Connecting Points

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Today’s Topic: What Do You Really Want?                                      

Today’s Text:  Psalm 73:25 (ESV)
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

This will be short, but the depth of its meaning in my life right now is beyond measure. Oh that I would live in the power of this truth, that there is nothing on this earth that I desire besides God.

Besides God. It is essential that we understand this. We are not living in spiritual power if we can only claim that we desire God more than other things. God does not time share. God is not to be diminished to a place of equal consideration with other pursuits. We are not to declare ourselves spiritually healthy because we have put God ahead of other things. That is shallow discipleship. That is self-centered discipleship that leaves open the option to replace God with other things that provide more immediate benefit. We are to desire nothing other than God.

Oh how we live so much of our lives in the deception of Satan who has us convinced that there are other good things besides God. They may not be as good, yet we believe they are still good. So we put them on our priority list, but declare ourselves to be spiritual by placing God above them. Yet God is to be on the list alone!

God does not desire to be included in our other activities. God desires that we include all other activities in Him. It may sound more like semantics than theology, but these are profound truths. There is NOTHING on earth that we are to desires besides God! God is not to be asked to bring his blessing upon our choices, but rather we are to only make choices that already carry His blessing.

We live compartmentalized lives, and because we have given God the highest and largest compartment we think we are holy. But we are to holy as He is holy, which means the elimination of all compartments so that there is nothing in our lives except Him.

So what do you really want? Some want a life that is their own, and reject God completely. Some want a life that is their own, yet has a portion of God that satisfies their need to be spiritual. Some want a life of spiritual vitality, yet continue to hang on to things that bring some form of personal reward. But there are some, one of whom I desire to be, that want nothing but God. They declare all things of this life and world to be unworthy to coexist in the Presence of God. It is those who truly know Him, and are known by Him.

So what do you really want?

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Monday, October 08, 2012

Today’s Topic: My Response is My Responsibility                          

Today’s Text:  Psalm 101:1-7 (NIV)  I will sing of your love and justice; to you, O LORD, I will sing praise.

I am so guilty of doing this wrong. I think you can probably relate. We are so guilty of making other people responsible for our choices. It starts when we are kids and we tell mommy that Susie made me do it. We quickly learn how fragile our assessment of self is, and we develop great skills at covering up anything that could potentially minimize that assessment. The easiest way to protect ourselves is to blame others and make them responsible for our responses.

I am dealing with that right now in a couple of serious situations with people. The worst part is that they refuse to see the reality of what they are doing. They are laying the foundation for continued sin by making other people responsible for causing it and by proclaiming that their future responses will be dictated by other people’s responses to their sin. My heart is so overloaded with the weight of this problem that I cannot sleep, yet as I lay awake in bed in the dark hours of the night I cannot help but make it personal and ask the Holy Spirit to show me how I do the same thing.

We blame a lot of things and people for our choices, don’t we? “I’m so down today because…” (finish the sentence with excuses like the weather, Packer loss, gas prices, politics, etc.) We blame people’s behavior for our anger, our rebellion, or distrust, and more. All such responsibility shifts are nothing more than a defense mechanism to cover up for a damaged value system that we created by previous choices we made. Yet our ego does not permit us to humble ourselves to the point of true repentance because we have chosen to see such humility as additional damage to our worth. So we blame others to protect ourselves, and the bondage increases.

It is obvious that we do not really believe that God exalts the humble, so we seek to exalt ourselves. It is apparent that we do not believe that Jesus Christ died to redeem us from the old nature of sin because we are unwilling to truly crucify it and experience His resurrection power. It is debilitating to our souls to not believe that God our Father can and will completely qualify us and stamp us with His approval if we will humble ourselves before Him. If we really believed all of these things, we would do them.

So today, I choose to make my response my responsibility. It does not matter to me any longer what is done to me, but only what is done by me. I choose to do only what honors my Lord and Savior, no matter how much personal pain and anguish it causes among men. God and God alone is the one who truly tests my heart. When I have sinned, I will not focus on the pain it has caused me, but with a truly repentant heart I will see the offense it was to God, and then His Holy Spirit will direct me to focus on how my sin affected others so I may humble myself before them as well. That is true repentance. Forgiveness cannot be granted without such repentance.

Today, I choose to follow the instructions of Psalm 101 which the Lord Jesus Christ gave to me this morning to refresh my spirit. May it serve to do the same for you.

Psalm 101:1-7 (NIV)  I will sing of your love and justice; to you, O LORD, I will sing praise. ² I will be careful to lead a blameless life– when will you come to me? I will walk in my house with blameless heart. ³ I will set before my eyes no vile thing. The deeds of faithless men I hate; they will not cling to me. ⁴ Men of perverse heart shall be far from me; I will have nothing to do with evil. ⁵ Whoever slanders his neighbor in secret, him will I put to silence; whoever has haughty eyes and a proud heart, him will I not endure. ⁶ My eyes will be on the faithful in the land, that they may dwell with me; he whose walk is blameless will minister to me. ⁷ No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence.

My response is my responsibility, and today I choose to respond to all things with praise to God accompanied by obedience to God so that I may have a blameless heart!

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Thursday, October 04, 2012

Today’s Topic: Spiritual Awareness                                                  

Today’s Text:  Psalm 34:7 (ESV)
The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.

A devotional I received this morning by email really got me thinking about truths we ignore. One of them is the truth that there is a spiritual realm outside of this physical realm in which we live, and God has designed it so the two can interconnect.

According to God’s design, the spiritual realm rules the physical realm, and consists of two governing bodies: the Kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of God. Of course, as Creator, God is ultimately the ruler of Satan (Revelation 1:5 – and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.), but for now, in this present age, Satan has been given dominion over the earth. (Ephesians 6:12 –  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.)

Every person is being governed in their physical existence by one or the other of these spiritual Kingdoms. Not both. Only one! Those who are living according to the flesh to fulfill its desires are being ruled by the power of Satan, and are children of the Devil. In John 8:44 Jesus says, You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. Those who are living according to the Spirit of God have God as their Father by rebirth through faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Again, the words of Jesus – for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. (John 16:27) and  that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. (John 17:21).

Now that the foundational truths are in place, let us consider what the Lord put on my heart this morning as I read the devotional about angels. As children of God the Father, we have direct and intimate contact with the spiritual realm that surrounds us. God has created and appointed ministering spirits called angels to serve Him on our behalf. They care for us, protect us, and deliver God’s will to us. They are not only looking over our lives but also looking into our lives to understand the glory of God’s redemption. Contemplate these Scripture passages today that relate to us what is happening all around us in the spiritual realm.

Psalm 103:19-21  The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all. Bless the LORD, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word! Bless the LORD, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will!

Hebrews 1:13-14 And to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”? Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

Psalm 91:11-12 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

1 Peter 1:12 …the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

Ephesians 3:10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

Congratulations are in order if you have stuck with this devotional to this point. Here’s my main point in the form of a question – How aware are you on a daily basis of the activity in the spiritual realm that exists around you? Do you understand how the Lord has established an army of ministering spirits called angels that are constantly ministering the grace of God to us? Do you understand how those angels are watching our lives so they can better understand God’s glorious plan of redemption? Do you understand how the way you live your life is a testimony to the spiritual realm – either to the demons of Satan or the angels of God?

I was so very blessed this morning to think about the love of God manifested in the constant care of my life. I am so guilty of seeing only the circumstances and the harm they are doing, rather than the spiritual realm of the angels that have been assigned to protect me and minister the grace of God to my heart. Take a moment and reconnect with the spiritual side of life, becoming more aware of the presence of God around us and in us.