Posted on 01/02/2006 10:43:32 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
I have been praying about this since the first time you mentioned it.. But am getting a check in my spirit.. maybe my use there, is in being a halfback or fullback not a Quarterback..
Anyway theres many reasons I shouldn't be moderator at this time.. Was hoping for an OK in my spirit.. but nope.. Must be I share things that some might offended by.. as in my real life too.. Not on purpose it just "happens".. no matter how careful I am, or try to be..
Pipe..
BTW, I'm not a moderator on the Chambers devotions, just a host - though every now and then I do have to remind others (including myself) that this is not a thread for disputing doctrines.
Prayers offered up for the 13 trapped miners in WV, and the rescue teams, and the families.
I join in your prayer!
words .... words ... words
Powerful,thrilling,
soothing, touching,
learning, telling.
loving, fueling,
it is how we think,
it is how we express.
words can calm,
words can excite,
"In the beginning
was the Word"
"God said let there be light
and there was light"
and creation was ...
"all things were made by Him."
"In him was life;
and life was the light of men."
"Then opened he their understanding,
that they might understand the scriptures.
"And behold I send the promise
of my Father upon you:"
"... and he lifted up his hands
and blessed them."
"... while he blessed them,
he was parted from them,
and carried up into heaven."
Imagine the world without the words of God!
What a beautiful praise! Thank you! John 6:63
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Truth, Grace, Love, Obedience, Humility, Peace and Joy
May these be yours in the Name of Jesus Christ our King Eternal
Funny how we know what it means and what it takes to be a follower of Jesus Christ, but we are content to just stay sitting in this knowledge, instead of growing in it.
But I am growing! We might insist this is true and maybe begin to believe it is.
But there is only one way to tell: fruit.
The list of blessings wished upon you in the opening greeting will be in your possession increasingly as you grow in your knowledge of God and Christ.
Peter puts it best in his warnings: (read them again...as if for the very first time...with open hearts and minds)
2 Peter 1
Greetings from Peter
1 This letter is from Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ.
I am writing to all of you who share the same precious faith we have, faith given to us by Jesus Christ, our God and Savior, who makes us right with God.
2 May God bless you with his special favor and wonderful peace as you come to know Jesus, our God and Lord, better and better.
Growing in the Knowledge of God
3 As we know Jesus better, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life. He has called us to receive his own glory and goodness!
4 And by that same mighty power, he has given us all of his rich and wonderful promises. He has promised that you will escape the decadence all around you caused by evil desires and that you will share in his divine nature.
5 So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better.
6 Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness.
7 Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone.
8 The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 But those who fail to develop these virtues are blind or, at least, very shortsighted. They have already forgotten that God has cleansed them from their old life of sin.
10 So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Doing this, you will never stumble or fall away.
11 And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Paying Attention to Scripture
12 I plan to keep on reminding you of these things--even though you already know them and are standing firm in the truth.
13 Yes, I believe I should keep on reminding you of these things as long as I live.
14 But the Lord Jesus Christ has shown me that my days here on earth are numbered and I am soon to die.
15 So I will work hard to make these things clear to you. I want you to remember them long after I am gone.
16 For we were not making up clever stories when we told you about the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and his coming again. We have seen his majestic splendor with our own eyes.
17 And he received honor and glory from God the Father when God's glorious, majestic voice called down from heaven, "This is my beloved Son; I am fully pleased with him."
18 We ourselves heard the voice when we were there with him on the holy mountain.
19 Because of that, we have even greater confidence in the message proclaimed by the prophets. Pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a light shining in a dark place--until the day Christ appears and his brilliant light shines in your hearts.
20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophets themselves 21or because they wanted to prophesy.
It was the Holy Spirit who moved the prophets to speak from God.
Funny how we know what it means and what it takes to be a follower of Jesus Christ, but we are content to just stay sitting in this knowledge, instead of growing in it.
But I am growing! We might insist this is true and maybe begin to believe it is.
But there is only one way to tell: fruit.
The list of blessings wished upon you in the opening greeting will be in your possession increasingly as you grow in your knowledge of God and Christ.
I'm going to touch on each of these fruits right now.
Truth
In the Christian faith, we are called to have simple child-like faith.
Faith that initially rests on truths that are so simple: God, His faithful Nature; Christ, His Divine Nature and His finished work
Faith that, as it grows, rests on truths as equally as simple: continuance of faith in God and His faithful Nature; Christ, His Divine Nature and His finished work AND His continued work in our individual lives
Really. It's all so simple.
The answer to all the confusion and lack of peace in all relationships lies in a few simple truths.
I've been meditating and really considering just what these truths are.
Funny how once stated they are so obvious.
Pretty much trivial.
In fact, so much so, that if we didn't even mention and remind one another about these truths, we'd continue to live out our Christian lives fruitlessly, all the while thinking we are growing in our knowledge of God.
Yet, because they are so simple, if they are mentioned between two people, in a relationship where truth is not being exercised, they are swept away with a careless wave of disregard as the one being mentioned to is convinced that their knowledge is equivalent to their exercising of these truths.
So do you see the dilemma?
Truth is not mentioned and we fall prey to living fruitless lives.
Truth is mentioned, but out of the context of a relationship where it is being exercised and it therefore is rendered powerless because it is disregarded.
Woe to us as Christians if we ever are the cause of this rendering of the truth as powerless! Because we are Christians, we carry the claim that the truth we believe is the most powerful of any out there!
What is this truth?
It is so simple...are you ready?
I will tell you.
On one condition:
That I remain anonymous.
Why?
So that you will hear this truth.
And hear the power that it implies.
If I remain anonymous, then hopefully, my lack of relationship to you will not hinder you from hearing the power that this message may impart to you...if you receive it!
The truths are simply found in the third chapter of the Gospel of John and summarized, they say that:
If the cross of Christ condemns the world as to its sin and eternal death, then how much more does the resurrection of Christ bring about the salvation of the world from its sin and eternal death!
or in a more familiar manner:
John 3:16 - 18
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.
The words of truth come from the lips of Christ Himself:
John 3:3 "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."
As simple as these truths are (Jesus died and lives again), they require much meditation and prayer. These truths carry many promises! In fact they carry THE PROMISE of life: Eternal life and the promise of life mentioned by Peter above, in 2 Peter 1.
What does the fruit of truth look like in a believer's life?
I think that the answer lies in the question! In the question above, what is a believer?
A true believer is someone who exercises their faith in the truths they choose to believe in by MOLDING and SHAPING their very selves around these truths; someone who chooses to let their thoughts, words, actions, deeds, motives, desires, mindsets, attitudes, reactions and prayers CHANGE from what they think they should look like and BECOME what their foundational truth says they should look like.
So everything done in a believer's life, should be able to be evaluated in the light of the truth (i.e. John 3:16-18) the believer chooses to believe.
What are you a believer in?
What do your beliefs say about what you believe in?
What do your actions say about what you believe in?
In the case of a Christian believer, the fruit of truth in their life will be evident in the little details of how they live their lives, handle their most precious relationships and not in their amount of understanding of their knowledge of God.
The statement 5 paragraphs up also tells what the fruit of truth will look like in the Christian believer's life. Christ states this another way in John 3:
"But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." (Verse 21)
Again, the disciple and apostle John states this truth:
"But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." (1 John 1:7)
PURIFIES US FROM ALL SIN!!
If you and me are in true fellowship with one another, because in all areas of our individual lives we walk in the light of the truth we believe in, then Jesus' blood:
PURIFIES ME FROM ALL SIN!!
PURIFIES YOU FROM ALL SIN!!
This incredible realization makes me so happy and hopeful.
Hopeful, because here is where the Bible says my relationship to you and with you can be one of REAL, TRUE fellowship! It's almost like a fail-safe formula! Just like 2 Peter 1 is a fail-safe formula!
So, please, to summarize again (and yes I know this is agonizingly trivial, but bear with me and others as they read this so that NO ONE has excuse to miss this life or death truth):
IF, I am a true believer in the truths that I choose to believe in, to the point that I shape my life around these truths, then in essence, what I am doing is living my life in the light of these truths!
Since I am a true Christian believer, I am living my life in the light of Christ.
Again, the above ideas come from Jesus himself in John 14:6 and 12
"I am ... the truth..."
"I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing."
Now...careful yet. I'm not finished summarizing this truth found in 1 John 1:7. The verses surrounding this verse help to reinforce it. Verse 6 says:
"If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth."
Do you see that this verse reinforces what was mentioned EVEN FURTHER above?!
Put another way: "If my claim is that it is in my knowledge of God that I have fellowship with Him and not in my life actions, then I lie and do not live by the truth."
See how this is so easy to claim in a relationship where truth is not being exercised?
But we know that truth WILL BE a fruit manifest in the life of a true believer and this will be seen in their relationships with other believers.
Verse 8 warns us further: "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us."
All the more reason to follow Peter's example and be reminding each other of the truths that we base our faith on. We can deceive ourselves!!
I'm better to WELCOME the warnings of others!!
Instead of pridefully denying them.
And hopefully now, to our current understanding, these truths are no longer trivial, unmentionable, lowly truths, but powerful, life-giving, I-must-live-them-and-mention-them truths!
Grace
So here we have this imaginary relationship that this writing was inspired by to address:
A relationship where these two people, claiming to carry in an exemplarary way, the powerful truth of the beliefs they base their lives on, are in relationship.
But not the fellowship we described above.
There is confusion and a lack of peace in their relationship.
This is most likely due to the fact that truth is not being exercised and modeled in their relationship.
And this means they are not walking in the light of Christ in their own relationships with God.
Therefore, they cannot successfully remind each other of the simple truths of their beliefs, because their I-understand-it-all understanding and so-called knowledge of their faith, renders these truths unmentionable.
And therefore, they are sitting in their knowledge of God and not growing in it.
Careful! 2 Peter 1 above carries they warning that we will become the opposite of "productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Verse 8)
And in verses 9 to 11, he goes on to say why we must work hard to prove that we are growing in our knowledge of God:
“9But those who fail to develop these virtues are blind or, at least, very shortsighted. They have already forgotten that God has cleansed them from their old life of sin.
10So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Doing this, you will never stumble or fall away. 11And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
So can they define stumbling or falling away as forgetting that God has cleansed them from their old life of sin?! Really what is this? THIS IS FORGETTING THE SIMPLE TRUTH THAT THEY BASE THEIR WHOLE FAITH ON.
Could it be that they forget because they fail to exercise that same truth in their lives? Fail to work it in, in increasing measure.
Could it be that this failure causes them to have faith that has come to rest in their understanding of the knowledge of Christ and therefore not in their Christ?
If so, they deceive themselves.
And because we carry the name of Christ and all the power that His Name implies, they deceive others. First the party in relationship to them and then the witnesses of this relationship.
Intentionally? Not directly...but they do so.
If we ALLOW ourselves to deceive ourselves we intentionally lead ourselves and therefore others astray.
Because the way we live, whether we want it to or not, sets an example to others who look at us while we carry the name and power of Christ.
In the first letter to Timothy, Paul explains this clearly. He says:
"...But set an example for the believers in life, in love, in faith and in purity." (Verse 12)
"Be diligent in these matters, give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers." (Verses 15-16)
AHHHH! Too much pressure!!! I hear your heart thudding as it sinks. The sweet air of hope that once filled it, quickly leaves and now your heart crawls instead of soaring.
But we are Christians!! And most likely only so, because of the beautiful grace of our Father in Heaven!
All-Mighty of the Universe; Sovereign of Creation; King of Kings and Highest of High!
Yes, the Bible confirms that we are only Christians because of the Grace of God.
We stand in grace: Romans 5:2
This grace comes in the form of a gift. Romans 5:15
The gift of life that we get from Christ. Romans 5:6-11
This gift of grace is very much worth reading about again and again...so that eventually we fully understand it.
It is simply this:
Christ did something that no other human would do.
Some humans might die for a good, noble person.
No human would die for an unworthy, opposite-of-good-and-noble person.
"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners Christ died for us." Romans 5:8
!!!!!!!!!!!
THIS is grace.
To show love even when it is undeserved.
And this is where grace shows up as fruit in the torn relationship of our 2 Christ-loving friends.
Naturally, we can see then, that if truth is brought to a friend, then it MUST be accompanied by grace in order for the truth to be heard! This is what God did for us. If he hadn’t, we’d be crushed under the immense weight of the realization of our condemning.
Truth is condemning. Truth makes us miserable. The truth hurts. It’s ugly and unpleasant.
Grace is freeing. Grace makes us able. Grace heals. It’s beautiful and pleasant!
This is why we must follow the example of God and be Grace-givers when we give Truth.
The two absolutely cannot be separated.
Love
In essence, 1 Cor 13 sums up the fact that ANYTHING done, especially in relationship to others, in any way is gonna be hurtful and harmful and pointless,
Unless done in the way of love!
And what is the way of love? Can someone PLEASE point me in this way!!??
I become confused when I mix truth into the words of my relationship and they are not received.
I become confused when truth is brought into the mix of the words brought to me, when in relationship, but there is a lack of grace: room to breath, be forgiven or to move on from the sobering truth that is brought to my attention. My defenses well up within me and I begin to oppose not on the words that are brought to me, but the bringer as well.
Therefore truth, as true as it is, will only sound like a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal (verse 1) if not offered in love.
So how is truth offered in love?
This is where I become confused!! If I am revealing the truth to my self-deceived, fellow-breaker-of-fellowship-in-our-relationship friend, then can't they see that I love them?!
I'm offering them truth by golly! Pearls!! Not garbage!!
Here is the answer: Truth offered without Grace is Truth offered without Love.
Remember what grace is?! An undeserved showing of love!! Now I see! As I SEEk God, I am able to see more light and love and grace and truth. It's the only logical conclusion to my SEEking.
But back to the deceiving issue: There is a condition to my seeking!!
I must seek with my WHOLE heart. What does this mean? Living in the light of Christ!! What does this mean?
John 3:21 "But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
This condition to be placed on our hearts wholly seeking is stated and justified in Jeremiah:
Stated in Jeremiah 29:30:
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
And in Jeremiah 24:7
I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD.
They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.
Justified in Jeremiah 17:
5 This is what the LORD says:
"Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.
6 He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.
7 "But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
8 He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit."
9 The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
10 "I the LORD search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward a man according to his conduct,
according to what his deeds deserve."
Jesus is "the Way" of love.
John 14:6 "I am...the way..."
And God is our ultimate example of Love!! Ultimately because He is the ultimate giver of Grace.
So we see the way to show love in Jesus, because in Jesus we see God. Jesus is the seen image of the unseen God.
How can I be so sure? Well, Christ explained this Himself, when He answered Philip's unassuming question: "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." (Again in John 14, this time verse 8)
Ironic!! Jesus just said to Philip, 2 verse before, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life!"
But that isn't enough for Philip. It isn't enough for him to know and to see and to touch and to hear from "the Way, the Truth and the Life."
He wants to see the Father. And we can understand why.
"The Way, the Truth and the Life" come from the Father, who, like we stated is our ultimate giver of all these good things: Grace, Love and Truth.
God gave us Grace -> He gave us Jesus to die and live again for us!
God gave us Love -> He gave us Jesus to die and live again for us!
God gave us Truth -> He gave us Jesus to die and live again for us!!
Remember?? These are the simple truths us Christians base all of our faith on!!
But like Philip, we don't realize that these gifts are enough, because we want to see the giver! Philip's MOTIVE is NOT wrong. It is right to seek the giver and not the gift. Philip's ASKING WAS wrong.
Wrong because He had the answer right in front of him and he failed to see it.
SO: the lesson?
SEEk with all of your heart, to find God and you will find Jesus standing in front of you:
"Don't you know me, Philip, (insert your own name) even after I have been among you such a long time?
Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
The words I say to you are not just my own.
Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.
Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me;
or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.
I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.
He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father."
This is from John 14:9-12
Did you catch the promise at the end of this? We will do what Jesus had been doing!! Not that we will be doing greater miracles than Jesus, but that we will be doing greater things! And these things are in terms of the work of God is doing!
Why? How is this possible? I can hear you saying out loud: Can't you read?!
Well, look at the passage again, more closely and answer this question:
Question: What is it that Jesus is explaining to Philip, because Philip failed to see it?
Answer: It's the same thing that Nicodemus failed to see. In John 3:4, Nicodemus responded to Jesus' statement of truth that a person must be born again in order to enter the kingdom of God, by saying:
"How can a man be born when he is old? ... Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"
And Jesus answered by saying that it is the truth, that no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.
NOTICE: Jesus didn't say: the kingdom of heaven. He said the kingdom of God.
Now a kingdom is where a king reigns and does his work! And we know, as born again Christians, that God reigns in our hearts! His kingdom is here and now in the hearts of His believers everywhere who yield to His rulings and join Him in His work. His kingdom work.
So the answer, is that Philip failed to see that Jesus was "born again" in a sense. He had the Father living in Him.
Or "Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?"
We are born again in the sense that we have the Father living in us, because we have Jesus living in us, because we are born of the Spirit and have the Spirit living in us!
Jesus is Divine: God and Human at the same time. So He is different than us. He has a direct connection to God, because He is God's Son. Not only does he have the Father living in Him, but He is living in the Father.
We have an indirect connection to God, that becomes a direct connection through Jesus. We have the Spirit living in us, but we don't live "in" the Spirit, in the literal sense.
So Jesus explained to Philip what he missed: BECAUSE the Father was living in Jesus and Jesus was living in the Father, Jesus was only, ever capable of doing the Father's work and essentially, it was the Father doing the work through Jesus!
The miracles come into play as evidence that Jesus and the Father are in each other, therefore, each have authority over nature because they are fully divine.
Therefore, we can deduce that when we have access to the Father through Jesus and being reborn of the Spirit, we have access to the work of the Father!! Because we are His subjects in His Kingdom, He is able to do His work through us and He has big and wonderful plans!
Obedience, Discipline and Humility
Just what these plans are we do not know in whole - we know in part and as we obey and observe we learn more. It is not, I believe, our work to go around doing miracles in order to prove that Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Jesus. But part of our work is to go around producing fruit in order to prove, (in essence) that Jesus is reigning in our hearts.
How do I prove who my King is?
I prove by showing my allegiance! I prove this by being obedient to His work. His kingdom work.
And this flows naturally from my love for my king.
So Philip asked to see the Father to be satisfied in knowing the Father. Lovingly, Jesus showed him that when he knows Himself, he knows the Father.
And we know, Christians who are growing in our knowledge of God, when we know love, truth and grace we know Jesus. The four cannot be separated.
They are equivalent.
They are the ultimate equation that leads to God!
Love = Truth = Grace = Jesus
Notice that these are all gifts from God!
And these are enough.
We don't need to see God.
We realize, as our faith matures, that we DO see God -> in these four things!
Philip didn't realize that he didn't need to see the Father (literally) to see the way or the truth about how to love the Father.
Philip needed to see Jesus for who He really is -> and this required (and still does require) obedience.
Thank God for his gracious gift of Jesus to us! We can see God for who he really is, when we see Jesus for who he really is! Easier said than done.
The truth is that, this is a choice. Therefore, this choice requires obedience, humility and discipline.
Choosing to see Jesus for who is really is can be something that is difficult to be obedient to. We have our own ideas and wishful thinking when it comes to the nature of Christ AND the nature of God.
But this is where our fruit of humility and discipline come into play. They are necessary in order to bring about the obedient fruit in us!
A preacher once said "God will not do by miracle, what is required of us to do by obedience!"
It is only the truly humble and disciplined who can take steps in the opposite-to-our-wills-direction of obedience.
So why is it that seeing Jesus for who He really Is, is a matter of obedience and not just up to Him to do for us?
Jesus states why when he promises the Holy Spirit. Because really now -> seeing Jesus is a matter of our having spiritual eyes opened to see Him for who he Is, isn't it?!
Notice the how Jesus begins and ends this address with a discussion on obedience: (John 14)
15"If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- 17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
18I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
21Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."
Peace
So obedience is crucial to seeing Jesus for who He Is AND for receiving the Counselor -> our guidance into all truth.
And now that Jesus has left (He's ascended), we can receive the Holy Spirit, as seen in John 14 again:
25"All this I have spoken while still with you. 26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
This peace of Jesus is key, friends! If we want to be free... and to have fellowship, true fellowship in our relationships, we NEED the fruit of the Peace of Jesus in our lives. Only then will it transcend from our minds, to our heart and then into our relationships.
We see again how in bringing the gift of truth to a friend where there is fellowship, peace, love and grace must be brought as well!
There must be no confusion, fear or guilt brought with truth, in order for it to be received.
Joy
With all this fruit, its no wonder we are called to be the fragrant flavour of the world! The aroma of Christ to those dying around us.
We are called to be bountiful and generous, to be fruitful and to multiply!
Simply sitting in this saving knowledge of Christ, instead of growing in it, permits our relationships and our fellowship with one another, in Christ to go stale.
This is the danger that all maturing Christians need to be aware of! There are many little lies that Satan loves to feed those who aren't feeding on the truth as their journey progresses.
This is a journey that begins with an acceptance and a submission to the simple Truth of our faith in God: That Jesus died and rose again and we have eternal promises and eternal life in Him alone.
This is a journey that does not disconnect from this truth, but feeds on it and keeps coming back to it for nourishment and nutrients!
If the truth is our fertilizer and food, then God is the Master Gardener, Christ is the Master's Tool and the Holy Spirit is the life within us that causes us to grow.
Sadly, many don't realize that we can be Christ followers and at different parts along the journey, neglect to acknowledge the Truth.
Remember the formula?
Love = Truth = Grace = Jesus
If seeing Jesus for who He really Is, is a choice and a difficult one, then so is seeing Love, Grace and Truth for what they really are.
In making your choice, don't forget the paradox of the seemingly distasteful fruit of obedience, humility and discipline, which are really the sweetest fruit in the garden to those that partake of Christian's life-fruit.
We take our cues from Christ again here, who, in obedience and perfect discipline HUMBLED Himself, not clinging to His rights as God -> even though he WAS God! Oh the Irony of it all! (Philippians 2)
Here I will make a bold claim. And I believe anyone that has tasted the bitterness of despair wrought by a relationship gone sour will agree with this claim.
The claim is this: Only when in right relationship will a human ever experience true and lasting, pure joy. Therefore the producing of all the fruit mentioned in this writing is necessary for the human to experience joy. THIS is our kingdom work!
It is only in doing the kingdom work that the Christian believer was designed and created and supposed to do, that they are freed to reach their potential in Christ. And only here will they experience the Joy of Christ Himself and have their joy made complete - joy that comes from having a right relationship with God and therefore a right relationships here on earth.
The work of the friend and spiritual sibling of Christ is summed up by Christ Himself, in John 15:
(Read it again...as if for the very first time...with open hearts and minds)
1"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.
2He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
6If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
7If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.
8This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.
11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
14You are my friends if you do what I command.
15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
17This is my command: Love each other. "
The Importance of Producing Fruit in accordance with Remaining in Christ
The apostle John again confirms what the fruit of the Spirit will look like in our lives.
It's especially important to note that a friend of Christ will not simply produce some or one or none of the fruit promised as we remain in Christ who remains in God:
1 John 2
18Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
So again we can define stumbling or falling away: When we don’t remain in fellowship with other believers that is fruit that we are not remaining in fellowship with God. Here we see the importance of obedience, humility and discipline -> choosing to remain in Christ AND the fellowship of other believers. Otherwise we stumble or fall away.
20But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.
21I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist--he denies the Father and the Son. 23No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
So how do we recognize an antichrist: by their fruit. Beware of signs that your fruit is not only stale, but rotting or that a different fruit completely is allowed to take root.
24See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25And this is what he promised us--even eternal life.
Again: fruit in the life of a believer that chooses to remain in the truth that originally saved them will be manifest as a continuance to remain in Christ and even an increasing desire to do so! Also, there will be a desire to remain in right relationship with fellow Christians.
Here is another way of describing the gracious gifts God has given us: He has given us the gifts of right relationships (meaning genuine fellowship) with Himself and each other.
Let yourself not deviate from the Truth given you by God the Father, through Jesus. He is "the Way, the Truth and the Life" and many dark angels like to parade around as attractive angels of light.
26I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit--just as it has taught you, remain in him.
And beautifully so! As we remain in Him, so does our real anointing: our Gift of the Counselor who guides us into all truth! And this gift helps us to remain in Him. Heed His counseling right now. Today.
Funny how we know what it means and what it takes to be a follower of Jesus Christ, but we are content to just stay sitting in this knowledge, instead of growing in it.
But I am growing! We might insist this is true and maybe begin to believe it is.
But there is only one way to tell: fruit.
May Truth, Grace, Love, Obedience, Humility, Peace and Joy
be in your possession increasingly as you grow
in your knowledge of God and desire to remain in Him
in the Name of Jesus Christ our King Eternal
http://www.angelfire.com/grrl/isaiah8_11/anonymous.htm
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Thank you all
Man, You be FULL today.. cool... I love the overflow..
A cup overflowing is a fruit of the spirit....
I am sorry thank you "hosepipe"
Thank you so much for the meditation and Scriptures!
I am so glad you shared it here on this thread.
Indeed, the Father (Christ the Word and Spirit) was working something along the same lines into me the last couple of days around this portion of Scripture:
James 3: (KJV)13 Who is a wise man [sophos] and endued with knowledge among you? let him show out of a good conversation [i.e., behavior] his works with meekness [mildness, (by implication) humility] of wisdom [sophia].
14 But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth [i.e., don't even claim to know or be of Christ!].
15 This wisdom [sophia] descendeth not from above, but is earthly [of the soil], sensual ["sensitive" of/from/by the senses or sensation], devilish.
16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion [tumult, unquietness; instability, disorder, commotion] and every evil [foul; "flawy"] work.
17 But the wisdom [sophia] that is from above [top-down, from on high] is first pure [clean, innocent, modest, perfect: chaste], then peaceable, gentle [mild; appropriate: "of or from the likeness"?], and easy to be entreated, full of mercy [tender+active compassion] and good fruits, without partiality [without wrangling!], and without hypocrisy [sincere, unfeigned, without dissimulation; "undissembled": undisguised, unconcealed].
My three original and real-life (: names mean:
"Consecrated to God" "(by) Grace" "(with) Strength".
As delightful as all that is, it is knowing HIS NAME that is my security! Amen.
Conversely, hosepipe, as you intimate, His Name is "Wonderful". To me this is saying that His Name is so vast, so "full of wonder" that mere man could never plumb its depths.
Now that would be grand!
I really have prayed about the replacement host of this thread and even wondered if I could or was being asked of God to do it. For me it comes down to TIME, and I trust that all my times are in His hand - He is ordering my steps all along the Way. (As it is, I should be in the shower RIGHT NOW!!!)
I do earnestly pray that the Father in Christ the Word and Spirit will stir up the chosen one to take your place, AG. These daily threads are vital here and provide a meeting house of fellowship as well as daily reminders of and channels into the Scriptures of Our Faith.
I so sympathize in your word about doctrinal disputes: there is such a fine line between "wrestling over" and "wrestling among"! anonymoussierra's word about love=grace=truth=Jesus is timely and appropriate for me.
Should you or another here be compelled to post Chambers devotions, we've got it down to about a 10 minute/day effort using Word - simply because the devotions are already online and do not have to be typed in. There may be other devotions already online also.
Thank you so very much for all of your posts and encouragements, dear .30Carbine!
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