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

Waiting upon the Lord

John 20:29

Waiting upon the Lord

     Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

     It is a step of faith that Jesus calls us to. Jesus is speaking to Thomas – one of his disciples who spoke out to the others that he would not believe that Jesus had risen from the dead unless he was able to see Him in person and put his fingers into Jesus’ wounds. Jesus says to him, “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

     Jesus will often come to our aid in a very visible way and yet there are many times when we are enduring some hardship or period of waiting for something which we have asked Him for and we start to doubt that He will come to our rescue or answer our prayers. We start to doubt even though we have many witnesses to the contrary. We have so many proofs of His faithfulness to keep His promises to us and yet sometimes we are like Thomas and declare that unless we see proof we will not believe that He will do as He said. Jesus words, “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed,” is His promise of blessing for us if we hold fast to His promises no matter what things look like. He will come through and take care of whatever it is that we have asked Him for.

     So how does this translate into our everyday walk with God? Well, quite simple really. The Devil is always trying to offer us things that we don’t have to wait for or don’t seem to require any pain to achieve, things that we can have right now if we are willing to overstep a few of God’s laws. He often stirs up our hearts so that there seems to be no other alternative than to do things his way. He likes to fill us with such passion that we refuse to look at the consequences of our actions and do things in the heat of the moment that will cause us a lifetime of misery. God on the other hand, desires for us to have what is truly good for us and part of this is working on our character so that we will not waste what He gives to us, but will make the best use of it. So He allows delays to test us and to work patience and trust in us. God has our eternity in mind when He takes care of us and He is constantly working to conform our character into His image. We are His children forever and so He takes great pains with us to set our lives on a good foundation.

     So how do we hold onto the truth of these things when we are in the midst of a temptation or trial? It seems like it is just too hard to remember when we are fighting with a desire or test and we are contending with our weak nature. The answer is to hold onto God’s love for us and to not be afraid to cry out loud for His help to overcome what we are struggling with. If we cry out, He will refresh our spirit and renew our confidence, and give us a fresh wind to go forth and endure until He has finished all that He is accomplishing in our lives.

     So let us keep eternity in our hearts, and God’s love for us and our love for Him, continually on our minds. A good verse to dwell on is Proverbs 16:17. “The highway of the upright is to depart from evil; He who watches his way preserves his life.” 

          God bless!