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

Spend Some Time With The Lord

Isaiah 30:15, 18

Spend Some Time With The Lord

For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said, “In repentance and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength.”

Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; how blessed are all those who long for Him.

In my times of reading the Bible this past week I have been noticing more than usual that God is continually being praised for being a God of justice. Every verse has been that He will bring down the oppressor and those who rob the poor and who deal unjustly with their fellow men. Just making it clear that the wicked will not go unpunished and those who try to keep His laws will not go unrewarded. Verse after verse says, Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord! Rejoice in the Lord for He will raise up the humble and do good to those who have placed their trust in Him! Each verse speaks so confidently of God that He is faithful and will defend the oppressed and bless the righteous.

“How blessed are all who long for Him.” Do you find yourself thinking about the Lord a lot during the day or are you someone who is just realizing right now that you almost never think about Him at all unless something goes wrong in your life and you want it fixed? There is a big difference between those who long for the Lord and those who just need something fixed. Imagine the garage mechanic, who you only see when your car breaks down and sure you appreciate the work he does in keeping you mobile. He helps you to be able to carry on with your life with no delays, but that is as far as it goes. As long as everything is working you are fine without him in your life. 

God is someone who actually wants to be completely involved in your life. Every part of it. He is not far off, and keeping Himself out of your life. He is patiently waiting for you to come to Him. He is not the mechanic. He is a best friend full of wisdom, advice, and amazing plans. He is a shoulder to cry on, an ear that will listen as you pour out your grief. He can comfort a weary heart and if you are close to Him you can actually feel the warmth of His comforting arms as He puts them around you. He can put the pieces of whatever mess you have made back together. He is the best friend you could ever hope to have and never is at a loss when you bring Him your problems.

If you have not made Him your best friend, He is longing to be part of your life. These verses tell the simple path to having Him as your best friend. 

Now, to seek Him out, you must let go of your pride and every thought of how good a person you think you are or even how bad a person you think you are. So many people won’t come to the Lord because they think they are to bad for Him to want them. He says, “Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore waits on high to have compassion on you.”  If you simply say, “Lord I’m sorry for my sins, please help me to keep Your  laws.” He will come quickly to you and establish the wonderful relationship He has for you. He longs to be your best friend. “How blessed are all those who long for Him.”

The Lord has such a simple and yet marvelous plan for people. He wants to love them and raise them up to be His friends. Such a simple concept and yet so few people will take Him up on this blessing He has for them. Those of us who already know the Lord, still have such little understanding of the blessing of having Him as our best friend! We are continually putting Him to the side in pursuit of other things and neglecting the best gift ever for the sake of other things that will pass away. I was marveling the other day at the beautiful trees changing color and how God designed each one to grow from a little seed with the entire blue print of their size, shape and color all packed inside. Truly a marvel! The truth is that we are not smart enough to appreciate and know what is truly going on inside of all the things He created, to marvel at them. If we were we would be beyond amazed at every little detail of this world. Our God is a genius! Did you know that He covers a tree with thousands of little solar panels called leaves that bring forth and produce all the energy for the tree? Then when they are not needed they fall off and regrow in the spring. There is more amazing design in one leaf than we could possibly take in and yet these marvels happen in every area of creation! Now tell me, doesn’t that make you want to get to know our God better? He is offering Himself as our closest companion! 

          Let’s spend some time with Him today!    :)