HE COMES

We spent the whole season of Advent focusing on the coming Christ and then celebrated His birth on Christmas Day but these events should not end; rather they should prompt us to start looking to the heavens for his coming again.  Many believers call this His “second coming” but whichever coming it is He comes to call and gather us, those who believe in Him, to Himself.

“Jesus said, “Don’t be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s house. I would not tell you this if it were not true. I am going there to prepare a place for you. After I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back. Then I will take you with me, so that you can be where I am.”  John 14:1-3 ERV

So, we believers do not stop anticipating Him after Christmas but that day renews our tenacity to keep looking for him.

“[looking away from all that will distract us and] focusing our eyes on Jesus, who is the Author and Perfecter of faith [the first incentive for our belief and the One who brings our faith to maturity], who for the joy [of accomplishing the goal] set before Him endured the cross, disregarding the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God [revealing His deity, His authority, and the completion of His work].”  Hebrews 12:2 AMP

Do we just sit down and lay back waiting on His return?  He promised He would come so why not just sit back and, as they say, “rest-on-our-laurels”?  As we watch for His return He continues to prepare us, through His Holy Spirit, to be ready for His return by bringing our faith to its full maturity.  Each situation we live through has an effect on our faith, either for its strengthening or for its weakening.  The outcome is dependent on how we respond to the circumstance.  I do not know what trials you may be going through and how your response is to them but I can best explain this by my path through my health trial of the past year.  The evening I went to the hospital on October 1, 2017 I heard the Lord speak to my heart, “This is not unto death!”  What a simple word, but I clung to it through the many hospitalizations and continuing illness.  I was in end-stage heart failure and was not expected to recover.  I clung to God’s promise, “This is not unto death!”  My cardiologist decided he could do nothing for me and essentially gave up.  I clung to God’s promise, “This is not unto death!”  Now, lest you think I struggled alone you need to know that believers from my church, believing friends and my pastor visited me.  They agreed with me in prayer as I asked the Lord for a new heart.  I clung to God’s promise, “This is not unto death!”  Most of the time I was so tired I could hardly think.  I still clung to God’s promise, “This is not unto death!”  Finally I ended up in a long-term care facility where people figured I would never improve.  I still clung to God’s promise, “This is not unto death!”

I struggled with this physical trial for two-thirds of a year and then moved to Montana to be near my sister.  I started receiving better healthcare and attention to my physical needs in a rehab.  I saw a new cardiologist and she had a pacemaker (with defibrillator) implanted.  I improved immensely and now I am able to do everything I was able to do before I got sick, and then some!  It was “not unto death” but unto life!  So, am I just sitting back waiting for the Lord’s return?  No.  I am activating my faith.  I am exercising it.  I am using it so that it can grow.  Remember that I asked the Lord for a new heart?  Have I gotten it?  No.  My heart is still as damaged as it was before; God is just using man’s knowledge to help it work better.  Some people have excused this away stating that the pacemaker made my heart new.  Please people, this is NOT faith.  I am still asking God for a new heart.  I believe (accept as true and am convinced) He will give it to me.  Why am I convinced?  Because I have known Him for 45 years and He has never steered me wrong.  Now, that IS faith!

So my encouragement to you today is to keep looking to the heavens.  Keep expecting His appearing.  Keep exercising your faith.  I can almost hear that trumpet call, can you?

“What we tell you now is the Lord’s own message. Those of us who are still living when the Lord comes again will join him, but not before those who have already died. The Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. And the people who have died and were in Christ will rise first. After that we who are still alive at that time will be gathered up with those who have died. We will be taken up in the clouds and meet the Lord in the air. And we will be with the Lord forever.”  1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 ERV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNRFumI2ch0

MINDFULNESS

Advent is the season of anticipation.  It is a time when we focus on the coming Christ and it culminates in celebrating His birthday.  Every day leading up to December 25^th seems to bring its own special surprises, but along with those delights come the harried and stressful feelings as we try to accomplish everything in preparation of Christmas Day.  It seems everywhere I go someone asks, “Are you ready for Christmas yet…did you buy a turkey or ham for dinner…are you making your pies ahead of time?  Do you have all your presents wrapped?”  The questions go on and on as we strive to have everything finished and perfect for that special day.  We tend to let the busyness of the season take over our time, putting our regular times of meditating in the Word of God and prayer on the back burner (so-to-speak).  In these busy days of preparation what should not be forgotten, in fact it should be foremost on our minds, is Jesus.  A while back there was an excellent commercial campaign that coined the phrase, “Jesus is the reason for the season.”  It is still essential today.

So, as you go around finishing up your special touches in preparation for that much anticipated day, remember to take out time to re-focus on the reason we celebrate December 25^th.  Spend time reading in the Word of God and talk over each day with the Lord.  Become a “mindful” person and keep Jesus in mind.

Hebrews 12:2 AMP “[looking away from all that will distract us and] focusing our eyes on Jesus, who is the Author and Perfecter of faith [the first incentive for our belief and the One who brings our faith to maturity], who for the joy [of accomplishing the goal] set before Him endured the cross, disregarding the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God [revealing His deity, His authority, and the completion of His work].”

THE MINISTRY OF WORSHIP (Part IV)

“When you come to appear before Me, who requires of you that your (unholy feet) trample My courts?  Bring no more offerings of vanity (emptiness, falsity, vainglory, and futility)…”  (Isaiah 1:12-13a AMP)

Ouch!  How would you like God to tell you this?  In Isaiah’s time Judah had gotten far away from God.  Isaiah was warning them in these first few chapters (1-6) of the judgment coming due to their prevailing wickedness and worship of idols within the Jerusalem temple itself.  They were coming to temple, giving their offerings and prayers to God then in turn giving offerings and prayers to idols all in the same visit.  How that must have grieved God’s heart and enraged Him as well.  We often do not want to think about God’s anger and jealousy over us but we must.

“…I cannot endure – (it is) iniquity and profanation, even the solemn meeting.  Your New Moon festivals and your (hypocritical) appointed feasts My soul hates.  They are an oppressive burden to Me; I am weary of hearing them.”  (Isaiah 1:13b-14 AMP)

When I go to Church, what are my motives?  Do I go to hear a good sermon?  How about some lively and moving music?  Maybe it is First Sunday and I want to pay my tithe?  These are all reasons and seem good in and among themselves but is that all there is to it?  Why even go, since I can always mail in my tithe, listen to music on the stereo or a good sermon on the radio?  Could it be that I go for the socializing around other people that think like me?  These are questions that may help me realize just what my motives are, but there should be just ONE motive to go to Church; I go to worship God.

“You do not know what you are worshiping (you worship what you do not comprehend)…a time will come, however, indeed it is already here, when the true (genuine) worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth (reality); for the Father is seeking just such people as these as His worshipers.  God is a Spirit (a spiritual Being) and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth (reality).”  (John 4:22a, 23 AMP)

God is a Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in reality, not in ritual where the body does what appears right but the mind is elsewhere.

“You Pharisees and teachers are in for trouble! You're nothing but show-offs. You're like tombs that have been whitewashed. On the outside they are beautiful, but inside they are full of bones and filth.”  (Matthew 23:27 CEV)

When we go to church and are gracious and kind to those around us, sing our songs of praise, give our tithes and offerings, and listen to and feel a little moved by the sermon, this is NOT worship.  It is ritual.  It is all action of the body and soul not prompted by the spirit.  Many believers worship this way and it is vain, all in vain, for it does not promote connection with God.  He is not the focus of the worship.

“People judge others by what they look like, but I judge people by what is in their hearts."  (1 Samuel 16:7b ASV)

God knows our inner motivations.  He knows if we are really worshiping or just “going through the motions”.  No wonder His soul hates hypocritical worship (Isaiah 1:14).

God created us (each man) as a whole creature, where our body, soul and spirit is intertwined (1 Thessalonians 5:23).  What one does affects the others.  True worship involves the whole creature; your spirit is stirred and connects with Him, your soul (mind, will, intellect and emotions) follows suit in focusing on Him, then your body responds by bursting out in praise and song.  This is worshiping in spirit and truth (reality).  There is no falsity, emptiness, vainglory or futility in this worship.  He is the focus of the worship.

There is a song I love to sing.  It just thrills my heart to sing it, especially the verse, “We were created to make His praise glorious!”  I long to do what I was created to do.  I long to worship Him in spirit and in truth.  I long to make His praise glorious!  How about you?

THE MINISTRY OF WORSHIP (Part III)

Works of the Flesh Result in Inappropriate Worship

When did true worship start and what made it stop?  When Adam was in Paradise, his worship of God was perfect.  He spent time with God.  God would bring him animals He made and Adam would name them (Gen. 2).  When Adam fell his worship was marred (Gen. 3). There was no longer the same free, frank fellowship with God and no longer the reverence.  Sin entered the world and we like Adam are sinners (1 John 1:18).  Sin mars our worship of God (2 Cor. 6:14).

Gal. 5:19-21 give a list of “the lusts of the flesh” we participate in since Adam’s fall.  If we are truthful with ourselves we will find something on the list we have participated in.  Granted, most of us have not committed murder.  Or have we?  “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.”  (1 John 3:15 KJV)  Have you ever hated someone?  Then God calls you a murderer.

Let’s examine another item from the list, one we can say for sure we have never committed.  How about witchcraft?  The dictionary states that witchcraft is:  holding converse with the dead, possessed by an evil spirit, having a spirit of divination, soothsayers, using chemicals and drugs.  Now I know we all feel as if we have not been into this as believers, or have we?  Have you ever taken something to make you feel good or to escape from the stress you are under?  How about drinking alcohol?  How about prescription drugs in a way they were not prescribed?  If you have you are practicing witchcraft.  Have you ever watched Ghost Whisperer, Harry Potter, or other television shows and movies that have witchcraft content? If you have, you are being entertained by witchcraft.

How about idolatry?  Surely we can state that we have never bowed down to a stone statue.  Here the dictionary states that idolatry is:  the worship of a physical object as a god, immoderate or over attachment or devotion to something.  “Therefore, my dearly beloved, shun (keep clear away from, avoid by flight if need be) any sort of idolatry (of loving or venerating anything more than God).”  (1 Cor. 10:4 AMP)  Have you ever put something as more important than God?  How about sports, shopping, movies, television, or another person?

We can see how even just one of these things can separate us from God.  We, as mankind, long to return to that state of free, frank fellowship with God that Adam first had but sin stands in the way.  Thank God He has provided a way to be free from sin:  Jesus.  If you have not accepted that Jesus died for your sins, I urge you to do so today.  (Please feel free to contact me at the email link on this page for more information on accepting Jesus as Lord in your life.)  If you have accepted what He has done for you, I urge you to walk in the Spirit every moment of every day so that you will not “fulfill the lusts of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16) and can return to TRUE worship and inherit His Kingdom.

John 4:23 "A time will come, however, indeed it is already here, when the true (genuine) worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth (reality); for the Father is seeking just such people as these as His worshipers."  AMP Bible