No Guilt, No Shame

Psalm 32:1 Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

These inspired words give relief and hope. I immediately thought of John 3:17, "For God did not send his son into the world to condemn it, but to save the world through him." In Jesus, we have no guilt and no shame. "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Paul's words from Romans 8:1. We have been set free from the sin that entangles us. Because of the finished work of the cross, we get to be in holy relationship with our Father in Heaven. Jesus has taken care of it all, from redemption to resurrection. What mercy bestowed upon us!  The forgiveness of sin and the assurance of eternal life are an incredible gift. I hope you personally know the beauty of redemption and the blessed assurance of resurrection. If not, tell God you want to have a relationship with Him. Accept the gift of forgiveness He offers in Jesus' death on the cross, and receive the hope of eternal life with Him. Be set free from your guilt and shame and experience the deep joy that comes from a personal relationship with God the Father.

Whose Purpose Is It?

Acts 5:33-39 Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.

This was in reference to the disciples spreading the word about Jesus. I have found myself enjoying the book of Acts. I have never really read much of it until the past couple of weeks and now I am drawn to it continually. These words embody the life we lead in Christ Jesus. If we are willing to follow Him and act when the Lord calls, we will be unstoppable in our mission for the Kingdom. It causes me pause when I consider the work I am doing. Am I spending time focused on Jesus and the work I can do for Him, or am I focused on activities I want to do and purposes I deem important? I know that I want God to go ahead of me and prepare the way in all things, but I also need to pay attention to my purpose. Am I living according to the purpose of God or the purpose of me? It is encouraging to know that if I am willing to follow the calling of the Father, then no one and no thing will thwart His plan. Now to seek His purpose for my life.

Self-Control

Matthew 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

I realize this verse does not have the exact words "self-control" in it, but it is exactly what Jesus meant. You do realize that self-control is FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT and not a practice of human effort, right? That always catches me with this one, but it is my favorite to write about. Now to connect the verse with self-control. The words "lead us not into temptation" refer to our self-control. God's purpose in these is that we would allow Him to change our heart so that the things that once were temptations to us are no longer temptations at all. The Spirit in us transforms our desires so that we desire things of the Spirit and not things of the flesh. Our self-control is not about controlling ourselves at all. It is about the Spirit doing the work inside, so that our self-control becomes an outpouring of our love and obedience to God. We just won't do or desire to do things of the flesh. We will walk by the Spirit and therefore, temptation becomes a thing of the old self. Our new self in Christ, through the Spirit, is self-controlled. I love that, especially since I am someone who does very poorly with my own willpower. I cannot do the things I ought and I do the things I should not. Sound familiar? But with Christ in me and the power of the Holy Spirit transforming my inner self, day by day, I have found that the things I ought to do have become a part of who I am. And vice versa, I don't even think about the things that once tempted me. It's a journey and I am not even close to having "arrived". It's a daily surrender to my Sovereign Lord and the His holy work in me. I love that story.

Gentleness

2 Corinthians 10:1 By the humility and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you—I, Paul, who am “timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” toward you when away!

Ah, the gentleness of Christ. Think on that today. What did he look like? He was kind and caring toward ALL people, even those who were awful to him. He encouraged others and lifted them up. When teaching and preaching, he spoke truth in confident calm speech. He was righteous before being right, every time. Christ's gentleness was showing love to all. I don't know about you, but I need the help of God to be gentle in this way. I need the Holy Spirit to infiltrate my thoughts, words and actions so that gentleness is an outward sign of His glorious grace. 

Faithfulness

Psalm 36:5 Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.

God's faithfulness is His unconditional care and compassion for our lives. He is completely in and His word is completely trustworthy. When we are faithful in the same way God is faithful, we are true to our word. Not only that, we are true to God's Word. Seek God and the Spirit will produce truth in you.

Goodness

Psalm 23:6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

All of the verses I read to study God's goodness described His providence and graciousness toward His people. God gives good gifts to us. When we produce fruit in the form of goodness, we are bestowing God's love on one another. God is meeting the needs of others through us. What a humbling and holy experience! Goodness is truly the work of the Holy Spirit in us, around us, and through us. Simple, but oh, so sweet!

Kindness

2 Samuel 2:6 May the Lord now show you kindness and faithfulness, and I too will show you the same favor because you have done this.
I have been considering God's kindness for some time now, trying to decide what it looks like and we can know our kindness is of Him. I've found Jesus to be the best One to look to in order to know the kindness of God. I guess that makes good sense. The kindness of Jesus was apparent to the outcast. He was loving and compassionate to those whom no one else would dare approach. He showed mercy on the weak and gave care to the sick. I hope by now you have noticed that the fruit of the Spirit has nothing to do with you trying to be these things. To show the kindness of Jesus, I have to pray that the Spirit would soften my heart to those around me who are different than me. I pray the He will give me the eyes to see them as Jesus did and to show His kindness to them, not my kindness, God's kindness. God's kindness brings along with it the Holy Spirit, which is life-changing for me and for those who receive His kindness.

Patience

Romans 15:5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had.

Here again, Jesus is our example, but more than that, He is our very mind. If we are called to live a life that bears fruit, we must have someone to help us do so. Because Jesus came and lived among us as one of us, He is able to understand the struggle and the frustration. He lived with a mind of love and compassion, encouraging those who were downtrodden and lifting up those who were defeated. He endured much more on earth than any of us ever will. Therefore, if we have the same attitude of mind, a renewed mind, then patience will surely be visible fruit through our Lord.

Peace

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

The peace of Jesus is simply unimaginable. He says these words as if it is the easiest thing for us to tackle, don't be troubled and don't be afraid. Yeah, okay. The key here is that Jesus gives us peace in a heavenly manner, not as the world gives. What exactly does that mean? My experience is the world tends to give us what we need or want without the least bit of concern as to when. Jesus gives us peace as we need it. We are given His peace at the moment of greatest need. The peace Jesus had in his trial with Pilate is what we have access to through the Holy Spirit. Jesus at his trial was calm and collected. He took all that was said and didn't speak a word. We don't need to be troubled or afraid because our Savior has been there, done that. He is offering us His very self, if we will only put our trust in Him. The peace that passes understanding is available to all who seek Him. The Spirit will give freely if we would just ask.

Joy

John 15:11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

Again, Jesus talking here about giving us the very joy that He has. His words before and after this are about love and being in the Father's love. Interesting that they are essentially co-existent. When we grasp onto the love of God, the deep joy of Jesus is our blessing. Joy that comes from the Holy Spirit is pure. It needs nothing else. Joy rejoices with those who are happy and cries with those who are sad. Some of my deepest joy was evident through the heart-broken sadness of losing my mom. Through weeping and mourning there was a sense of happiness and wholeness like I had never experienced before. That is the beauty of the blessing of true joy. Jesus' joy is full and complete on the mountaintop and in the valley. We are only able to get this joy through Him, not because we choose joy, but because we choose Jesus. Only in choosing Jesus every time, will we begin to feel the deep satisfaction His joy brings. "You cannot steal our joy."

Love

John 13:34-35 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, you must love one another."

Loving others is not a human task. It is only through Jesus that this becomes attainable. Especially, if we are going to do it as he did. Jesus loved us in that while we were still sinners, he died for us. He loved us through our mess and in our brokenness. He laid down his life. That is the type of love we are called to have for one another. And, you better be sure that if we had that type of love for each other, it would be noticeable. So how do we do this? We must first lay down our own life for the love of the cross.  We must be crucified with Christ so that we can live with Him in resurrection. When we recognize our eternal need for the Savior and accept the love of Jesus on the cross, we are better able to love others. We see our own brokenness in others and we are able to love them through it, because we know that from which we have been saved. Love becomes humble and genuine in, around, and through us through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Fruit of the Spirit

Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

For the next two weeks I'm going to tackle the fruit of the Spirit. I'll look at one each day, but I want to make sure that I make it clear that the fruit are really an entity. It is a singular term "fruit" not plural "fruits". When we are living in the Spirit, this is what our lives look like. We exude all of the attributes of Jesus when we allow Him to be our very life. I find it sad that the attributes above tend to be things we try to attain. We try to have peace. We work on our patience. We attempt to be kind and gentle. We practice self-control. Paul is very clear in his writing. These attributes are fruit of the Holy Spirit in us, not goals to attain. The Holy Spirit embodies the good that is the fruit. It is the radical goodness of God that we see, as Dallas Willard said. Oh, what impact we could have if we would embody the Spirit of God! I kind of wanted to type "in-body the Spirit of God" because that's really what I mean and that's a word I want to make up. ;-) Enjoy our two week look!

Eternal Not Temporal

Psalm 103:6 The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.

I'm sure there would be some who would read this verse and say, "Yeah, right. That's not what I see." We are quite short sighted as a whole. We do exactly what the Pharisees did when Jesus came. They expected him to overthrow the Roman government and fix everything on earth. Unfortunately, they completely misunderstood what Jesus came to do. He came to fulfill the law and be a new covenant. Jesus was focused on our eternal redemption, not our temporal earthly circumstances. Our challenge then is to accept the eternal work he did for us and surrender our temporal life to him. We need Kingdom eyes that focus on Jesus, in whom the power to redeem the world was manifested in His resurrection and is now available to us through the Holy Spirit. The Lord has done the work for each of us. May we have eyes to see and minds to comprehend.

Expectancy and Hope

Ephesians 1:13-14 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession - to the praise of his glory.

I have been learning a ton about the power of the Holy Spirit, not only in my life, but in the world. God has been introducing me to the Spirit in new ways throughout the past six months. It has been an interesting experience. God has invited me to spend time in prayer to the Holy Spirit, speaking directly to that part of the Godhead. I have been challenged with walking differently with the Spirit and seeking the Spirit differently as I learn more about who God is and my relationship with Him. My mom knew the Holy Spirit so well and I got to see glimpses of that relationship throughout my life. I'm excited to be building that relationship on my own and seeking God with a new fervency for who He is and how He works. My prayer for you is that you would open your heart to the Holy Spirit's work in your life. It seems odd and a little unsettling, but that's only when you don't have an understanding of who the Holy Spirit is. Once you get to know peace and holy fear (which is true love) replace scared and unsure. I have so much more to grow in this area, but I am finding the immense power of God to be full of expectancy and hope. I need that.

Pray

Get on your knees and pray today. Make that your time with God.

Encouragement

Today I'm needing to write a word of encouragement, for my own sake. I'm needing the reminder of who God is. There are times in life when circumstances seem to overwhelm or drown out the voice of Jesus. We are caught in the waves life's storm and feel like Jesus is asleep. We need to wake Jesus in our hearts. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to calm the storm within and make things happen. Some descriptors of our Lord...

He is... faithful, hope, love, compassion, truth, just, honorable, eternal, holy, redeemer, Lord, triune, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, creator, light, way, life, victor, provider, worthy, sacrifice, perfect, almighty, peace, joy, patience, kindness, good, gentle, Father, transformational, grace, living, true, caring, salvation, forgiveness.

Such a great list, not an exhaustive one, but a great one. I needed these words today, to remind me of who God is to me and for me. May I rest in Him today amidst the storm.

Providence and Timing

Philippians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

I don't personally experience much anxiety, but when I do, I have found that just spending time with God is the quickest way to find rest for my spirit.  I take time to sit and focus on Him breathing the name Yahweh. I lay those troubles at the foot of the throne and ask God to give me His peace and comfort. I don't do well with petitioning God for the things I want, but I am getting better at understanding what to request. I've found over the last year that my requests have become about time with God and not so much about the earthly things I need. I still have earthly needs, but God gives me assurance of His providence and his timing in ALL things. It's a journey.

Justice and Love

Luke 1:68 Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people.

I am reminded weekly, as I read through different scripture passages, that our salvation is from God. He never seems to let me look past His incredible justice that called for death due to our sinfulness and His amazing love that kept Jesus on the cross in my place. This is our focus. This is where our minds and hearts have to live to remain humble and to grow in the grace which we have been given. For we know that to live is Christ, but we tend to want to live in ourselves and claim Christ when it's convenient. God calls us to live Christ all day, every day. We have to focus our minds on Him and set our hearts on Him in order to do this, and the Scripture leads us back every time. We are redeemed because of our Lord. We have no power except through Him. He leads us on. He is our victor. He is our lifeblood. We are His and He loves us unconditionally. Jesus paid the price so we can have union with God. I am thrilled to be reminded so often of God's justice and love. Lest we forget!

A Little Rebuke

Job 42:2-3 "I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know."

Hey, I am all for praying a frustrated psalm to the Lord, but today, this is where God took me. He reminded me that He is God and I am not. I do not have a full grasp on the work God is doing in my life. I know some of what's going on, but there is so much more that has little to do with me that He is working into place for my benefit. I needed God's harsh words today, the reminder that I do not and cannot possible know all things. Heck, I don't want to know all things! I'm glad I serve a God I cannot fully grasp on any level! This doesn't mean that I was in a happy go lucky mood after my encounter. I was still frustrated with my situation and just wanted some relief. It did, however, remind me of the sovereignty and faithfulness of my Lord. He has a plan. He is working on it. He will do it. I only need to trust and have faith in Him, Jesus.

Answered Prayer

1 Samuel 1:16 Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.

Eli thought Hannah was drunk as she prayed to God for a child. But Hannah assured him it was simply that she was downhearted because God had not given her that for which she had prayed so fervently. Following the above statement, Eli tells her to go and says, "may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him." God does. This is one of those moments in the Bible where I think, now why did God grant her what she asked for? Did Hannah say something fancy? Did she pray so long and ask so often that God just gave in? I don't have an answer as to why God responded to her prayer with a son, Samuel. Our prayer life can be so difficult sometimes. We seek God and ask for what we think would be the proper way, but God doesn't always do what we ask. Often, it seems He does something so completely opposite of our hopes. Yet we still come to Him with our prayers and our requests. So, I have to ask, what is petitioning all about? Why does God want me to come to Him with my prayer requests? I think it is simply this; I believe God wants us to be in His Presence, even if, for a while, it means we are only asking for things. Once we get past the initial requests, God can move and speak in ways that our hearts can understand. We can understand His answers when they are completely beyond what we meant or hoped. Spending time in prayer is about spending time with God. Hannah was given Samuel and in return, she gave Samuel to God. What a thank offering for an answered prayer!

Who's Got Control?

Psalm 19:14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, My Rock and my Redeemer.

The psalmist already knew that the Lord looks not only at our actions but at the heart. Jesus came to show us that the thoughts we have are part of our sin. We cannot possibly control every aspect of our being, even if we are disciplined enough to control our outward action. Our inner thoughts get the best of us. Only with the help of the Holy Spirit can our hearts be transformed so that our minds can be renewed in the holiness of our Father. For me, the hardest part is stepping back and letting God have every bit of who I am. This may mean that there may be times when I have to admit I've been wrong in order to move to a new journey. God does the refining, as long as I will allow Him at my heart. It's not easy, but if I want my words and my meditations to be pleasing to God, then I have to let Him do the refining.