: 14? The servants were not tasked with safeguarding the master’s assets. The mission is to use the talents God has given us to produce a crop. He has given us his word and it is our job to do something with it. Prepare the soil; till it and pull out the weeds. Then plant the seed. If you will be diligent and faithful at reaping season you will have a bountiful harvest.

The Heart of Truth

Ivey Rorie On June 24, 2014 / Word of the Day / 1 Comment

John 6: 43, 61 NIV

“Stop grumbling among yourselves.” Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you?

The church needs to hear Jesus preach this message again and ask this critical question, “Am I easily offended, do I take offense?” We are living in an age where we must constantly walk on eggshells and I know that it becomes tedious for everyone and stressful to live in this state. But there is a larger issue here. That is that we so easily become offended at the message that Jesus has sent to the body.

Jesus didn’t mince words. He taught openly and in honesty. And, yes, sometimes people were offended but can we be honest for a moment today without anyone taking offense? The truth of the matter is that those people in Jesus’ time just as the people in our time chose to be offended. It is so interesting that we use the expression “take offense”. That very expression reveals that we exercise our choice to take or not take offense. God would love to give us all the truth but we can’t handle it. Pastors guard themselves and honestly, between you and I, preach watered down messages because they know their parishioners can’t handle it. They endeavor not to hurt anyone’s feelings or cause anyone offense but if we want to be offended, we will find a way. I have met people that you could compliment and they would still be offended. It has become a lifestyle. Now, how is God going to minister life giving truth to us if we are so touchy?

This is life and death stuff here folks. We have got to yearn for the truth and receive it when it comes. We need to take the shackles off of our teachers and beg them to tell us the whole truth. Many clergy will not teach on tithing or giving because they are afraid of offending the congregation. I can appreciate their misgivings but if we will not allow them to teach us about God’s divine fiscal policies then we are doomed to poverty or at best mediocrity.

And I wish to make a personal plea here as well that you can perhaps also apply to your pastor. We have a mandate from God to tell the truth and I like every other minister of the gospel have to decide whether to deliver the message that seems hard or to disobey God. It is not a fun choice but there are two things you should know. Speaking for myself, I never deliver a hard message in order to hurt you. I give the messages that I think God is giving me for you and out of love for you. The Bible teaches us that a parent who loves their child will reprove them. I want the best for you so I am motivated to tell you the truth even if it stings a bit. Secondly, if it is a particularly hard hitting message, don’t be offended. I’m probably not even talking to you. I am probably preaching to myself because believe me, some of these messages are for me more than for anyone else. Some of them seem to be given only for me. But I take that as God’s love for me. He wants us to live the high life, a life of abundance and He knows the things in our lives which are acting as obstacles to this good life. How shall He tell us so that we may move into the better life that He has for us? Shall we choose to be offended when God is trying to help us?

So here is the conclusion. I honestly believe that any time we find ourselves offended by our pastor’s message we should check ourselves. Now, I am not saying that ministers are perfect. I have been offended by some messages too but there is another characteristic that should be working in us too. It is called forgiveness. We must overlook one another’s flaws. Do you believe your pastor hears from God? If the answer is no, change churches. If the answer is yes, then be faithful. Jesus, so many times said, “He who has ears, let him hear.” It could be that we are all still developing our spiritual ears. But let us come to this conclusion. Our minsters were called by God to serve us and they have an anointing on their lives to deliver the gospel. They have our best interests at heart and preach truth, even hard-hitting truth, because of their devotion to us.

I would like to make this personal again. I apologize right now if I ever hurt your feelings. On the other hand I want you to know that I place a high value on telling you the truth and I trust that you are people of stern stuff rather than wishy-washy, half-hearted Christians. God is raising up His army in our generation and His ministers have been tasked with equipping the saints. I would rather bruise your ego a little than for the enemy to kill you. So this is the choice I make, to tell you the truth as God reveals it to me and trust that you are strong enough to hear it. There may be times you disagree with me. That’s okay. Listen, I still watch and listen to preachers that I have some disagreements with. It is very difficult for us all to agree 100% of the time but that should be no bar to our fellowship. You simply take those things to the Lord and let Him guide you and teach you. Some of those items will lead you into deep revelations. And I will tell you upfront that I am not walking in the full revelation yet. I am still learning as well. So don’t let that hinder you. If we continually allow ourselves to become offended, we end up isolating ourselves and then we develop our own personal theology which is very dangerous.

Alright, so this is one of those messages I have not wanted to send though it has been on my list for months. When God showed me the exact same verse again today it just could not be avoided any longer. So don’t take offense at a message that teaches not to be offended and let us all remind ourselves that this message began with Jesus speaking. The spirit of offense which is in operation in the body of Christ can, and will, be crushed when we all refuse to feed it or give into its urgings.

Our Reflection in our Lord

Ivey Rorie On June 23, 2014 / Word of the Day / Leave a comment

2 Samuel 22: 26 – 27 NIV

To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd.

In our discipleship we desire to reflect the grace of the Lord. When people look at us, we hope they see Jesus. I never considered that when we look at the Lord, we see ourselves. Today’s scriptures teach us a very important lesson. What you see when you look at God is likely a reflection of yourself. Stop and think about that for a moment. Do you see a loving God full of grace and mercy or do you see a vengeful God. Is he punishing the world or loving it. God hasn’t changed. He is love but what we see in Him shows what we have allowed ourselves to receive from God. He gives us power to be loving and forgiving because He is loving and forgiving. If, instead, we see Him as shrewd it is because of something in us, crookedness. If we see Him faithful it is because we have allowed ourselves to receive faithfulness from Him. He shows Himself blameless because we have received our spotless garment by faith in Jesus. We look at God through the veil which we choose, through our filters.

The key point is that the way we perceive God is a measure of who we are rather than a treatise on who He is. We know unequivocally who and what God is, God is love. Therefore, if we do not perceive Him as He truly is, then it is because of an overlay that we have cloaked Him with from our own personalities. He is faithful because love is faithful. Any characteristic which is derived from love is His natural clothing. Any characteristic which is distinct from love is the veil of our eyes. We may have inherited these veils, these painted lenses, from our parents, we may have learned them from religion or they may be of our own doing. Any unregenerate part of our being may be reflected onto our image of God. Our task as disciples of Christ is to see Him as He truly is. The question, then, is not “Who do you think God is?” The task is to strip the veils of convention, habit and our own worldly experience from our eyes and to see God as He truly is. We have a test which will show immediately our perception of truth. If our image of God is anything less than complete love then we know there is yet something within us that needs addressing.

Looking at God is like looking into a mirror which might explain why it is difficult to get people to seek Him or even to spend time in prayer and in the Word. Even if they cannot articulate their hesitancy in their heart of hearts they know they will see something ugly in the mirror and they are afraid. Their hearts are not strong enough to admit the truth about themselves. This is a great sorrow because God is the healer of the heart. There is nothing so ugly in any of us that He cannot turn it into beauty. It is what He does. There also is not one of us that was beautiful in ourselves. Any beauty any of us reflect is the Lord Jesus himself. What is it that gives one person the guts to seek healing and inner beauty and others fall to fear? I wish I knew. Perhaps it is a little hope of something better. Maybe it is just a little faith that God really is love and that he will accept us and help us. Whatever it is, I pray that seed in every one of us so that we may grow into the beautiful creature of grace that we are each meant to be. If we could only see ourselves the way God sees us. I adjure you by all that is holy. Seek the face of the Lord expecting to find love and acceptance. Do not worry about your soiled garments. You are not as dirty as Jesus was when the sin of the world hit him and yet he is seated right now at the right hand of God. You can’t get any dirtier than he was and yet his robes are now as white as snow. He is radiant in his cleanliness. God has provided that same beauty for ashes experience for each of us. Give God your rubbish and he will exchange it for His glory. “Let’s Make a Deal” never had a deal as good as that. If you will with all honesty give your entire heart to God He will show you His wholeness and grace. Then you will look in the mirror of His face and see only love.

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