What Is Your Will In Christ?

PERSPECTIVE is a word that is forever engraved in the forefront of my consciousness. It's a word that was given to me by our Father and one that He's given me an understanding of the incredible necessity to posess in order to understand Him. It's a key, and an incredibly important one. If you look back at some of the other things that I've written, you'll see it come up repeatedly - either directly or indirectly. I can, and probably have, gone on and on about it - it's that important . I can choose to try to understand our God with human understanding ... and I'll fail miserably every single time . But His perspective isn't something I come by without effort. It isn't something we just have. By our nature, we're endowed with the perspective of our flesh - and in my own way of describing it - it's like an infectious disease. It affects everything in our spirit. It clouds our vision, our understanding and our judgement - it persists to determin...

What is it that our God wants from us? It's clear that He created the heavens and the earth and everything in them all as part of His greater intention to create us. We also know that when He created us, He created us in His own image. But why did He do all of this? As we begin to dig deep into the volumes of scripture we can begin to see how He has so carefully and meticulously planned everything out from beginning to end. But why? What's it all about and what would a God so awesome and so perfect possibly want with creatures as inferior as we are? What could He possibly see in us that is worth all of the pain and trouble we cause Him? This is what we're going to touch on here. Genesis 1:26-27 (NLT), 26 Then God said, "Let us make people in our image, to be like ourselves. They will be masters over all life -- the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the livestock, wild animals, and small animals." 27 So God created people in his own image; God p...

You may have noticed that I've been a little coarse regarding certain things and even unapologetic about it. It's not that I have any desire to offend my brothers and sisters ... but because I love them. For all of our knowledge and all that we as human beings have accomplished in the world, there are some basic elemental and unchangeable truths that we seem to miss with recurring frequency - and they rob us of the most rewarding and only real reason to live. We allow ourselves to be short changed in our relationship with our God when we fail to learn His ways. There are many ways one can choose to live and with evil intention, satan makes them both available and appealing to our flesh. But in truth, our God has laid out for us the one and only way that we should live, and in the end, He alone will be our only judge. For all that we know and all that we do there is only one true judge of our success in this life and anything we do in it. There is one purpose that we were crea...

I'm going to make a real effort to be true to the outline I gave you for this series of conversations, but I need you to understand that they're interconnected. That being said, my task here may be difficult. But bear with me and with our Lord's help, we may be able to shed some light into some dimly lit corners of understanding. I'm going to start this conversation with a few questions that I want you to keep in mind while we explore the topic of who learning God is. They're important. If I choose to ignore you, does it mean that you don't exist? If, I choose to ignore you, will you and I ever have a true relationship? If I just read a book about you, would that mean that you and I have a relationship? If someone who knew you told me about you, would that mean that you and I have a relationship? If you and I were newlyweds, would I know everything there is to know about you from the beginning? Could you and I be married and not have a true relationship? How w...

Many of us are inspired by common phrases and ideas that stress our independence, our rights and our individuality in the world. They're often expressed with good intention, but many originate from a human perspective that contains a very serious flaw - we're not here to live for our own selfish reasons! We were created for a divine purpose. Not so that we could live to impress each other or to give us an opportunity to show how independent ( we think ) we are. It wasn't so that we could live to promote how uniquely and sometimes shockingly different we can be, or how much better we are at something than anyone else. If any of these are the path that your little car is on ... then you're already lost. If you continue on this path, it's likely game over - you lose! Fortunately for us, our God is gracious and in His loving mercy He patiently allows us opportunities to start over and correct our path. We were created by God for His reasons and His purpose and not...

We know of Christ's sacrifice on our behalf and accept Him as our Savior. Among other things, He's the sacrificial Lamb of God who gave His life in our place to pay for the sin that had previously separated us from the Father. What an unparalled and awesome thing to think about in itself! - To imagine the value that He - a GOD - THE God places on our fellowship - US! He chooses to value the prospect of our friendship and kinship so highly that there was no limit to the humiliating, selfless, flesh tearing, bone crushing price that He Himself, - God! - willingly paid. This was just to provide the opportunity for us to be allowed to choose to be reunited with Him. He did this just to give us a chance. How He loves us! Think about it! But what if this step is only the beginning of our Salvation? Confused? I want to talk about something related to a term I mentioned earlier ... initial salvation. I used this term because there's more to our complete salvation than the ...

We know something about who our Lord is, so lets take a minute to think about who we are... We're a creation of a Holy and all-righteous God, who longing for fellowship created men with the hope and desire that they would choose, with an equal desire ... to fulfill that purpose. This is the answer to the questions regarding the meaning of this life and the reason why we were created - to have the unequaled opportunity and honor to choose to be called friends of God. This is why we live this life. Think about this for a minute. I find myself wondering if lucifer's rebellion doesn't directly have something to do with our Lord's decision to give us that choice - lucifer was created beautiful and allowed to exist in the presence of God's glory from the beginning. Our Lord gave it all to him right from the start. But in the end, lucifer made a choice and decided ultimately that that wasn't good enough. If you know the truly loving and tender heart of our Lord, then...