Focusing on the wondrous works of God!

   Yesterday evening Jon and I were leaving for the hospital to visit a friend of his that is in a coma. Last week he was recovering from a massive heart attack and subsequent triple by-pass, and was up talking with us and doing well. He was released. On his way home he suffered another heart attack. He is in a coma, but responded to Jon's voice. They are hopeful. The world views hopeful as wishin' for the best. As a Christian I view hope as confident expectation to see God's Word manifest. I do not concern myself with the "percentages" or "prognosis". My part is to stand on what God has promised, believe that, and not waiver. I don't mix fear and what I see in with the hope I have in my faith in God. (Waiver here: there are factors that involve the person that can usher in or quell those promises.)

   When we were leaving yesterday, I looked up to see yet one more beautiful Oklahoma sky. I was reminded of God’s mercy that endures forever, and the power of His faithfulness, goodness and love. While reading in Psalm 119 this morning I remembered those clouds and how truly awesome our God is. I thought I would share the clouds and the verse that touched me just now.

Loving a world that hates us.

   I belong to a group called, Practical Discipleship. I enjoy the questions we are asked in that group. Yesterday this question was posted, 
"What are your thoughts on John 15:18-16:6? How do we respond to the world that hates us?" 
I have never posted my answers here on my blog, but this time I just felt like I should. So here goes.

   Love them. It starts with obeying the only Law we have~ our Royal Law, but doing so wars against our flesh. Galatians 5:16 tells us that if we walk in the Spirit we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. So, if we want to truly love these people, not be judging them and responding to them in a worldly fashion, we are going to have to draw on the Holy Spirit in us.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  
Matthew 22:37-39

Let’s do this step by step.
   First step, we are to love God. So what do we do to love God? We must experience His love.

We love Him because He first loved us. 
1 John 4:19

The only way we are going to be able to say, mean, and live out statements like King David did when he said,

The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to to anger and great in mercy. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. 
Psalm 145:8-9

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me;Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

Psalm 23

and, 

I will love You, O Lord, my strength. 
Psalm 18:1

.

..is when we spend time with Him, time in prayer, time in His word, and time worshipping Him when we are not in church~ alone. Like David it would be best to do it first thing everyday, and everyday. We must ABIDE in Him to know Him, and forgive the trite saying here but it is true; to know Him is to love Him.

   Secondly, since we are to love others as ourself, let’s take a quick look at loving ourself. My recommendation is to get your Bible out and look up every time the phrases, “in Him” and “in Christ” appear, then look at what that statement says about you, God’s child. Next, you need to fully embrace the complete work of the cross. Jesus did not cover your sin to have you thinking about it and sniveling about how wretched you are. (Please refer to those verses regarding being "in Him and "in Christ". Jesus took your sin away and you are a new creature, you are the apple of His eye!!! and the whole reason He sent His Son Jesus. God loves you, and if you have received His Son Jesus Christ, you are in God’s family. You are God’s child and His Righteousness!

For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. 
Romans 6:14

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 
2 Corinthians 5:21

Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith,... 
1 Timothy 1:5a 

We must keep our conscience good, letting go of all sin conscience.

   We can not give away what we do not have. We have to develop the love of God that was shed in our hearts. Years ago, Amy grant recorded a song called, “My Father’s Eyes”. This song talks about wanting eyes, spiritual eyes, that see others as God does. Let me say this out loud, if you are going to have the overflow of God’s love coming out of you, you are going to have to walk by the Spirit, in the Spirit, and stay in the Word and spend time with God.

   Back up a few verses from the text given in the original question. In John 15:12 Jesus kicks up the loving others thing a notch. He says this right before he lets us know how hated we will be by the world. 

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 
John 15:12 

If we are going to love like Jesus did, we are going to have to have an intimate, love relationship with Him. Period. That only comes from a person that has a yielded heart toward God, that spends time with God, and allows the Holy Spirit to flow in, through him, and out of him.

So, the answer; Love them, and love them like Jesus did.

My Father's Eye's by Amy Grant

Yes! I am blessed!

A few of my dearest blessings!!!

     Some time ago, I mention I wanted to write a post about what being blessed meant someday. I will do that at some point but for now I am under some time constraints because I am still working full time and taking three college classes. This of course is why my blogging fell off these last three months. I have so much I want to blog about, just not enough time. I must say though; being in school this last year I have learned so much about time management and how to really prioritize.  I miss blogging so I thought maybe I could combine school and blogging. I write quite a bit for my classes, some for homework and some for me personally. This morning as I was work on some homework I thought I might pull out an old discussion question, tweak it for the blog and post it. This is from one of the classes I am taking now called Receiving from God. The discussion question was:

Do you believe you’re blessed? What is your belief based upon – the things you have or the Word of God? Please justify/explain your answer.

     I grew up in a denomination that certainly knew the overall account of the Bible and had knowledge of certain key and foundational truths in the Bible. Though it breaks my heart to see the bondage some of those in that denomination live in because they will not free themselves from legalistic doctrine and enjoy their walk with the Holy Spirit in them, I am quite thankful that at least I did grow up in a denomination that taught salvation, Christ crucified and resurrected and did focus on memorizing scripture. I was saved in that church and just as God promised, the Word put in me back then is still in my remembrance and  since it does not come back void it is producing fruit in my life. Having said that I will say God is good and His Word reiterates that over and over and over. Throughout scripture we see a loving God reaching out to a rebellious people all the while just trying to bless them. Nothing has changed, man still rebels against God, but God does not change, He is still trying to get the blessings He promised us actualized in our lives. 

     I think for us to know we are blessed, we must know God because to know Him is to know His mercy, grace and goodness. When I say “know” I mean the kind of knowing that really perceives, understands and realizes in a revelation sort of way, the kind of knowing you get by personally encountering God’s goodness. If we do not know God’s mercy, grace and goodness, we can not truly trust Him. If you don’t trust someone you are not likely to receive from them, especially those unseen things you must receive by faith. If you do not trust your friend, child or spouse to tell you the truth, when they tell you they have done or not done something you will doubt them and not receive what they are saying ~ even if it is the truth. I love football. I am so ready to see those Packers on the field again. Every time I see Greg Jennings or Donald Driver put everything they have into putting themselves into a position to receive that ball on a pass so they can take it to the goal for a touch down, I think how I want to be that kind of aggressive receiver of all God’s blessing, all He has for me.

     Yes!! I am blessed because I am a descendent spiritually of Abraham and God says all of the blessings for Abraham were for me as His child. I am blessed because I have given my life to Jesus and by the Holy Spirit He lives in me. That is such an amazing blessing, to have the Holy Spirit of God living in me!  And, I have welcomed the Holy Spirit to freely and at His pleasure operate in me and through me. What do I base I my belief on? Well, I have seen it first hand over and over in my life, God’s blessing that is. I am speaking of blessings that could not be manufactured at the hands of man. Historically we have seen God’s faithfulness to His covenant in scripture, Genesis through Revelation. But most of all, because God said so in the Word He left me, the Word He sealed with His own Son’s blood. And that is plenty good enough for me.

Psalm 119:50  “...For Your Word has given me life."