Praying in
God’s Will; at the Throne in confidence

• Knowing God and being
  preparedKnowing God in Salvation,
  Scripture, and Person

• Obedience in service
  • We bring issues on our
    hearts before Him
  • We are obedient to what He
    expects of us
  • We are well equipped
  • We are to be servants like
    Jesus

• Faith in His response
  • Without faith we are just
    speaking into the air

§  Prayer thrives or fails on
the basis of God’s Will

• Confidence before the Throne
  belongs to those who know what to expect

<General overview of successfully praying in His
Will>

A main purpose of prayer is that we learn
obedience.  We grow in obedience through
learning what God expects, and then serving Him under those expectations.  When God answers prayer, it is because we are
operating under the truth, or Will, of God. 
And, because we have carried an issue to God that He desires to be dealt
with, in line with the truth of His Will, He responds. (yes/no/wait…)  We have learned and conformed to His truth,
He is glorified, and, still another issue is brought into alignment with His
Will.  In this, we have not forced His
hand or brought anything before Him that He wasn’t aware of.  Instead, we have recognized what He already
knew, and we have served as priests in bringing it to Him for His response, in
His provision.

Jesus is the perfect example of praying in the Will
of the Father.  He lived a sinless life
among us, and has always remained obedient to the Father’s Will.  His requests, always in alignment with the
Father’s Will, are always honored.  Even
as the Father denied His request to ‘let the cup pass’, Jesus was still in
obedience to the Father by praying ‘yet Your will, not mine’.

So, we can see that good prayer, in relation to
God’s Will, will always include:

• Knowing God and being prepared – that we know his commandments and His
  ‘personality’, and we are prepared accordingly
• Obedience in Service – that we bring an issue on our heart before Him,
  confident that this is what He expects (A sense of our
  duty, humility and worship, familiarity and compassion over the issue,
  diligence in prayer and service, choosing faith in His expectations and His
  response)
• Faith in His response – that He has responded according to His Will or
  truth, in His best interests over Creation (His
  provision, desire, loving attention, commands, declarations, mercy,
  faithfulness, and Glory)

Knowing God and being prepared

Knowing
God in Salvation, Scripture, and Person

We
will only know God through Jesus’ Salvation. 
Salvation includes the Father’s adoption of us, and all of the rights
associated with our new rank.  Without
Salvation, we have no right, nor any way, to approach God the Father.  Once Saved, we posses the Teacher, the Holy
Spirit.  He conveys the truth of God to
us through the Scriptures, and in the course of our diligent study, we grow in
our maturity of understanding God.

Knowing
God’s Will always begins with knowing God Himself, because God’s Will is who He
is.  Think of someone you are close to,
someone you know well.  Now, thinking of
that person in a particular situation, ask yourself ‘How would I expect him to
respond to something like this?’  If you
really know that person’s heart, you should be able to come to a reasonable
conclusion of how he would react.  This
is because you know that person through study and experience.  In comparison, God is perfect and without
sin, He has given us the Word and His Spirit to know Him, and so we can grow in
understanding what to expect.  God’s Will
corresponds to His whole ‘personality’. 
Knowing Him, knowing what He has to say about issues, and knowing how He
reacts leads to knowing how He will respond to us.

Rom 12.2

Obedience in service

We bring issues on our hearts before Him

God Saves people and enlists them into service as
priests, or those who can relate to Him. 
We have been Saved to serve God, and He makes many resources available
to us to carry out His expectations.  One
of our most important resources is our ‘heart’, and how we use it.  Our heart is the center of who we are
personally.  God’s goal is our heart to
be soft and humble, ‘with His law written upon it’.  A heart like this serves in prayer by coming
before the Throne of Grace, sensitive and overflowing with issues God cares
about.  These issues are spilled out
before Him through this healthy heart, and He answers.  As His priests, we are to cultivate and
maintain this heart He creates in us, and we are to be aware of issues and
carry them to Him for His response.

We are obedient to what He expects of us

An unfortunate mistake we can make is in believing
that God is OK with whatever our response is to His expectations.  We might think that He has just made
suggestions to us, and if we don’t follow through, that Jesus will simply
forgive us and release us from our obligation.

This way of thinking is actually sinful abuse of
Jesus’ grace, and willful disobedience to God the Father.  His grace is not for getting us out of the
obligations we now have to Him.  Instead,
His grace is employed in His patience as He trains us to become just like
Jesus.

A foundation of good prayer is in living and serving
God obediently.  Jesus’ perfect obedience
to God’s Will ensures His requests to the Father are always honored.  To be like Jesus, we too must know God’s Will
through His Word, and obey His instructions. 
When we are careful to follow His expectations, and serve Him as He commands,
we too can have confidence in our prayer, just like Jesus does – because we are
following through with what He already intends.

We are well equipped

Many Christians make a severe mistake in believing
that God’s rescuing them is the end of the story.  They might believe that He has been glorified
in that act of mercy and that they only need to concentrate on worshipping Him
and staying out of trouble until it is time to go Home.  Ephesians 2.8-9 states that
only God forges our Salvation, but 2.10 tells the rest of the
truth – that He has done so because He is drafting us into service.  We are here to learn God now, in this time
between being Saved and meeting the Lord in person.  In Saving us, He has equipped each believer
with the tools and resources needed to serve Him.  So then, through obedient service to Him, we
learn how He works, we are good stewards of what He has given us, and He is
pleased and glorified in our faithful response to Him.

We are called to ‘reasonable service’

In Romans 12:1, Paul calls
for our “reasonable service” to God. 
‘Service’ is in reference to the duty we are held to as His children,
and ‘reasonable’ is the measure of our response in relation to what God has
given us.  In this, the word ‘reasonable’
can seem almost irrational, because what else could we possibly hope for in
Jesus?  We who are Saved owe more than
our very lives to Him.  In fact, He has
not only given us the benefits we experience now, but we will spend all of
eternity with Him, not to mention the punishment He rescues us from.  As humans, we are destined to always be
slaves to one master.  It is a fact that
cannot be avoided.  In our Salvation, we
are removed from under our slavery to sin and the demands of Satan, and we are
placed under the Lordship of our loving Shepherd.  How could our situation possibly get any
better?  It is in light of these truths
that we need to consider Paul’s call to our service to the Lord.

We are to be servants like Jesus

Jesus models many qualities for us in His service to
the Father.  Good prayer rests upon these
same things – a sense of duty, humility, worship, familiarity
and compassion over the issue, diligence, and faith.  These are attributes Jesus has, and they are
what God wants us to learn as well. 
Prayer is done well when we exercise our use of these things

Our sense of duty is rooted in realizing Who
we belong to, owe our life to, and labor for. 
Humility is in seeing His mighty perfection and how we fit into
the order of things.  Worship is
our outward expression of reverence towards Him.  Familiarity and compassion for issues
is taking the time to understand and truly take them to heart.  Diligence is an unswerving, steady
march forward towards the goal, despite how we feel, but instead according to
what God has said.  And faith is
taking God at His word and believing Him regardless of anything else.  These are the things that Jesus is, and we
are to be like Him, too.

Faith in His response – that
He has responded according to His Will or truth, in His best interests over
Creation (His provision, desire, loving attention, commands, declarations,
mercy, faithfulness, and Glory)

Without faith we are just speaking into the air

If we go to God the Father in prayer, we must be
doing it in the belief that that He is listening and willing to respond.  The truth is, that without this faith, we are
just speaking into the air at no one. 
That would be a pretty foolish thing to do, and God doesn’t expect us to
have to do it that way.  Instead, He
wants us to learn, recognize, and believe in Him, so that among other things we
can approach Him in prayer, through faith that it is real.  Faith in God is ultimately the
essential in our relationship with Him. 
Without faith, without believing Him at His Word, we know no God.  It is impossible.  (2 Cor 4.18, Heb 11.1, 3, 6)

Prayer relies upon this same economy.  We must not only approach God through faith
in Christ’s Salvation, but also in faith of His provision, desire, loving
attention, commands, declarations, Holiness, mercy, faithfulness, and Glory.  Strong, correct faith is the bulwark of effective prayer.  And strong, correct faith is always rooted in
the truth.  And so, God’s Will, expressed
in His truth of the Word, displayed in the reality of His works, must be the
objects of our faith.   If this is so, as
we appeal to God through faith in the basis of His truth, our prayers are then
surely answered.

The Father’s response, His Provision, is welled up
in an endless reservoir, ready for distribution through us, his priests under
Jesus.  All that stands in the way of our
being founts of blessing to the arena around us is our obedient understanding
and application of His Will.  The Father
intends His royal priesthood to be stewards over Creation.  In rescuing us from sin’s grip, and in
equipping us with the best resources of God Himself, He is creating and
training us to participate in His stewardship over Creation.

Prayer thrives or
fails on the basis of God’s Will

God only answers prayers in agreement with His Will;
Prayer not in His Will won’t be answered

So then, what is God’s Will in the situation you
would pray about?  A good place to begin
would be in assessing the issue for both it’s overall theme as well as the
issues specific to it.  Consider it well;
take it to heart – on a heart that is soft and not calloused because of
sin.  See the pieces of the puzzle that
especially strike you, and ask, ‘why?’ 
Consider how God would respond to these heart issues of yours, and
reflect on how they compare to God and His Person.  Knowing what you do about Him, would He be
glad?   Then rejoice with Him and praise
Him for a good thing.  Would He be
offended?  Then consider further how His
standard compares to the issue, and ask Him to have mercy and see it change to
become something He would be pleased with.

Confidence
before the Throne belongs to those who know what to expect

Through
Jesus, we possess the unique right to approach the terrible Throne of God
Almighty Himself and be heard as His children

Know
that our growth in prayer is in learning and becoming comfortable with our huge
privileges as His children

Prayer is a gift from
God.  Prayer is a command of God.

Good prayer begins in knowing who God is, what He
expects, and what we should expect. 
Every successful prayer, whether offered by a child in Christ or a
seasoned veteran, has many things in common. 
This booklet looks at the essentials common to good prayer.

Every believer in Jesus has the right be heard by God in
prayer.  But did you know that there are
such a things as useful prayer and ineffective prayer?  The Bible shows that prayer has its basic
requirements, and poor preparation will result in poor prayer.  On the other hand, the Bible also offers
direction on effective prayer, and is full of examples of His response to
faithful people.

Prayer is a willful effort, in faith.  This at least means that we are to labor in
prayer, believing and waiting on what God says will happen.  But good prayer has its benefits now, as
well.  Good prayer is a wonderful,
rewarding thing.  Communing with God, His
Spirit stirring in us, knowing we are following His command, living a holy life
in constant readiness, laboring with others in Christ, seeing God at work – all
of these are benefits of effective prayer.

So, why should we be concerned about these things?  So that we can succeed and please God in
service, which is also rewarding to us both now and on the Day He will examine
our lives for the quality of our labor.

Our prayer vs.
God’s Sovereignty?

If God is Sovereign over everything, how can we
justify our responsibility to pray for things to change? Is He Sovereign or
not?  If He is, then why do we have to
pray?  If He is not, are we changing His
mind?

Why are we even here?

Actually, our praying to God is exactly what He has
planned.  The outcome, whether change in
us or in the arena we are praying for, is exactly what He wants.  First, we need to recognize the foundation of
what we were made for.

We have been made for the glory of God, to have
dominion over Creation, and to be stewards of it and it’s
responsibilities.  In this way, we are
made in the Image of God, Who has Dominion over all, and in Stewardship of His endless resources, chose to
introduce Creation.  He has an overall
corporate ‘plan’, knowing what is to be achieved – from before until after all
of Creation.  He has chosen to place us
in the middle of it all.  We glorify Him
by participating in His Creation and His plan. 
He is being, and will be, glorified as this plan unfolds – and we have
been made to be a part of it.

God wants us to pray for change

The conflict of ‘why pray if God is in control?’,
and ‘does prayer change His Mind?’, are both problems only if we look at it
from man’s standpoint.  From man’s point
of view in our sinful, self-centered minds, none of this can hope to be
understood.  But from a God point of
view, everything really does fit together.

Consider this – does God want us to pray for
change?  Of course, because through it many
things happen:

• We must humble ourselves
  before Him – and He is Glorified in His supremacy
• We must turn to Him as the
  Sole and Primary Provider – and He is Glorified for His provision
• The sinful issue at hand
  stands out against His Holy standard, His Will, and how it should be – and He
  is Glorified in His perfection
• We must recognize our sin,
  repent of it, confess it, and ask forgiveness – and He is Glorified in Saving
  and forgiving us
• We must approach the Throne,
  Sanctified again by the Blood of the Lamb if we hope to be heard – and He is
  Glorified in His Son
• We can call on His promises,
  expecting Him to answer our request – and He is Glorified for being faithful
  and trustworthy
• Being a prayer in faith,
  that it is in His Will because we are familiar with His Character and His Word,
  we can observe Him answering that prayer – and He is Glorified in His teaching
  us to know Him
• And in an answered
  prayer, the believer is edified while the pagan is convicted – and so and He is
  Glorified as He blesses those who obey and grieve those who do not. (2 Sam
  22:41-2?)

Did God know these things would happen?  Did He know we would pray (or not)?  Do all things work together for good to those
who love Him?  Has He made it clear we
have been placed as stewards in His Creation? 
Has He made it clear we are to pray? 
Does He answer prayer?  To all of
these, of course!

Is God not Sovereign?  Is He not in control?  Is He unaware of what lies ahead or why all
issues occur?  Can anyone change His Mind
from what He has already intended?  Was
the Fall a big mistake He didn’t expect, that He is now scrambling to
‘fix’?  To all of these, of course not!

We have been made for an incredible task

We have been enlisted in an incredible task – to
participate in the Work and Will of God over Creation.  It is all His Will being done, often carried
out through us as His servants.  We have
the means and His command to be conduits, or priests, of His Work.  But, we must recognize His Sovereign
Provision, which makes everything possible.

He is like the Master Craftsman,
allowing his child to participate in his work in a real, meaningful way.  The Master wants to have an end product, the
one he envisions.  He also wants to
involve his young child, one that he loves. 
Under his exceeding expertise, he sets aside parts of his work for his
child to do, under his watch and always under his careful eye.  The child is trusted with as much as the
Master sees appropriate, and gradually, the child learns lessons of the
craft.  The child learns, and becomes
more like the Master.  The Master’s
vision of the end product moves closer towards completion.  And now, and in the end, the Master is
satisfied in his stewardship over what he possesses in himself – to see his
work played out in the end product and to see the child fulfill his potential
in the work the Master alone is praised for.

Our High Priest – why we can pray

A priest is a representative between God and man.  It is the only way to God.

Beginning with
Creation, mankind has interacted with God the Spirit in Heaven.  A separation exists that goes beyond distance
– a condition because of sin.  It is the
chasm between the timeless and spiritual realm of the God and the physical
Creation.  The only hope we have of
crossing this separation is through God making it possible.  He has chosen to use men as priests for this.

There have
always been men who were priests of God. 
After the Fall, a few of those illustrated in the Bible include Adam,
Enoch, and Noah.  After the Flood were
Abraham, Melchisedec, Jethro, and Moses. 
And after the Law were Aaron, his sons and descendants, Samuel, and
Annas and Caiaphas.

God increasingly showed this truth in Moses and the Law

In these people
we see God’s example of what is required of those who would interact with
Him.  With the Law being handed down
through Moses, and with it His directions to him for the Tabernacle, God began
laying out the foundation for our understanding of the priesthood.  God was very specific in instructing Moses to
carefully follow His design and commands, because the Tabernacle and the Law
were facsimiles, or representations, of how God governs.  The overall theme is that God has
expectations, which he knows we won’t meet, and that He alone mercifully
provides the way in making up for our shortfall.

Many facets of
God’s provision are shown through the Tabernacle and it’s priests– the physical
parts of the Tabernacle and the special areas inside of it, the court, the
curtain, the alters, the candlestick and Ark of the Covenant, the High Priest,
his garments and his duties, the sacrifices and Atonement, and most of all, the
Holy of Holies.  The High Priest was
responsible for utilizing all of these things while representing God and His
special people of Israel to each other.

The High
Priest’s duties centered around service through sacrifices to maintain daily
forgiveness for Israel’s sins, as well as for offerings to God in worship.  The daily morning and evening sacrifices,
along with the burning of incense as a part of prayer, were essential to
Israel’s relationship with God.  And
finally, the yearly Day of Atonement was the High Priest’s most significant
responsibility.

In short, the
priest was responsible for continually carrying every single issue of his
people concerning God, upon himself.  It
was a demanding and relentless responsibility. 
Nonetheless, he was commanded by the Law to do this, and all of God’s
people relied upon him with their very lives.

Jesus was sent to assume the perfect High Priesthood

God stated that
He wants His people to grow in useful fellowship with Him.  While the Law and the Tabernacle are exactly
what God intended them to be, He also knew that they would never be able to
achieve what He is ultimately working towards. 
In the end, He knew His goal was ultimately a superior priest who would
utilize the genuine Holy of Holies in Heaven. 
This priest would be tireless and without any personal sin hindering
him, he would have a
fully sufficient sacrifice to satisfy God in both atonement and worship, and he
would never surrender his office through death. 
And finally, he would be of a totally different lineage than that of
Aaron and the Levites, because this priest would offer a better covenant.

Jesus’
Incarnation and work up through His return to the Father was all in making Him
this superior High Priest.  With His
establishment at the Father’s right hand in the Holiest place of all, the old
order of the Levitical priesthood was put aside.  The covenant through Moses, responsible for
establishing that facsimile, is now put aside by a new covenant through Jesus.  Every means the old order possessed to carry
out their duties has been removed.  <<<Today there are no legitimate earthly Levitical
priests>>>, no Tabernacle, <<<no
sacrifices>>>, nor any atonement that God recognizes as
superior from mankind.  However, the need
of a priest still remains, and the Priesthood continues today through Jesus the
Christ.

Every Christian’s interaction with God is only through God’s perfect High Priest

Anyone who
would have interaction and forgiveness from God will still find it through a
priest.  Because Jesus is the only priest
recognized by God, it is quite true when He said ‘no one may see the Father,
but by Me’.  Our service to God in prayer
requires our access to God, our being seen without sin, and our faithful priest
Who is in constant intercession on our behalf. 
Our adoption through Jesus paved the way for us to serve God, but we
still must be mindful of His continuing requirements from us.  Our failure to follow His commands will hinder
our ability to serve Him well.  Because
He tells us to serve Him, and because He has paved the way – except for taking
responsibility for our own personal obedience – we must consider what would
hinder our work, and strive to do our best for His sake.

Our heart’s role in prayer

Our ‘heart’ is the root of who we are, the source of the ‘fruit’ we produce

God is very
interested in our ‘heart’.  The Biblical
heart is the seat, or root, of a person. 
It is the source of character, and is responsible for the reaction or
response we might expect from a person. 
‘Where your heart is, so is your treasure.’  ‘I will write my Law on their hearts.’  ‘What is in a man’s heart is what makes him
unclean, not what he eats.’  Salvation
begins the process of the changing of our heart.  God is committed to bringing our heart into
conformity with His Spirit, Who is given to us when we are Saved.  A good heart is everything – it is the goal
God is after.

Our interaction with the Holy Spirit, and our prayer, is directly related to the condition of our heart

Sin affects the
state of our heart.  Our heart, in its
perfect state as God intended, is something like an instrument – like a unique
and beautiful drum.  Without anything to
hinder it, the finest drum will respond brilliantly to the slightest
rhythm.  The Holy Spirit on our heart
relates the Father’s truth to us, like that rhythm.  The Holy Spirit is responsible for our
interaction with God, and He is like the mallet to our drum.  If that finest quality drum is hindered or
deadened to the rhythm in any way, it will not produce the beautiful sound it
is made for.  In the same way, sin on our
heart insulates us from the rhythm of the Holy Spirit, and it hinders our
response and relationship to Him. 
Because our interaction with God in Heaven is through His Holy Spirit
here in us, anything standing in between His Spirit and us adversely affects
our relationship with God.  The sin we
carry on our heart negatively effects our relationship with God the Father, and
so, our prayers.

A healthy heart is a confessed, humble heart

A heart that is
anything but humble will hinder prayer.  James
4:1-10 tells us God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.  We must approach God earnestly, in
faith.  Now, we are still sinners, but
yet Saved in Christ’s forgiveness.  The
difference for someone Saved is that his sin will repulse him, and he will seek
and receive relief from it.  Salvation is
a good example of a sinner with a humble heart – no one has ever been Saved in
his own pride, but only in true humility before God.  Humility demands our recognition, confession,
repentance, and our plea to Him for forgiveness.  This is the foundation for all good
prayer.  This humility is necessary for
God to recognize our request.

The sin we
refuse to get rid of hardens us, and it hardens our heart toward conforming to
God’s Will and everything He desires us to pray for.  Consider Jesus’ words of having the heart of
a child in order to see Heaven, or the four soils and the effects of the
hardness of sin, or the battle between the Holy Spirit in us and the sinful
body we still have which wants to do just the opposite.  All of these issues speak of the Christian
heart.  Sin hardens our heart and dampers
our responsiveness to God. 

Good prayer is the overflow of a healthy heart, spilled out before God’s Throne

God prepares ‘good works’ for us by making way for a
good heart, in combination with plenty of opportunity to serve Him.  He has made an ‘arena’ in Creation, as well
as a collection of able and equipped servants, through Jesus.  Anyone who is Saved and living anywhere in
Creation must acknowledge the need and the means for taking issues to the
Father in prayer.  Our firsthand
interaction with issues caused by sin serves to fill us with an awareness of
need.   These needs will always lay heavy
on a healthy, sensitive heart.

God also gives us plenty of opportunity to worship
Him in prayer for Who he is and what He is doing.  We are Saved through the Word, but we also
continue to be refined and edified through it as well.  As our experience with God grows through
knowing Him in the Word and our experience of His interaction in our lives,
thankful love steadily grows in us.  As
we get to know our Father more and more, this gratitude swells in our heart.

We must
maintain a healthy heart, and then fill it with these opportunities of worship
and need.  Then, with our hearts full of
these issues, we bring them before God for His response.  We have been Saved to sensitively carry the
issues, and we have the unique right to bring them to the Father.  As priests made by God, to serve God, we have
been recruited for the work of carrying needs and worship before the Father’s
Throne.  Only His children, as priests
through the work of the High Priest Jesus, have the right to come to the
Throne.  Our job is to serve as faithful
stewards, wisely using the means He has given us, to serve Him through the
opportunities of needs and worship He presents to us.  We must know the issues, both of needs and
God’s Word, and take them to heart.

Opportunities to pray

What started as perfect is now ingrained in sin

When God was
done making all of Creation, it was perfect.  
Everything was just as He intended. 
Today, it is easy to see that things aren’t like they began in the
Garden.

However, we
cannot simply say that things have unexpectedly gone bad.  This is no accident, because God is sovereign
forever.  He is not scrambling to fix
something gone unexpectedly out of control. 
True, He is out to fix something, and it is in fact often hurtful and
chaotic.  But, it is never out of His
control.

Creation is an arena soaked in sin

The sinful
world is a means to an end.  God is
creating a group of people who will be Saved from their hopeless loss to sin,
making them into a family who personally know Him and have come to obey and
serve Him effectively.  One day, all of
God’s ‘veterans’ in Christ will be gathered and delivered out of this arena of
sin, to be judged for their efforts and to live with Him forever in peace.

In the mean
time, He keeps us in a world where the need for Him abounds, and we, equipped
with the tools and protection of God, are commanded to take a stand in the
middle of it all as salt and light.

Sin’s opportunities to pray are always around us

Inner-personal sin:  Prayer is not just about seeking forgiveness, or praying for someone’s well being.   A big part of God’s goal is for us to be Sanctified – to increasingly become more like Christ.  Jesus is perfect in obedience to everything God commands, and everything God commands is perfect.  If we are to become like Jesus, then all things standing in the way of His likeness is sin, and are therefore candidates for prayer.  We are to pray for God’s shaping us, and for our obedience to His truth.  These issues fall under the category of inner-personal sin.

Inter-personal sin:  The people within the circle of our daily influence are sinners, too.  If someone you interact with is not Saved, then he will not know or follow God.  Or, if that person is a believer, he might still make an error in sin as well.  In either case, we are talking about sinful people interacting, and that is always hurtful in some way.  Jesus wants us to live the truth before the lost sinner, and find peace with the sinning brother in God’s truth.   Each case is a candidate for prayer – for both of these people, and for us while dealing with them.  These issues fall under the category of inter-personal sin.

Extra-personal sin:  The world, Creation, is also a sinful place affecting us.  We suffer harm from natural circumstance, or from people and their actions outside of our known circle of influence.  The world is full of issues where the Creation under sin, and the sinful actions of others, adversely affect us.  Natural disasters, harm for other living creatures, hunger and disease, pollution, physical or political oppression – these are just a few examples falling under the category of extra-personal sin.

We are stewards, well equipped and well supplied

In all three
cases, we are involved in some way.  But
the important issue to remember is that you are involved as a child of God and
you possess a very powerful tool – the right to go before the Throne of God, in
intercession for the issues of sin. 
Every believer through Christ has the means and the opportunity to see
God have compassion on the issues they bring before Him.

A good steward
is someone who makes good use of the resources entrusted to him.  In the case of every believer, this at least
includes forgiveness, the Holy Spirit in us, direct access to God’s Throne, and
endless opportunities to exercise these resources as we strive to bring God’s
influence upon all areas of sin.  When we
are Saved, we are then equipped to become distributors of God’s grace.  We are made to become founts of blessing,
bringing down God’s response upon the countless needs around us – as only a
child of God the Father can.  And again,
in doing so, He is glorified, each issue is rectified, and we are
Sanctified.  This is His Will.

What
is prayer?

• Prayer is in obedience
• Prayer is in faith
• Prayer is in a desire of worship and commune with God
• Prayer is in stewardship
• Prayer is in edification with the Holy Spirit
• Prayer is through the admission of Christ alone
• Prayer is in surrender
• Prayer is in service
• Prayer is in an intertwining with God

The
whole issue of prayer to God is a simple one in the main sense of what it is –
the tangible, bridging connection with God, the essence and means of our
relationship with Him.  Prayer is unique
in that it is our means of conversing with God while still here in the
body.  The Spirit within every believer
of Jesus demands the nurturing of commune with God, and while we are here, away
from Him, this is the means we have to be spiritually sustained.

There is no prayer in Heaven

There
is no prayer in Heaven in the presence of God, because there is no need – the
host of beings who are there with Him are directly fed and nourished.^  But for now, while we journey here, we are
given the privilege of a connection of our common possession with God, the Holy
Spirit.^  This connection crosses the
divide between the Spirit gifted to us here in the physical world and the place
where the Creator resides in that same Spirit. 
This is all in the parcel of the reconciliation that Jesus has provided;
this is the means for us to flourish in serving God, by providing the
foundation to be reshaped in our preparation for going back Home.  Here, we are drawn near to the heart of God
in prayer.  Once we are gathered and at
Home, we will draw near to Him in Person.^

Our
prayers, just as the Salvation that they rest upon, are accomplished through
faith, and faith alone.  God has provided
no physical representations of Himself that we may physically encounter Him in.  And there is good reason, the most of which
is in the claim of Jesus to be the One and Only way to the Father.  God is responsible for all of our provision,
for meeting all of our needs.  And in
this case of prayer, He provides the circumstance for the opportunity of
prayer, He provides the means to do it, and He provides the results.

The opportunity

The
opportunity comes in the command, the world, and our obedience.  The command is clear in Scripture, both
directly and in the example of our Lord and His Church after His
departure.^  Continually through the
Gospels, Jesus teaches and practices prayer at all junctions, always showing
His devotion to talking with God.  Note, with
God, not just to God.  His
constant command, and the command of the rest of the Bible, is clearly to
pray.^  And as is the case in all
commands from God, the only appropriate response is to obey.

To
follow a command, the opportunity to carry it out is necessary.  What sense would it make for God to direct us
to do something when there was no need or occasion to actually exercise
it?  But He has provided the opportunity
in great abundance in the world we live in. 
Everywhere we might look, be it anyplace around us or anyplace in us,
there is always a need for prayer. 
Recalling the overall definition of prayer (What for, prayer?), consider
the possibilities for God to be glorified, and for us to glorify Him as we
strive to be like Jesus, among the issues of the world.

Is
there any shortage of issues of prayer? 
Of course not.^  And is God sovereign
over everything?  Does He, in His plans
for Creation, of mankind, and of everything else, know this is exactly where we
would be right now?  Of course He does.^  And why, then?  To make opportunity to magnify His glory –
first in His show of Creation, next in His merciful work of resurrecting our
dead souls and building a purified nation of priests under Christ, and finally
in His conclusion in the gathering of the Church to Himself and the destruction
of all that is not Pure and Holy.  It is
no accident that we are here among abounding opportunity to pray.  And it is no accident that we are here, made
ready as believers with full access to the Throne of God and the resources of
Christ.  We have been Saved for good
works, among them the distribution of Heaven’s provisions, for God’s glory.^
<in proof, refer to the passage w/ “to he whom much is given, much is
expected” – mounting responsibility, in trust>  He has created the arena.  He has uttered the command.  He has given us all things necessary to carry
it out.  The only thing remaining is our obedience
– and that, He has left as our responsibility.

For
what were you Saved, Christian?  For the
Glory of God, on all fronts.  True, your
Salvation was free.  But now as a servant
and slave of Christ, see what work you have been called to equip yourself for,
called to do, and for what purpose.  As
His slave, you love God because He loved you first.^  And as 
Christian love is a love in service, come forward in loving service to
the God Who has made you and made your work for you.  See how He has provided every facet for you
to carry out His command.  Hear Him call
you to labor in prayer, in joy as you experience the privilege of God working
through you.  You know His commands – follow
them, obey, and draw close to God as His Spirit is moved in you.
(John 14:21)

On
shedding our sin before approaching the Throne in prayer

Perhaps
it is best understood as this:  We,
having been Forgiven and thus being seen Righteous in God’s eyes even now,
always have access to the Throne, despite even our unconfessed sin.  However, this sin is a hindrance – not
because it restrains us from approaching the Father through Christ our Priest,
but because God resists the haughty and the proud.  We will stand before Him in prayer, yet He
will not answer any insincere prayer. 
What does this mean?

A
man can come before God, in the midst of a terrible burden of his sin, and ask
God to relieve him and help him as he earnestly sets out in repentance of
it.  Though this man is very guilty and
involved with his sin, does God answer his prayer?  Yes, because the man is sincere in his request
in seeking relief from what he knows is wrong – but also, quite importantly, he
is repentant.  Repentance
in humility is this man’s responsibility, and the change, the release, and the
forgiveness is God’s.  James 4:6 &
10 tells us that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.  As well, this man is praying in faith and in
the will of God.  He has faith that God
will see his sin as offensive, as well as faith that God will come to his
rescue.  And in that faith, he exhibits
his belief by stepping forward in action, in prayer, and in repentance.  Also, this request is in the will of God
because this man knows God has said in His Word that if anyone would confess
his sin and repent of it, God will lift his burden.  This man is embracing and living
the promise of Hebrews 11:6 – that in faith, anyone who will approach
God must believe in Him and know that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

This same issue can be seen in the sinner’s prayer to God,
begging Forgiveness and Salvation. 
Everyone who has been Saved holds several issues in common:  They first believed in Christ as the Son of
God and the Saviour of Mankind; each recognized his sin, and in true remorse,
turned in repentance in hope of Forgiveness; all came before God’s Throne
through Christ, because of their belief in Him, and pleaded in sincerity for
Forgiveness; and each came away, believing that God is true to His Word – they
are now in faith – and sat in the assurance that they are now Righteous before
God.

Is
this person a sinner, yet still before God in prayer?  Yes. 
And was this person before God earnestly and sincerely in faith?  Yes. 
And does God hear this person’s prayer, and though he be a sinner, still
answer his prayer?  Yes.  And why? 
Because this man came to God, on behalf of Christ’s Righteousness, in
true faith, and asked of God an issue that is in His Will – and we can surely believe that God answers this request.

And what of sins hindering
the prayers of one already a child of God? 
And why should we seek to right ourselves before Christ before
approaching the Throne?

Look into the issue of even
the high priest going into God’s Presence in the Most Holy Place – ceremonially
clean, yet because of the limitation of the Law, still unable to come forward
with a clean heart & conscience.  Is
this us as well, in our sin, yet forgiven? 
Saved, granted the right as sons of God to come to the Throne, yet still
possible with a hard and sin-ridden heart?

Faith and
prayer

Faith is essential to our prayer, for it is only in humble faith in Jesus that we may approach God.  And in drawing close to Him, our faith grows, for all faith we have comes from the Father above.  We are to use the seed of faith He gives us, and as good stewards, nurture it and invest it’s potential in us back to the Father again, asking and seeking more.  Step by step, reinvesting the faith He grants us, we strive to capitalize on its increase in us that God promises.  Faith finds increase in the good soil of a soft heart bathed in God’s influence, so our task is to continually seek to remove ourselves form sin, repenting of that which hinders the promise of increase.  We strive to fulfill our responsibilities in removing the hindrances to faith’s increase in us, and to continually go back to the Well, the Source, the Father to receive our provision of faith, which promises to grow and bring this increase.

Spiritual fitness

If you have been Saved by the Blood of the Lamb, you have also received a resurrected soul, one seen blameless before God, one He has cleansed and set aright as it was originally, before Adam’s sin perverted it.  This soul in each Christian is promised eternal life, in the Pure and Glorious Presence of God.  Yet while we are still here in the body, our flesh is not yet Resurrected, or perfect like our soul.  It, unlike our soul, has not yet died to sin and is thus still to be made perfect.  For now, our flesh, our human nature and condition, still is quite fallen and inclined to full disobedience to what God would desire.  And so this is our lot – a perfect, resurrected soul endowed with the Holy Spirit of God, carried around in a fallen, sinful, wickedly indulgent body of which who’s nature desires to do the things the spirit knows it shouldn’t. (soul/spirit?)  This is the Christian’s condition, and our task for the rest of our co-existent life is to choose the way God and our spirit desire, while confronting, subduing, and disciplining our flesh.  To do this undoubtedly requires prayer to fill our spirit and gain the continually needed provisions of God and His faith to overcome the relentless resistance of the body.  Our faith, essential to our Salvation and our Sanctification, needs the continual and purposeful nourishment of God’s provision – of His faith which feeds our spirit.

Before
the Throne; bringing issues on our heart

In being this fount, how is it that we shall go before the
Throne and spill our heart’s burdens and desires – in Christ’s Name and for
God’s Glory?  Petitioning the Lord for
issues of those we intercede for must come from the heart; and to come from the
heart, it must be truly in and on our own heart.  How? Through sufficient effort, in Christian
compassion, to understand, love, and embrace the person or issue we ask intercession
for.  A cursory mention of an issue
before God is surely inferior to a heartfelt, heart-invested plea to the Father
from one of His children.  Love the
person in need; hate the manifestation of evil; know the issues at hand, and
make them your own concern; carry these issues of thanks and need on your own
heart; and always, seek and ask God’s intercession in the hope and assurance of
Him being Glorified by His answer.  This
last point demands our glad acceptance and satisfaction in however He may
choose to deal with the issue.

General stuff…….

Prayer
is an essential to our faith, and thus our walk with the Lord.  Our commune with Him in His presence fills
our spirit and carries us along in our obedience throughout the day.  Time to right ourselves and continually align
our heart with God is imperative, as well as edifying.

God’s Will
and Our Prayer: Conflict or Sovereign Harmony?

On God’s Sovereignty and His Plan
of the Ages versus our responsibility to pray; how can these two be
reconciled?  Is He Sovereign or not?  If He is, then why do we have to pray?  If He is not, are we changing His mind?

Our praying to God is exactly
what He has planned, and the outcome, be it change in us or in the arena we are
praying for, is exactly what He has sought to achieve.  Looking back to our beginning in Adam, we
first must recognize the foundation of what Man was made for.  Briefly, we were made for the glory of God,
to have dominion over Creation, and to be stewards of it and it’s
responsibilities.  In this, we are made
in the Image of God, Who has Dominion over all, and in Stewardship of
His endless resource, chose to introduce Creation.  He has an overall corporate ‘plan’,
foreknowledge of what is to be achieved from before until after all of
Creation.  He has chosen to place us in
the slip of it all, to glorify Him by our participation in His Creation and His
course for it.  He is being, and will be,
glorified as this plan unfolds – and we have been made to be a part of it.

This supposed conflict of ‘why
pray if God is in control’, and ‘does prayer change His Mind’, are both
problems only if we look at it from man’s standpoint.  From man’s point of view in our sinful,
self-centered minds, none of this can hope to be rectified.  But from a God point of view, all is indeed
harmonious.

Does God want us to pray for
change?  Of course, because through it
many things happen:  we must humble
ourselves before Him, and He is Glorified; we must turn to Him as the
Sole and Primary Provider, and He is Glorified; the sinful issue at hand is
contrasted with His Holy Standard, His Will and how it should be, and He is
Glorified; we must recognize our sin, repent of it, confess it, and ask
forgiveness, and He is Glorified; we must approach the Throne, Sanctified again
by the Blood of the Lamb if we hope to be heard, and He is Glorified; we can
proclaim our expectation of His promise to answer our request, and He is
Glorified; being a prayer in faith, that it is in His Will because we are
familiar with His Character and His Word, we can observe Him answering that
prayer, and He is Glorified; and in an answered prayer, the believer is edified
while the pagan is convicted – and so and He is Glorified.

Did God know these things would
happen?  Did He know we would pray (or
not)?  Do all things work together for
good to those who love Him?  Has He made
it clear we have been placed as stewards in His Creation?  Has He made it clear we are to pray?  Does He answer prayer?  To all of these, of course!

Is God not Sovereign?  Is He not in control?  Is He unaware of what lies ahead or for what
purpose all issues occur?  Do we have the
influence, does any man, to change His Mind from what He has already
intended?  Was the Fall a big mistake He
hadn’t taken into account, only to have to scramble to compensate, and so
reluctantly choose to send Christ afterwards? 
To all of these, of course not!

We have been enlisted in an
unbelievably fortunate and blessed endeavor – to participate in the Work and
Will of God over Creation.  It is all His
Will being done, often carried out through us as His vessels.  We have the command and the means to be
conduits of His Work.  But, we must
recognize His Sovereign Provision, which makes everything possible.

He is like the Master Craftsman,
allowing a child to participate in his work in a real, meaningful way.  The Master wants to have an end product, the
one he envisions.  He also wants to
involve his young child, one that he loves. 
Under the exceeding bounty of his expertise, he sets aside parts of his
work for his child to do, under his watch and always under his careful
eye.  The child is entrusted with as much
as the Master sees appropriate, and gradually, the child learns lessons of the
craft.  The child learns, and becomes
more like the Master.  The Master’s
vision of the end product moves closer towards completion.  And presently, and in the end, the Master is
satisfied in his stewardship over what he possesses in himself – to see his
work in the end product and to see the child fulfill his potential in the work
the master is hailed for.

The High
Priesthood of Jesus

For consideration; in an attempt to satisfy Scripture’s
declaration and undercurrents regarding the perseverance of the believer in
Jesus (under God’s grace alone, despite our freedoms in our will), the warnings
of damnation for apostates, and while under the viewpoint of Jesus’ Priesthood,
see this:

Our Mediator

Christ our Salvation, as the Mediator between God and these
of the fallen flesh, taking possession of us in our representation before the
Throne;

Our Lifeline

as we are surely here in this violent kingdom under Satan’s
temporary dominion, while yet too we do cling to the unbreakable Lifeline of
our Saviour, Who sustains us and makes us useful in service to Him while we
remain here;

Our High Priest, of
which the Moses’ faithful work was modeled

that this Life Line was presented, no, lashed to us at our
Regeneration, and now remains as our sure Hope because of His office of Most
High Priest in the Most Holy Sanctuary at God’s right hand.  This Priesthood demands our understanding and
recognition if we are to have any hope of successfully navigating our walk, or
have any measure of the holiness we are commanded to embody.  This Priesthood is the perfect truth upon
which Moses was to fashion Israel’s foundations as servants of God – the
earthly Sanctuary; the Aaronic priesthood; the sacrifices; the Law – these have
not been put away, but instead have been fully established and now realized in
the Work and Person of Jesus, the Son of God, made manifest as one of us.  The Priesthood continues yet today through
Jesus alone, and we must realize this and live accordingly if we are to stand
as holy before God.

Our continual need
for a Priest

Thus, we shall not fall away, yet we also must not
ignorantly rest in our sin (rendering ineffective our walk and good service)
but instead cling to our High Priest and seek continual restoration through
active recognition, confession, and repentance of our sin, made possible
through the perpetually sufficient Sacrifice of Jesus’ Blood.

To stand before God
effectively, we must be purified again and again of our continuing sin

It is true that God Almighty cannot look upon sin – ‘His
eyes are too pure’ – and so it is yet today in this Age of Redemption.  Is it dangerous to believe that once we have
received Christ that all sin is now forgiven, and thus we can stand in
assurance of our righteousness before our Holy God?  No, I don’t believe so.  True, we have forgiveness through Christ’s
forgiveness, but remember that we are yet sinful in this flesh, and tomorrow,
yes, even today, we will likely commit sin.

Confession and belief
is the beginning, but utilizing our Priest is the rest of the issue

However, we are still burdened with our sin until we turn
back to Jesus every time, to recognize, confess, repent from our sin, and thus
have the righteousness through our faith in His response.  Thus, we must renew our righteousness over
and over again in order to be seen as so before God, not just resting in our
simple confession in Christ!  Unless we
continually shed our sin through His forgiveness, through the Office and
Function of His High Priesthood, we cannot expect to stand before God and be
blessed and be heard in our prayer.  We
must first, again, be made right to God through His High Priest, our Salvation,
Jesus.

The works we were
Saved for require our good preparation to approach God, in the name of our
Priest’s Salvation

To say that we are made righteous to stand before God for
now and forever through our confession in Christ is only a half-truth, and does
not agree with the Mighty Declaration of the Scriptures.  Instead, we need to see Jesus the Priest, as
did the Jews to whom He came as their Answer. 
And in seeing Him so, we must continually utilize the gift of the
reconciliation through the Work of our Priest, Who today and forever stands as
our Bridge to God.  We must be slaves in
service to the God Who loved us first. 
To do so, we must be flush in His Spirit’s edification and power, also
utilizing the means He has granted us, His children, as we may now stand before
His Throne in appeal.  And in order to do
this, we must be clean.  This is the
reason for Jesus, and the reason we worship Him.  He is the Means we have received to carry out
our central purpose – our joyful, useful bond slavery to the benevolent God of
all Creation, not just the revel of our escape from Hell, and His love for
us.  Our view of Salvation and its
purpose must be God-centered, not stopping on the benefits it conveys to us.

On prayer and our place in God’s Creation

Out of all of the gifts God has given His children,
those He has Saved, prayer must be one of the greatest.  To understand this, we need a clearer view of
what prayer is and what it is capable of. 
When we have a good grasp of the reality of a gift, we can also have a
good appreciation of its value and how to use it.

In order to see prayer’s value, we must first
consider what has taken place on a spiritual level as far as God is
concerned.  Prayer is about access to God
and His willingness to hear and answer us. 
This is not to be centered on our own purposes, but for God’s.  God’s desire and His intent for all things –
be it an issue outside of us or one on our own heart – is to have them come
under the alignment of His perfect Will. 
God is perfect and in full, purposeful harmony, and anything that comes
into alignment with Him becomes harmonious as well.  In the end when Jesus returns and all sin and
its effects are destroyed, He will replace everything with a blessed
perfection, which knows no strife.  This
new Creation will truly be centered on God and be not only a reflection but an
extension of Him.  And as God the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit are in total, peaceful balance, so too will everything
brought to replace this world once it is destroyed.  Prayer is about seeing and seeking and
requesting this perfection of God’s Will to be upon us now, piece by
piece.  God’s Will upon us is for the
advancement of the Kingdom and the provision of His children – and all for the
glory to Him that He deserves.  His Will
upon us relies on His provision for all needs, and we have the highest
privilege to stand before Him in Spirit and make our requests.

A good question to ask is – why does God wait on us
to ask Him in issues of prayer? 
Certainly, He does not need us for this – and this is a good attitude to
have.  After all, just as He told Job,
who else was even present when He created all things seen?  Yet we believe the claim that we, in our
Salvation, stand directly before the God of the Universe with our
requests?  And further, that those
requests, He answers??  The explanation
lies first in the question of what is it that God desires of us and of our
Saved lives.  Or simply put, why has He
Saved us, and so made us able and responsible for standing before Him in
petition?

God’s affairs with everything under Him, and that
literally being everything, are carried on continually.  Even as for us, God carries each breath we
take through the thing we call life.  The
atoms and the planets and the universe all keep spinning in order under the
direction of God.  God is God
because He is the sole Provider, and all things rely upon His provision.  Seeing the issue with any less scope of God’s
contribution would deny God of the truth and the recognition of what He is
responsible for.

And so, here we are, participating in this portion
of His Creation.  And if Saved, we have
the special standing before Him – in a very real, tangible way which is central
to our membership in His Family, as brothers with Christ.  So again, why has He Saved us, and so make us
able and responsible for standing before Him in petition?  He clearly does not need our help, and in contrast
with all that He is responsible for, this is very easy to see.  The same God Who is spinning the atoms in
this piece of paper is also very interested and concerned for the plight of
that one person on your prayer list who is in some sort of need.  Will God see to that person’s needs?  The more appropriate question is, has God
given you this person’s needs as an opportunity to exercise your relationship
with Him – which by Christ’s Sacrifice, He has blotted out your offensiveness
and made this relationship possible – and has He given you the means to appeal
to Him and see Him answer your intercession for this person?

If you are Saved, then you would do well to realize
the arena that God has created for us to dwell in, (here, this world around
us), while at the same time see the value and purpose in the rights He has
given you to stand before Him. The introduction of sin to the world was no
surprise to God, nor was it a mistake He is scrambling to correct.  The fact that God is staying His Wrath and
Judgment on sin is not because He is somehow indecisive, but instead that it is
serving His Sovereign purpose for the End Goal. 
The new Heaven and the new Earth He sees laying ahead is a place of that
perfect harmony of the Triune God, inhabited by creatures truly in His image –
again, in that same perfect harmony. 
This begins with our Resurrected soul, and will be embellished by love,
obedience, and existing in the enjoyment of God’s perfect Will.

The purpose of this fallen world, and the priceless
gift of standing before God, is in our gathering and preparation for this New
Jerusalem.  This existence here, now, for
the child of God is a working camp, a training ground, for the citizens of
God’s Holy City.  Here opportunity
abounds, and there is hardly a shortage of sin and it’s consequences – nor is
there any shortage in the greater provision God has granted to his children for
attacking the blight of this world by our faithful distribution of God’s
blessings – brought down through diligent intercession before the Throne of God
Almighty.  Here, we learn how to rely
upon and interact with God.

No one else but the Saved children of God possess
the right to go before Him and be heard. 
No one else can hope to have Him answer their prayers than those who
know Him and pray in His Will.  No one
else has been selected, then commanded, to take all of these issues
before God in prayer as good stewards of the most precious gifts they have been
charged with.  It is for all of these
issues we have been Saved, made to march on towards our appointment in the Holy
City as His Royal Priests.  Why did the
world fall to sin?  Why did God allow
this to happen and to continue?  Why did
He choose to Save a sinner like me?  Why
does He endow all of His children with His most precious Gifts?  Why has He commanded us, and then enabled us,
for these good works?  Look to the End
Goal, as He does.  See the means made
available to you now, child of God, and set about to learning how to make good
use of them.  Then follow through, and
serve and please the Creator of all, the Creator of you.

What does sin have to do with our hearts and prayer?

The role of sin in the Christian
life is important to understand, because though we are forgiven, our sin still
has it’s consequences.  Knowing how sin
affects our walk, and what to do about it, will make the difference between a
successful walk and a failing one.

This is not an issue in
opposition to our Salvation.  Those in
Jesus are Saved and fully forgiven, though still sinners.  We are Justified now before God on the merit
of Christ’s Sacrifice.  However, we are
yet in the flesh, and we still suffer the results of our sin – all the way up
to death or when Christ returns and we are Glorified in our new bodies.

Though we are sinners, as
Righteous through Christ we may now approach the Throne of God in the Most Holy
Place in Heaven.  We may stand before God
in the Holy Spirit, clean under the Sacrifice of the Lamb’s Blood.

Yet, James 4:1-10 tells us
God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.  We must approach God earnestly, in
faith.  Salvation is a good example; no
one has ever been Saved in his own pride, but only in true humility
before God.

Humility demands our recognition,
confession, repentance, and our plea for forgiveness – if we are to be set
free.  This is the pattern for all good
prayer.  Prayer is for conforming us, and
everything in this fallen world, to the desires of God.  It is for our interaction with God.  This humility is necessary for God to
recognize the sinner’s plea – be it a prayer to be Saved, or the prayer of an
experienced Christian.

So then, how does sin impact all
of this?  It hardens us, it hardens our
heart towards conformity to God’s Will and everything He desires for us.  Consider the issue and the effects of fasting
on a heart preparing to go before God. Consider Jesus’ words of having the
heart of a child in order to see Heaven. 
Consider the 4 soils and the effect of sin, or the lack of, in the good
soil.  Consider the battle between the
Spirit in us which speaks to our resurrected soul, and the sinful body we still
occupy which wants to do just the opposite.

All of these issues speak of the
Christian’s heart.  The Gift of the Holy
Spirit is for the express purpose of the transformation of our heart, and thus
our life.  All that we do and are flows
from the heart, and God’s primary concern is our heart and the results
following it.  The nurture of our heart
and our interaction with the Holy Spirit in us is our primary responsibility,
and sin is the obstacle standing in our way.

The nurture of our relationship
with the Spirit in us revolves around five things – the study of the Word to
know the Person, Heart, and Will of God; prayer to God seeking our conformity
to His Word; the deliberate pursuit of a holy life before God; our obedience to
His Word, supported in prayer made profitable through a holy life; and our joy
in obedience to God, bringing joy in experiencing Him.  All of these issues are common and are seated
in the heart.  If these are necessary for
our transformation to Christ’s image, and if our heart is centrally involved,
and if sin hardens our heart and so dampens our responsiveness to God – then
the only reasonable thing to do is what God already demands.  Examine yourself, see your sin in your
reflection in Scripture, see what you are to be, be conformed in obedience
under the help of the Holy Spirit, turn from your sin, and strive to be a
useful slave to Christ in the Kingdom of God.

See sin for the blight it
is.  See its hindrance on your heart, the
same heart responsible as the source of yourself and your Christian walk.  Recognize God’s despise of sin. Strive to be
holy, for He is holy.  Strive and live to
obey His law written on your heart.

Saved, Adopted – and Responsible

Now Saved, we in Christ are now adopted as sons of
God and co-heirs with our Brother Jesus. 
In this we have full rights as inheritors, and one Day, when we are
gathered and brought home, we will receive our place in the Family.

As for now, we stand Righteous before God due to His
acceptance and expectation of this Day of Justification, when the world will be
Judged and our Lord will wave us past the scrutiny and condemnation that will
send those without Forgiveness into Hell.

This time now, the Last Days, are the time of
Salvation and service to the God Who has rescued us.  And as God and we await and look forward to
our homecoming, we are now kept in the assurance, and under the deposit, of the
Holy Spirit.  Because we have been Saved,
and because we have been truly given a resurrected soul, and because God knows
His Act and His Will in our Salvation is going to be confirmed on the Day the
whole world is Judged, and because He has called us to labor in good works – He
has given us the Holy Spirit.  We have
been entrusted and endowed with the very Spirit of God!  He is our assurance and the seal on the
Inheritance we will receive at the Gathering.

This issue of His Spirit in us, and our
responsibilities concerning this, are central to the Christian life and
walk.  Our success, our joy in God, our
good stewardship – all of these pivot on our deliberate and faithful
cultivation of our relationship with the Holy Spirit of God in us.

Good stewardship requires first something of value
to administer; second, an understanding of what it is and how to relate to it;
and third, the discipline to deal with it diligently in a way that is
proportionate to it’s value.

The ‘titanium cable’ which runs centrally through
any useful Christian walk contains the following: 1) Knowing God’s Mind, His
Person, and His Will through the Word He has given; 2) Praying, in His Spirit,
for our own obedience to His Will; and for His intercession, consistent with
His Person and Will revealed in His Word; 3) A holy life, always seeking out
our sin through diligent reflection in the Word, the Standard God has set forth
for us – and this all for the purpose of remaining soft in heart and sensitive
to the Spirit’s leading by seeking, recognizing, confessing, and repenting of
our sin; 4) Obedience to what we know God, His Word, and His Spirit convey to
us as we, in a pure and soft heart, learn His expectations in Scripture and
grow in our relationship through experience and prayer; and 5) Exercising our
good walk, to experience the joy of meeting God and dancing with Him as he
blesses and assures His child, whom He has given all of the ingredients, means,
and circumstances to do so.

All of these issues, the strands of that ‘cable’,
are rooted in the centrality of the Holy Spirit within each of us as children
of God.  These are the main concerns of
the Christian, and all are common in the responsibilities they represent for
both God and us.  Study of the Word,
Prayer, the Holy life, Obedience, and the joy of experiencing God; we have our
responsibilities to do each of these, and God has the responsibility to provide
the means, His response, and the circumstances to carry it all out.  All of these ‘cable’ issues are the task and
the promised blessing of each child of God. 
And all are possible through the Holy Spirit, which we hold in common
with God Himself.  And every believer in
Jesus Christ has the duty and the means to exercise and cultivate his or her
relationship with God the Holy Spirit. 
All of these points demand a relationship with this Spirit, and as for
God’s part of the responsibility, He is never lacking.  A failure to cultivate this relationship, and
a failure to see the fruit of a good walk, and the disappointment, which always
accompanies a poor walk, is no one’s fault but our own.  The fellowship of a healthy walk with God is
exactly what He desires, exactly what He has provided for in our Salvation,
exactly what He commands us to strive for – and exactly what we will be
discussing with Him when we get Home.

See the Promise of the Holy Spirit to you and in
you; grow in your recognition of the value of this Gift; strive towards the
best relationship possible; and enjoy God now as you prepare to go Home to
enjoy Him forever!

Bema
Seat Narrative

How many believers
in Jesus Christ will there be over the ages? 
Have you ever considered that? 
Scripture tells us potentially billions, “as the sand which is on the
seashore”.

There is a day
ahead of us, a Great Day, when God will gather up His Church and we will stand
before Him as a great sea of His people. 
Imagine the exhilaration!  In the
presence of God!  In beautiful fellowship
with our brothers and sisters in Christ! 
In sweet communion in Heaven! 
Shoulder to shoulder, singing praises to the Lord of the Marriage Feast
in Paradise.  We will be there, savoring
the events leading up to this beginning of blissful eternity with God
Himself.  A sea of people, perhaps more
than you can imagine.  And you, standing
there amongst the throng.

One day, this will happen to you if you trust Jesus
with your soul.  If you’ve ever been in a
great crowd, you’ve noticed how easy it is to feel like a grain of sand.  However, as we will stand before Jesus,
together with the whole Body of the Church, He will call out each of our names,
one by one, to come forward and kneel before Him.  And as He is forever your personal Saviour,
He will know you intimately as the individual He has walked with your entire
life.  In that moment each of us will be
fixed under His gaze, and He will know everything about us, everything in
us.  And not just by a divine call on His
knowledge, but more importantly by His loving, intimate crafting of your life,
His patient walk with you here and now. 
He will look upon you and me, and weigh out what we have done with our
lives since He Saved us, and He will test our lives with an honest, piercing
accuracy.  From what He reveals, He has
promised to give to everyone according to what he has done as a steward of the
life he has been given.  Each of our
lives, as disciples of Jesus Christ, will be fully exposed and weighed.  So, the big question is, brothers and sisters
in Christ, what will He say to you?

This depends upon
the life and opportunities the Lord has put before you, and how you have
strived to fulfill your responsibilities to manage them as He expects you
to.  This is the Christian life, the one
you have been Saved for.

James instructs us
to persevere and to engage our faith in the arena around us.

Paul tells us to
recognize who we are now before God and to break away from the “pattern of this
world”.  He urges us to follow his
example in tireless pursuit of the Prize.

Jesus commands
those He has Saved to surrender their lives and pick up their cross, to cling
to their first love of Him and overcome, so that we may eat of the “Tree of
Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God”.

And why do they
tell us this?  Because of the common end,
the Day, they all know lies ahead of us.

Enter, the
Church.  The Church of Jesus Christ
exists to Worship God, to equip and impact the lives of It’s members, and to
reach out to gather the Lost.  It is the
funnel God has chosen to use to prepare us for that Great Day. 

John 14:21 reads:

“Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is
the one who loves Me. He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I too
will love him and show Myself to him.”

Here, Jesus
explains the relationship a believer should have with the Lord through loving
Him in Scripture and by experience, by obeying Him and doing what
the He shows you is true, and then in experiencing Him as He
reveals Himself to you.  This is the
cycle of our walk we hope to encourage, because it is true that anyone who
brushes with God is never the same.  The
Church presents opportunities to encourage your walk and to step into this
cycle with other people who love the Lord, too.

I long to see the
Lord and hear Him say, “I’m pleased in what you’ve done with what I’ve given to
you.  You’ve done a good job.”  Do you want to hear this from your Lord,
too?  Then make it your priority to make
the most of your walk, and to take advantage of every opportunity you have to
grow in the Lord.  Run for the Prize, and
long to hear Him say “Good job, my faithful and trustworthy servant”.

Freedom and Liberty under Sovereignty                                                              6-5-01

Today
I learned freedom and liberty under the all-encompassing Sovereignty of a Great
and Loving God.  For the first time in my
life, in a certain way I am not accustomed, it is without reservation I came to
the Father as His child, of whom has been given free will – yet approaches,
asks, and receives from his God, of Whom no detail is missed nor passes without
consent.

I
write this at my usual table, yet in an unusual place we currently call
home.  It has been a long road coming to
this place, as well as in coming to the place I now stand before my
Father.  I have much joy and satisfaction
in recognizing that it was only yesterday at the threshold of my arrival I
asked Him to help me understand this issue of living as a free being, Saved by
His Grace, yet doing so under His inescapable oversight of all Creation.  How can these two truths coexist?  I have wondered and pondered this from my
rebirth.  I sat yesterday in a parking
lot of some business park, in the shade of trees; in my usual position I prayed
out to God for help and understanding once again, and finally I am in a place
to understand.  I might marvel that He
took me this far from home and so much farther from my previous self to make me
to understand – yet I also can report no surprise because I enjoy such an open
freedom and liberty to roll along with whatever He might have of me.  Not without a hitch, of course, but I look to
this abandon as paramount in enjoying His teaching me how to live under Him.

Freedom
to choose.  Freedom under a Sovereign
God.  Freedom under a God Who is over
all, without fail.  Perhaps a simple
issue to some, but to this child, a very insurmountable concept until now.  How personal our Salvation and
Regeneration.  Each person a universe in
his mind, a world in his personal dealings and consciousness.  How is it a God and Saviour over just one
lost and rebellious being can persevere and unravel so many intertangled
issues, let alone his countless brothers’ and sisters’?  How mandatory a personal relationship with
the One Who would do this.  Only through
an intimate understanding and relationship might anything like this be realized
by the forgiven.

Only
through that intimate relationship might we approach our Creator; that approach
made possible through the Reconciliation He has provided; that intercourse
maintained and made possible by His encompassing Spirit Who attends and roams
this Earth for our quickening, conviction, connection, communion, and benefit
until we are gathered rightfully.  How
else might this Miracle of Regeneration be possible while still preserving our
free will, without arresting it or denying it? 
And not for the sake of us because of some perceived value or rights we
might wish to claim, but in fact to honor what He has created, that which makes
us what He intended – capable of a choice, of a real and loving relationship,
of communion of an intimate nature as it was in the beginning before the Fall.

What
are God’s responsibilities, and what are ours? 
How many times have I uttered that question?  We are to exercise our free will, choosing
that which is pleasing to God, under Whom all things are made able to exist, as
He is truly God; in freedom and liberty afforded us despite our beginnings in
failure in condemnation; freedom and liberty which now has been Gifted to us by
the same Provider.  We may make our
choices, and do best in making them under His precepts; made attainable through
Forgiveness, made possible only in a relationship and true walk with our
Saviour Jesus, and thus with God on His Mighty Throne, through His Gift of the
Counselor He has poured out for our benefit.

Today
I asked the Father to make way for a job for me here for the next few months,
to bring us back home to Indiana, to provide us property and a new place we may
come to find as a home, and to let us make good use of our time here, enjoying
His creation in the Northwest.  And for
the first time, I perceived no fear, reservation, or concern that I was out of
the bounds of our respective responsibilities. 
All of these things I desire to do as a free child of God, who desires
to live in a way pleasing to Him. 
Comfortable in my freedom, content and thankful under the God of all.

No
One Will Be Argued Into Heaven

After all is considered,
nothing but faith will convince us of the reality of God.  No one will be argued into Heaven, but we’ll
only be able to escape punishment and go to Heaven by recognizing who Jesus is
and who we are in relation to Him.  The
Bible has much to say about this, and no single verse is likely to explain
everything at once.  However, the Bible
does make it very clear if we make the effort to understand and ask God to make
it plain to us, that he will answer.

God is not afraid of our
questions.  He is perfect, because He is
God.  The real question is about what He
thinks of us and how He will deal with us according to it.  Our job is to understand Him and
respond.  Asking these questions is good,
if we want to really consider the Bible’s answers.

Jesus is part of what’s
called the Trinity, the whole making up God, yet separate in the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit.  Three, all of the
Trinity, yet all God.  I don’t expect to
fully understand this, but we can see facets of the truth of this in the
Bible.  The important thing really, is
who is Jesus and what does He represent for us? 
He is called, and calls Himself, many things in Scripture.  Most important is recognizing that He is in
the authority of God, and stands as the only way for mankind to possibly go to
the Father, in Heaven.  If Jesus is
merely a man, or a prophet, or even a Moses-class person, then nothing He
claims to be really matters.  In order to
be the only way to the Father, as He claims, He must be a God-class Being.  No one else is eligible because the way to
the Father must be free of sin, have satisfied God’s judgment on sin for those
guilty, and stand ready and able to give forgiveness to whoever meets the
criteria, which is faith in Him.

Faith is the dividing factor
in Christianity.  More specifically, it
must be faith in God and His answer to freedom from the debt of sin, who is
Jesus.  Faith is the currency of God.  It crosses the divide between us in the
material world and God in the Spiritual realm. 
Faith is a belief which brings action in response to it.  We all have faith, even those who say they do
not believe at all in God.  They still
have faith there is no God.  The issue
is, if God is above this all as He says He is, our stake in our existence lays
in who or what we have faith in.  If God
is the standard, being over everything and being perfect, we need to see Him
and ourselves for what we are and consider the ramifications.

Concerning the death and
resurrection of Jesus, the Bible records both plainly.  Aside from theological reasons, God’s
bringing Jesus back to life is one of the more tangible issues we can see.  Jesus is the first to be raised from the dead
by God, without any sin, yet still in an earthly type body.  This body is different in that it is how we
were meant to be, without the effects of sin and without any decay.  After His resurrection in His body, Jesus
spent time here before going back to Heaven. 
Today He has the same body, and when He comes back, He still will.  The reason this is important is that people
who have faith in Him, who are ‘saved’, will experience the same resurrection
when He comes back to settle accounts. 
His being alive today is central to His claim as the Son of God and the
Savior of mankind.

God wants no one
to be turned away from Heaven, and He has made it absolutely free to come
in.  Disbelief, lack of faith, and denial
of God are what ultimately stand in the way of Paradise, and are also
responsible for punishment for whoever doesn’t believe.  I hope you will consider this and ask
questions, even challenge it.  Faith
comes from a solid belief, no matter how small the faith.  To have a saving faith in Jesus, you must
understand who He is and what He means to your life.

Jesus as the Son of God, not anything less:

John
1

1          In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2          He was with God in the beginning.

3          Through him all things were made;
without him nothing was made that has been made.

Hebrews
1

2          but in these last days
he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and
through whom he made the universe.

Luke 22

66       At daybreak the council
of the elders of the people, both the chief priests and teachers of the law,
met together, and Jesus was led before them.

67       “If you are the Christ, ” they
said, “tell us.” Jesus answered, “If I tell you, you will not
believe me,

68       and if I asked you, you would not answer.

69       But from now on, the Son of Man will be
seated at the right hand of the mighty God.”

70       They all asked, “Are you then the
Son of God?” He replied, “You are right in saying I am.”

71       Then they said, “Why do we need any
more testimony? We have heard it from his own lips.”

Luke 23

1          Then the whole assembly rose and led
him off to Pilate.

2          And they began to accuse him, saying,
“We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes
to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king.”

3          So Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you
the king of the Jews?” “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied.

Why
faith is important:

Hebrews 11

1          Now faith is being sure
of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

3          By faith we understand
that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not
made out of what was visible.

            (This includes
aliens, if they do exist)

6          And without faith it is
impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he
exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Death and the
spirit leaving the body

Luke
23

46           Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into
your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his
last.

The
Resurrection

Mark 16

5              As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed
in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

6              “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are
looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not
here. See the place where they laid him.

7              But go, tell his disciples and Peter, `He is going ahead
of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.'”

8              Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled
from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

9              When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared
first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons.

10           She went and told those who had been
with him and who were mourning and weeping.

11           When they heard that Jesus was alive
and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.

12           Afterward Jesus appeared in a
different form to two of them while they were walking in the country.

13           These returned and reported it to the
rest; but they did not believe them either.

14           Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he
rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe
those who had seen him after he had risen.

Luke 24

36           While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself
stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

37           They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a
ghost.

38           He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do
doubts rise in your minds?

39           Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and
see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

40           When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet.

41           And while they still did not believe it because of joy and
amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?”

42           They gave him a piece of broiled fish,

43           and he took it and ate it in their presence.

His Return to
Heaven

Acts
1

3              After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and
gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a
period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

9              After he said this, he was taken up before their very
eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

10           They were looking intently up into the sky as he was
going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.

11           “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand
here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into
heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

He is still alive today

1
Peter 3

21           … It saves you by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ,

22           who has gone into heaven and is at
God’s right hand–with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

Scripture (NKJV)

¹⁸ Then after three
years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and remained with him fifteen days.
¹⁹But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord’s brother.
²⁰(Now concerning the things which I write to you, indeed, before God, I
do not lie.)

 
²¹Afterward I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. ²²And
I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea which were in Christ. ²³But
they were hearing only, “He who formerly persecuted us now preaches the
faith which he once tried to destroy.” ²⁴And they glorified God
in me.

Commentary – The
Making of an Apostle of Jesus, Part 2

Divine tools,
useless without love

After receiving the revelation from the Lord Jesus
in Arabia, (Gal 1:15-17, 2 Cor 12:2-7), Paul was equipped in his
understanding for his ministry which lay ahead. 
However, though he had all knowledge shown him by God, his was still no
ministry.   That is to say, the knowledge
of God and His Will makes no ministry, but instead the exercise of it in
love.  Consider the Apostle’s own
thoughts on this, as he reports in 1Cor. 13. 
The issue of one’s love – that active love, not the counterfeit
‘feeling’ love put forth as all-important by the Liar and the world – is
examined from all angles to show it’s relevance. 1Cor 13:1-2 addresses
knowledge left bare without it; v.3 the ultimate personal sacrifices rendered
useless by it’s lack; vs. 4-7 it’s behavior and exercise; and vs. 8-13 loves
timeless survival past all other things which shall see their end when the Lord
returns.  Paul here illustrates the truth
of where the reality of God’s power and intent reside; it is not by knowledge
the Lord Jesus have saved us, no more than by his personal revelation and
teaching was Paul’s knowledge alone any good. 
Only by the essential ingredient of love these things were made
powerful.

Perhaps this is because love is the only product we
produce in true partnership with God. 
Faith in God comes from the Father, while our fruits, whatever type, are
borne out of hearts.  But the self-sacrificing
love of the Savior or one of His own is a perfect response of the believer’s
heart, to the incitation of God’s Holy Spirit. 
Love is the perfect expression of Christ, and the same when we exercise
it upon others in our world.

Galations 1:11-17 recounts the equipping of the
Apostle and his Salvation story.  Vs.
18-24, and the three years gap following this time are his fledgling years –
those when he learned how to cope with and use what had been conveyed upon him.  It was somewhere in this time he might have
considered the issues lined out in 1 Cor 13. 
The equipping of the Apostle was in at least two parts – his gain of
knowledge, and his exercise of it in love.

Paul’s timeline through Gal 2:1

Acts
22:14-15
¹⁴Then he said, “The God of our fathers has chosen you that you
should know His will, and see the Just One, and hear the voice of His mouth.
¹⁵For you will be His witness to all men of what you have seen and heard.

Acts
26:16
¹⁶But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this
purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have
seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you.

Acts
22:10
¹⁰So I said, “What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me,
“Arise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all things which
are appointed for you to do.’

Acts
9:19-22
¹⁹So when he had received food, he was strengthened. Then Saul spent
some days with the disciples at Damascus. 
²⁰ Immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues, that
He is the Son of God.

Acts
9:25
²⁵Then the disciples took him by night and let him down through the
wall in a large basket.

Galatians
1:15-17
¹⁵But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb
and called me through His grace, ¹⁶to reveal His Son in me, that I
might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh
and blood, ¹⁷nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles
before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.

2
Corinthians 12:2-7
²I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago–whether in the body
I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows–such a one
was caught up to the third heaven. ³And I know such a man–whether
in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows– ⁴how he
was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not
lawful for a man to utter. ⁵Of such a one I will boast; yet of
myself I will not boast, except in my infirmities. ⁶For though I
might desire to boast, I will not be a fool; for I will speak the truth. But I
refrain, lest anyone should think of me above what he sees me to be or hears
from me.

Galatians
1:18
¹⁸Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and
remained with him fifteen days.

Acts
9:26-28

²⁶ And when Saul had come to
Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples; but they were all afraid of him, and
did not believe that he was a disciple. ²⁷But Barnabas took him and
brought him to the apostles. And he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on
the road, and that He had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at
Damascus in the name of Jesus. ²⁸So he was with them at Jerusalem,
coming in and going out.

Acts
22:17-21

¹⁷“Now it happened, when I
returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, that I was in a trance
¹⁸and saw Him saying to me, “Make haste and get out of Jerusalem
quickly, for they will not receive your testimony concerning Me.’ ¹⁹So
I said, “Lord, they know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat
those who believe on You. ²⁰And when the blood of Your martyr
Stephen was shed, I also was standing by consenting to his death, and guarding
the clothes of those who were killing him.’ ²¹Then He said to me,
“Depart, for I will send you far from here to the Gentiles.”‘

Acts
26:17
¹⁷I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the
Gentiles, to whom I now send you,

Acts
9:29-30
²⁹And he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed
against the Hellenists, but they attempted to kill him. ³⁰When the
brethren found out, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to
Tarsus.

Acts
26:19-20
¹⁹ “Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the
heavenly vision, ²⁰but declared first to those in Damascus and in
Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles,
that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance.

Acts
1:8b
”…and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,
and to the end of the earth.”

Acts
9:15
¹⁵But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of
Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.

Galatians
1:21
²¹Afterward I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia.

Acts
11:25-26
²⁵Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul. ²⁶And
when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole
year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people. And the
disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

Acts
11:29-30

²⁹Then the disciples, each
according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in
Judea.  ³⁰This they also did,
and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.

Acts
12:25
²⁵ And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had
fulfilled their ministry, and they also took with them John whose surname was
Mark.

A servant’s stance

Among
our life’s work as believers must be growth in faith and obedience to the
Father, carrying out our responsibilities in the Kingdom now and the Kingdom
Come.  As of now, each of us has
opportunity to grow into spiritual maturity through our Sanctification.  We are given responsibilities now to train
us, finish and perfect our faith, refining our subsequent works.

In view of our realm of responsibility, consider the
means we have available to us to carry out our task.  Jesus taught and showed us by example the
actions of a Servant Savior.  In His
dealings with the vile, fallen souls He came into contact with, He always
showed compassion, truth, and care.  Consider
for a moment how we are then to deal with each other and the world as well –
aren’t we to show the same as our Lord did? 
The answer to this must lie in the same servant stance in our dealings
with others, and that this is truly the highest means our Lord would have us to
use in our efforts.  Not employing this,
we would show impatience, hardness of heart, judgment, lack of compassion, lack
of good works, lack of reliance on the Father, and an unwillingness to pour
ourselves out for the sake of others – even those who hate us and try to oppose
and hurt us.  Perhaps there is a very
good reason that the Father has not typically provided us anything that the
world would count as powerful, that we might employ such things to propel His
Cause.  Experience is teaching me that
anything less than a servant’s meekness is inferior when dealing with others I
hope to impact.  And perhaps the reason
why is best answered by considering Jesus’ earthly ministry and what methods He
employed.

Jesus walked among us as a man, and that in itself
is a paramount show of His Servant Heart. 
But also consider His mission in dealing with persons along the way to
the Cross.  Every one of the Elect He
came across had resisted Him in sin.  Did
He desire that they turn and be Saved? 
Did He possess the Knowledge of God? 
Did He not have the means to compel anyone to do anything, even for
their ‘own good’?  Did He not have
everything at His disposal in His Godship and Glory, hidden by Self-restraint
in obedience to the Father?  The answer
to all of these is of course “yes”.

But Why?  For
His Sake?  I submit, for ours, and not
specifically that we be Saved, but that we be finally a finished work of His,
made for reflecting His Glory and giving worthy service for Him in the
Kingdom.  Jesus submitted Himself, fully
and perfectly to the Father’s Will, that He would be of greatest Service to
Him, and that He would lead us too, by His Perfect example.  If we are to have responsibilities in the
Kingdom, we must learn to do so now in total reliance on the Father, learning
not to taint His Will or Glory in our attempts to service Him.  Jesus had an endless means available to Him,
but He forewent them and instead relied on the Father in faith and prayer,
submitting Himself fully for God’s good intent and pleasure.

So too must we, who ascribe to serve well in the
Kingdom.  Only true and pure servanthood
to another holds any true hope of seeing the Father’s Will be done.  We must not rely on any of our own
devices.  We must forgo and slay our own
agendas and pride, making way for the Spirit’s direction.  A servant must pour himself out that those
served might be most likely to benefit from his effort.  Forcing someone is not efficient, nor is it
in the character of our Example.

All of this will work towards the end goal, our
Sanctification, ending in Glorification, and for the service to God in His
Kingdom, feebly reflected now by any show of faithful service to Him in
governing over our responsibilities in this life.  The greatest will be the least; the least
will be the greatest.  If any of us
aspires to greatness in the Kingdom of Heaven, he must be a servant of his
brother.  To learn how to do any of this
and become the person the Lord sees us to be, we must forgo the weak tools of
control and self-position over others, and instead employ the mighty position
of a servant of God, relying on Him to carry out His Work through us.

Scripture (NKJV)

¹¹ But I make known to you, brethren, that the
gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.  ¹²For I neither received it from
man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.

¹³For you have heard of my former conduct in
Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy
it. ¹⁴And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in
my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

¹⁵But when it pleased God, who separated me
from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, ¹⁶to reveal
His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not
immediately confer with flesh and blood, ¹⁷nor did I go up to
Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and
returned again to Damascus.

Commentary – The
Making of an Apostle of Jesus, Part 1

The wayward Church at Galatia alarms Paul as they
turn to embrace a gospel outside the one of Grace in faith.  Apparently adrift with competing authorities
leading them, Paul, after setting them back on their heels in vs. 6-10,
establishes himself in the authority of an Apostle of none other than the Lord
Jesus Christ.  Galatians 1:11-24 is a
summation of his exposure and experience leading up to the engagement of his
missionary ministry after v24.

As a slave of Christ (v.10), Paul has had no choice
but to serve the One Whose Spirit commands him from within.  And in choosing His vessel of deliverance of
the Gospel to us Gentile sinners, our Lord is a most gracious Task Master,
meeting every need of those in His charge. 
And so, the Lord made known to Paul everything he would need to carry
out his task.  Paul needed at least two
things – the authority of an Apostle of Jesus who would be responsible for the
establishment of foundational Truth in the Church, and the divine knowledge and
understanding to support, convey, and propagate his ministry, to spread the
Gospel of Christ.

A Foundational Source

Verse 11 is a most central anchor point to both
Paul, and to us now as inheritors of God’s Word, because here he claims the
point and source of origin for the Message he expounds as an Apostle.  He makes it clear that his Gospel is at the
most foundational level, and is in nature unattainable in origin to anyone
else, unless they too had direct and special instruction from God’s Son. – ‘the
gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.’  Those who know of the ways of God through His
Word are not of that same foundational level, but instead have built upon It
under the instruction of men conveying God’s Truth through their revelation,
made useful through the teaching of the Holy Spirit.  Paul however, was not enlightened by any
man’s teaching, but received his understanding from direct revelation from the
Source – ‘For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it
came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.’, also (Acts 22:14-15).

His good use of our old
and new lives

The Lord’s making of Paul for good use is no
different than how He deals with us today. 
Paul’s life before conversion was made every bit useful by God, even
though he was still His enemy at the time. 
He was an enemy long before his campaign of persecution of the
Church.  Though he strived to satisfy God
and His Law to be at peace with Him, he was never Reconciled until the Lord
Arrested him on the road to Damascus. 
Even so, the Lord used Paul’s previous life of religious piety to His
great advantage in Paul’s new life. 
Because of Paul’s background, he was especially equipped to defend the
Gospel to the Jews, but more importantly, to grasp how the Christ brought
everything together under the whole of God’s revealed Will.  The Lord used Paul as an appropriate vessel
to bring the Truth of the Salvation of the Gentiles, as children of Abram, to
bear upon the scope of the Gospel.  As
well, the Lord, having the opportunity to choose among perhaps countless
scholars with a thorough understanding and practice of His Law, chose to Save
and use none other than the most feared pursuer and antagonist of the Lord’s
Church.  And why?  Is not the Lord’s Grace exhibited in making a
most notable disciple and child out of a prior terrible enemy?

Savior of His enemies

Every child of God was once His enemy.  Likewise, all who are not or will not be
Saved are His enemy too.  Our hearts are
black with sin and in hateful, willing rebellion towards our Maker, right from
our inception, through Adam’s inheritance. 
Such is Christ’s active, serving love in making Sacrifice of Himself on
our behalf for the Glory of God, though all the while for those hating Him, yet
scheduled to one day love Him.  Who of us
was not also a persecutor of the Lord? 
Who else was not an offense to Him, by choice?  Who could say he had a heart that loved God,
before God gave him the faith in His Grace to even recognize Him as Lord?  No one, of course.  God made a mighty working example of his
transforming power in the miracle of Paul’s converted life, and so too He does
again and again in us whom He transforms. 
And in both cases, both in Paul and in all believers, God is credited
with all of the Glory for His Work.  His
Work always shows the dramatic nature of the before and after, the old man and
the new, the old life of persecution and the new life of service.  Praise God for choosing an educated man of
the Law of the Jews, and a man once white hot with hatred towards His
Church!  What a telling picture of every
last one of us!   What a revelation of
God’s patient love for a hateful sinner like you and me!

The ingredients of
Salvation

‘But when it pleased God, who separated me from my
mother’s womb and called me through His grace’ – The story of Paul’s
predestined Salvation, and that of every other person to see
Justification.  While Paul continues on
in v 16 to speak of the Lord’s special use of him, all of the brethren share in
this same story.  Verse 15 contains the
ingredients of every believer’s miracle of Salvation; ’who separated me from
my mother’s womb’ – God knowing us, as an original and new physical
creation, who has been awaited by the Creator until our appearance in the
flesh, are already known and expected to be set aside from those who will not
see Salvation.  ’Called me through His
grace’ – and knowing us, one day chooses to Arrest us by His undeniable
Call to turn to Him, in our recognition of our sin and His Lordship, to call on
His Name for Safety and Forgiveness.  ‘But
when it pleased God’ – God’s timing is always perfect, never out of His
Plan, always under His control as a Sovereign God.  The Lord chose the perfect and appropriate
time to seize Saul for His own.  Life,
existence, creation, circumstance; are all choreographed in perfect harmony
under the watch of a Perfect God, of Whom no detail escapes.

Saved for good works

And for what purpose, all of this work in seeing
Saul Saved?  Verse 16a – ‘to reveal
His Son in me, that I may preach Him among the Gentiles’.  Notice ‘His Son in me’, not ‘to me’;
Saul’s Salvation wasn’t for his benefit, but for the Lord’s and His
benefactors, the Gentile Church.  Paul is
most certainly a special vessel made by the Lord, in that he, through the
Lord’s Work in his preparation, Salvation, and service, would take God’s Plan
beyond what any Jew on his own would have ever understood or expected.  A Gentile becoming a child of God, aside from
coming under Judaism and the Law, was unimaginable before the Christ.  But again, in his preparation, Paul was shown
the complete Work of God through Christ in the spreading encompassment of the
Gospel of Saving Grace.  Paul was made to
understand the impact of God’s Christ, but only through His Grace.  In persecuting the new Church, he had
opportunity to hear of what was being preached, but his hard, dead heart saw
nothing but the hatred he harbored. 
However, once confronted and delivered to Damascus, ‘immediately he
preached the Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God’, ‘confounding
the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ.’ (Acts
19:20, 22)  Once Grace was
conferred, the Lord, using Saul’s previous life to His advantage, had created a
new man who immediately recognized, embraced, and expounded the Truth about
Jesus in the very context he had formerly used in ignorance.  Such is God’s Grace, the empowering ingredient,
the main missing link, the One Thing that can transform hatred into love, folly
into wisdom, persecutor into Apostle!

The Apostle’s
preparation

And so wisely, Saul, surely recognizing the gravity
of what had been conferred to him, was led away for a time to Arabia.  This was wise, be it either the decision of
the Lord or Saul himself, because this would protect his understanding as well
as his credibility, which he has referred to back in v 12.  Saul’s preparation under the Holy One’s
tutorage was the special, foundational work on which the Church of the Gentiles
would be laid.  As in Peter’s confession
of Matthew 16:16, Saul’s revelation was sourced in the Holy Spirit’s
deliverance of God’s Truth, not having anything to do with man’s thoughts. Saul
was taken away to Arabia so as to receive his instruction from the Lord
Himself, just as the other Apostles had enjoyed, without any pollution from a
man’s teaching.  This way, the Apostle’s
teachings would remain foundational, and be to us, the Church, an instruction
through the Holy Spirit and not a mere man.

Study Questions

Why
is Paul writing this letter to the Church at Galatia?

What
is the overall reason for his writing of his life prior to this letter?

How
is Paul’s responsibility in and to the Truth of the Gospel different than other
believer’s?

How
might God make use of our lives before being Saved, as we still hated Him?  What of your previous life has He used?

What
is so amazing about God’s Grace in Saul’s Salvation?

For
what reasons might Paul have gone away from, rather than to, the Apostles in
Jerusalem?

Scripture (NKJV)

3 ²⁹And if you are Christ’s, then you are
Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.  4 ¹ Now I say that the heir, as
long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master
of all, ²but is under guardians and stewards until the time
appointed by the father. ³Even so we, when we were children, were in
bondage under the elements of the world. ⁴But when the fullness of
the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
⁵to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the
adoption as sons.  ⁶And
because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your
hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” ⁷Therefore you are no
longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Lesson

A
wonderful encompassment of the Gospel, this block of Scripture gathers the
truth of who we are in Christ Jesus – our long journey revealed with the
Promise of God to Abram, to later be under the tutor of the law, then on to our
rescue and subsequent receipt of the Holy Spirit.

‘And
if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the
promise.’ – Paul qualifies his
readers before continuing, closing the conditions starting at v 26, which shows
who belongs to the Lord Jesus.  And if we
meet the criteria, then we have been shown to be of Christ.  And if we are of Christ, we must also be the
people spoken to be Abraham’s descendants and heirs of Salvation, Promised to
him by God, a Promise he believed. (Gen 15:5-6)  Paul also lays the foundation for his
argument against Salvation through works of the Law instead of through faith, a
damnable practice the Galatians threatened to embrace under false teachers,
even after they had seen the saving Grace of the Lord Jesus. (Gal 4:9)

‘Now
I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a
slave, though he is master of all’ –
A child is told of being an ‘heir’,fully promised to one day
receive his father’s estate, already recognized as ‘master of all’ his
father’s estate in the future. 
Meanwhile, he ‘is under guardians and stewards until the time
appointed by the father.’  This is a
time of preparation for when he receives what is already understood to be
his.  But until the time comes, he will
be under the care, guidance, and protection of the figure of authority made
responsible by his father.  The ‘steward’
has the responsibility to oversee the children and slaves of the household,
supervising their activities and preparation. 
The child is the heir, but he still ‘does not differ at all from a
slave’, not yet exercising the rights he is sure to inherit at ’the time
appointed by the father’. 

‘Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of
the world’ – Paul moves to draw the parallel
of our station in God’s Order, as His children. 
Before we were freed, we were all ‘in bondage’, slaves to our sin and to the Law of Moses which
exposed it.  The Law is the ‘steward’ responsible for our restraint and safe keeping,
bringing every human being to either his Salvation or his Judgment.  As His children, we were once in bondage ‘under
the elements of the world’, the Law, which in
light of the New Covenant is a simple yet true means to the end goal.  The ‘elements’, the Law, are a lesser part of the larger whole.  As elements in the physical world are the
base contributors of things of a higher order, so too is the Law which is
designed to deliver us to the final goal, our standing at the time of
Judgment.  And before the Father calls
them forth into Salvation and their inheritance in Jesus, the children are
under the ‘steward’ of the Law.

But
when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a
woman, born under the law, ⁵to redeem those who were under the law,
that we might receive the adoption as sons.  This is the Promise fulfilled,
the content of the Good News of the Gospel in one sentence!  ‘But when the fullness of the time had
come’ – Beginning before Creation, first revealed at the Fall, the Father’s
Plan deliberately marches on with the goal of seeing Himself Glorified by the
trophy of those He would Save.  And at
the perfect time, when all was in agreement within His perfect Order and Will, ‘God
sent forth His Son’ Who is the Promise the Jews and the Nations look to for
Salvation.

Foreordained
before the foundation of the world (1Pet 1:20), the Son of God
Himself was made flesh (Jn 1:14a), taking on the very form and
nature of His creation that we might be Redeemed. (Phil 2:6-7) He
is the union of God and man, perfect and without sin (1 Jn 3:5),
the second ‘Adam’ (1 Cor 15:45), the Firstborn among the
believers (Rom 8:29).  ’Born
of a woman’ that He would be fully clothed in man, yet still God,
satisfying the promise of the Man Who would crush the serpent’s head (Gen
3:15).   He is the Word, the
Essence and Truth of God, becoming flesh and living among men that they might
behold Him and be Saved (Jn 1:14).  ‘Born under the law’ that He would
fulfill the Law, living in obedience to the Father without fault or blame. (Phil
2:8) His Grace over the Law shows us the chasm of our inability to meet
God’s Standard, our desperate situation before He calls each believer to see
and embrace his inheritance as a son. 
While He came to relieve us of our enslavement to the Law, the truth and
validity of the Law was not undermined, but reveals the far reaches of
Grace.  He has, in His sinless life and
Resurrection, ended the bondage of the flesh to the Law through death,
releasing the flesh from the old covenant (Rom 7:1-4),(Rom 8:2) ‘to
redeem those who were under the law’. 
He has ‘created in Himself one new Man from the two’, ‘reconciling
them both to God in one body through the cross thereby putting death to the
(law)’. (Eph 2:15-16)   He has
created the union of a Body now Glorified, made complete in a Flesh free from
the Law and with a Spirit at peace with God. 
The Jews and the rest of the world are all under the Law, unless Saved
and living in the liberty given to us as heirs no longer under the ‘steward’
of the Law.

’And
because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your
hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”’ – At the time appointed by the Father, each believer, recognized as a
child of God, received the Seal and Promise of Salvation by the receipt of the
Holy Spirit (2 Cor 1:22). 
This Spirit released us from the fear of death and bondage to the Law,
so now we are free and cry out as one whose voice was once restrained.  Like one escaping drowning, we burst through
the surface and draw a breath as if it were our first.  The Spirit’s arrival brings that same urgency
at our Rebirth and throughout our walk with Jesus.

Cited Scripture

Genesis 15:5-6

Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now
toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He
said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”  And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted
it to him for righteousness.

Galatians 4:9

But now after you have known God, or rather are
known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements,
to which you desire again to be in bondage?

1 Peter 1:20

He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of
the world, but was manifest in these last times for you

John 1:14

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we
beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of
grace and truth.

Philippians 2:6-7

who, being in the form of God, did not consider it
robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the
form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.

1 John 3:5

And you know that He was manifested to take away our
sins, and in Him there is no sin.

1 Corinthians 15:45

And so it is written, “The first man Adam
became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

Romans 8:29

For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be
conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many
brethren.

Genesis 3:15

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall
bruise His heel.”

Philippians 2:8

And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled
Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Romans 7:1-4

Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those
who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?  For the woman who has a husband is
bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies,
she is released from the law of her husband.  So then if, while her husband lives,
she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband
dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has
married another man.  Therefore,
my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ,
that you may be married to another–to Him who was raised from the dead, that
we should bear fruit to God.

Romans 8:2

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
has made me free from the law of sin and death.

2 Corinthians 1:21-22

Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has
anointed us is God,who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit
in our hearts as a guarantee.

Some conclusions, expanded; 
an expansion of the conclusions I have arrived at in my past year of
Discipleship and in study with Steve Wolfe.

1. My loyalty must first be to God.
   
   How else can it be said?  God is a
   jealous God and will accept no less from His children.  If there is something else I hold higher,
   then I cannot say truly I worship Him as Jesus my Lord above all other
   things.  Considering His commands to the
   Apostles to “Follow Me.”, it seem clear He left them with little other
   choice.  Notice He didn’t say “Hey, if
   you would like, come on along.”, or, “This is everything I have planned for you
   and the rest of the world; maybe you would care to join me?”

   Jesus made it clear in that no kingdom divided can stand, and no one can serve
   two Lords.  You’ve got to make your
   choice, pick sides, make a commitment. 
   Otherwise, He will spit you out as lukewarm.  Throughout the day, I must pass through a
   hundred forks in the road where I must make a choice between the Way and my
   way.  Sometimes it is a plain choice
   concerning God v/s myself; more often, it is between myself and a God-directed,
   Bible-based principle.  Any other choice
   but to follow God is no less than rebellion and a selfish rejection of Him.

   Many situations arise in everyday life qualifying under this principle.  Actually, this is probably one of the first
   requirements of Christianity and being a child of God.  Situations arise throughout the day which
   call for a clarity of allegiance and a choice of priority.  Any time something stands questioning my
   choice of obedience, especially when it is something “small”, watch out!  It is more likely to be a “big” thing the
   Evil One has laid in my path to cause me to choose against God, even if it is
   only a minor infraction.  Then before I
   know it, each grain of bad reasoning has grown into a wall of inequity
   destroying my walk with a God, who refuses to force me to choose.

   The first step, as well as the ever ongoing task in the Christian life, is to
   strive to be ever faithful to God, just as Jesus did in full obedience as both
   our Savior and our example to follow. 
   Never allowing myself to waiver is my goal, and if I am true to God in
   this way, all other priorities in life will fall into proper perspective.

2. I must seek and learn the most effective ways of communicating my
   convictions of God’s Truth and how to apply it for my listener’s benefit.
   
   This is not necessarily the same as lovingly presenting a ‘fact’ of faith which
   may be distasteful to someone. 
   Nevertheless, this is a tough one for me. However, the Apostle Paul had
   quite a bit to say about it.  My
   experience as a Christian looking out to others, as well as looking in to
   myself as others might see me, tells me that the prideful ego is perhaps the
   one most leading hindrance to change in attitude.  The prideful ego comes in many forms too, and
   may be hard to recognize as at the root of the problem.  I know this due to my own heavy contribution
   to my knowledge of the subject.

   Paul wrote of visiting people of differing cultures and customs as he took the
   Gospel to the Gentiles.  Interestingly to
   me, he must have found himself in quite a number of strange cultural
   situations, especially to a strict Jew. 
   And the people he spoke with were from life’s whole spectrum.  Yet, he says he would find common ground with
   these people and convey the News in a way they could respond to, relate
   to.  As Linda has pointed out, what good
   is the Message if the other party can’t (or won’t) receive it?

3. The revealed Truth isn’t always intended to be presented in it’s ‘raw’
   form.
   
   One of my last in-depth interactions with God brought me a lesson in this and
   the preceding principle.  An inspired
   writing produced a pointed letter to a fellow believer who has seemingly gone a
   bit astray.  While the points of fact
   were probably on target, the letter also was a stinging indictment.  Sometimes I’m not sure if it was really right
   or wrong to present it in such a fashion, but I am sure it did not produce the
   results I would have hoped for.  However,
   I am not sure what God intended for her to do either.  I am sure, however, that I came away with a
   valuable (though perhaps not conclusive) lesson on relating insights I believe
   came from God.  I am also sure that I am
   not sure at all!  I guess the thing to
   focus on is the end result; perhaps sometimes a direct approach is the best,
   yet other times more tact is required. 
   In this case the Lord had a number of lessons bundled together for
   me:  Convey the whole Truth courageously;
   know that the way in which the Truth is revealed may not be the way it is most
   effectively presented; be courteous of other’s feelings, and do so in Christian
   love; keep the end result in mind, but remember that often, the end result is
   the Lord’s to worry about, not yours.

4. Always avoid the Sin of Omission

   My First Year seemed to be consistent in this:  I am to finish my current assignment before
   moving on to the next.  This is also a
   basic lesson of obedience too, isn’t it? 
   In procrastinating on God’s direction, I stand in opposition to His
   Will; this means I am not doing as He Wills; this means I am not in obedience
   as I should be in following Christ’s example, as His servant.  What a terrible thing to do!  What an indictment of my doubt in Him!  It sometimes brings tears to my eyes as I
   consider my willful neglect of a faithful response in service to Him who would
   never do the same to me.

   If I am to ever surrender to the Will of the Holy Spirit and do God’s bidding,
   I know I must come to respond to His call without any regard for myself.  I have a similar difficulty in our marriage,
   one of selfish response, lacking of a giving service to my spouse.  In both relationships, how might I expect
   either to work well if I do not show faithful service on my own part?  Granted, God is much more forgiving than any
   person might be, but the mechanics are similar in that we all have our
   responsibilities in our relationships.

   A willful neglect of God’s call is a grievous thing indeed; let me live the
   words of my Savior: “Not my will Father, but Your own be done.”

   My omission turned out to be a milestone in my First Year, in fact it marked
   the end of it.  Still today I wonder if
   it caused the end of my first close walk with Jesus, or if it just coincided
   with it.  It sure seems to be the first
   and not the latter at times.  Whatever
   the case, it is certainly a Sin to not answer the call of the Holy Master.  If not to follow His sure direction, then
   what is the discipleship about?

5. If someone exercises their faith in a different way, it’s not my place
   to be concerned – it’s between them and God
   

Loving your enemies – Luke 6:27-42

Jesus’ instruction to His disciples on dealing with those
against them, and even those with them who slip and fall, provides us with a
wonderful example of applying God’s love in our everyday walk.

The passage covers a lot of ground and can be broken into
three parts: dealing with those blatantly opposing us; dealing with those in
whom we share in some mutual way; and the consequence of our choice.

As a timeless God who is no respecter of persons (Act 10:34),
the word Jesus spoke will apply to us today just as it did to the original
listeners.  In the case of this
Scripture, it is easy to see Christ speaking directly to us, too.

On turning the other cheek.

Why would Jesus ask, no, command us, to treat people kindly
when they so openly abuse us?  As God’s
servants, He seeks to use us to convey and advance the Kingdom.  This is they reason He has provided us with
every tool necessary to address the world in a winning way.

At first glance, the persons described here deserve anything
we might level against them as an enemy. 
However, in seeing ourselves as the perpetrator against Christ, who God
wants us to follow in deed and action, we in turn get a vivid picture of Him
dealing with us despite our best efforts to treat Him as the enemy.  God’s character dictates He keeps coming back
with open arms regardless of our transgressions against Him time and time
again.

Remember, He was giving instruction to His disciples
on how to deal with others – and as disciples, He sought to have each be
‘perfectly trained (to) be like his teacher’ (v. 40).  No matter how we cross Him, He will turn the
other cheek and offer His tunic – exactly as He expects us to apply it in our
live in the same way.

On loving those who love us.

At first, God appears to be contradicting what we would
expect of Him throughout Scripture.  But
consider the context of the passages – again, as disciples we are invited to
the front lines of the Kingdom, where the warm loving embrace of God is behind
us and the frontier of the world is before us.

If we are in our right place to do the work of advancing the
Kingdom, we will be exercising Jesus’ command to act in love and turn the other
cheek.  However, if we find ourselves
only dealing with those we love and who love us, we can’t expect credit because
we are within our own friendly territory, not facing the challenges of the
frontier.  Dealing only with those whom
from which we expect a reciprocal deed is not facing the challenge.  Jesus expects us to throw ourselves into the thick
of it all, especially where we have no reason to expect a like kind return.

God’s movement in my life, and my subsequent growth, is
seldom in my ‘comfort zone’.  Since God
seeks to transform us, He ventures into the wilderness of our person, sets up
camp, and continues to wait in reassuring love for us to turn to Him.  And when we do embrace Him, where He stood
waiting where He had no Earthly reason to expect a return on His investment of
Divine Love, our Christian life takes one step further and there is no longer
frontier there but another advancement of His Kingdom (Matt 6:10).  And guess what happens next – He pulls up
camp and moves still farther out into the frontier again in selfless, loving
service to us!  That’s God’s best, God’s
love, His faith and trust in us, always faithfully hoping we will accept His
invitation to move further ahead into His waiting arms.  ‘Therefore be merciful, just as your Father
also is merciful.’ (v. 36)

On the consequences of
accepting the call of discipleship

Verse 38 promises an overflowing return from God as your
reward, still another example of His increase resultant of our faithful heed to
His command.  Our stores are in Heaven,
and God delights in rewarding His children. 
Following Christ’s example, an example put to us of perfectly obeying
the Father’s will, pleases God and brings His blessings ‘pressed down, shaken
together, and running over.’ (v. 38a)

Applying this in our lives

A friend of mine, vacationing in San Francisco walked with
his family through the Warf.  Among the
attractions many panhandlers tool the tourists for handouts as they pass
by.  His young daughter approached one
such man, who, quite wretched and foul smelling, snarled “Get the hell out of
the way, you’re standing in my light!!”  Nearly
moved to confront this man, he instead steered them across the street to see a
vendor.  As an artist sketched their
characitures, his daughter asked for a dollar so she might give it to not just
any panhandler, but to her father’s dismay the very one that dealt with her so
badly.  Anyone but him he demanded!  But, promising to repay, she reasoned
successfully that it was hers to spend, and this was the only man she would
give it to -–and she did just that.

Through the actions of a child, inexperienced to the world
and as a result unjaded, we get a glimpse of real love in action.  And action is the key.  The love God commands of us is not a warm
feeling, but an action of love, an action of service.

That mean, wretched beggar is any one of us in the sight of
God, as we all fall short of His Glory (Rom 3:23).  In an innocent approach, he answered with a
smart slap to her cheek, and she responded by turning the other to him.  Who of us has not turned Jesus away in a
stinging choice of something else above Him? 
And who of us has ever found Jesus to be anything less than ready and
willingly there when we repent and turn to Him?

She might have gone to any other beggar there.  Of the hundreds among the mean one, she could
have easily found a grateful soul who would have returned her effort in much
gratitude.  Yet instead, she pushed the
envelope and attempted to further the Kingdom into the uncertain and hostile
frontier.

She only gave him a dollar, yet she gave much more than
that.  She shared God’s love with someone
she had every reason to expect nothing in return from, perhaps even another
dose of abuse.  To the jaded world
foolishness; to our Lord a good job of discipleship.  A job well done, a job to be expected of a
Christian.

I Surrender

I could not understand why the
Lord had forsaken me, especially concerning issues He made clear in His
promises to us through the scripture. 
Why, God, have you abandoned me, I asked in earnest prayer?  I know God does not deny His children of any
of the things He has promised.  Then He
showed me; I had not yet surrendered myself, my self, my will, to Him.

I always knew there were parts of
me in reservation.  I’m sure my reason
for holding out was ultimately that I did not want to give up my choice or
control of the direction of my life.  It
secretly terrified me, in fact.  Seek to
give someone else full, absolute control of my life??  There are things I don’t want to give up or
answer for.  Worse yet, first I’ll be
releasing the daily control of my life, and the next thing you know I will be a
missionary sleeping on a grass mat in a hut. 
This is actually the sort of things I feared.

However, I also know that the Lord is purely good and
desires only the best for me.  Therefore,
if I believed this, how could I deny that he would ever steer me wrong, no
matter where He led me?  There is simply
no way around the fact.  Furthermore,
Christ is clear in stating we must live in Him and in His example of perfect subjection
to the Father.  This means letting His
Holy Spirit, in us as Christians, be our guiding will and not our own.  With that, I asked the Father to give me the
courage and faith to trust Him – and then I let go.

On short order, everything
changed by leaps and bounds, and it’s been quite a journey ever since.  I realize now that God wants people around
Him who want to be around Him.  He won’t
force anybody.  I believe that is why He
gave us Free Will.  With the gift of His
saving grace available to all, any that make the choice to accept and obey Him
suddenly have all of His gifts at their disposal in faith through Jesus.

Consider the parable of the Sower
in Mark 4:3-20 and ask yourself which patch of ground you are.  Trust God and let go if you haven’t; God will
move mightily in your life far beyond your expectations, as you fulfill your
duty in this life – to worship God and surrender yourself, your self, to Him.

The Elephant, the Shackle, and Sin

Have you ever visited a circus
and browsed around to see the animals lingering?  If so, chances are good you have seen an
elephant laying around, a shackle on its leg, secured with a chain staked to
the ground.  The pachyderm can move
about, but only as far as the restraint allows.

The irony, however, is that
despite its massive capacity, the elephant is conditioned, perhaps even
content, with the fact the chain and stake can somehow confine him.

So it may be for a Christian.
Before being saved by Christ, we all are guilty of entangling ourselves in
sin.  However, a true Christian,
following Jesus’ indwelling Spirit, is fully forgiven and no longer held down
by sin.  As true children of God, we
enjoy a massive capacity for freedom from the sin that would otherwise confine
us.  We only need to confess and believe
Jesus’ promise we are forgiven and free, and live accordingly.  We are made blameless in Christ’s
Righteousness, so in turn we may commune with the Father Himself, praying in
His very presence.  This is the highest
privilege afforded to us through Christ’s atonement, for our primary purpose as
beings is to worship God.

That elephant’s chain can no more
really hold him than can sin in a Christian’s life, unless either is willing to
accept the deception it can.  In
recognizing who you are as God’s child, through Christ, you can shed the
constraint which really can’t constrain, and live and serve as who you really
are – a blameless child of the Mighty Lord.

Father, you are mightier than anything in my life.  I am a sinner, who without Jesus’ forgiveness
am condemned and harnessed in my wrongdoing. 
Please continue to remind me of who I am as your child, in a blameless
state, thanks to your Son who I accept as my Master and Savior.  It’s in His name I pray.  Amen.

Watching my son play, at the tender age of a few months, exploring, I thought about how he was establishing how the fringe on his blanket felt and behaved.  He really likes to touch things, pointer finger extended, ever so gingerly, to see how it reacts to being moved or touched.  As the weeks go by, and his motor skills develop in leaps and bounds, and he is able to do and understand much more than just a few mere month ago, he still approaches new things with that same inquisitive yet cautionary curiosity at the end of his pointer finger.

I have been studying the relationship between grace through
faith.  God’s word has shown me that His
unboundless grace is extended to us despite our utter inability to be worthy of
it.  That is the meaning of the concept,
charity and forgiveness beyond anything deserving or required.  The Lord has already granted every blessing
anyone will ever receive, through Jesus. 
This well of blessing is there for the taking, we need only to tap into
it and receive what is ours.

This requires our faith; our faith in the Lord to provide
what He has promised us.  There for the
taking, any of our needs, wants or desires, in agreement with the will of
God.  His grace is received through our
faith, and this grace is boundless.  I
imagine myself going to someone, whether stranger or closest of closest family
or acquaintance, and asking them for a bounty beyond any of my wildest
expectations, while they have not even the slightest of reasons to respond to
my request.  Not only is the scenario
total nonsense, but the though of asking anyone for something, let alone
something of immeasurable value,