Proper place…

Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. (Jude 1:5-8 ESV)

Jesus died to save people… Yet those who did not know there proper place, He kept in chains…

The way Jesus called the disciples and all of us is the same. He told them to follow Him. Yet He also used the same words to say to Peter when he told him He could not go to Jerusalem to die. There Jesus said to Peter, “get behind me, Satan.”

The words Jesus used to call the disciples in the Gospels, was the same words in Greek for “get behind me.”

Jesus is telling us to take our proper place. If we can not see the back of Jesus’ head, we are not in the proper place. We need to follow, and be behind Jesus. Not to seek our own way, or our own desires, but follow wherever He leads.

Can you hear?

The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth. Our God comes; he does not keep silence; before him is a devouring fire, around him a mighty tempest. He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people: “Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!” The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge! Selah (Psalm 50:1-6 ESV)

God is calling and summoning all of the world from the rising of the sun to its setting…

God does not keep silent, He is calling us to Him. He is a devouring fire and will judge the world.

He is calling us to Him. Can you hear Him?

Are you ready to listen and follow where He is leading?

What you want

You’re blessed when you’ve lost it all. God’s kingdom is there for the finding. You’re blessed when you’re ravenously hungry. Then you’re ready for the Messianic meal. You’re blessed when the tears flow freely. Joy comes with the morning. “Count yourself blessed every time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears or blackens your name to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and that that person is uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—skip like a lamb, if you like!—for even though they don’t like it, I do… and all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company; my preachers and witnesses have always been treated like this. But it’s trouble ahead if you think you have it made. What you have is all you’ll ever get. And it’s trouble ahead if you’re satisfied with yourself. Your self will not satisfy you for long. And it’s trouble ahead if you think life’s all fun and games. There’s suffering to be met, and you’re going to meet it. “There’s trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests—look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! Your task is to be true, not popular. “To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person. If someone slaps you in the face, stand there and take it. If someone grabs your shirt, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously. (Luke 6:20-30 MSG)

Look how many scoundrel preachers your ancestors approved!

When you hear what you want week in and week out from the one preaching God’s word to you, then they are preaching your gospel and not the gospel of God. We will be moved by the gospel, pressed and pushed. We will be troubled and put at peace…

The mission of God is not a popularity contest, and we are not to make people happy with the gospel we preach, but to preach the gospel God has given us. That is not what our parents taught us the gospel says but what God tells us it says.

We can not rely on our own talents or skills, but we must cling to God and do what He tells us.

Think about it…

They were indignant. “Our father is Abraham!” Jesus said, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would have been doing the things Abraham did. And yet here you are trying to kill me, a man who has spoken to you the truth he got straight from God! Abraham never did that sort of thing. You persist in repeating the works of your father.” They said, “We’re not bastards. We have a legitimate father: the one and only God.” “If God were your father,” said Jesus, “you would love me, for I came from God and arrived here. I didn’t come on my own. He sent me. Why can’t you understand one word I say? Here’s why: You can’t handle it. You’re from your father, the Devil, and all you want to do is please him. He was a killer from the very start. He couldn’t stand the truth because there wasn’t a shred of truth in him. When the Liar speaks, he makes it up out of his lying nature and fills the world with lies. I arrive on the scene, tell you the plain truth, and you refuse to have a thing to do with me. Can any one of you convict me of a single misleading word, a single sinful act? But if I’m telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Anyone on God’s side listens to God’s words. This is why you’re not listening—because you’re not on God’s side.” (John 8:39-47 MSG)

Have you ever had to stand your ground, because of your faith?

The Pharisees were standing their ground because they thought they were right. They were thrown off by Jesus because they could not see Him in the scriptures. They knew what they had been taught but they followed it blindly. They turned off their intellects, and just took what they had been told on blind faith. Yet is that what God wants?

God spoke through Jeremiah about the new covenant that is written on their hearts. How the law of the Lord will be written by God on their hearts. But the heart in Jeremiah’s time is not the seat of emotion, but the intellectual center of the body. The part where we think about things…

We are. It to blindly follow the disciples before us. If we do we will miss what God is telling us anew, or refreshing what He told us. If we blindly follow what others think instead of what God is leading us to we are fallowing the father of lies, and leading others astray…

Listen to God and do what He is leading you to do, even in the face of those who say you are going against the true faith…

All you need

Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have received a faith as precious as ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ: May grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self control, and self control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For anyone who lacks these things is nearsighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you. (2 Peter 1:1-11, NRSV)

God has given you everything you need for life.

The scriptures nor God ever promised that being a disciple was going to be easy and all of your problems would disappear when you started understanding the love God has for you and sharing that with others…

But God has given us everything we need to overcome the pressures and downfalls of this world.

So trust in the promises and hold tight to Jesus and know He will always see you through!

forgiven!

Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’, and you forgave the guilt of my sin.Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them. You are a hiding-place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. (Psalm 32, NRSV)

Happy are they…

Are you happy?

Well according to David you should be if there is no deceit in your spirit… If all of your dealings are upright and trust worthy!

David also says you should be happy if the Lord imputes no iniquity to you…

Ok I admit I had to look up imputes. While I can come up with meaning from context, what does it really mean…

Merriam-Webster defines impute as: to say or suggest that someone or something has or is guilty of (something)

So you should be happy when the Lord says you are not guilty of committing sin. When you have been forgiven.

Now forgiveness of the sins we have committed and imputing no iniquity is not the same. We are forgiven, and then told that we are not guilty of committing any sins. So we are truly clean and because of that we are happy.

We can be forgiven and made clean by God, and that should make all of us very happy!

Do

“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.
(Matthew 21:28-32, NRSV)

Have you ever told someone you could not do something for them, but then went and did it any way?

Have you ever told someone you would do something, and then didn’t actually do it?

This last one, I bet we all have done.

I have spoken with lots of followers of Christ, who say they have told someone they would pray for them or their need, and then never did pray. We tell people all the time, I’ll pray for you, and how many of us actually do? We say, “yes I can pray for you and I will…” then life gets in the way and we don’t. Why?

You see in the reading the prostitutes and tax collectors are those who say they will not do, but then through God’s consistent and overwhelming love they repent, they change, and they do. And we, as the Pharisees, say we will and we don’t follow what God has asked us to do.

As for praying for others, why not when they ask?

What is wrong with praying in Wal-Mart, or JCPenney, or Kohls, or whatever store you are in? At the football, basketball, soccer game? At the mall, the restaurant, the bowling alley, or wherever you are? You can pray on the phone, on Skype… When someone asks you to pray for them, stop and pray right there. Do what has been asked, rather than giving ourselves an out, just be the saint God has made you and go to your father in pray for the need of the other.

Live your faith out loud and be a dealer of hope!

Humble thy self…

So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”   Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. ( 1 Peter 5:1-11, ESV)

Pastors need to lead the flock they are with. Not under compulsion but with a willing and joyful heart!

But also we all must humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord and do that which He has placed before us.

We should not grumble about our circumstances and tell God we will serve Him when the conditions meet our needs or our standards.

God has called you and placed you where He needs you now! So look not for greener pastures, but serve God where you are with a joyful heart!

Intellect…

Hannah prayed and said, “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory. “There is no Holy One like the Lord, no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world. “He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness; for not by might does one prevail. The Lord! His adversaries shall be shattered; the Most High will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.” ( 1 Samuel 2:1-10, NRSV)

Hannah prayed that the lord is her strength. And then she said, “for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.”

We have to use our understanding and intellect when we come to God. It is not about blindly following and questioning people when their ways do not match our ways. We need to use the intellect God has given us and think things through.

We also must remember that we are not the judge. God is the judge and a God of knowledge and by Him all things are weighed and judged.

So use your head and follow God.