Christ lives in me

I have been given revelation to why faith without works is dead and the letter kills but the Spirit gives life.  I have become less of a fan of words and more of a fan of experience.  I have become less interested in knowledge of Him and much more interested and dependent in knowing Him.  Anyone can say, “I love you” and anyone can say “God loves you” but unless you’ve experienced love yourself how can you know for sure?  Only fools say “We cannot experience God” or “We do not have the right to seek Holy Spirit experiences.”  What a dull religious box they live in.   May the power of the resurrection wreck your religion and leave you fervently abandoned to Jesus Christ.  Seek and you will find!

I have searched high and low and there is NOTHING else worth living for aside from Jesus.

For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. –Galatians 2:19-20

Thank you Lord for the journey, for the process of ups and downs in life, and for the completely undeserved privilege of knowing You.  You make me come alive.

Great is the LORD most worthy of all praise!

I sat down to write a post today and kept getting interrupted by my heart singing the lyric to a song.  “Great is the Lord most worthy of all praise!”

I really couldn’t think of anything worth writing except that one line.  God is so good and He is worthy of all our praise.  Join me today in worshiping Him.

Great is the Lord – by Daniel Bashta

Splendor and majesty
Strength and beauty be
Unto your name on ancient of days
You’re holy

We tremble before your throne
All hearts prepare you room
We come and adore
Ruined before your glory

Great is the Lord
Most worthy of all praise

We tremble before your throne
All hearts prepare you room
We come and adore
Ruined before your glory

Holy You are holy
Crowned with wonders
Majesty

In the morning
In the evening
At the end of all days
We will sing
We will shout
You are worthy of praise

Already Clean?

His voice caught me off guard.  I wasn’t praying, I was just lying in bed this morning having just woken up.  It was a very soft, still voice that I could have easily missed… but I heard Him.  In an internal audible voice the Lord said, “Where are you drinking from?”

Of course I know the right answer to His question.  The right answer is to drink from Jesus Himself.  In John chapter 4 Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well, whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.  But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. But why was He asking me this?

It’s easy to know the right answer or say the right thing but a complete different thing to know that the right answer applies to your life.  Jesus wouldn’t have asked me that question unless I had been drinking from the wrong source.  And I had been.

It had really been a great week for me spiritually speaking.  I felt strong in the Lord and my faith the whole week!  I was keeping things simple and my focus steadfast on Him.  But the last two days I felt a spirit of doubt and unbelief poking at my thoughts.  I was trying my best not to agree with these thoughts but they kept coming.  As they kept coming I kept telling them no.  But it wore me out and I started getting stressed and worried about other external things.  I took my focus off of Jesus.

And then His question came, “Where are you drinking from?”

You see, one of the enemy’s most common attacks is to simply distract us.  He distracts us from the joy of Christ within us and draws our attention to burdensome external things.  As we lose our focus of Jesus and start drinking elsewhere we lose that close connection in our inner soul to the Spirit of God—the Spirit that gives you life.  As this happens we start unintentionally drawing off of other sources to give us life, but none of these sources satisfy.  And so, in this process once we realize we have lost connection with our Savior we decide we must do all that we can to quickly gain our connection back.  We start striving and working to gain back the connection through external activities.

But this thinking is wrong.  All we have to do is turn our focus back to Him.  God does the rest.  As long as we strive to work our way back to Him we remain distracted.

A little less than a year ago the Lord spoke a verse to me.  He said, you are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. (John 15:3) You know, at first… I didn’t believe Him.  I was in the middle of working to sanctify myself.  I was in the middle of a purification plan I had all worked out in my head and here Jesus was telling me I’m already clean.

This verse is right in the middle of Jesus telling the disciples about Him being the vine and how He wants His disciples to abide in the vine and bear fruit.  So why this verse right in the middle of all that? It’s because to abide in Jesus we have to believe what He says about us.  His word has to abide in us and this one statement I believe is possibly the hardest one for Christians to grasp.

You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

Do you believe it?  It kinda messes up your sanctification plans doesn’t it?  What about that sin you’ve been struggling with? Nope, you’re already clean.   What about working really hard to be pure in heart so we will see God?  Guess what? You’re already clean!  I didn’t say it, Jesus did.  And He didn’t just say it.  He died for the right to be able to say it.

So believe it today and turn your focus back to the Lord.  He just wants to love on you today.  Any struggle you have with sin will be dealt with and cast off of you as He draws you closer to Him.   You see purification is not our job.  Our job is to keep our eyes on the Lord.  He does the rest.

May you all drink from His living water today in Jesus name!

 

 

 

 

The reality of Christ in me.

I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. –Philippians 4:12

I’m learning some truth to this verse in this season of life.  I’m going through things that in past seasons would have exhausted me and brought me down, but God has strengthened my spirit through past trials so that I am able to stand in the reality of Christ in me.  Through this reality I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Phil 4:13)

This world is beautiful but at times it can seem that everywhere we go we run into darkness.  When this happens I turn inward—to Christ in me—and ask the Spirit not only to give me comfort but to release His light to those around me and change the atmosphere.

And so, I do my best to do all things without complaining and disputing, that I may become blameless and harmless, a child of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom I shine as a light in the world. (see Phil 2:14-15)

I choose not to slander, I choose not to gossip or join in the complaining.  I keep quiet amongst those who partake.  I ask the Lord for strength to be swift to hear and slow to speak.  And I ask for wisdom that I may only speak life instead of childish, defensive words rooted in insecurities.  Christ is my security.  I do not need the affirmation of those around me.  They look for affirmation of other unbelievers to affirm their own insecurities rooted in their guilt of choosing unbelief in a God that they are mad at.  We must be careful not to get mad at God because of misunderstandings.  We were not made to understand everything.  We were made to live and to love.

I’ve caught myself daydreaming here and there about being old and close to the end of my earthly life.  To some this may appear morbid but I’ve just lost my fear of death and I long for that day that I can go and be face to face with God.  But I know that it’s a long journey from where I’m at and that day.  For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. (see Phil 1:23-24)

So I seek to know Him more in this world.  I seek to have His will done on earth as it is in heaven.  I seek to be conformed to the image of His Son. (see Rom 8:17) I seek to not only live for Him but to live with Him—to walk with Him.  I seek to live His will for my life.  To change the lives of youth and speak life into the lost and the seekers of meaning.

You all are partakers with me of grace. So be confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. (see Phil 1:6-7)

Live in the reality of His love.