Have You Been Broken?

Check This Out!

I would really encourage everyone to check out this article on cultivating private times of prayer.  Prayer is one of those areas of our life that requires diligence and discipline.  But what does this look like and how do we get started in cultivating times of prayer???  This article answers those questions.

http://setapartgirl.com/leslie-ludy/blog/01-14-15/fresh-vision-prayer

Knowing God's Will For Your Life - Part #1

Click below to access the following articles in the series. 
Part #2
Part #3
Part #4
Part #5 
   The game of LIFE is a classic.  Complete with jobs, money, cute little cars, and pink and blue stick figures, it provides many long hours of fun.  Although just a game, it does remind us how life is a journey.  There will be a time when we will start to feel like that little stick figure in the car; the unknown future laid out before us with many important decisions that will impact the rest of our lives.  Life isn't just a game, it is an unfolding reality.
     While every day is marked by little decisions that we make here and there, in each of our lives there will
be a time when we arrive at a crossroad.  The decision we make will impact the direction we travel.  Upon coming to this point, some people just travel down the path that seems best for them, but for those of us who have been redeemed by Christ, we have a far greater factor that impacts the decisions we make. What is God's will? As a senior in high school, I stand at a crossroad.  Maybe your are standing in the same place in your life, unsure of what to do next.  How do we know what God's will is for our lives?
      God has placed several wise people in my life who have helped me find the answer to this question and I would like to share their wisdom with you over the next few weeks.  While we will not all come the the same conclusion, the universal principles of seeking God's will and knowing it is clearly laid out in scripture.  So let's start this week by getting ourselves ready for a road trip!

Making Sure Everything Is Ready to Go:
     Taking a big trip anywhere requires a lot of work, especially when you have a "larger than normal" family:)  Before we leave we must make sure the van is in working order and safe to drive. In the same way, let us pull over a moment and take inventory of our own lives to make sure everything is in working order before we head off again on the pilgrimage of life. 

Who's In Control?

...You are not your own, for you were bought with a price...

1 Corinthians 6:19-20  

     I don't know about you, but I like to be in control.  There is security in thinking that we can dictate our own lives.  However, when Christ calls us, he calls us to surrender to His plan; His plan for our salvation, our lives, eternity.  We are no longer the leaders, we are the followers.  Each one of us must make the decision to submit to God's place of authority in our lives.  After all, it is hard for God to direct us if we are tightly controlling the 'steering wheel' or our life.  We must give Him the steering wheel and take the back seat, allowing Him to guide and direct us.  We must surrender our control so we can accept His.

     However the truth is that most of us have not fully surrendered our lives to Him.  Why?  In the back of our mind there is a fear, an irrational fear.  It's the fear that God will ruin our lives, that God will make us miserable, that God's plans can't really be better than ours.  While we dream of riding off in a pink, rose covered carriage with the sign "Happily Ever After" diligently tied with bows to the back, we are convinced that if we give God total control of our lives He for sure leave us as unmarried old maids.  But is that the character of our God?

You are good and do good.

Psalm 119:68

~

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

Psalm 32:8

We can trust our God!!!! We can hold to His promises knowing that He is a good God who loves and cares for His children.  He does not want us to live in a miserable existence, but rather a glorious existence in which we are fully satisfied in Him because we are fully surrendered to Him.  He has control and in Him we find our rest, our confidence, our peace.

Windshield Clear

Follow Christ!

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth...

Ecclesiastes 12:1

     This summer I read the book of Ecclesiastes.  It hit me like a fast ball going 90 miles an hour.  In our youth how often we forget that life is short and filled with many vanities.  One day even the most renowned scientists, doctors, political leaders and celebrities will be forgotten.  Everything that we invest our lives in on this earth will simply turn to ash and be no more because it is temporal.  But God has called us to eternal things. Several hundred years latter Paul gives a similar exhortation to live for the things of eternity when he says:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, 

where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things that 

are above, not on things that are on earth.

Colossians 3:1-2

      Fame and fortune will one day pass away, but the things above, they are eternal.  May our lives reflect a desire to invest our time, talents and abilities for the purpose of storing up treasure in heaven. When we live for the here and now our life is void of purpose and lacks clarity. But when we live for Christ, oh the eternal riches that we discover. (Colossians 2:3)

~

All to Jesus I surrender,

All to Him I freely give.

We are burning What?

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died 

for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer 

live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15

     Motivation is a key component of our lives.  Igniting passion and purpose, it is the catalyst that drives us to action.  The fruit of our lives will often be in direct correlation to our motivation.  Because of this, it is important that we evaluate our motives.

     Messages consisting of "follow your dreams" and "you can be whatever you want to be",  stem from a motivation to make self great.  But the goal of the Christian life?  To make God great.  To glorify Him by living for Him alone!  Pray that God would allow a passion for His glory to be the fuel that motivates you rather than desire for your own personal greatness.  

~

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow 

strangely dim

In the Light of His glory and grace

Alignment Completed
     Without an alinement, the road ahead will be filled with many course corrections or maybe even a complete veering off of the path.  However, God alone can align our will to His.  Let us pray that He will.  May our hearts echo the prayer of Christ, who, although He would suffer greatly,  surrendered himself completely to the will of the Father.

...not my will, but yours, be done...

Luke 22:42

~

Take my will, and make it Thine;
It shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart; it is Thine own;
It shall be Thy royal throne.

From, Take My Life and Let It Be

Wednesdays In The Word: Ephesians 1:3-6

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed 

 us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should 

be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons 

through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his 

glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Walking On The Eternal Plane

No Christians man or woman was ever meant to walk on the natural plane.

There is no provision made for such a walk.  Always the expectation 

of God is that His children shall break through and live

and endure as seeing the invisible, and there

 is full provision made for him to do this:

"My grace is sufficient for thee"

- Amy Carmichael -

Did Jesus die to make me happy?

Please take a quick moment to watch this video....

     "That's the dumbest thing I have ever heard!" But is it?  There is something about that message that seems appealing.  Something that makes us feel good.  It's the half truth that God cares about our pleasure, that God wants to make us happy.
     Every human wants to feel accepted.  We all long for love and the security of knowing that someone cares for us.  Through it's appeasing illusions, the world has tried to offer people something that will satisfy or dull this longing.  Money, relationships and friendships, facebook status, entertainment, these may pacify the need momentarily but will not solve it eternally.
     The church has come to see that Christ is the answer to the need that every human heart has.  Jesus Christ is the living water that if we drink from, we will never thirst again. However, they have used misguided methods to draw in the masses. Methods that focus on man's hunger for satisfaction rather that their need for salvation.
     God has become a God who we can feel comfortable with.  The motive for being a Christian has ceased from serving the Lord and has evolved into making me feel happy.  For many, God has become a cosmic boyfriend who always loves us no matter what, the genie in the sky who will give us whatever we want or the grandpa figure that they run to when life gets tough.  Many have followed God but soon become disappointing with Him when being a Christian starts to get tough or "He doesn't give me what I want".  We have reduced God to someone who exists to serve us rather than The King of kings and Lord of lords that is deserving of our reverence and service.  The gospel and the Christian life has become man centered rather that God exalting and I fear we have been caught in it's trap.

     Instead of having a right view of God, we have exalted ourselves by thinking that God exists for our pleasure, to make us happy.  The point of God's existence has become for us to have 'our best life now'.  But can this view be found in scripture? 


The Purpose of the Gospel and Salvation:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."
Ephesians 2:4-7
     Salvation is not about us.  We are simply the recipients of amazing grace lavished on us by the God who looks upon wretches like you and me and chooses to demonstrate His righteousness (Romans 3:25-26) by saving us.  He saves us for His own glory! Even the fruit that we bear in our lives is to draw praise to Him alone, as we see in Philippians 1:11:

"...filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."
     God has not saved us to make us happy but to demonstrate His love through His mercy.  Yes, we have reason to rejoice! We have been adopted as the children of God, but that wasn't the main purpose to God's 'rescue mission'.  The main purpose was to make His glory great.  Now our lives in Christ are to be lived for the same purpose, to glorify God.

     At this point I would like to pose a question to you from John Piper:

      “Do you feel loved by God because you believe he makes much of you, or because you believe he frees you and empowers you to enjoy making much of him?”
   - John Piper    
 
    God's love was manifested on the cross in that Christ became our substitution.  He died in our place, bearing our burden for sin  in order that He might appease the wrath of God.  Now, we are no longer slaves to sin but bond servants of Christ, living in the enabling power of His life and death to live for Him. Yes, God loves us but His love is seen for us in that He has saved us from ourselves.  We are called to stop living for self and to start living for Christ.
    If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. (Luke 9:23)

Have You Counted The Cost?
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:33)

     If God chose for us a bumpy road laden with trails and pain, would we still follow Him?  Would we still consider Him worthy of our life even though He slay us?  Yes, God desires to give good gifts to His children, but have we come to love the gift more than the Giver?  When the gifts are gone will we still follow Him because in so doing you will have the gained the greatest gift of all, Jesus Christ.  
    The pain, the persecution, the daily death that comes from following Christ is worth it all because it draws us closer to Him. 
 
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ... Philippians 3:8
 
When we loose the things of this temporary life, we come to gain Christ.

     So does God really care about our happiness?  In a sense, yes, but it's not the happiness this world seeks after.  It's the happiness, the JOY that comes from Christ.  It is hard to know Christ when we know and love self so much more.  That is why God has called us to walk the narrow road, the road that keeps us close to our Savior.  This path might not be popular but it is the path on which God chooses to work all things together for our eternal good and His glory.  For God alone we must live our lives, not because we are worth anything but because He is worthy of everything.

 

Memories Without Regrets

How lovely, Lord, it is to make memories without regrets.  Help me always to remember this.  May I never allow anything in my life that, like the touch of soiled fingers, would leave the stain of regret.
   Darlene Rose, Missionary to New Guinea and survivor of Japanese prison camp during WW2