Out On A Limb

The problem with me is that I want the adventure of living by faith but I am not always so thrilled about the risk. Recently I made a decision that was really a step of faith but after seeking the Lord felt certain it was what He wanted me to do. The problem is that after the fact a situation arose that caused me to question if I had missed Him. I stayed unsettled for too long as far as I am concerned until the Lord showed me what was wrong. He told me you want to come out on the limb with Me but at the same time you want Me to promise you I won’t saw it off. If you are going to trust me to get out on the limb then you must trust what I chose to do once you are there. You see once I find a level of uncertainty I am comfortable with Jesus always comes along and says go further.
 

When my relationship with Him becomes obscured it is often because I am not walking in agreement with where He has me at a given point in time. Maybe you can relate. I am always amazed at how simple it is yet why I could not see it before I do not know. It’s like yes I want to follow you but ….. How many examples are given in the word of those who wanted to follow but with conditions attached?
 

Following Him must always be about who we are following and never about the outcome. Because we have lived in the world so long sometimes we are deceived into thinking this is reality when that is a lie, and so are all the ways of this worlds system we use to justify our disobedience. To be sure our loyalty to Jesus will be put to the test in a number of ways because He wants us to know what is more important to us, our relationship with Him or a false sense of security.
 

More often than not I have found the thing Jesus is after in me is getting me to be still and trust and not think that I have to do something. Waiting can be so hard sometimes. I have yet to meet anyone who finds it enjoyable. Doing nothing can be hard because that is not the way of our culture and certainly not the way in which I was raised.  Again, there is that dying to self thing. Geez, it never goes away.

God First

The main thing in Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the atmosphere produced by that relationship. That is all God asks us to look after, and it is the one thing that is continually being assailed”.   Oswald Chambers- My Utmost For His Highest

 

Sometimes I have to remind myself that it’s ALL about Jesus.  God didn’t put me where He did for a job.  For a ‘job’ He could have put me anywhere, but to pour through me to those He wants to touch those He wants to draw to Himself through the Holy Spirit, He put me where He did.  Do we truly believe that our steps are ordered by God as the word says?  That we may plan our course but the Lord directs our steps? Jesus wants to pour through us but the devil wants to do everything he can to stop that or at the least impede the flow.  One of the ways he does this is through a religious spirit that gets our eyes more on what we are ‘doing’ for God than our actual relationship with God.

 

Jesus just needs me to yield so He can live through me, touch through me, heal through me, and establish His kingdom through me and sometimes it is without me saying a word.  My responsibility is to see to it that I stay rightly related to Him no matter what.  That is the whole of my life, my relationship with Christ, period.  Not just to go to heaven when I die but to be a clean vessel here and now, to walk in intimate fellowship and communion with the Son of God that is my fulfillment and satisfaction. 

 

Life is not found in the ‘perfect’ job, the perfect mate, perfect house, car or clothes, whatever….(yet how often does the enemy attempt to get us to believe this, even at times succeeding if only for a while?)Life is found in one place and that is in Christ and to the degree that I truly abide in Him and He in me, it is to that degree that I will have life, and life more abundantly which is what Jesus came to give us. I believe the times we find ourselves adding to that is when it is easier to add something rather than die to something of ourselves so that we may possess more of Him and He of us. 

 

Our jobs are not about the company we work for, the money we make, (even though we all know it takes money to live here) or the benefits of our job…. It is about one thing and that is Christ.  Do we work where we do because we believe it is where He has sent us or because it pays more or has better hours, etc. I believe without a doubt that If we make our relationship with Him our first priority the rest will take its proper place. Jesus said to take no thought for your life…but to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things (having our physical needs met) will be added to us. Matthew 6:33

Fathers Busines

I will bring the blind by a way they did not know. I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them and crooked places straight.  These things I will do for them and not forsake them. Isaiah 42:16

August of 2013  It is a bittersweet day for me knowing that I am stepping into a new season, knowing it is Gods doing yet struggling with letting go of the past, letting go of what is familiar and at one time safe.  Stepping out of our comfort zone isn't easy even when we are sure it is God that is prodding us to move on.  We are likened to sheep in scripture for a reason.  Just as sheep have to be herded to other pastures to graze because where they have been grazing has become bare, so Jesus our Shepherd has to prod us on to greener pastures because just like sheep we would continue to graze in a pasture that can no longer sustain us. 

Letting go of the life I have known for 12 years of being in business with my husband has been a process that actually began last year. Having a home office afforded me a lot of control over my schedule making it easier to tend to my responsibilities as a wife and mother. As any woman knows who has had being a wife and mother a major part of her identity, letting go of that isn't easy especially if it is a role in which you were satisfied and fulfilled.  To me this is really what dying to self is about, not all the religious stuff it has come to be known as.  No matter how uncomfortable we may feel about what we have to do, when we are being led by the Spirit we have that witness on the inside that lets us know it is God who is leading us and not something we are doing on our own.  How grateful I am for this for I have to say there were days I think I would have turned back had I not had that witness.  It is so much easier to discern the Spirits leading when we walk in a place of intimacy with the Lord that has brought our soul into submission to our spirit.

I must be about my Fathers business and for that reason I go forth, not because of money, but because of souls.  Because of the hearts He desires to gather to himself.  Time is so very short. 

I have been so very blessed to have been able to sit at the feet of the Lord, to stand with him on the mount of transfiguration changing my perception of Him in my own heart thereby bringing about my own transformation. We read in the last chapter of Matthew that after Jesus had risen that the eleven disciples went away into Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them.  It is interesting to note that the definition of Galilee is 'heathen circle'.  Jesus had told the disciples to tarry in Jerusalem until they received the Promise of the Father, that being the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I waited as the Lord instructed me also, waiting through circumstances that screamed at me to go forth before it was Gods time but it is the Lord we must yield to not our circumstances, our feelings or even our reasoning and logic.  I have learned over the years these things are often contrary to the instruction of the Lord, which is why His peace is so important for us because it does not depend on anything in the natural realm, just His presence.  

Abide In Me

Abide in Me and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.  I am the vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
John 15:4-5 

     One of the things I have learned in my walk with God is that there is no doubt He is for us.  He wants the very best for us.  I have also learned over the years that what we might assume that means and what it actually does mean sometimes are very different.  Unless we learn to see from His perspective we will certainly lose heart somewhere along the way.

     We must come to understand the necessity of getting us to realize our nothingness apart from Him.  Yes, God is for us and because He is for us He will take us down. By that I mean He will use the "trouble" in life Jesus said we would have to His full advantage. How we respond to that is our choice, and our response will be according to how much we have renewed our minds through His word so that we know His heart, not just His commands. 

  Romans 8:28 tells us that if we love God and are called according to His purpose He causes all things to work together for our good....the good is defined in the next verse as being conformed to the image of His son. Jesus drew all of his worth and value from his identity in God the Father, as should we.  

      Apart from Him we truly can do nothing, all of our fruitfulness comes from abiding in the vine and He will remove every aspect of our self life in which we have put our hope or learned to draw our worth and value from to get us to learn this. The sad thing is that sometimes this process often causes us to misunderstand His dealings with us unless we have built an intimate relationship with Him and have come to trust His heart.  If not, what usually results is a pseudo Christian existence without the life of Christ flowing out because we were not willing to die to the false sense of worth and value we have continued to cling to even after coming to Him.  This in part is what Jesus meant when He said, “he who seeks to save his live shall lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake shall save it”.  Jesus is the Truth, the Life and the Way.  Any truth, life or way we think we may have found outside of Him is nothing but a lie and a deception taking us further and further away from the only one who loved us enough to die so we can know the Life that is truly life. 

Abide Poem   
Surrender

     

Follow Me

The problem with me is that I want the adventure of living by faith but I am not always so thrilled about the risk.  Recently we made a decision that was really a step of faith.  After seeking the Lord we felt certain it was what He wanted us to do.  The problem is that after the fact a situation arose that caused us to question if we had missed Him.  I stayed unsettled for too long as far as I am concerned until the Lord showed me what was wrong.  He told me you want to come out on the limb with Me but at the same time you want Me to promise you I won’t saw it off. If you are going to trust me to get out on the limb then you must trust what I chose to do once you are there.  You see once I find a level of uncertainty I am comfortable with Jesus always comes along and says go further. 

 

When my relationship with Him becomes obscured it is often because I am not walking in agreement with where He has me at a given point in time. Maybe you can relate.  I am always amazed at how simple it is yet why I could not see it before I do not know.  It’s like yes I want to follow you but ….. How many examples are given in the word of those who wanted to follow but with conditions attached? In one instance Jesus said, "He who puts His hand to the plow and looks back is not worthy of the kingdom". We don't like to think about that much, but Jesus just has a way of cutting to the chase as they say. Obedience takes faith, period.  You can walk by faith or walk by sight but you can't do both.

 

Following Him must always be about who we are following and never about the outcome. Because we have lived in the world so long sometimes we are deceived into thinking this is reality when that is a lie, and so are all the ways of this worlds system we use to justify our disobedience. To be sure our loyalty to Jesus will be put to the test in a number of ways because He wants to know what is more important to us, our relationship with Him or a false sense of security.

 

More often than not I have found the thing Jesus is after in me is getting me to be still and trust and not think that I have to do something. Waiting can be so hard sometimes. I have yet to meet anyone who finds it enjoyable.  Doing nothing can be hard because that is not the way of the culture in which I grew up.  Again, there is that dying to self thing.  Geez, it never goes away.

 

Life or Death

God sets before us life and death.  The problem is I sometimes choose death because choosing life requires more of me than I am willing to give. Ouch!

Jesus said "Whoever seeks to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake shall save it".  Huh? You see, it may seem at first that choosing life will cost more than we might be willing to give, but the truth is, choosing not to die to ourselves will cost us way more than we thought.

 

The choice has always been there before us, but until we come to the cross we are helpless to choose life as Jesus offers to us because the life He offers lies beyond the cross. It is only in our surrender that we are empowered to choose life, and even then we will have to fight for it.  We have a formidable foe who is determined to keep us from life as God intended.

 

We might climb a mountain or go around it or even in some cases tell it to move, but for those who desire life there is only one way and that is through the cross because only those willing to die to themselves will find true life as that life is in Christ.


 

If anyone desires to come after Me let him deny

 himself and take up His cross and follow Me. 

 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it,

but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 

 Matthew 16:24-25

 

Dying To Live

     We have made dying to ourselves so much about outward acts of denial when it must first begin with living to the Lord. Paul said in Romans that he who has been brought from death to life should not longer live his life for earthly pleasure but rather for the will of God. If we live we live to God and if we die we die to God. But the living and dying all begins with loving God and then the living comes as natural as breathing.

     Living to God will automatically bring about dying to self. Jesus said if any man would come after me let him take up his cross and follow me. If we are ever going to live in the power of the resurrection we will certainly have to submit to the dying on the cross.  The life of Jesus in the natural was in total contradiction to what God the Father wanted to accomplish through him, and so it will be with us. Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly but it required Him surrendering to death.  The cross I must bear in my own life will appear to totally contradict what it is God wants to accomplish through me. It wasn’t  the cross itself that brought Jesus' exaltation by God the Father and subsequently the resurrection power, but his obedience to dying out of a heart of humility.  Dying to ourselves isn’t what causes the power of Calvary to flow into our life, that is actually the consequence of our surrender and submission because we love not our lives unto death. The only way one can yield in reverent submission to dying is in first coming to the place of living for the one who has gone before us.

The petals of a rose emit the greatest fragrance only when crushed. If you smell a rose that is all in tact you will smell only a faint odor of the sweetness, but take that same rose and crush its petals and you will multiply its fragrance ten times. Often we are surrounded by people who can’t “see” but the fragrance of a rose can be spread abroad for miles.

Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.                            2 Corinthians 2:14-15

Disclaimer: For those who may happen to read any of my posts in which I talk about dying or death to self, I feel the need to explain that I am not referring to a "literal" physical death, but a similitude of dying to ones own way of doing and being that is motivated by selfishness that only Jesus can deliver us from.

Love

    A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, so also love one another.  By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13:35


 I want to ask you, when was the last time you heard someone in the kingdom be honored or recognized for something other than the power they walk in, the miracles they do, the revelation they have, or the gifts of the spirit they operate in? Think for a minute about all the people you have read a “spiritual resume” on, you know, the list of things that are printed about someone to encourage you to want to come hear them speak (no offense intended, just trying to make a point), or the things said about someone as a means of honoring them. Yes, we are to render honor to whom honor is due, I get that, and for the most part based on what is written or said we assume it is motivated by the love of God that a person walks in. But lately I have been wondering if perhaps we might be making some wrong assumptions some of the time.

 

     As unintentional as it might be, I find in mainstream Christianity a picture being painted of what is “successful”  that falls far short of the picture Jesus painted for us. On the one hand we have a picture of what dying to ourselves looks like and on the other hand a picture of what “kingdom” life looks like but it seems that the two are in opposition to each other. I don’t find either of them putting much emphasis on the nature or character of Christ and the love of God that is produced as a result of having the former. Has any of this crossed your mind? Have you like me found yourself a bit confused at times wondering if your life measures up to the pictures being painted by some of the more visible “movers and shakers” of the “kingdom”.

 

     The picture of dying to ourselves has become more about portraying a false humility we don’t possess while simultaneously portraying ourselves as being kingdom minded by appearing like we are living the abundant life Jesus promised...which sad to say has been reduced to how financially prosperous we have become, which by the way is diametrically opposed to the “I’m dying to myself” picture.


     Jesus said, "no kingdom divided against itself will stand".  Is it any wonder we find ourselves a little confused sometimes, or is it just me? One extreme is to live like we are poor by not living in too nice of a  house or driving too nice a car and fasting one day a week to prove our “humility” while it’s nothing more than being a modern day Pharisee. Or the other extreme of measuring our success in the kingdom by seeing how big of a house we can have and how expensive of a car we can drive. I have been guilty of both or I wouldn’t be writing about it in the first place. So I am not pointing any fingers. I am afraid that a lot of people are confused about what really matters to God.

     We live in a time where there are more conferences, more meetings, more teachings, and revelation, not to mention all the access to Christian TV than any other time in the history of the church and yet it seems like we are impacting society less and less. Why is that? Maybe we embrace all of the above to prove  that we really are spiritual, but all the while I hear the Father asking,” Where is the love? Where is the love in all that we are about doing to demonstrate we belong to Him?

 

     The bottom line is that the kingdom of God is about faith expressing itself through love. No amount of false humility, no measure of financial success or power displayed at a conference, or time served at the church will ever replace the measure of love the Father sees in our daily lives by the way we treat those closest to us, or the way we interact with strangers put across our path day to day. No matter what we do or don’t do, if we do not have love we are nothing.

 

I don’t know about you, but when I measure myself based on what God says love is in 1 Corinthians 13 I shamefully admit I fall far short. Loving as God loves will cost us everything because it cost Him everything. Maybe that is what I am really afraid of. Could it be that in some measure that is what we are all afraid of and as well, equally afraid to admit? The truest picture of both dying to self and being successful is living a life of love, it is also the truest representation of Christ I know.