Alone . . . Not!

On October 1, 2021   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

John 16: 32

Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.

This conversation takes place just a short while before Jesus is betrayed into the hands of the priests. Jesus told his followers what was to come. He was fully aware of just how alone He was to be very shortly. No one, not even Peter or John, would stand with Him. Peter denied Him three times in fact. Jesus knew that He was going to be left all alone before it happened and yet He had a revelation of never being alone. His Father, and ours, was with Him and He was confident in that.

All that Jesus ever had He bequeathed to us. Actually, he said that it was to our advantage that He leave so that we could have even more than was available at that time because the Holy Spirit had not yet been poured out (John 16:7). He took everything that was bad with him and left all that was good from Him. He gave us all he had. You, therefore, can have the same confidence of never being alone that Jesus had. Jesus’ mission on the earth was one of reconciliation. He reconciled us back to the Father so that we could enjoy the close, meaningful relationship with the Father that was always the Father’s intention. You never have to be alone again, and you never will be. Do not mind your feelings, i.e. feeling alone. The feelings are false, and the fact is that the Father will never leave you nor forsake you. Jesus bore that burden for us. No matter how desperately alone you feel, understand that you are never alone. Know it with the same confidence that Jesus knew. Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are with you to the end of the age.

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Rejected

On October 28, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 74: 1 – 2

O God, why have You rejected us forever? Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture? Remember Your congregation, which You have purchased of old, which You have redeemed to be the tribe of Your inheritance.

Can I be honest with you? I am not in love with this psalm and had trouble choosing a segment to write on. Ultimately it was what I didn’t like that captured my attention. This is not a psalm of David and I find myself missing him. Read the entire psalm for yourself and tell me which verse you would have chosen. Click reply or enter your choice in the comments section.

I chose verses one and two because of the tone they set for the entire psalm. David may have whined a time or two in his songs but one of the things I like about his spirit is that he turned to praise in the end. Today’s psalm, by Asaph, is an entreaty for God to rise up against those who oppose him and his people.

The heart warms to thoughts of being God’s own inheritance. What a crazy concept. God created a people so that He might have an inheritance. This people, though, accuse Him of having rejected them. I posit that they rejected Him rather than the other way around. I believe this because of the history that we read in the Bible but also because I see how we are today. Even now we might accuse God of leading us into the desert or otherwise abandoning us, but I know it to be untrue. We are the fabricators of silence and desolation.

How many times and in how many ways do we isolate God from our lives and isolate ourselves from His life? We pray, begging Him to meet our needs, but at the first opportunity we immerse ourselves in lives, habits and activities of which He cannot be a part. We shun Him, putting Him in the corner until Sunday morning when we put on our holy garments for an hour.

Do not think I am accusing you without pausing to look in the mirror. I, too, fall far short of the prize and it bothers me that I do. We live in a cultural time when it takes concerted effort to live a life of meaning and value. These days, people want to text rather than talk. We are too busy to just sit down and have a cup of coffee with a friend. When we are together, we rarely engage in meaningful conversation. We are more likely to have a beer together than even one word about our Lord and God WHICH begs the question. Is He really our Lord if we don’t serve Him, give Him any time or worship Him? Is He our God, truly? Perhaps He is only our ticket out of hell. In the meantime, here on earth, we have compartmentalized Him so that He does not invade our lives.

When you know the history of the Israelites, you may think that rather than God having rejected them, they had rejected God. Then, since all the words in the Bible are for our ultimate edification you stop and think that perhaps we are a modern example of the same thing.

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Anticipation

On April 3, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Ephesians 1: 18             Amplified

And [I pray] that the eyes of your heart [the very center and core of your being] may be enlightened [flooded with light by the Holy Spirit], so that you will know and cherish the hope [the divine guarantee, the confident expectation] to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints (God’s people).

I love the expression “confident expectation.” It is the image of us leaning forward, fully assured of God’s continuous attendance to our needs and desires.

When we hear this odd language like “eyes of your heart” it kinda makes sense but not completely. Perhaps the Amplified version provides some clarity. I would like to offer an additional way to think of it. You know how sometimes your sensitivity is heightened and you pick up on things better than at other times? Or, sometimes you know something but you aren’t sure what you perceived. We say, “In my gut, I just knew.” You see, your internal mechanism is operating all the time. Some of us are better at listening to it than others of us, but even the most unreceptive of us have those times when our perceptions are heightened. You pick up a little something in a person’s tone or your mind takes note of a word they used when there was a friendlier synonym. Perhaps you pick up on body language or a cast of the eyes. A plethora of data is flying by you at an enormous rate and you take in more of it than you know. Down in your core, in the very center of your being this data is processed and for those who listen to it, there comes revelation. It is a matter of listening to your inner you. That is what Paul was praying for, that the Holy Spirit would flood your inner being with his light to shine upon that information which available but undiscovered.

The Father is speaking with us continually. The Holy Spirit is whispering into our spiritual ears. Paul prayed that our sensitivity to these things would be improved so we would discern the blessing which is constantly flowing to us from the Trinity. Paul knew that when we allow the Holy Spirit to tune us into the Divine frequency, we receive hope of a kind that has us not only leaning forward but jumping out of bed in the morning. We receive such encouragement from the light of the Spirit that we are absorbed in confident expectation.

Isn’t that exciting? This hope that Paul wants for us is what we are called to. You may have known that you are called, well, this is your calling. Father is calling you to be immersed in the assurance of the rich inheritance which is yours, right now, as a child of God.

Your inheritance is for today. You don’t have to wait for God to die to receive your inheritance. He made it available at Jesus’ death. Father has called you to the confident expectation of your glorious inheritance which is yours in Christ Jesus, our Lord and savior. All of the dying has been done. Now is the time of light and life. Pray this simple prayer with me: Father, I receive all you have for me. Open my eyes and ears that I hear you daily and I see your loving hand everywhere I look. Lead me, Holy Spirit, into this confident expectation of my inheritance through Christ. Father I thank you as I receive this, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

It’s yours. En-joy!

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Inheritance

On September 21, 2017   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Ephesians 3: 14

Who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

This is the follow up verse to yesterday’s Word of the Day. There was so much contained in the two verses that I had to split them apart. Yesterday we discovered that we are sealed in Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Today we find that this Spirit was given to us as a pledge. When you look up the word “pledge” you find that it means “a solemn promise.” We learned yesterday that the Holy Spirit himself is a promise. Now we discover that he is also the pledge, the symbol of another promise. God has given us a pledge that we are His heirs, that we have an inheritance in Him.

Normally I think of an inheritance only being effective when someone dies. In this case, the Father cannot die but He gave everything to Jesus then we became Jesus’ heirs at the cross. We are heirs to everything God has and the Holy Spirit was given as the solemn promise that we have an inheritance in Christ.

Paul also points to redemption. His writing tells us that we are the heirs of God in Christ Jesus but upon the view from our window also looks out upon redemption as God’s own possession, as His beloved. In this understanding of who we are in Christ, heirs of his bounty and the redeemed that we offer praise to the Father for the Glory He has shown us and for the radiance of His son shining upon us bathing us in the Father’s glory eternally. Did you notice, though, that redemption is not our inheritance? Paul in writing about a pledge given in evidence of our inheritance says, “with a view to the redemption.”

In the limited scope of our thinking redemption is enough. However, to God it is only the means to the other and greater things He has for us. It is a means by which we can enjoy the inheritance He has set aside for us. That is pretty big. Apparently, we are not beggars sitting at the castle gates waiting for crumbs to be cast in our direction. We are, in fact, God’s inheritance. We are what he gained through Jesus’ sacrifice. The trade has been made on our behalf and on God’s. Jesus traded everything God had for everything we are. Not much of a deal, I grant you but there you go. Parents are just that way. They will give you everything even though most of the time we are not worth it.

The inheritance is yours now. You can begin enjoying it today or tomorrow or next year. You can wait until you get to heaven to start enjoying it if you like, but why would you? You have been given a promise. Cash it in!

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Legacy

On August 26, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Proverb 13: 22

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, and the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.

We tend to like the last part of this verse but the first part doesn’t get much play time. Yes, it is true, the sinners are busy building mansions that the saved will live in. However, we are not meant to spend all of that wealth on ourselves. We are supposed to leave a legacy for our grandchildren.

We have all seen the bumper sticker which reads, “I am spending my children’s inheritance.” While that is funny at one level, it is tragic at another. Our economies, both personal and social, suffer because we have forsaken the sound financial principles that God handed down to us. We have become consumers on a grand scale. We no longer worry about saving for a rainy day because we expect someone else to catch us if we fall. We depend on our parents, the government or even the church. When did it become the responsibility of others for our welfare?

God wants to have a personal, financial relationship with you. He wants you and He to cooperate in the financial future of you and your family. It is not his intent, however, to prosper you so that you can spend it all on your own lusts. He intends for you to build a heritage by listening to Him. This financial plan will bless us but if we will listen to God and manage it correctly, it will also be a blessing to generations who follow us. Tithe ten percent and save ten percent. Build a strong foundation for future generations. Then teach them to tithe ten percent and save ten percent. If we would begin to do this, I mean if we all began to follow God’s economic plan, we could put our economies back on their feet in no time. There is a way which leads to destruction and there is a way which leads to abundance. Let’s follow God’s way.

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Land Lord

On April 9, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 115: 16

The heavens are the heavens of the Lord; but the earth He has given to the sons of men.

Luke 4: 5 – 6

And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.”

Here is the chain of title of the earth. God created it and it belonged to Him. Then He gave it to the sons of men. When Jesus came along the devil offered all the kingdoms of the earth and their glory to him. Apparently title had shifted to the devil. Notice Jesus did not debate the devil’s assertion of ownership and control. So how did it go from belonging to people to being in Satan’s possession? The devil tells us in verse 6 that it was handed over to him. By whom then? Well, it wasn’t God because He gave it to humanity.

In the Garden of Eden God gave authority over the earth and everything in it to the people He created. He gave them the responsibility for the earth and its well-being. The earth was created for humanity. It was created to be a home for us but Satan deceived God’s children and they fell. They listened to the word of Satan instead of the Word of God. When they did, the earth became a place of conflict. Their capitulation to the devil gave him authority in the earth.

But then good news came. His name is Jesus. He crushed sin, broke the chains of slavery and destroyed the works of the devil. He went into the pit itself and conquered death, hell and the grave and when he came out he had the keys. In Revelation 1: 18 Jesus revealed that he had the keys of death and Hades but that wasn’t all he won. He redeemed us, restoring us back to our proper place in the Lord. He won back our kingdom and our domain. We are now joint heirs with him but there is a caveat. We must claim our inheritance and enforce our rights. There are squatters on the land thanks to the time that it spent in wrongful hands. In addition, the devil is a deceiver. If you don’t run him off he won’t go and if you listen to him he will trick you, deceive you into believing a pack of lies. When you do that, you forsake your ancestral heritage. You effectively surrender yourself again to the yoke of slavery where Satan is your master.

Your only defense is the Word of God. Only when you know your legal rights and stand on them will the enemy, the undeserving squatters, leave your property. Look, you are royalty if you want to know the whole truth but if you go about wearing rags and acting like a peasant then all you will have is a peasant’s life. Our birthright, our binding contract and our weapon of enforcement are all encompassed humbly but powerfully in the camouflage of a book. But it isn’t only what is between the bindings that is so significant. It is the word who is alive, He that went to hell, defeated Satan and handed you the keys of victory. He is the living word. He was, is and always will be. You find him between the covers of the Bible and then he leaps off of the page in power and glory when you believe what you read there and trust him to be your king and lord.

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Go Big

On May 27, 2014   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Ephesians 1: 14

In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation- having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

We looked, yesterday, at verse 13 but this is the verse I was trying to get to when I became so enamored with being sealed in Christ. The Holy Spirit was given to us as a pledge of our inheritance. A pledge, in this sense, is a down payment or a deposit. It is a small payment which is given as security for the greater payment to come. Okay, Wow! Think about that for a moment. The giving of the Holy Spirit, the outpouring, is only a down payment of all that God has for us. Can we as mere mortals even comprehend the enormity of that truth? Selah.

Jesus called the Holy Spirit our helper, comforter, the Spirit of Truth, our guide, our stand along, teacher, advocate, counselor, revelator, strengthener and intercessor (See John chapters 14 and 16, Amplified Translation). Have I missed anything? We are talking about a good friend to have. But this Holy Spirit, this amazing and wonderful companion, confidant and aide is a mere down payment on all that God has for us? I find that very difficult to fathom. We have yet to understand or appreciate the magnitude of the Holy Spirit but even from this little bit today we see that He is an enormous gift. How much more, then, does the Father have for those who love Him?

Do you think that God wants you broke, sick, beaten-down and defeated? Then why did He send the Holy Spirit? John 16: 13 says that the Holy Spirit was sent to lead us into all truth. Do we believe that a revelation of truth, much less all truth, is bound to leave people in bondage to all of the silly devices of the devil?  

I believe there is a big revelation available to those who seek it. God hasn’t just given us His best, He has given His all. He is goodness and there is no good thing that He is withholding from us in this life or the life to come. The Holy Spirit is much bigger than people thus far realize and yet he is just a down payment of the great and wonderful things the Lord, our God has for us. Don’t limit God with carnal thinking. We are bound to this earth right now in our bodies but our minds are free to explore the spiritual realm. Get a big vision of what God wants to do for your life and of your inheritance in Christ Jesus. It is bigger than anything you have yet imagined. Go Big. Go bigger!

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