Following Jesus – Changing directions

Following Jesus – Changing directions
The direction of our life can also be called our “order”. When we get up each day and know what we ought to do and how we ought to do that, we feel order and feel like we have direction. Yet in life, many times we are called by God to change the direction we are going. This change in direction is not a diversion from following Him. In fact it is one way He works in the world so that we continue to follow Him rather than just trust in our own understanding.

Yet changing the order of our daily life often brings with it insecurity and thus an aversion to change. We enjoy the confidence of doing what we have been doing. Even if we know we are not getting enough done or if we are avoiding some important aspects of our life, just having the internal comfort is often is enough to keep us from doing different things.

So now in my life is a call of God to go a different direction. This new order will require that I work through the security of where I am and the insecurity of what I will be going. This in itself is growth and an increasing in my faith in God. What makes this difficult is that I am on the same path but now walking on the path in a different way. As the “what I am doing” of daily life changes, it is tempting to evaluate by what I was called to do in the past. I must prepare myself to love those who will want to relate to the Rod of the past and try to get me “back there” so that they know how to relate to me and how I integrate into their life and calling. This pressure of relationship often brings depression as we who have not figured everything out ourselves feel pressure to explain it to others. We get confused.

The pressure, the relationships, the insecurity are all a part of God’s plan for us. We are growing, breaking into new things, advancing. Have you ever had someone tell you that they were going to the next level but nothing changed? That is because while we may be called to go to the next level actually going there is not so much about what is around us, but about our internal transformation.

The path of life is not an interstate; it is a narrow way across a great wilderness.

How to be loved by God

John 14:21
"He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him."

While all people of the earth, in fact all things created, are loved by God; there is additional love for those who love God. This favoritism is about relationship and not about elitism. If you and I want to encounter the love of God to the fullest measure, we are required to have a relationship with God. God is not a power source that can be contacted through meditation alone. Even the most insightful meditation will leave a person lacking in real encounter if that person is not doing the will of the Father. You can see this most any Sunday as people who did not love God so much as to obey Him throughout the week seek to encounter Him in a meeting.
Human emotions may run high, they may even boast about the presence of the Lord being there, but little, if anything of the supernatural occurs. There tends to be a lot of talk (positive meditation) with little manifestation. This is not to bring an accusation against these churches; my desire is to speak in such a way as to not have us sell out. We should not call human emotion the presence of the Lord. If we want the fullness of the Lord then we must not be satisfied with lesser things, even if the journey takes years and not minutes.
The real point I wish to proclaim is that any person, in any place, who is living out the ways of God for them, should be encountering the love of God. The business person who is in the meeting and does not intentionally lie or mislead may be filling the guilt and wrath of the business, but they should also be feeling the love of God for them. The man who treats women with respect and not lust should not only feel the rejection of other lustful people, he should feel the love of God for him. We have too long trained ourselves in knowing the rejection of the world and we have failed to mature in knowing the love of God for us. We must come to know this love in the heat of the battle. It is a blessing to be inwardly cherished by God even in the midst of outward rejection and condemnation.
God, who desires people from all people groups, desire business people, musicians, actors, teachers and politicians to stand in this world and proclaim, “I have no fear for the Lord loves me”. God desires the earth to be filled with His glory as in this dark day people are not consumed by the darkness that is seeking to overcome them. In contrast they live in darkness but radiate His light. These are light and salt of the earth. These are living stones, faithful witnesses of Jesus Christ. These are the ones God pours out His love to in the place where they stand and say “yes” to God and “no” to the world.
So why don’t they feel the love of God?
1. We are trained to see the dark, the evil, more than the light. Turn your thought more on things above and you will take a step in encountering the love of God for you when you are under fire.
2. The presence of God with you is not always euphoria. The most common manifestation of His love is peace.
3. You are living under tremendous projected spiritual conditions. Every time you seek to dwell under the shelter of His wing in the public world, you mind will be attacked through any doorway open to the enemy. Holiness is not an option of Christian maturity, it is practical living that allows us to stand and know the love of God in our day.
4. We love the approval of the world more than the approval of God. We love to have people honor us, respect us and we have pushed the approval of God back in our emotions to private places.
5. Compromise has so filled out lives that we fail to do the will of God In such a way as that it is real. We have mixed living for God with the ways of the world and even when we think we are living a holy life, we are still very far from it. I am not talking about immaturity. God has much grace for immaturity. I am talking about compromise.
The solution
Wake up tomorrow and start a new day. Do this every day. Use the gifts of God of new mercies every day. Forget the failures of the past, except to become wise from them, and press on to the mark of the high calling in Christ Jesus. Start each day with thoughts of things above, chiefly on God himself, and seek to practice His presence all through the day. I could give you a thousand things to do but if you turn to the spirit of truth indwelling you, it would be better for you (if you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you).
One closing note. The ways of the Lord for us is usually easy to understand but impossible for us to do without Him. It tends to focus on the one area we tend to keep away from God, be it our sexuality, money, personality, and intellect, whatever. Even a 2% increase of obedience in that area tends to yield fruit 10 fold in encountering the love of God.

Bow Down

Genesis 22:5

Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you."

Worship seems like one of life’s’ easy things to do. I live in a church age when people love to go to worship, but I often wonder if there is much like worship coming from my life. Even in the posture of our worship is a lot of standing up and seldom a bowing down. Why did the ancient people bow down anyway?
The more I separate love and obedience, the easier it is for me to worship. But if worship is a combination of loving God and fully obeying Him, worship is hard for me. It is hard for me because of me. I enjoy loving and obeying myself, not another, even when that other is God. I mean I do try and trick myself by calling my will and God’s will the same. I do tend the think that God and I see things the same way. I even tell people that I know and hear the voice of God, so surly I must be doing the right things – right?
Maybe worship can be identified by what
• What we leave behind
• What we take with us
• What we take up the hill
• How we return to the place we left

I am in the prayer room right now. I think I am writing about worship so that I don't fell guilty about not worshiping! I think I want to be Godly but avoid the blaze of His gaze by doing stuff (writing, reading, prayer, sermonizing, listening to the music). As I write the above statement I fell compelled to change my tactic. Maybe I should compare myself to others, others who are not in the prayer room right now. Maybe those who I know (I consider) not as Godly as I am. Is there anyway to escape the trap that this is all about me?

NO.
It is the door of selfishness, once we are aware of, that we go through to encounter the one who transform our self into His self. I must be me before I can be transformed into His image. Pretending to be another me will not help the me that I am. I think I am going to love on Him now for His patience toward me. I might even do most of the things He has asked me to do (both in my thoughts and deeds).