What Is Your Will In Christ?

"Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."   1 Timothy 6:6-10 (NKJV) It seems as though there are greater numbers of people going through life unsettled these days. Humanity has a habit of placing increasing demands and pressures on itself and I don't think that's what God had in mind for any of us. I believe that God intends and expects that He will be and is our primary focus. Still, there's so much to do and so much we have to do just to get by from one day to the next according to society and the l...

“Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; Seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword”; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken." Isaiah 1 16-20 (NKJV) My self, knowing Him as He's allowed, I don't believe that God desires to be anything other than the loving, generous, and kind Spirit that He's declared to us in the whole of His word and is. If we've truly studied the whole of what He's made available to us and we've submitted earnestly to the Holy Spirit to make Him known to us, we have begun to know Him ... and He is always a...

"Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord.""   Jeremiah 9:23-24 (NKJV) There are those hard times that come at us as followers of Christ that strip away something that we've come to rely on as a stable part of our life here. Those times can be a good thing when it comes to stripping away  something  that has inhibited our drawing nearer to Christ or has stymied our growth as His followers. Even so, those occasions may hurt initially, but at some point we may likely be able to look back with gratitude and recognize how the Lord has used these things to prosper us in His eternal economy and change us further into His likeness. There are other hard times that come tho...

"The Lord knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time, and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. But the wicked shall perish; And the enemies of the Lord, like the splendor of the meadows, shall vanish. Into smoke they shall vanish away."   Psalm 37:18-20 (NKJV) How is it that we, the redeemed, dishonored by even the slightest of our own choices and motives in error, and born into the rebellious household of mankind, become willing captives and heirs of Christ, freed of sin to revel in His glory? It seems scandalous to us if well thought out, but as followers of Christ we know that the justice of it lies in the depth of His sacrifice.   If taken by ourselves and measured against God who created us, God against whom we have, even if by our own thoughts, rebelled, we would have no real, distinguishable, value. Yet He assigns us a value of the highest order- a value worthy of His own terrible and ...

"He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.”  Psalm 91:1-2  (NKJV) Whatever's happening in the world needs to take a back seat to whatever the Lord is doing in our own lives. We could easily become overwhelmed with concern about what's going on "out there" when the most consequential happenings to us are those taking place in the relationship that we claim to hold most dear - the one between us and the Lord our God. "Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday."  Psal...

"Who among you will give ear to this?  Who will listen and hear for the time to come?  Who gave Jacob for plunder, and Israel to the robbers?  Was it not the Lord,  He against whom we have sinned?  For they would not walk in His ways, n or were they obedient to His law.  Therefore He has poured on him the fury of His anger a nd the strength of battle;  It has set him on fire all around, y et he did not know;  And it burned him, y et he did not take it to heart."  Isaiah 42:23-25 (NKJV) So much history given to learn from, yet so many refuse to learn. The insolence and outright evil occurring in so many places these days is astounding and the rise to designate the followers of Christ as the public enemy increases steadily, seemingly without any true alarm- even in nations that once claimed to embrace God by majority. There's a drive to remove and rewrite the past to eliminate so many things that were learned from actual hard lessons of histor...

"Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord." Jeremiah 9:23-24 (NKJV) I wonder, my brothers and sisters in Christ, how much do we really know personally about our God and Father? If we don't know Him intimately, the fault and shame of it may be our own if we've failed to seek Him out on His own terms as He sovereignly requires... "And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13 (NKJV) "But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul." Deuteronomy 4:29 (NKJV) The Lord God declares His rightful place in existence over ev...

"For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry; For the spirit would fail before Me, and the souls which I have made.""  Isaiah 57:15-16 (NKJV) Man using all of his intellect, wisdom, and all that he is - in his fiercest rage...  ...has no more power against the God that created him, or against His Word,  than that of a grain of sand...   ...Yet so many among mankind seem to think that they can rebel against God and get away with it. They disbelieve and blaspheme, commit crimes against Him, against what He's created, and against His just reign over all that He's created - including His reign over man himself. Still His patience with man persists in the hope of man's repentance... as long as hope persists....

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."  Genesis 1:1 (NKJV) If anyone does not begin to build his or her core foundation from this truth, their foundation will eventually be shown to be faulty. If the beginning of any true understanding of one's existence is to have real life and relationship with God, as well as salvation, it has to begin by believing God . We may not know all of the details of how, what, why, etc. around creation or anything else outside of what God's made available to us in His word and the truth is that that's ok. We don't necessarily benefit ourselves by spending inordinate amounts of time trying to figure out what God decided not to make plain, or imagining answers when God's told us outright what He wants us to know. He knows, but it's not necessary for us to know those other things in order to be saved and to have life in Him - but our trust in God is . From this moment in Genesis 1:1 our God launched His pla...

  There are keys to walking in the blessings of our God - keys to allowing Him to bless us and allowing Him to fulfill the awesome promises He's made to us... Our Lord honors His word every time and His word is powerful and full of life. It's full of opportunities to observe the mind, personality and wisdom of our God in a variety of situations. It gives us an opportunity to begin to learn about Him and His ways. It affords us an awesome chance to begin to know Him more intimately and to engage in a relationship with him. It gives us direction and wisdom in our daily lives and His guidance in moments of decision. But if we take anything out of the context in which it was given or short cut any of His direction or promises - we may find ourselves disappointed. If our efforts in relationship with Him and study of His word are hit and miss, we may become disillusioned ... because of our own failures. If we suffer a lack in our lives ... it might be because we've earned it. No ...