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

The blessing of an impartial judge

Isaiah 66:23-24

The blessing of an impartial judge

  “And it shall be from new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all mankind will come to bow down before Me,” says the Lord. “Then they shall go forth and look on the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched; and they shall be an abhorrence to all mankind.”

  Why are we always challenged and seem at a loss when people give us their excuse for why they won’t follow God by citing in the Old Testament how God wiped out nations, and they could never follow a God like that.

  Let us consider what happens when we accidentally do something that causes harm to another person, like spill coffee on their iphone or bump into them on the sidewalk and cause them to drop and break something. Their immediate reaction is that something must be done about what we just did and, “Who’s going to pay for that!”  This was just an accident and doesn’t even include when something has been done on purpose out of a mean spirit. Now who do we go to to get our justice, for we all have some sense of justice that we feel must be accounted for.

  We all have, built into us, the idea that justice must be done for our circumstance. So who is just? And who decides what is fair? We will spend large amounts of money on lawyers to prove our point of who is right and who is wrong and yet we don’t want to hear about a God who created our world and who always stands for justice?

  We are quick to accuse God of being unjust in wiping out tribes of people and yet we would wipe out our neighbors of everything they owned if we felt they had wronged us in any way, even accidentally. Our reactions can be really intense! Think about how many ridiculous lawsuits you hear about these days with everyone so willing to try and get something for themselves. Think about how many accidents that have happened and because it happed in your house or on your property or your office or your job site, it is your fault no matter how absurd the claim may be. Then  there are needs for justice like right now when we have people blowing themselves up to take out men, women, and children and something must be done.
     Jesus, the king of the world and also the creator of it, is coming back soon. Why wouldn’t He bring justice both for those who have worked hard to keep His laws and retribution on those who have continually broken them on purpose. This really is His world. He really did create us and all that we see. Obedience is not optional and whether we like God’s rules or not, we will have to abide by them no matter what, when He returns. Obedience is not optional and is not subject to interpretation. If a person steals something its still stealing no matter what anyone chooses to call it. The world loves it’s gay pride parades but sin is sin. We may as well have thief pride parades or prostitution pride parades. These are all acts of sin. Sin always causes an injury to someone else and God’s laws are always out to support the injured person who has been taken advantage of. Sin always causes pain and anguish to someone else in order to achieve its own desires. Think about how God must come to the defense of babies who have been murdered in the safest place on earth... their mother’s womb. God must defend them and their cause is just! They were murdered. However, God’s justice often comes in ways that only the mother of that child knows about because God’s justice is very personal and tailored to the crime and He always has a way of fixing even the outcome of crimes like this if we turn to Him with repentance and cry out for His help and forgiveness.

  We have an impartial judge which means that He is always fair for all parties concerned and cannot be bribed or enticed to compromise His justice. This is our greatest blessing! This is our great refuge because though we also do things wrong, yet He will do what is right in every situation which makes obedience to His laws, to be our best friend. (This is not in refrence to salvation for salvation and actually keeping God's laws can only be accomplished through Christ and His saving power in our lives, but is speaking about the benefits of keeping the laws of God with Jesus' help) God is a true refuge to all and if we seek His protection He will require repentance and turning from our sin but He will also become our defender.

  To have a real and impartial judge is the best thing that we could ever have! It is the greatest gift to men, for He is truly fair in all things even though, while He accomplishes His justice, our circumstances may seem to be something other than fair. Let us rejoice that we have a judge and take full advantage of this. And remember, obedience is not optional or subject to interpretation (what is good for you may not be what is good for me)  but is part of our new life in Christ. Let us joyfully set ourselves to keeping His good laws through Jesus' grace and help. His laws always govern our hearts, making us a blessing to our neighbors and not just one more selfish person who thinks nothing of harming someone for his own gain.

           God Bless!

H.I.T. Videos by the Skys

Hi Everyone!

      In the last post I let you all know about our new 3 Minute Game Changer series. We have just completed our second video however we have made a change to the title calling them The Sky's  H.I.T. Videos   Standing for - Humor In Truth. God has given us a lot of simple yet important lessons and has really been directing us in different ways of getting them out to people.

     Also in the beginning of the new year we are going to be launching into radio here in the maritimes and by God's help, quickly expanding throughout New England and everywhere else that God makes a way for. It will be a half hour show once a week. If you have a local radio station that you think would also like to be involved with this just let me know. I will post the messages in audio here for all of you as they start coming out.

     Keep us in prayer as we press forward in the service of our wonderful Savior!

               God bless!
                   -Seth


Episode 2 -  Reality Check

http://youtu.be/3Nd0niT8b_0


Episode 1 -  Jesus Came To Save Us From What?!

http://youtu.be/vlk0VfasV-I

Extra Bits and Bloopers from episode 2

http://youtu.be/m8xsI_lPCi8

Jesus Came To Save Us From What?!

     I Just wanted to share our new video series called "H.I.T. Videos  by the Skys"

It will be an ongoing series bringing inspiring truths in short segments that hopefully will make it easy for anyone to find time to watch in their busy schedule. 

Be sure to subscribe to the youtube channel so you don't miss each one as it comes out!

Also feel free to share as much as you like among your friends! We hope it will be a blessing!

God bless!

-Seth

The Work Of the Holy Ghost

    Excerpts from D. L. Moody

from Evenings With Moody and Sankey

  The Work Of the Holy Ghost

  Now I have a great many letters against that hymn “Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove,” and I hear a great many people complain about our singing that hymn and praying for the Holy Ghost to come. They say He came on the day of Pentecost, and has been here ever since. But when we pray for Him to come, it is that He may anoint us afresh, that He may endow us with fresh power. There is such a thing as a man just having life, but not having the power, and so when we pray that the Holy Ghost may come upon us with power that we may be anointed, that is a different thing. - D..L.

  And  a thought I want to call your attention to is this, that God has got a good many children who have just barely got life, but no power for service. You might say safely, I think, without exaggeration, that nineteen out of every twenty of professed Christians are of no earthly account so far as building up Christ’s kingdom; but on the contrary they are standing right in the way, and the reason is because they have just got life and have settled down, and have not sought for power. The Holy Ghost coming upon them with power is distinct and separate from conversion. If the scripture doesn’t teach it I am ready to correct it. - D. L.

  I believe we should accomplish more in one week than we should in years if we had only this fresh baptism. - D..L.

  If a man is only converted and we get him into a church, we think the work is done, and we let him go right off to sleep  Instead of urging him to seek the gift of the Holy Ghost, that he may be anointed for work, we let him sleep and slumber. This world would soon be converted, if all such were baptized with the Holy Ghost. - D..L.

  When a man is full of the Holy Ghost, he cannot help working for the Lord. We would indeed have a stir in the church if we were baptized with the Holy Ghost. The cry would be, “Here I am Lord; use me!” We would all be anxious to be used in God’s service. - D..L.

  A great many think because they have been filled once, they are going to be full for all time after; but O, my friends, we are leaky vessels, and have to be kept right under the fountain all the time in order to keep full. - D..L.

  In the 19th chapter of Acts, they went down there at Ephesus, and they found twelve men, and said to them, “Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?” The early Christians looked for that; but what would our converts do now if that question were put to them? They would rub their eyes and say they never heard of such a thing, and, what do you mean by receiving the Holy Ghost for service? That is the reason men dare not speak to their neighbors about Christ, and the reason why every night so many go away from here that are anxious about their souls, and yet the man, the Christian who sits next to them, has not the moral courage to speak to them about Christ and salvation. - D..L.

  As you seek to be effective for the Lord it is good not to forget that it is not you that can convert a man, woman, or child. It is the power of the Holy Spirit that reaches into their heart and brings about the change. It is so important to seek the Lord for more of His Spirit and though the Holy Spirit has been made a mockery of in many circles whether in places of false signs and wonders or scoffed at by groups that deny He is at work in this present day, the reality is that if you care about the people around you and want to see them saved, you need His help. Without Him you can do nothing because you can’t reach in and break the addictions people are under. You can sympathize with them, maybe even make their lives a little more comfortable but you can never break them free from the bondage of sin. This is the Holy Spirit’s domain and He can and will accomplish this work through you if you seek for His help.

  So let us seek Him out today and ask for His help that we may be effective in our service of the King!

                         God bless!

Link for things to read on D.L. Moody  http://www.biblebelievers.com/moody/contentsext.html

Pressing on in the service of our Lord

John 21:25

Pressing on in the service of our Lord

     “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the whole world would not contain the books which were written.” –John

     Jesus calls Himself the first of many brothers! The path He walked before us was one of great courage and many wonderful signs. His life was one continuous demonstration of the love and support our Heavenly Father has for us. What a wonderful example He has left for us! I get so excited when I think about what John is saying here; that the world could not contain all of the books it would take to write down all that Jesus did during His time on earth. The four Gospels give us different highlights of Jesus’ ministry in order to give us a glimpse into all that Jesus did while He was here. I marvel at Jesus feeding the five thousand people with just a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. Creating something from nothing was as simple as breathing to Him.

     We who have been saved by Him have a wonderful heritage. It is so important to dedicate our lives to Him so that the rest of our time on earth will be spent in preparation for a glorious eternity with Him! We need to make the most of the days and years that we have in front of us taking the talents God has given us and multiplying them. I get so inspired when I read about the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30 how as soon as the faithful servants received their talents they immediately started working with them and doubled what they had been given. The joy of being diligent with what God gives to us to work with is something not to take lightly. It is a wonderful thing to feel God’s approval as we step out to witness or help someone in need. He is so pleased with even our faltering steps.

     It is time to ignore the distractions of this world and to ask God for His help in overcoming our lazy human nature and set about making the most of the time we have left! I know that I have shared this before but it still keeps me focused. Jesus gives a parable of a land owner who hires workers for his vineyard and every few hours he goes out and finds new people standing around waiting for work and he promises each of them the same wage for their labor even though some have worked longer than others. Finally at the last hour of the day he finds more people waiting for work and he sends them to his field. Now when the day is over he proceeds to pay each man the same wage and the ones who worked the most began to complain about the ones who worked for only an hour. My friends we are in the final hour before Jesus returns and our work is short! So let us work hard so that the ones who worked the longest will have nothing to complain about as we make up for the hours we missed!

     So let us press on with the time that we have and encourage one another to do more for our dear Savior that it may also be said of us that the world could not contain an account of all that we have done to serve our Savior!

          God bless you all!