In Love With God - lesson 12

In Love With God - lesson 12

Living In Jesus’ Love

Believing and accepting Jesus’ love

  Living in Jesus’ love. I’ve been thinking lately how easy it is to fall into thinking that Jesus’ answers to prayer are signs of His love and that when we are seeing things come to pass, that we are abiding in His love and when we are seeing adversity and trials then we are not abiding in His love because the circumstances are so overwhelming us that we have no peace.

  Now the reality is that we are always going to be in a battle or struggle of some kind because that is the very nature of going forward in Christ. There will always be something new coming at us in order to not only shape our character but to win victories on behalf of others. I often remind the Lord that I love Him and trust Him but that I’m also in the middle of a battle that affects my every day life. If king David was standing outside a city God had told him to conquer and the fighting was intense, he would still be in the will and love of God even though he was in a challenging battle that God had called him to. Abiding in the Lord also meant fighting the battle in front of him, and if the battle seemed to be taking longer than he had expected or was more painful than he had expected, how does this affect his relationship with the Lord? Does his peace with God get tested and he begin to complain to the Lord that He should have never asked him to fight this battle because it just isn’t going well and all his men are weary of the fight? Or does he say in his heart, “how this battle seems to be going is just impossible but it will have no affect on my relationship and peace in the Lord.” 

  It is so easy to say that if the battle is going well than we are in a good place with the Lord and abiding in Him, but if the battle is causing us extreme exhaustion and wounds, then we must not be doing well in the Lord.

  Separating the battle from our love and trust in the Lord seems to be the real challenge. The Lord is not our battle. He is the person with whom we are developing a real relationship with. The battle may send us back to Him repeatedly for instruction to know if we are fighting correctly and are doing all according to His plans, but the relationship with Him is what we want to focus on the most. He is not the battle and the battle is not Him. He is the commander and we are His willing servants. He has been reminding me lately that He is not the battle and that I need to actually let Him love me. 

  “And behold the Lord was passing by! And a great strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of gentle blowing.” 1 Kings 19:11-12

  Whether the battle is going good or bad. Whether it is exhausting or triumphant. It doesn’t change my relationship with Him. He is glad that my heart is fixed firmly on Him and doing His will no matter what. All the endurance and trust please Him, but it is in the area of letting Him love me that I seem to fall so short in. Somehow it is easy to get caught up in the struggles of what He asks and not have time to actually let Him love me. He holds out His arms and says, “Let Me love you. My love is not in the battle or even in your service to Me. My love is between you and I. Rest in My love and be at peace. I hold all things in the palm of My hand and will not let go.”

In Love With God - lesson 11

In Love With God - lesson 11

The only thing that I want for this semester 

is for us to be in love with and on fire for God

“Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die. O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,” declares the Lord God. “Therefore, repent and live.”  - Ezekiel 18:31-32

“But if the wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed and observes My statutes and practices justice and righteousness, he shall surely live; he shall not die. All his transgressions which he has committed will not be remembered against him; because of his righteousness which he has practiced, he will live. Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” declares the Lord God, “rather than that he should turn from his ways and live?  - Ezekiel 18:21-23

     These are amazing verses to ponder for a while. God’s forgiveness is so overwhelming to me. Did you know that there actually can’t be any desire to see a person harmed in order to have full forgiveness? This does not mean that there won’t be pain from discipline, but the actual harm from choosing to live in sin and reaping the consequences of it. The Lord must have no desire to see a person die in order to stand fully ready to receive anyone who would turn back to Him. Bitterness or revenge could never be in His heart or else when a person turned back to Him for forgiveness He actually wouldn’t be glad they did because of the desire to see them pay for their actions. This kind of reminds me of Jonah when He was upset with the Lord for so easily forgiving the people of Nineveh. God’s forgiveness and love are constantly free from anything that would hinder Him from whole-heartedly welcoming back the prodigal son.
     This does not mean that discipline is not required in our lives simply because we are forgiven, but it does mean that all that takes place after turning back to Him will be for our good and will cause His character to be molded deeper into our lives. “For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.” Hebrews 12:6

     I want us to think about this whole-hearted forgiveness. It is good to dwell on really understanding how fully we are forgiven because this is our example of how we are also to forgive others. It is a forgiveness that has no bitterness or resentment. We must know how fully we have been forgiven in order to understand how fully we are to forgive. I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of things in my past that I want forgotten. Lately I’ve been telling the Lord, please forget all that I have done before, both good and bad. I don’t want what has gone on before to influence how things go on in the future. The bad I want left behind as a life I never want back and the good I want left behind because it is merely filthy rags as it says in the Bible, (Isaiah 64:6) and has had so many selfish things mixed in with it that I don’t want to go back to that either. I want a deeper walk with the Lord that makes anything good I might have done, seem as not good because of how much more vibrant and full of life my work for the Lord is now! I want a new story full of a deeper passion for Christ! Full of a deeper love for the people around me! Full of a deeper character of Christ etched into my very being! Full of a forgiveness that is as real as the forgiveness God has offered to me!

     This is what the Lord’s pardon has truly brought to me. This is the affect of His forgiveness to me. The ability to never look back, and with a clear and devoted, conscience, be able to love and serve the Lord with all my heart. This is just a little window of what forgiveness means. This is just one or two facets to the many sides of what God’s forgiveness is for us.

     Will we not stand in the fullness of what Jesus has done for us and forgive others just as He has forgiven us? Will we also give people the ability to begin brand new with us and have no grudge or bitterness to overcome when they come to us?  Forgiveness is not dependant on whether someone has asked us to forgive them. It must be already done in our hearts or else bitterness will always stand between us even if there is an outward look of reconciliation. Forgiveness is not waiting for the right moment to forgive. It is already done in our hearts. This is the forgiveness offered to us by the Lord. It is already done but we must turn from the stubbornness of our own ways and desire to walk in His ways with all our heart. It is our own unwillingness that keeps us separated from the Lord, not His lack of forgiveness. It is our own unwillingness to want to leave our sin behind in order to be forgiven.

     When God offers us forgiveness it really is too big to comprehend all that it means. When He says He forgets and casts our sins away as far as the east is to the west which is infinite, it is hard to believe because it is so easy for us to remember our own sins or the hurts someone has caused to us. Just think what total forgiveness means. If you have your license to drive and have made a bunch of infractions which go onto your account just think about how when those years go by and the points are removed, how free you feel! They are no longer being held against you. It’s as if you never made any mistakes while driving before! When you see a police officer you no longer worry that this might be the last time you drive for a while. No, your record is clear! With God, our record becomes clearer than that! Will we also clear others wrongs off of our own records?

     Spend some time thinking about these things. They will change your life. The Lord’s prayer says Father forgive us as we forgive others. We simply must forgive. It is not an option. But the truth is, think about what the Lord’s forgiveness really means to you. It will change the way you live, forever!

-Seth

In Love With God - lesson 10

In Love With God - lesson 10

The only thing that I want for this semester 

is for us to be in love with and on fire for God

      Is the Lord the first love of our life?

     Did you know that if you rejoice in the Lord for His answers to your prayers before they come to pass that you have just transitioned from the answer to your prayer being your first love to the Lord being your first love? If you are worried that the thing you are praying for is becoming more important to you than the Lord, this is a good way to be sure that it has been put back properly into it’s place. If the thing you are praying for has started leaving it’s proper place in your life you will fall into despair at every discouraging impasse. You can only truly rejoice in the Lord for victory if He has obtained His rightful position in your heart as your first love. You can only grab hold of His promises with all your heart and survive every discouragement if He has come into His rightful place in your life. Only true trust and love in the Lord will give you the strength to rejoice in the midst of every discouragement.

     Just try truly rejoicing from the bottom of your heart in the midst of your hard circumstances. I bet you can’t. Why not? Because first we will have to let go of our self pity. We will have to believe that the Lord is good and that He is a rewarder of all who diligently seek Him, and this is impossible as long as we want to hang onto our self pity and despair. We have to believe for real that the Lord loves us and is doing and planning the best for us in the midst of our storm.

     And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. Hebrews 11:6

     The other day the Lord told me to rejoice. He would not let me enter into any doubts or despair. He literally put a barrier between me and any doubts or even the smallest fear. He said, “You rejoice.” So I got up on my feet and attempted to begin rejoicing and He said to me, “You call that rejoicing?”  I had to laugh at that remark. So I attempted to rejoice more earnestly and again He said, “Do you really call that rejoicing? How would you really rejoice if all I had told you had already taken place?” I had to admit that my attempt at rejoicing still lacked some of the joy of whole hearted believing. This is a good measure of our real trust in the Lord. If His word to us is as real as it would be if it had already been done.

     The Lord has given us the weapon of rejoicing but only our new spiritual man can pick it up and use it. Our old nature of self pity and despair cannot pick up the sword of rejoicing. It is out of reach to it. Only the new man can let go of self pity and despair in order to grab hold of it. It requires a whole hearted love and trust in the Lord to use it effectively. But if our hearts are set on Him than we will find it a very effective weapon against every demonic adversary. It will radically change the entire world around us!

     This morning the Lord had me singing a song I wrote several years ago and when I got to the line
                         “Christ our redeemer is mighty, His victory is here”
I felt my adversary try to overcome me with an extreme darkness that could be felt. So I began singing that line again over and over and immediately my spirit soared into the heavens. The Lord just took me into the fullness of the reality that Christ is mighty and our victory is now! It seems that our adversary always wants us to be in doubt of the actual power of our God and of His ability to actually destroy the enemy right this very moment if we will rise up and praise the Lord in victory.

     Again, the sword of rejoicing can only be handled by the new man in Christ. The old man of self pity and despair must be put to death in order to take it up. So let us take up the sword of rejoicing! It is available to all who truly believe and have confidence in Jesus! He is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all we have hoped or dreamed!      

          Will we stand with confidence in our Savior today?!

-Seth

In Love With God - lesson 9

In Love With God - lesson 9

     And the hand of the Lord was strong on me. - Ezekiel 3:14

     Does this not stir up your heart today? Just think about what  it means to have the hand of the Lord upon you. If your wondering about how close and personal your own relationship with the Lord can be, this is a powerful illustration of what you can have.

     Then the Spirit lifted me up. - Ezekiel 3:12

     How much we are in need of this! That the Holy Spirit would lift us up and the hand of the Lord would be upon us that we might be in close fellowship with our Creator! Look up! See His face! Oh how He will give you overcoming victory to raise you out of the snares and pitfalls of this life and give you a brand new one full of the character and honor of His own noble nature! Will we not have His noble nature stamped into us? Will we not have the character of His love, compassion and purity etched deep into our lives? This is what we are praying for! This is what we are desiring! To be noble like Jesus and to be a servant of all just as He is.

     Our work

     Now comes the job. Raising up the battle cry to wake up everyone around us to turn back to the Lord with all our heart. Why would God not judge us if even we don’t want holiness and righteousness? At least the world around us has an excuse because they never had the Lord before. The corruption in our society is actually beyond measure so that judgement must come. But if those who should be standing up and holding the line of holiness are instead full of the love of all worldliness, then who is left to hold the line? Christians are hostages to their sinful desires. The trouble with this kind of a hostage situation is that we don’t want to be rescued and rather than standing up to fight for the Lord we stand up and fight against the Lord’s men who came to help rescue us! It’s like going to a prison camp, fighting off the guards, throwing open the cell doors, and then having the prisoners come out and fight with you and purposefully close their cell doors back up again and even try to prevent any other prisoners who might have had a desire to escape, from getting out either. The captives have joined with their captors. This is the bondage that holds back all Christians from serving the Lord. The love of sin. 

     This is why we need to seek the Lord so earnestly!  What sins are holding us back from standing up for the Lord? What bondage are we in today that is causing our mouths to be silent? It is impossible to have any affect against sin with our words if we are secretly still living in that same sin. We are like the prisoners who do things for our guards that betray our fellow prisoners for the price of some earthly comfort. What is buying the silence of our tongue and the betrayal of our fellow prisoners even right now as we read this? What makes you silent? These are the things to be praying about in our prayer times today. Will we stand against our own weaknesses today for the sake of being part of the Lord’s army? Will we call upon Him that His Holy Spirit will lift us up today? Let us ask ourselves these questions and know that if we are earnest, God will raise us up!

     Now flee from youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s bond servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. 

                              2 Timothy 2:22-26 (NASB)

      -Seth

In Love With God - lesson 8

In Love With God - lesson 8

The only thing that I want for this semester 

is for us to be in love with and on fire for God

     Then I noticed from the appearance of His loins and upward something like glowing metal that looked like fire all around within it, and from the appearance of His loins downward I saw something like fire; and there was a radiance around Him. As the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I say it, I fell on my face and a loud voice was speaking. - Ezekiel 1:27-28

     Then He said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet that I may speak with you!” And as He spoke to me the Spirit entered me and set me on my feet; and I heard Him speaking to me. - Ezekiel 2:1-2

     Something about the words of Jesus command, “Son of man, stand on your feet that I may speak with you,” is very striking. Something about it reinvigorates me and makes me suddenly aware that God will make a true man out of me. A man who must stand up in order to take action even if that action is simply to listen to the voice of God. 

         Jesus says stand up that I may speak with you, and suddenly enables Ezekiel to stand through the power of His Holy Spirit.

     We must rise up and listen to Jesus today. He is calling and says stand that I may speak with you. He is calling while we are lying on the ground from fainting over our circumstances or our seeming inability to do something that God is asking. We feel weak. We say all these things are to much for me. I am of no importance. I am insignificant. I have no power to stand for God or to even stand up in my circumstances.

     Jesus says rise that I may speak with you and just as He said that to the lame man who suddenly received strength to stand, so also will He give us strength to stand! His Holy Spirit will enter into us with new life and victory and bring songs of rejoicing bursting from our hearts!

     Today in your prayer time the Lord calls and says, “Son (or daughter) of man, stand on your feet that I may speak with you!” Expect that as you begin to pray that He will suddenly give you new life by His Holy Spirit and you will be able to rise up and speak with Him person to person. He will raise you up and make you into a son or daughter of God this day. Expect that He will radically change you this very day! Seek Him earnestly and you will find Him! Call on His Name and He will hear you! Lift up your voice today and say Jesus I want to be like You with all my heart! Please raise me up today!

     Jesus will make us brand new in every area of our lives. Victory over our old lives is in His hand. He will conquer all our fears. He will give us strength to walk victoriously in the way He has called us. May we seek Him with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength today!

-Seth

In Love With God - lesson 7

In Love With God - lesson 7

The only thing that I want for this semester 

is for us to be in love with and on fire for God

               The Lord gives gifts that no earthly king can give. 

He can promise true preservation and safety that cannot be undone.

     Thus says the Lord, “Do not deceive yourselves, saying, ‘The Chaldeans will surely go away from us,’ for they will not go. For even if you had defeated the entire army of Chaldeans who were fighting against you, and there were only wounded men left among them, each man in his tent, they would rise up and burn this city with fire.” - Jeremiah 37:9-10

     Go and speak to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I am about to bring My words on this city for disaster and not for prosperity; and they will take place before you on that day, declares the Lord, and you shall not be given into the hand of the men you dread. For I will certainly rescue you, and you will not fall by the sword; but you will have your own life as booty, because you have trusted in Me,” declares the Lord. - Jeremiah 39:16-18

     Here are two things decreed by God that are actually impossible to break. The first is that God’s judgement could not be stopped by men, even if it looked like they were beating back God’s word by defeating the army He sent against them. God promised that even wounded and bedridden men would complete the job if no one else was available. The second is that if God desires to bless a man, no one can stop the blessing even in the midst of God’s judgement.

     These two points are incredible because no earthly king could make statements like this! No earthly king could say that an army will not fail no matter what, or that a man could be perfectly preserved in the midst of that same land being wiped out. Our God decreed that a man would be preserved as a blessing because he had taken pity on Jeremiah and rescued him from death. (Jeremiah 38)

     As we seek to draw close to our God, it is good to understand that He always keeps His word. It is so important to stand firmly with Him. My heart literally rejoiced when reading how God blessed Ebed-melech! “and you shall not be given into the hand of the men you dread. For I will certainly rescue you, and you will not fall by the sword; but you will have your own life as booty, because you have trusted in Me,” declares the Lord.” 

     This is an encouragement to make the Lord the center of our lives. His words actually cannot fail for He is not a man but God! He is the Creator of All! Who else is like Him? Who else could you ever entrust yourself to who could give you a safer protection or more sure words of comfort? As you take this day to get closer to the Lord, think on these things. You will bless His heart as you marvel at His faithfulness! He continually offers compassion to all who turn to Him. And if we turn back from our old lives He will make us radically new and unrecognizable from who we were and even from who we were a few days ago!

     This is my prayer.  Lord make me more like You today than I was yesterday and more like you tomorrow than I was today! I don’t want to walk towards you! I want to run! Make me more like You than I ever have been before!

-Seth

              A question for anyone who would like to take time to think on these thing.

_   and they will take place before you on that day, declares the Lord, and you shall not be given into the hand of the men you dread. For I will certainly rescue you, and you will not fall by the sword; but you will have your own life as booty, because you have trusted in Me,” declares the Lord. - Jeremiah 39:16-18

Read this statement a few times. Who or what is it that you dread? I think this statement has a lot of application for us. We have things deep in us that we don’t realize are the things we dread and prevent us from moving forward in the Lord. They seem to remain unnamed mysteries but are the very things that direct our steps and our thoughts each day. God has promised deliverance from these things and if we knew we had deliverance we would have peace wouldn’t we?  Write out some of things that you think of which are affecting all your decisions. 

In Love With God - lesson 6

In Love With God - lesson 6

The only thing that I want for this semester 

is for us to be in love with and on fire for God

     Today I had an interesting thought. I was praying, “Jesus help me to respond with Your heart.” And I was thinking, I only know the words You would say in this situation but I don’t know how to have the depth of their meaning in my heart. This brought to my attention my little niece who is learning to talk right now. She learns the words but doesn’t really know what they actually mean. She can say, “I love you” and it melts my heart even though I know she doesn’t really understand the words. I was thinking, “We can read Jesus’ words and repeat them in the appropriate situations and it probably melts God’s heart to even though He to knows that we don’t fully understand them, but His heart is glad that we desire to copy His words, and repeat them after Him. He is glad that we desire to copy Him as He slowly brings us into the fullness of their meaning as we grow in Him. My niece knows  that you give a hug and say I love you so she even knows the appropriate place to use the words. We to can use Jesus’ words in the appropriate places and pray that He grows us up on the inside so that our heart matches with the words and the occasion.

     This is just a neat example of how even trying to begin to be like Jesus when we know that we are probably not fully understanding what we are trying to do for Him, is still the best way we can go forward. So when the devil comes to accuse us that we are hypocrites and our lives don’t match our words, or when he says that we aren’t good enough to help others, we can step back and say, “Jesus please grow me up soon, and in the mean time I want to do what You do and say what You say even though I don’t fully understand. You are my roll model and I want to be just like You when I grow up.” I’m quite sure that saying that one sentence will melt God’s heart and cover a multitude of failures.  :)

     God is calling us into a close relationship with Himself and this is just one more of the hindrances that we can overcome with the simple key of loving the Lord with all our heart. That key will unlock every door that will ever try to stand in the way of our Christian walk and gives us the ability to cross every barrier we will ever face. To love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, is the foundation stone from which everything else builds off of and without it everything that tries to be built on our lives, will have to be torn down because it will not stand the test of time and trial. Loving the Lord with all our heart is such a simple statement but it is the hard won victory that must take place in order for our lives to move forward as fast as possible in the right direction.

     Let us press forward into the Lord our God with all earnestness today! He is worth it!

-Seth

In Love With God - lesson 5

In Love With God - lesson 5

The only thing that I want for this semester 

is for us to be in love with and on fire for God

     Only a church in love with Jesus, will stand.

_  A loose church full of compromise with the world, will not stand.

     This body is carried away with the love of the world and cannot bear fruit because the seed will always be choked out in the end. It may have a good start on a lot of seemingly good ideas, but just as many conversations with a skeptical person on the street just go in circles with a true point for the Lord always being avoided (Anyone who has been out street witnessing has experienced this) so also will the work of a compromised church, come to little or nothing at all.

_  A church set on ridged outward control and full of  rules with no passion for Jesus, will not stand.

     This body is consumed with outward appearance and conformity with set rules and laws but always gets bound up in the technical side of every issue or gets burnt out trying to keep up their good works. Eventually men wear out and turn away and fall back into the world because they have found that works in themselves are unfulfilling. 

     However, a church full of the passion of loving their Savior, will never tire of the good works He has called them to! They might have moments of being discouraged and weary but they are continually going back to Jesus for strength and encouragement to press on with whatever the difficulty is. A church full of love for Jesus will not want the passing pleasures of the world that bring compromise and choke out fruit and nor will they burn out or become weary in well doing. For them the Hymn is fulfilled “It is well with my soul.”  Jesus says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light.” Matt. 11:28-30

     This is why we must seek a closer fellowship with Jesus than we have had. We must not be content with where we are in Christ right now because if we are it means that we are not fully in love with Jesus or we could never say that. A person in love actually can’t live without that close personal connection to the one they love. If we were fully in love with Jesus everyone around us would know it because our faces would show it and our actions would tell it and our words would speak it. This is the first love that our Heavenly Father admonishes the churches about in the book of revelation. If we do not have this first love continually burning in our hearts, we will fall away when the persecution hits or be choked out when the enticements of the world lure us in.

               The Lord tests our hearts so He can build upon them

     If we are failing by loving the things of this world more than Him, we will not grow or be affective in His service and He will not be able to give us a place of responsibility in His work.

     “I, the Lord. search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of His deeds.” - Jeremiah 17:10


-Seth

In Love With God - lesson 4

In Love With God - lesson 4

The only thing that I want for this semester 

is for us to be in love with and on fire for God

Which means Surrender, Surrender, Surrender!

  Where are you at?

  Any noticeable changes in your life yet? This is to be our constant expectation if we are seeking the Lord with all our heart. Changes must be happening. What have you surrendered in the last few days? What is God pressing on your heart right now?

  If we want to get closer to the Lord we must be asking these questions regularly. What must be changed in me? What am I holding onto? What am I unwilling to let go of that God has put His finger on? At whatever point we have refused to surrender, this is where we stop. We have reached an impasse and we will remain at this point indefinitely. The problem is that if we don’t surrender we may never move on! We must be willing to surrender in order to move on. When do we think we will be more ready to surrender if we aren’t now when the Lord is point blank asking for us to? We have already been experiencing some of the joys that came from letting go the last thing He asked of us. If we delay, we are much more likely to forget that there was a joy attached to the surrender of each thing we gave up, and will be less likely to be willing to give it up, because our hearts have become bonded tighter to them than they were before. We talked to a man the other day who had stopped growing in the Lord 30 years ago. 30 years is a long time and what is to say that he will ever start back up again? I’ve held onto things for the last 10 years and they have stunted my growth and robbed me of full joy in Christ as well. We will never have full and radiant joy in Christ while we refuse to do what God has asked of us. And if we don’t have the joy of Christ it is because we are hoping to get our joy from the thing we are refusing to let go of, but they will never bring us joy only more emptiness and worldly behavior. 

  If we feed the flesh with it’s old desires, the flesh will grow and our sins will take us down into deeper and deeper bondage. But if we feed our spirit, the flesh will grow weak and the chains that held us will fall off. Our old nature and life will pass away and the new man (or woman) in Christ, will come to life. The new man is full of joy! The new man is radiant with the light of Christ! The new man is becoming more and more like Christ Himself! Hallelujah! 

  Let us seek God earnestly for more of Him today and let the old things pass away.

  Remember, the things you struggle with will become easier to let go of the more time you spend with the Lord. And the opposite is also true. The less time you get with the Lord the more impossible it will be to get free of those chains of sin. They are impossible to let go of without Jesus’ help.

  But let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on earth;  for I delight in these things, declares the Lord. - Jeremiah 9:24


- Seth

In Love With God - lesson 3

In Love With God - lesson 3

                The only thing that I want for this semester 

                is for us to be in love with and on fire for God

                Which means Surrender, Surrender, Surrender!

  Lord pull me into Your throne room! Fill me with your Holy Spirit and set me on fire for you!

  Can you say these words honestly? Is there anything holding you back? In your mind, can you see something that you still don’t want to fully commit to letting go of? If you can say, “Lord help me to want to let that thing go,” you will begin to have victory. The honesty of saying, “I want to want to let go,” is the stepping stone God will use to set you completely free. What follows will be a God given desire to take the next step forward. You will take it with His help. He will take you over the line and into His Presence.

  We must start with the first truly honest ground we have ever tried to stand on. We must say, “Lord, I love my sins but I want to not want them anymore.” This will open the door to our first real freedom to live for Christ. We all have things we love that are not godly. This is the step forward. When He begins to bring conviction, and we begin to be afraid that He is going to make us give up things we love in this present life, instead of being afraid we must just be honest with Him and say it. “Lord I’m afraid of what you might ask of me, please help me to want to let go of whatever you ask.” The Lord will take this timid step you are making and help you to leap over the biggest hurdles between Him and you. It is enough. He will take over from there and will fill you with a true desire to go the rest of the way with Him.

  Lord here I am. Lord Here I am. Please fill me with your Holy Spirit and set me on fire for you.

In Love With God - lesson 2

In Love With God - lesson 2

The only thing that I want for this semester

is for us to be in love with and on fire for God

                Which means Surrender, Surrender, Surrender!

     We can’t do anything about what anyone else does in response to the call of making the Lord first in their lives, but we can do something about what we do. We can say, “Yes Lord, here I am. I want to be with you all the time and enter into Your Presence and be a blessing to Your heart.”

               Honesty in our hearts toward the Lord

     This is what the Lord requires. When we turn to Him right now, He requires that we mean whatever we say, with all our heart.

      “Go and proclaim these words toward the north and say, ‘Return faithless Israel,’ declares the Lord; I will not look upon you in anger. For I am gracious, declares the Lord; I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God.” - Jeremiah 3:12-13

     God is always desiring us to simply turn from our sin and acknowledge that we have sinned and don’t want to anymore.

     “Then I will give you new shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.” - Jeremiah 3:15 “How I would set you among My sons, and give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful inheritance of the nations! And I said, ‘You shall call Me, My Father, and not turn away from following Me.” - Jeremiah 3:19

     This is our new life in Christ. This is God’s heart toward us! Why do we drag our feet instead of running at full speed into His arms? All that hinders us, He promises to forgive and all He has prepared for us, He has desired to give to us. We are not making Him give us His wonderful promises. He has desired to bestow them and it has been we who have not wanted them with all our heart. Instead, we have continually looked back at old things and held onto them and in doing so, robbed ourselves of the joys and blessings of being a Christian.

     So we must ask ourselves, how long will we wait? It is no one else who misses out. It is each of us personally. How long will I wait? How long will I drag my feet in my old life? Every bit of time that goes by is real and we don’t get it back. How long will I miss out on being on fire for the Lord? How Long will I miss out on the fullness of joy that comes from complete surrender to Him?

     What is my hindrance? What holds me back? These are the questions that we must ask ourselves and take hold of because it is me that loses if I don’t take hold of the Lord with all my heart.

In Love With God - lesson 1

In Love With God - lesson 1

The only thing that I want for this semester 

is for us to be in love with and on fire for God.

     Which means Surrender, Surrender, Surrender! 

     Nothing else matters except being in love with Jesus with all our heart. 

     To surrender areas in our lives to the Lord that He has required of us is like removing an obstruction to the flow of blood in our arm. If you have ever fallen asleep in an awkward position and woken up with no feeling in your arm, it’s a strange feeling because you can see you have an arm but you can’t feel that you have an arm and as you sit up and try to get the blood to flow back into it you start to get feeling back and eventually full use of it again. When we surrender things to the Lord, that is often when we discover that we even had an arm to begin with! It is like a brand new limb to us that has never been used but slowly the circulation comes into it and we begin to learn how to use it and find that now we have the ability to do things we actually never could before! That limb really changes a lot for us! 

     It is easy to tell when someone is in love. It’s written all over them and they can’t do enough for the person they are in love with. They will pretty much do anything for them. This is how we are to be for our Heavenly Father. So in love with Him and His Son and His Holy Spirit that we will do anything for them. We want it to be obvious to all, Who we love. Unashamed of Him and continually speaking well of Him and gladly doing whatever is on His heart. This is the greatest joy our hearts could ever have. He is a safe place to put our heart where it won’t be crushed or disappointed or left behind. Our Heavenly Father is the safest place we could ever put our heart. 

                    Are there signs evident in your life that you are in love with God? 

     “I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothals, your following after Me in the wilderness, through a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord, the first of His harvest; all who ate of it became guilty; evil came upon them,” declares the Lord - Jeremiah 2:2-3 “But My people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.” - Jeremiah 2:11 

     Having the Lord is our glory and when we seek Him as our first love He defends and upholds us. Their are so many blessings that come with having Him as our first love! The devil is always trying to trick us into giving up our protection and safety by calling us into thinking that the world is more attractive and more important and more real than anything that we might find in Jesus. He is always trying to get us to compromise just a little and relax our hold on Him. He promises some comfort and relief if we just let go of God a little bit, but the reality is that he is never content with the compromises we have begun to make and will always continue to draw us further from the safety of the camp of the Lord. And the Lord says, “What injustices did your fathers find in Me, that they went far from Me and walked after emptiness and became empty?” Jeremiah 2:5 This is the question we always need to come back to. Why do we trade the Lord for the things of this world. The reality is, that as long as we hold fast to our old life, we sacrifice the new one in Christ. As long as we hold onto our old life our new life in Christ just doesn’t seem that fun or appealing. It is not until we begin surrendering our old life that the new joy in Christ begins to flood into our life. We must let go of the old in order to have the new. It is impossible to hold onto both. If we try to hold onto both we will neither have joy in Christ nor will we have a satisfied life in our old ways. We will just be miserable. “For My people have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” Jeremiah 2:13

This is a lesson from the class I'm teaching at our Bible School.

Prince Edward Island Bible Institute

           -Seth