Made Alive

On December 4, 2023   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Romans 6: 6 – 7

Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.

This is a wonderful bit of good news this morning. You have been freed from sin that once hampered you and, furthermore, your old self has died having been crucified on the cross with Jesus himself. If there is some habit, sin or condition that has plagued you for years, understand that you are dead to it as soon as you acknowledge that the old man who, was you, died on that cross. You were raised up as a new creature in Christ Jesus at Jesus’ resurrection. You are a full partaker of the resurrection.

If you died, then sin can no longer hold you. It was in the old man and the old man is dead. The new creature who was raised in Christ is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Ok, does that mean that you never, ever sin or fall short of the mark? Not necessarily, but it does mean that you are no longer a slave to sin. Sin no longer owns you. You have been purchased with the precious blood of Jesus so that you are in the Kingdom of righteousness instead of the camp of the enemy. You are free from the bondage of sin, and it no longer has a hold on you. You just have to make sure that you no longer have a hold on it. Jesus has set you free, but you need to stand up and walk out of the prisoner of war camp. Don’t hang out there anymore. Your freedom has been purchased.

You have died to sin and are free of the torment that it brings. No matter what hold sin had on you, you are now dead to it. Don’t go to the grave and resurrect that which Jesus has freed you from. No matter what habit held you, know that Jesus took that to the cross with him so that you could participate in his resurrection as your new self; clean and washed in the blood of the lamb. Celebrate your new self today. You are a glorious new creature in Christ Jesus.

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Hang On

On November 27, 2023   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Hebrews 10: 23

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

Why must we hold fast to our confession? Because sometimes it takes some time before our answer arrives just as was the case in Daniel chapter 10. First you must have hope. Then hope gives you reason to pray and develop a confession. Without hope, you won’t even pray. Why would you if there was no hope of answered prayer but we always have reason to hope because our God is faithful.

When you pray, you have reason to expect God to answer that prayer. Yet the answer isn’t always on the doorstep the next morning. So, what shall we do? We enter our confession stage. We are to develop a confession (or profession of faith, if you will) which is consistent with our prayer and with the Word of God. For example, if my prayer was for healing an ankle sprain and my ankle still hurt the next morning, I would begin to confess my healing rather than confessing the pain. My confession might sound like, “My ankle is healed because 1 Peter says that by His stripes I was healed.” Then I am going to hold onto that confession until my ankle manifests its healing. I am not going to start speaking doubt and unbelief because I have faith that God, the one who promised, is faithful. The writer of Hebrews tells us to hold fast without wavering. So, we shouldn’t waffle back and forth. Since He who promised is faithful, we just hang onto our confession of faith until our answer arrives.

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Righteousness

On November 20, 2023   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Galatians 3: 6 – 7

In the same way, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” The real children of Abraham, then, are those who put their faith in God.

Righteousness is one of those ideas which confounds us. We often confuse it with holiness. We tend to think it has much to do with our behaviors. It turns out that righteousness is a measure of the condition of our hearts.

I have heard righteousness described as “rightness” with God. I find that a very practical definition. One might say, we stand in our “right” place with God or we are in right standing.    In this, we are drawing near to an understanding. Our right standing isn’t about what we’ve done “right” or, indeed, even the absence of having done something wrong. It is not a holiness measure. Paul shows us that right standing with God comes by faith.

In this passage Paul wrote that it was Abraham’s belief, not in God, but in what God said that marked him as righteous. Abraham believed God. That means he counted as truth the words from God. Likewise, Paul wrote, those who also believe God, believe His words and put their faith in Him are the children of Abraham and heirs to all the promises.

I wonder, sometimes, what draws people to be children of God. What causes us to give our lives to God. Purely from self-interest, the promises made to Abraham should motivate people to draw unto God. When we read the promises, do we believe God? Surely, most people desire to walk in the blessing, but do we truly believe that God will cause those things to happen for us?

It is precisely when we take God at His word that He counts us as righteous. I know this is backwards from the way we think. However, we would do well to wrap our minds around this ideal. Even the sin in our lives will not bar us from righteousness if we believe God. Now, that is a huge statement. It flies in the face of convention. However, it is also truth. Am I advocating nonchalance towards sin? Of course not. That is plain foolishness. We are to walk as Jesus walked. However, the walk begins with faith and belief. If we take care of the belief problem, the sin problem will sort itself out.

Ask yourself today whether, or not, you truly believe God and Christ, his son. Do you just believe in them, or do you believe them. See, believing IN God, really doesn’t say much. If you think about it, Satan believes in God. He is a usurper precisely because he believes in God. Yahweh is asking us to believe Him which equates to believing His Word. Challenge yourself to believe what you read in the Bible. May I say, if you are not reading His Word, it is improbable that you can believe it.

I have been sent to Christians rather than to the unsaved. My mission is to call Christians to higher ground, always higher and more enlightened in the things of God. In so doing, we become that family of believers that God desires.

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Higher Ground

On November 13, 2023   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Ephesians 2: 3

Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

My favorite word in this verse is “formerly.” I am glad that living in the flesh is in our past. None the less, this is something we all have to be vigilant about. It is also one of those things which is overcome in stages. So, perhaps we are learning to live in higher and higher revelations.

Much of the church reads a passage about “lusts” of the flesh and all they can think about is sexual lust. Sure, that qualifies, but it is the small part. Many people who have conquered sexual lust still have plenty of trouble with living to the flesh instead of to the Spirit. The easiest way to think about this is to first consider the tri-union nature of who you are. You are a spirit who has a soul and a body. As mature Christians we are trying to grow in the spiritual part of our being. We are dying to the body and soul. Consider your soul as your emotions, desires, thoughts and your will. Now when people think of lusts of the flesh some are really reading in here “lusts of the body.” That is not what the scriptures are about though. Your soul is part of your flesh too. When you sow to your flesh it may have very little to do with your body but it may have a great deal with your desires, your ego, your fantasies or even the injuries in your personality.

I’ve known people, and so have you, who needed to amass money just so they could feel good about themselves. Their energy, then, is spent serving that brokenness. God has already made us worthy in Christ Jesus. Once one receives that, the broken part of them can be healed. Then they can set goals about what they can do for the kingdom of God rather than what they need to do in order to feel good about themselves.

Many of us serve our egos instead of our God. That is the hardest thing in the world to overcome. First, you’ve got to be really, really honest with yourself. And sometimes the truth is not comfortable. But once you see the truth, it is really liberating. Most of us cannot even see how we elevate our needs, our wants, our desires and our egos above God. It can be difficult, but I want to challenge us all to look closely at ourselves and ask why we do the things we do. Even our “good works” can be works of the flesh if we do them out of a sense obligation or for the attention we seek to receive.

Let’s go deeper with God. To do that we need to survey ourselves. As we do, He will lead us to deeper revelations. And while it may be painful for a moment, it is just that, a moment. The joy is everlasting and much greater than the moment of discomfort. Besides, if you hurt for a moment, He is the great healer. He can heal you of that problem forever instead of you continuing to struggle with it all your life.

This is a call to higher ground, to maturity, to greater real spirituality. It is your great calling unto Christ; to keep growing in the revelation of him, and to fulfilment.

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The God Version

On November 6, 2023   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

John 14: 20

On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I in you.

This is the great miracle, that Jesus lives in us. It is really quite amazing if you stop to think about it. Jesus brought a whole new way of thinking about our relationship with deity. He is the present God, God with us. And yet . . . we often think about God being off in heaven somewhere. We have this nebulous idea of God apart from us. God with us is, truthfully, God in us and that is a defining thought.

Who are you? Doesn’t that question take on new richness when you consider God in you? Wait, let me ask you this question, who is God? Now, get ready for a startling answer.

There is an amalgamation of you with God once you let God intertwine Himself in the fabric of your life, thoughts and dreams. No longer are you the simple you. You have become God with you. This is so important!

I told you this little story once. It’s about the day I rode my mountain bike through a lovely pine forest. The smell of pine was invigorating, the sound of pine needles crunching beneath my tires, mesmerizing. Above all, though, was the absolute beauty of that forest. It truly was remarkable so, I remarked to God about the loveliness of the entire scene. I, at once, felt silly for telling Him about this beautiful landscape as if He had never seen it before. He, after all, did make it. His response was startling though. He said, “Ivey, I’ve never seen it through your eyes before.” Wow! You see, in that limited way, He had never seen it before.

We are complex organisms. Our perceptions are colored by all the experiences of our lives. Even our thoughts are unique. That is why it is beneficial to have different folks in any planning committee. We see things differently, perceive things differently and will come with different thoughts. It always fascinates me how it isn’t a mere function of intelligence but also of all the tastes, flavors and experiences of life. People come up with ideas I would have never dreamed up even given hours, days and years of cognitive effort. All of this is going somewhere, and it is circling back around to God in you.

When you honor the intertwined you and give place to God to speak into your heart and thoughts, you become a God engine yourself. Your thoughts can be God inspired. The pictures in your mind go beyond what you would have imagined on your own. Here is a key bit. God can speak into you in ways that I may never be able to hear. He can paint on the canvas of your imagination in colors and shapes that others don’t see. Therefore, the thoughts you have, the truth you are able to share may be slightly nuanced from what someone else has perceived. That’s great! It’s not bad at all. When we combine our revelations, we see a much more complex and wonderful tapestry. How marvelous!

For this reason, I wish to encourage you. You should honor your thoughts as unique. The synergy that we should all seek is oneness with our Lord and Father. In that synergistic union, He will speak through your filters. He will see through your eyes. Had you been on that bike ride with me, you may have seen something different from what I saw. Maybe you would have noticed the crispness of the air or the way the light streamed through the pines. If your perception was different from mine, and it is almost a surety that it would have been, that does not make it wrong, or right. It is purely a celebration of God in you while my perception is an observation on God in me.

This Word of the Day is meant to encourage you to honor your thoughts, hopes, dreams and ambitions. Your thoughts are valuable when you are intertwined with the Holy One. God thoughts are light and life, but I want you to understand that none of us has a patent on those inspired thoughts. This is why God has more than one minister of His gospel. We each teach according to the light He has inspired within us. You too can have God thoughts.

Look for God, but don’t look to the sky. Look within. Let Him touch your thoughts. Your Father has much to show you and tell you. In your quiet time with Him, He will lead and inspire you. Be still and listen to that voice with you. God is speaking to you!

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Getting to Know You

On October 30, 2023   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

1 Chronicles 28: 9         Living Bible

“And Solomon, my son, learn to know the God of your ancestors intimately. Worship and serve him with your whole heart and a willing mind. For the Lord sees every heart and knows every plan and thought. If you seek him, you will find him.”

The presumption of the Word of the Day is that God’s Word has power and inspires our lives. I hope you find this verse incites something within you for I find it very enticing.

David is a Biblical icon. Many of our best stories involve him, particularly, his defeat of the giant Goliath when David was still quite young. His faith in God was larger than any giant and that faith won the day. What I love most about David is his relationship with the Father. That relationship gave the world a glimpse into what Jesus would bring to individual lives. So, when David paused to impart wisdom to his son, Solomon, I find myself intent on gleaning the meat of his message.

From his years of experience David taught Solomon that God could be found. He wanted Solomon to know that Yahweh is not far off, but rather that he could have intimate conversation with God Almighty. Most of the people around Solomon would have had a view of a distant God, but David knew better. It was this experiential knowledge of Jehovah that David revealed to Solomon.

David gave Solomon his secret to success. That is what this passage is about. It is a father passing on his wisdom to a son. A king preparing his successor. The key bit of advice for success was, “get to know God.” God is in a realm where you can know Him. He is here with us. That is even more true now that Jesus has come. Jesus, also called Immanuel, is God with us. David told Solomon that God is not only a God who is with humanity. He is more than the God of Israel. When David said that God knows every heart, he was telling Solomon that Yahweh is the friend of individuals in addition to being the God of nations. This was a huge statement at the time because God was not generally known in this way. David said, if you seek God, you will find Him. He was trying to encourage Solomon to seek a personal relationship with God. Not only did Solomon have access to the prophets and through them access to God, but David wanted him to understand that he could have direct contact with God. The way to establish that direct connection was to seek Him. Seek God and you will find Him.

This is some of the best advice any of us could receive, and I, for one, am happy to receive advice from King David. I can certainly attest to the veracity of it. Each of us can have the same kind of close, personal relationship with Yahweh that David had. David modeled the relationship for us. I strongly recommend reading the psalms that David wrote to get a view into their relationship. Not all Bibles indicate the author of an individual psalm. If yours doesn’t, you can always go to www.Biblegateway.com and read the New American Standard Version.

What would you like the Word of the Day to address? Send us a comment or an email. Maybe an upcoming Word of the Day will be inspired by you.

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Power and Life

On October 23, 2023   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 19: 7 – 8

The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple, the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

One message I would like to impart to the body of Christ is that God’s word is power and life. There is nothing that the Word of God cannot do in your life. It has the power of restoration, healing, enlightenment, wisdom and salvation just to name a small number of its graces. Too few Christians really understand the power the Word has. To many it is just a big book we used to put on the coffee table where it collected dust. However, that may be an improvement from where the Bibles are these days. How many “Christians” even know where their Bibles are? How many have opened it in the last two months?

It’s like you have water from the fountain of youth or a miracle fountain and you can’t get anyone to drink it. Well, the good news is that this living water does not go bad. You can leave it on the shelf as long as you like, and it will still be good. An excellent practice would be to take a slug of water every day. You know, we have learned how to take prescription medicines and vitamins daily. How do we teach ourselves to take a dose of the Word daily?

I want you to have every good thing you want. I want you to be healthy emotionally and physically. I want you blessed coming in and going out. You are the head and not the tail. Miracles should rain on you like a summer shower. The only way I know how to get all those blessings to you is by giving you the Word. I pray that you receive a new revelation of and relationship with the Word of God today. It is life and power.

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