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.