Christianity · Devotional · encouragement · free · guidance · holy spirit · Jesus · lent · power of God

Majesty of God- part 3

.‭Ephesians 2:6-9 NIV‬
[6] And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, [7] in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. [8] For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— [9] not by works, so that no one can boast.

So, after the last section I am sure there were many who went, ‘you’re preaching that I have to live a pure and flawless life. You’re saying I must not sin ever, you are saying that my mistakes are condemning me.’
No.
I’m preaching that we need Jesus! We are saved by His grace alone. Yet, we still need to do our best everyday to live as Jesus did.
If you have given your life to Jesus, then you will want to live differently because you love Him.
No person can get to Heaven through her or his own goodness. We are sinful by nature. We are not naturally good. Some are more prone to goodness then others but we aren’t going to get into psychology today. God made it so that only His grace could save. Anyone who boasts about how amazing or spiritual they are has missed the point. If we were saved by being super spiritual and awesome then only those who had given up everything and gone to live on a mountain to reach a closer knowledge of God would be the ones getting into Heaven. Thank God He makes it so that His grace is all sufficient!
We are saved by grace, but once we know and love Jesus we will want to change to serve Him better, because your works as a reflection of Christ play a part too.

Christianity · Devotional · encouragement · guidance · holy spirit · Jesus · lent · power of God · searching

Majesty of God part 1






‭1. Majesty of God

.Hebrews 1:3-4 ESV‬
[3] He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, [4] having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

He is the exact imprint of His nature. Its nice to almost imagine the though they are three separate beings, if God and the Holy Spirit had physical forms, they and Jesus would all have same finger print. Though that is totally unbiblical and simply imagery. However, God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are three separate parts of one being. Think of them like a plant. A plant has leaves, roots, and stock, all have a different function, yet all are part of the same plant. I know the Trinity is confusing and part of the reason people want to down play parts of it and up play other parts, but you cannot have Jesus without God, or God without The Holy Spirit, or vise versa on all accounts. I say this, because we miss the fact that Jesus sat down at God’s right hand. That HE upholds the universe. That HE is greater than the angels, because Jesus is God and God is Jesus. I know it sounds like too much to understand. But a god you can fully understand is not God. If you can understand all about Him then He isn’t greater than your understanding. And if He isn’t greater than your understanding then why do you need Him?
That’s why people who say they won’t believe in Jesus because of the things about Him they don’t understand drive me nuts.
Simply put. If you went to university and knew everything your professor said without him needing to teach you and help you, then why would you be there at all? Please don’t say because you need the piece of paper that says you graduated.
If you know all your teacher knows then his isn’t fit to he your teacher. If you understand all about God and all He is and all He knows, then you can’t rely on Him. God is infinite However, we will never out learn Him. We can never fully understand Him, because He is greater than us. That’s the whole point.
People have always craved knowledge. Look at the garden. Eve went for the tree of knowledge, and learned nothing but shame and suffering, because you can’t know all God knows and understand all He understands, so the bit you can grasp will become tainted if The Holy Spirit does not guide you. See, three parts, equal power, all needed.
If Jesus was not equal with God them His death could not have saved us. If He was just man then we are still guilty of all our sins. But He is God and because of that, of we accept Him as our savior, then we are saved.

Christianity · Devotional · dreams do come true · encouragement · free · guidance · holy spirit

Whistle

You can be as brave as you make believe you are.
Remember that line in the King and I? I love that line, it reminds me of sound of music when she sings her way to the front door because she is afraid. Music is amazing. All creatures sing, even rocks. Don’t believe me? Well, that gets into molecular science so it may not be a well known fact.
Make a list in your mind of all the creatures and other organics which make a type of music.
I can list geodes, dogs, dolphins, birds and seashells off of the top of my head. I’m sure you can list a whole bunch of others.
I would like to focus on wolves at this moment. Canines sing many reasons. When they are sad, or lost, or frightened or simply because they want to. People are like that. We sing for all reasons too. God loves song. Look at how often He speaks of singing. The biggest book of the Bible is mostly songs. God loves to hear us sing. Singing is such a release. It takes your emotions and let’s them out. That is why worship is so important. It’s singing to the Lord. Expressing our emotions in a raw amd open way. I heard once that singing in the Spirit has become a rare thing. We don’t hear it so much anymore and I’ve listened and have noticed how true that is. But when someone is blessed to sing in the language of Heaven it’s like… everything. It sounds like a balm to the soul.
We tend to hold it all inside and keep our emotions to ourselves. But we shouldn’t do that. We need to be discerning about who we share our emotions with, but we can always, openly share them with God.
So the next time you don’t know what to say, open your heart up to sing. Maybe God will even give you song. You will never know if you don’t try.

Christianity · Devotional · encouragement · free · guidance · holy spirit · Jesus

Soak

Soak Him in.
We need time alone with God. Time set aside each day where we talk with Him and listen for His voice. He is my Jesus. He is yours too. Open your eyes to see Him today.
When you have an infection you are told to soak it. Soak it in bath salts. Or saline or some other product for healing. To heal you must Soak.
To heal your broken heart. Your sick body. Your needing and wanting mind. Soak yourself in the presence of Jesus. Don’t just spritz yourself with Him, dive in and Soak!
See what changes when you begin to sink in His presence and in His glory and grace.

Christianity · Christmas · Devotional · encouragement · guidance · holy spirit · Jesus · power of God · The Bible · True Joy

Prophesies

What child is this?

Prophesies. Prophesies ushered in the birth of Jesus. Prophesies helped people understand who He was. Prophesies told of His death and resurrection. Prophesies are in part why the Wise Men walked across the desert to find a baby. Prophesies, Prophesies and more Prophesies.

Yet not all believed the fulfillment of the Prophesies. Many still don’t. Even now as we look around our world we are seeing the answers and fulfillment of Prophesies from the Bible and from true God seeking men and women from a later date. But do we believe that they are happening? Don’t we mock when we hear someone shout ‘Repent! He is coming soon!’

So. What about those Prophesies?
What child is this reminds us of the fulfillment of Prophesies. We have seen time and again when God spoke and answered. If we are going according to the past then I would say we should be listening for the trumpet because the Prophesies are being fulfilled.

If we are going by modern thinking, then there are no Prophesies and we can live as we like. But people who say that are already deceived, there are too few Christians these days who stand strong and preach the gospel, too few who have faith enough to hear when the angels speak and say ‘I am the Lord’s servant.’ We want to be royals, not subjects, and do to this we fall into false truth and spread it to the masses.
We promote positive thinking and speaking your words to the air so the blessing returns to you. This is not Christian. We never remind people to Repent, or dare to mention that a second coming is true and that He is already on the move. If God fulfilled the Prophesies in Isaiah about a Virgin giving birth to God’s son, and about that son being slain for the sins of men and women, and then rising again to conquer death. Why do we doubt the prophet’s claims that Jesus will return with the armies of Heaven and vanquish all evil once and for all?

What child is this? He’s the perfect lamb, the conquering king, and my Savior.

Christianity · Devotional · encouragement · free · guidance · holy spirit · Jesus · power of God · Prayer · searching · still fighting · True Joy

Behind her

Behind her

My dad has been transferring over a bunch of our HFV s so we can watch them. One of them was a two hour production of a play I was in. I was part of the choir, which was pretty large. At the end of the production the leader came to the lead mic and gave an invitation for anyone in the audience who had not yet accepted Jesus as their Savior to raise a hand. No one did. She gave the call one more time and then we all prayed the sinner’s prayer. You could see she was disappointed that no person From the audience had put up a hand. She had felt the call from God that someone needed her to give the invitation, but she saw no results.

My mom was video taping the whole event, this part too. Behind the leader who had given the call, two boys in the choir and one girl, put their hands up to receive Jesus. The leader could not see them, so she thought she had made a mistake but had everyone pray the prayer anyway.
In the back there were three young souls who had never accepted Christ who went home with the Holy Spirit in them, because a woman gave a call, and wouldn’t give up, even though it looked like no one had answered.

Don’t get discouraged. You may never see the results. But you have never made a mistake by inviting people to come to know Jesus. Come and see said Andrew. Come and see said Philip. Come and see said the shepherds.
Come and see says the repentant souls who know that of no one had ever told them to come and see, they would still be lost.
All we can do is give the invite, the rest is up to God.

Christianity · Devotional · guidance · holy spirit · Jesus · Love · power of God · Prayer · searching

Don’t take sides?

Don’t take sides?

We see it so often. “Christians don’t take sides, we love everyone.” After that it feels like taking a side means you don’t love both sets of people and that is not true. You have to take a side on many things. Being pro-life does not mean you hate the women who have had abortions, it means that you acknowledge unborn babies as lives that should not be taken, you also know that many of these women did not see the other options as possible and you know that they are broken. Being opposed to the killing of babies does not mean you hate the mothers who choose this, though you hate the action. Being against living in sexual sin (of any kind) does not mean you hate those who are, it means that you are against the sin. The fact is, we all must choose a side in all things. Either we choose the side of Jesus or we choose the side of the world. We can not live as though we are part of the world, or worse, as though we are indifferent to the wrongs that are happening in it. We must take a stand. We need also to pray for people on all sides. We need to pray for our own people and for those who oppose us, and sometimes that feels like it sucks, but once you start doing that it helps you to see past your own thoughts and feelings to God’s. He wants people to live the way He planned it, He also knows that we will go astray, that’s why He is said to patient, because instead of slaying us for our sinful ways He gives is time to see that we are wrong so we can come to Him. He isn’t wishy-washy about sin. What He says is wrong is wrong period, no discussion, but He also says that He will welcome you back as a prodigal, He also says that He will graft you into the vine, He also calls Himself your Father so you know how much He loves you and that He will always forgive you when you come to Him and repent. We must side with Jesus or else we aren’t Christians, but doing that in love can be so hard, we need to pray and trust Him and ask Him to help us take His side with His motives and not ours.

Christianity · Devotional · dreams do come true · encouragement · free · guidance · holy spirit · Jesus · power of God · Prayer · searching · still fighting · The Bible · True Joy

He is the breath

He is the breath

He is the breath inside my lungs, I am just the breather.
I am simply using what He has given me to get through each day. We make everything about us. We make music meant to worship Jesus about our carnal relationships, we make our bodies meant to honor Him a temple of worldly pleasures, we make our minds that were meant to serve Him a battleground against Him. We don’t even acknowledge that God gave us all these things. That they are gifts from Him.
He is the breath inside our lungs, we simply use what He has given us.
Like CS Lewis said when speaking of God. He said, ‘we are like children, who ask their Father for money to go and buy Him a gift. And like the good Father He is, He always rejoices when we give our lives back to Him.’ -Mere Christianity (rough quote from my memory. I recommend reading the book for he says it so much better than I have here)
When we give our lives to Jesus, we are simply giving back to Him what always was His. We think we belong to ourselves, but we belonged to Him first.
He is everything that is important about us. Do we make Him our desire? Do remember to prioritize Him? He prioritizes us. We are His desire. We are nothing but hollow human shells without Him filling us with life. He is our redeemer. Let Him redeem you.

Christianity · Devotional · guidance · holy spirit · Jesus · Love · Prayer · still fighting · The Bible

Hiding from the light?

John 3:19-21
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their Works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his Works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his Works have been carried out in God.

When people do evil they love the darkness because it hides their deeds. But when people do good they love the light because then people can see the good they have done. This is the same in those who follow Jesus. Those who truly follow Him love Him, and His word and His teachings because they live lives that do not require hiding from judgment. But those who do not truly follow Jesus hate the light and hate getting too close to Him, they hate His word and His teachings because they expose their evil as evil. If you claim to love Jesus but hate His word and teaching then you aren’t a true follower of Him, just a person who thinks claiming the Christian badge will get you an easy pass to Heaven. That’s not how it works. You must love Jesus, pick up your cross daily and follow Him. It’s hard, but true.

Christianity · Devotional · encouragement · guidance · holy spirit · Jesus

Was that wrong?

Was that wrong?

Today I had an experience that dealt with somebody who did something that went against something I believe in. Not a Christian or Church something. Just a personal belief. I saw a person I know going to do something that I personally would say was unkind. Someone else I know saw this other person going to do this thing and brought it up to me, I simply said that I felt it wasn’t a nice thing to do. I was immediately told off because the person doing the unkind thing was connected to me. I had my defense up by that point and tried to joke my way out of their annoyance at my statement. Which made things worse and I was told ‘you can’t get rid of them if you want to.’ Which had nothing to do with what I had said, and by that point I was irritated and replied without thinking, ‘you can try!’
That was not the correct response on my part and having been angry for being called out was no excuse. But here is what I realized. I never once said anything against the person in question, that would be wrong. I responded to being questioned on the subject that I felt their action was unkind. Not the person. The action.
This is a growing problem in the world today. You can no longer speak out against an action you feel is wrong without people accusing you of speaking out against the person. People are so sensitive that if you mention a sin (as the Bible tells us to do) to a friend, that you notice creeping in, that friend will more often than not get angry that you are being judgmental. Now. Sometimes we are being judgmental. But hopefully more often than not you are worrying for the soul of a loved one. I know that I do it too. Someone says something about something I have done and criticizes the action and I take it as a personal assault and usually it isn’t.
This has always been a problem because we are people and we get hurt really easily. But we have always tried to follow the Biblical doctrine of hating sin and loving sinners. That includes the people in your Church and family because we are all sinners. But people now claim that if you don’t accept their sins you aren’t loving them and so the concern for the soul is thrown out for the sake of the feelings. You know why people say that? Because they want to keep sinning. And we all do this. If you chose to tell me that I was wrong in what I said at the end of my conversation with the person who got in my face, you would be right. You could probably be right by telling me that I shouldn’t have said anything at all, even though asked. However if you told me that an hour ago when I was still smarting from it I would have taken it personally and been upset. Because it always hurts to have your sins called out. Do we speak butterflies or hornets when we open our mouths? And do we take criticism of an action as criticism of our selves?
It’s always hard. But the bunny in Bambi said it right, “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” And if you feel you should say something even though it might not land well with the person you are speaking to, do it with love in your heart and the reminder in your mind that you make mistakes too. Then maybe your point will get across without tempers flaming.