You can “increase” your life value by being yoked to the Lord

Mat 28:19  "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,  (NASB)

In following the Lord in His way, the way is usually as important as the lessons or teachings.  We would struggle with a Christ who only taught of great love while living a life of self-love.  This is also true for us.  We too struggle with ourselves when what we teach and proclaim with our mouth is not in harmony with our actions.  Most of us face daily anxiety because of the inner reality that we are not inside what we proclaim on the outside.

To “be all that you can be” one must come to live a life and not just have a life.  You are on the “go”.  From the scripture above and from the ways of the Lord we see that our learning and our living are harmonized.  The word “go” above can mean to “pursue the journey on which one has entered”.  Those who “go” into the world to do His will of discipleship are those who journey with the Lord.  The Method of following the Lord and the mission of discipleship cannot be separated.

In the most basic way, you cannot help another follow the Lord unless you too are one who follows. 

“Go” also means to “depart from life”.  To go you must leave something in order to take on something different.  We who “go” are to depart from the life we had and take on a new life, both in kind and time.  We live and new kind of life and we live in a new time.  The “kind” is one of a disciple following the ways of Jesus and the “time” is one of eternity being in our hearts.  

Do you have inner anger issues because you are not the person inside that you project outside? – go

Do you wrestle with unanswered prayer and desires? – go

Do you have fears of tomorrow, your children's future, your retirement and security? – go

It is the Lord’s way to journey with you into transformation.  It is not a pill, a single prayer or prophetic word.  Discipleship, is both giving and receiving, it is about a life with God on the go.  Overcome sin and all the weakness of your life by living with God to acomplish His mission on the earth.  Your life always has value because you were made in His image.  You can “increase” your life value by being yoked to the Lord, because being linked to Him increases all that you can do.

Moment by moment living with God will take you on the journey of transformation you desire.

Discipleship - Fasting Words :)

Sometimes we do not need to call for another Solemn Assemble, not for another prayer meeting, nor another attempt at doing what we have already been doing. All these are good. Faithfulness is good. But at times what we need to do is change the way we live – in particular, the way we relate to God. It seems we tend to attend gatherings in the hope that simply showing up will be all that the Lord requires.

Our bodies are the temple (dwelling place) of the Holy Spirit. God has made our physical and spiritual parts to work together. The physical and the spiritual may be much more harmonized they we feel comfortable with. Most of us do not consider that when we sin we are using the dwelling place of God against Him. We tent to think in terms of ideas rather than reality. We know, sort of, that when we lie we are making a dwelling of God lie – right.

OK, maybe you have heard that life and death are in the power of the tongue. I hear that a lot. I hear people proclaim that giving verbal expression ( a bodily function) has the power of life or death. I believe that. What we do with our bodies, our minds, our emotions has a relationship upon our spirit and the Spirit of God. If I make my body kneel in prayer, fast, be silent when offended; I am using my body to do the will of the Lord in heaven.

Since our bodies are connected to the Spirit what we do with one relates to the other. I suggest to you a fast will greatly improve your ability to sense what the Spirit is doing. What he usually does in a fast is to reveal to you how much you love food and other every day comforts, like people honoring you for fasting. So I have something I would like you to try. Consider a fast, not a fast of food, but of words.

Silence has always been one of God’s spiritual disciplines. Ask anyone who is in the wilderness for 40 years alone about who they talked to. In fact ask anyone who is in the wilderness 4 days alone. If you could do that it would be great. Silence and solitude are great, but if you cannot make that happen – how about one of these expressions.

1) Fast Grumbling and complaining. I think I do better at fasting food than this. If you want to try giving your negative thoughts no expression, use self-control and be silent. When you do you may find a level of self-love arising to your awareness. You may see that you are more critical and complaining than you thought. You may see that you have a strong need or desire to fix the wrongs and repair the deceptions of others. You may also become aware of when “good judgment” has slipped into accusation, grumbling and complaining.

2) Fast long, drawn out, explanatory answers. When you do this you are fasting the expression of your opinion, the reason behind the answer and you are leaving yourself open to the judgments of others. This is a form of humility because you are, not defending yourself. Doing this may reveal to you how much pride you have in your life, in desiring to impress upon others your insight, wisdom or maturity. I personally love to impress more than be impressed.

3) As much as possible do not listen to man made sounds, this would include music. If at all possible, spend time in the park, on a hiking trail or in your backyard. Intentionally entering into this type of isolation diminishes the amount of distractions our lives are bombarded with and allows to be a rest, yet engaged with the Lord. We want to be aware of becoming overly dependent on others things, even good things to bring us into the Lord’s presence.

4) As you fast or reduce the amount of words you use, try to make your thoughts agree with your expressions. If you are not going to say it, don’t keep pondering it over in your head. This simple practice alone could help many people be free from the weight of unexpressed arguments, defenses or attempts at justification. You will come into greater peace simply by the reality of your mind having fewer issues to deal with.

Actually, I think, your mind will always “be on”. But seeking to have your mindset on things above, upon love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and the Father allows for your mind not to be in “expression” mode but “listening” mode. If you are in need of a place to practice silence, just come over and hang around me. I would love to have someone to talk to that will not talk back. 

He supplies my every need

For me, it is easy to look at life and try to gather enough resources to overcome all the obstacles standing in my way. Do you do that too? Have you ever sought to equip yourself enough to obtain the promises of God? It is good in the sight of the Lord to be faithful and fruitful. But we are not the source of our strength. Neither in the world or in ourselves is the strength, wisdom or resources we need to fully accomplish our life calling.

Do you need a house, a car, a mate, healing, understanding, anointing, favor or possible clean direction on what to do next? All this is in the Lord. You and I need Him. We need less worry, scheming and striving and more devotion, trust and obedience.

We do not have all we need today because something is out of alignment in our relationship with God. Hopelessness comes when we feel that even a great relationship with God will fail to bring to our lives all that we need for joy and love.

Be strong and courageous to pursue the Lord with the hope that He will give to you the promised land. Long for the Lord first and also the reward for devotion to Him. Your reward is a delight to Him because all that you obtain through God testifies of His love, faithfulness, mercy and grace. Every good gift from the Lord honors Him. Seek to obtain every promise He has spoken to you so that you know Him rightly and testify of His goodness on the earth.

Do not be overcome by time. Time is a servant of the Lord. If we must go through long periods of time to see a promised obtained - so what. We must not let time have dominion over us. Time must not be used to bring an accusation against God or against our own soul.

To use time rightly rather than being beaten up with time we must....
1) Make the most of every opportunity. This is not an opportunistic spirit but rather a heart that is a good steward of what we do have. Be faithful and you will be given more.
2) Live with God moment by moment. Do not carry the issues of tomorrow, next year or the next decade today. Plan, pray, obey and walk in this moment with the Lord- fully trusting in His ability to lead you in paths of righteousness for His name sake.
3) Replace all worry and fear with thanksgiving, rejoicing, recalling God's past faithfulness and intercession.
4) Realize that discouragement and depression are tools of the enemy to get you to miss opportunity and weaken relationships that advance the will of God in your life. Stay connected and involved.

What am I doing

At times some people feel a loose of vision and purpose.  This can come because of a great crisis, physical suffering or a simple distraction with the things of the world.

Passionate Christians are prone to the deception that the next Christian trend will be the thing they need for fulfillment and restoration.  At times a spirit can slip into a community that says, “if I only had this ministry or this program I would have what I need”.  Hopefully, that even in speaking this truth you can see the folly of it’s boast.

Moves of God, trends, do not complete a person, they were not intended to.  Those who grasp onto a move of God to aggressively tend to stay in that move even when God has moved on.  They camp where God has been and make the most of it.  Usually living in a place of isolation and rejection.  Others of us, most of us, quickly abandon the last trend for the new one, seeking the hope this fresh expression brings with it.

God sends movement to move us in His Kingdom, but each movement is not intended to replace Him.  He alone is our resting place.  Practicing detachment from the world and even from spiritual things we “cling to”  is a great discipline for all disciples.

There was a young man, I’ll call him Passion.  Passion loved and promoted attending the prayer room.  His life was all about prayer and the prayer room.  He loved the music, the gathering, they environment of people seeking the Lord together.  He had a heart for God also.  Passion went about encouraging, at times manipulating others to be a real Christian and engage in the prayer room. The center of his Christian life had become the prayer room.   His zeal compelled him to inquire into a “next step” of growing in the Lord.  I suggested a fast on prayer.  Give up praying for a week to two, possible even 40 days.  Even my assurance that numerous believers have failed to pray for months and God did not abandon them; seemed not to comfort or encourage him in this step of discipleship.

Passion could not give up the thing that he love in order to grow in the Lord.  It was beyond his reason to see that the prayer room had become Passions God and that God himself was much less loved.  When this happens our true vision and purpose starts to blur.  Our activities become full while our lives become empty.

The foundation for maintaining vision and purpose is a simple, yet concrete thing.  Take “who you are”, the being God created, who has gone through the life stuff you have gone through and….

1. keep growing in the love of God
2. keep growing in the love of others
3. seek the Kingdom of God and the doing of God’s will daily
4. as you can, seek skill in being and making disciples of the Lord

God’s plan of unending restoration and transformation is a people, living the lives they were intended to live, centered and focused on God.  Satan does not usually try to get our vision off God by tempting us with some worldly thing.  We are more likely to have some good, some ministry, some noble Christian purpose replace the centrality of Christ in our lives.  Love the Bride but serve the King!

When you wonder where your life is going and what are you doing, stop and make an honest reflection about the 4 items above.  Be real to your self, is loving God and others is something worthy of spending your life on?  Ask yourself if obeying the will of the Lord has been replaced by appearing significant or being needed by others?  Have you filled your hear with a thousand great teaching but your life has few skills in discipleship?

Book on Prayer and Fasting

I think this would be worth most peoples time.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Prayer-Fasting-Kingsley-Fletcher/dp/0883685434

A Great, Great Sorrow

It is a great sorrow when you have a life that looks Christian from the outside, but is not.  It is a great sorrow when your real life is not the life that others see.  For in time you too will come to approve of the outward and neglect the inward.  It will be like FACEBOOK.  Your life will appear to be what you post, but what you actually live will not be known.

How blessed is the man who slips up and reveals his anger or lust.  How blessed is the women who exposes her lust for things or beauty.  Would that we would be Christian enough to confess our sins one to another and be healed.  I like to post on this blog and on facebook some of my endless mistakes, blunders and faults.  It help me to be real to myself, to be mindful that others are more gifted, more influential and more better!!!!

But what real good would such humility bring.  Would it deal with  pride, our selfishness or self love.  YES.  It is an unsafe place to live a life where people think you better than you are.  Better to be know for who you truly are.  For this truth will help protect you from believing the lies that all others believe. 

This is even more destructive for those in leadership.  Is it not enjoyable to have people think you are much better than you are?  Is it not nice to be though well of?  What if we didn’t tell those little stories of our faults to build connection with our audience?  What if we went beyond relevant communication and our whole life became the message, not just some words on Sunday morning or Wednesday night?

I ran across an article today that stressed how prophecy is replacing miracles in many churches.  It was for the gift of prophecy, but revealed how we can replace the absence of miracles with talking about them.  We can “predict” them in the future if we cannot experience them now – and most congregations seem to be content with this.

The authority for miracles require a lifestyle, not a message.  In truth our city is unchanged because we/I am unchanged.  I am unchanged because I become content with myself.  I am not longer trouble by my own condition.  You do not know me, so I am not compelled to live a holy life for your sake either. 

It will be a most sad thing for me to lead a city wide prayer movement and not have people know how I live.  If I dwell behind some title, office, position or status and do not open my daily life to others – I fail in the most basic Christian way.

Jesus was known to His followers in the most basic and humbling ways.  I am not more important than He.  And while the status of leadership in the American church has changed, status of leadership in the Kingdom of God has not.

Get a friend who truly knows you!  If you can’t find one just find one of your enemies, they will be a great blessing to you.

Our Father

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray.  I wonder if Jesus would have used the same expression if non-disciples asked the question? 

Did Jesus ever give two different answers to the question about “How to have life everlasting” or the question of “who are the sons of Abraham” ?  We know that He did.  Jesus not only answer the question but He also spoke to the person asking the question.

It is the same way today, you and I can always depend upon the Lord to do more than answer our questions, we can depend upon His personal love for us that speaks to us, not just to an issue.

"Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. 'Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. 'Give us this day our daily bread. 'And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 'And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.]'
(Matthew 6:9-13)

At this time in America you can attend church and often here that we are all God’s children, but are we?  Does the term “Father” have no other meaning than the ability to create?  Do all the fallen angles, the ones that God made that rebelled against Him, also have a Father relationship with God?  Do those humans that neither love or honor God have a son ship with God? Can you see that I have an opinion on this matter?

I think we need to be careful (full of care) not to deceive people.  Just as the religious leaders of Jesus day felt pressure from religion and society, so do we.  Are we teaching and encouraging deception in the name of tolerance or non-offence?  Do we want to make everyone feel welcome to God so we gloss over any conditions required?

In historical theology there are 4 aspects of the Fatherhood of God.

1. The supreme value of man as a child of God.  Human life is unique and priceless.
2. The duty of man as a child of God.  Man owes God a relationship of trust and obedience.
3. The natural deduction of the brotherhood of mankind.
4. Sin has broken the relationship of son ship but in no way impairs the Fatherhood of God.

I believe all these are true but neglect a critical aspect.  “Fatherhood” is a gift of the Kingdom of God!  In the Biblical sense, not just the natural humanitarian sense, to be a son of God you must come into the Kingdom, you must be born again. 

The point is not to battle theology, but to show the path of life to a relationship with God.  I wish it were not so, but I often find people seeking to live a Christian life, and they are yet to be born again.  They love what they know of God, but they have not given up their life to be one of His followers.  God to them is a list of rules.  He may be discovered through the obedience to the church.  And yes, we the people of God do love, honor and obey one another.  A relationship with the people of God is not the same as a relationship with our Father in heaven.

So right now, are you mad or upset about something?  Do you feel like God has forsaken you?  Do you feel like God loves others but does not love you?  This discomfort is a part of your battle to resist the evil one and come to encounter God.  Satan seeks to wreck your life by having you relate to the church or religion but not to our Father himself.  The costliest, most demanding thing you will ever do is give up your life to follow Jesus.  You cannot get away with just saying you did it, your must actually deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow Him.  The Fatherhood of God is a treasure and each one of us must consider the cost of paying for that treasure.

As this truly happens, and it does happen in stages, you will grow in a true knowledge of God and of His Fatherhood.  Defeat the works of darkness today as you overcome all the temptations to reduce Father God to a prize.  Join the excitement of entering into a relationship with the most powerful being the the universe who can not be controlled, but can be trusted.