Overcoming Condemnation

I have noticed a pattern in my life where when I realize how dumb something is instead of taking my eyes off myself and putting them back on Jesus, I get int this self bashing mode where I reflect on how stupid and foolish I am. I recognize that that is not humility, it is just as self centered as prideful boasting. This devotion today really helped to remind me that it is God that should be my focus.

Not under Condemnation

Psalm 143:1–3
Hear my prayer, O LORD, give ear to my supplications! Answer me in
Thy faithfulness, in Thy righteousness! And do not enter into judgment
with Thy servant, for in Thy sight no man living is righteous. For the
enemy has persecuted my soul; he has crushed my life to the ground.
NASB


The psalmist there was struggling with a dark force that attacks almost
every one of us at some time or another, the force of condemnation. Each
of us has an enemy, an accuser, one who seeks to make us feel guilty,
unworthy, one who reminds us of our failures and our shortcomings and our
unworthiness, and if we let him go on speaking to us he’ll crush our life
down to the ground. The answer is the answer that the psalmist found. He
turned to God and he prayed. And he said, “Give ear to my supplications.
Answer me in Thy faithfulness and in Thy righteousness.”

When we are facing condemnation and a sense of unworthiness, it is
most important that we don’t listen to the enemy any longer; that we turn
to God and that we appeal to God for help. Not on the basis of our
righteousness or our faithfulness, but on the basis of God’s righteousness
and God’s faithfulness. That is the way out from condemnation. That’s the
way back into victory.

We don’t ask God to enter into judgment with us, we ask Him to answer
us on the basis of His righteousness and His faithfulness and when we do
that, we are released from that dark power of condemnation.

—Derek Prince

Double Take

So my time in Charleston is at a very near end. I am moving back to Atlanta in a week's time at which point I may be saying goodbye to many friends that are now graduating. I wonder what my parting words should even be. I know some of them still do not have a relationship with Jesus and I pray still that they will. Is there anything I can say or do to change that, not really, but I can show them love in Jesus' name and keep in touch with them while continuing to pray for the Holy Spirit to draw them. I just feel like so many times I have had deep conversations with people about God that do not lead anywhere not realizing that it is the Holy Spirit that has to do the work. If there is anything I have learned more so than ever during my time in Charleston is that God has called us to be a light, to be separate, but attractive to a dying, dark world. When we are acting the way we should in Christ people will be asking us for what we have. If we were as passionate and radical as the Christians of the early church things would be much more different, also Christians would be much more in tune with God's Spirit and the power/signs that accompany it. I had a friend tell me today that he was losing faith for praying for healing because he has only ever seen anything happen, but one time. It is becoming more and more apparent to any christian in America that something is wrong, because the power of God seems to be absent from our churches and we have nothing, but traditions of men. As I still think about Jesus' ministry I cannot say I have really witnessed anyone in my life that looks like Jesus, where there are healings, deliverances, supernatural signs going on regularly around someone's ministry. I will say I have heard plenty, but seeing is much different from hearing or reading about. One thing that struck me the other day is that no person in the NT was commissioned to evangelize without having authority to cast out demons. I know this might sound insane or primitive, but I believe demons are very real. How can you say the Bible is true without believing that? This is the commission that is not so popularly quoted from Mark, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well." Mark 16:15-18 Notice the first sign he mentions is the driving out of demons. The disciples used these signs to confirm the good news of the Lord, but today it seems like we are either not speaking the actual gospel or have just lost all faith that he can do anything like this any more today. Even though we know in a head knowledge kid of way that things like this do go all over the world including in America. The media does not give it much attention though. I think we are somewhat afraid of the power of God, because when it comes it changes everything, we can't get by with a lukewarm heart, we either believe or reject it and live how we want to, which is the terrible fate of some. Interestingly it was the most theologically knowledgeable people of Jesus' day that rejected him the most and the miracles that accompanied his teachings. I just hope that I will not turn a blind eye to the unbiblical Christianity I see all around me. We desperately need the Holy Spirit, but the comforts and worries of our lives in America have lured us from recognizing our need for dependence on God alone. I just want to stop treating God and his plan for my life as a back up plan or a safety net and realize that it He is the reason I am alive and knows exactly what I was made to do. Let your truth come back into the church and let us not neglect critical points of the christian life just because it isn't seeker friendly or we might cause division. We need to be seeker saving and not seeker friendly. Seekers are looking for the true Christianity that Jesus died to make possible not a club full of "swell" or "hip" people. Thank you Lord, for calling me by your own glory and goodness, I pray that your spirit would not be hindered or grieved in my life, but would flow freely as I decrease and you increase in the spring of my soul. Amen

Christian Perspective on Suffering

So today I heard some really great things about suffering on two different sides of the scale. Suffering that God brings to bring us closer to him into a child-like dependence and faith in Him to take care of us and suffering that is caused by the corruption and sin in this world that robs our joy, love, and hope in God. I was listening to Derek Prince this morning on my IPOD talking about his life and how God allowed him to spend a year, yes a whole year in the military hospital inn Northern Africa while he was stationed there after the battle at El Alamein. He got this horrible foot disease that made him practically bed ridden most of that time. He was tried during that time, but it yielded a man that was ready to minister in the capacity that God had planned for him. In his desperation he rad through the whole Bible to find if God was a restorer of the body, a healer. He took a blue pen and underlined anything that talked about God renewing, healing, or strengthening. At the end of four months he made it through the entire book and lo and behold he had a blue Bible! God had taught him lessons about how willing God is to heal and restore, so he had a faith to stand upon. Next he found that the word was a medicine and he read it as if he was taking medicine, as certain times in definite intervals. After some time God healed Him and he recovered from a disease that others still had problems with that came months before him to the same hospital.
Next I heard a message from John Piper talking about the golden rule and how if we do to others as we would have them do to us. It means we need to be meeting peoples needs in suffering. It became clear that Jesus really was saying that we need to put ourselves in others' position and do for them what we would want done for us. In this way we can meet real needs, but we have to ask God for help to have the generosity and the right spirit, so that we can act on our empathy and do it in a way that the person actually feels loved. People do not want to be helped by someone who is complaining the entire time. SO yeah, those are some things I learned about today that were pretty eye opening.

"God of the universe, you are all-knowing, good, and perfect in righteousness. I need the power of your Spirit to fully obey this impossible command to love and treat others as I would want to be loved and treated. God show me people in my life that I have been failing to love and those that I am trying to love; give me insight into what their real needs are. And show me how to care for not just the needs right here and now, but to bring people out of bondage and meet their eternal needs. Let me not be one who is too "tolerant" to speak of Hell as it really is, to not shy away from the reality that all of us must face. Give me the boldness and courage to speak your words, so that I will be worthy to even receive them myself. Your name is above all. All praise, glory, and honor is yours forever. Thank you Jesus."

An encounter

Today I really rebelled against getting up early, even though yesterday I heard about the message about men acting like boys and not getting out of bed. While yes i can get out of bed in time to read my bible and say some prayers and get to work, I am choosing to sleep over spending time with God. I am realizing that it being with God and learning about and experiencing him is not something I have to do, it is something I GET to do. I pray God that not only would you give me a burden for the souls you have put into my life, but that I would not be slumbering during this time of mid-battle training. The battle is very real and is waging all around me, yet most times I would rather sleep in just a few extra minutes because I "deserve it". The only thing I "deserve" is Hell. But God has redeemed me, that means he paid for me so that I would not go where I deserved because God's love demands my life for himself. He has called me out of death into life. I love the way Galatians 2:20 puts it, "For I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I live in this body I live through faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." If I live by faith in the Son of God, I can faith to lose sleep for the sake of God, or lose a meal, or a drink, or a limb, or my life itself and know that I am His. When my foundation is on the rock, I cannot be moved, because he is unmoving, immutable, infinite, omnipotent, infallible. I declare your words over my life, that I will be a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to you because it really is the only reasonable response to the vast oceans of grace you pour on me by your insane mercies.
Lord, thank you for today and for help at work. Thank you for tonight and for the sons and daughters that were added to your family. I praise you for your compassions that never fail, which are new every morning. I praise you that you are the God that is completely self-sufficient, that you do not need anything let alone from me, but yet you still desire me and want to partner with me to do great things that you could do quite easily on your own. God thank you for granting me repentance tonight and showing me the depths of my sin and how they grieve you. Help me to be holy as you are holy and to honor you with my body, mind, and spirit. Show me more of you that I would fear you and love you more that I might not sin against you.
Jesus, Jesus Lord of my life, I love you.

A great sermon I heard today

http://marshill.com/media/trial/marriage-and-men

Watch it, I have nothing better to write about today.

Expanding the Kingdom

Tonight was my first night leading the men's discipleship group. I got everything together for our meeting the night before and was looking forward to it all day and just prayed that God would show up tonight and he did. It was a much smaller group, only four of us. We got into great and deep conversation about what it means to follow God in our lives and making decisions for doing our relationships with others the way he made us to. At the end, I asked one of the guys if he had ever made a decision to follow God because it came up that he had never been baptized. Once we found out that he had not, we just came around him and loved on him and told him that today is the day of salvation if he wants it and is ready to make that commitment. We asked him some questions and informed him about some of the costs and benefits of following God. He made a decision and we led him through a prayer for Jesus to cover over his sins and to commit to following God. We gave him the schedule of when we are meeting for college group and church. It was such a great experience. I definitely feel like I was not ready for what God was doing tonight. I felt inadequate to lead this man to Christ, but really it was just a lie. God can do impossible things as long as we obey him. So God thank you for not letting my limited view of the possible to hinder others from going forward in you and finding your salvation. I pray that everything that I said that was false would be forgotten and that your truth would remain. Teach me to speak only what you have given to say. And Father, I love that you rejoice over the one lost sheep that is found because I know that I was once that person and you still sing your song over me. Help me to faithfully administer the grace you have given me to others. All praise, glory and honor is yours forever.
Thank you Jesus!

Principles of Perseverance

Well, if you are following my blog you know it has been awhile since I wrote last. It was all do to a little thought in my head that I could skip a day and do two blogs to cover them both. It started out as an idea that led to a laziness of not getting back to it until now. Since I stopped writing each night, my discipline has dwindled and have retained less of what God has been doing each day in my life. So I hope to get back into a regular writing to keep a record of what God has been doing.
Today I got to go downtown Charleston and serve food to people and pray for them. It was a great experience. One lady saw us praying for someone and started crying in her car, that was unexpected. I also just got to meet with some people from Florida and Columbia, SC. It was awesome to serve with people like that.
I hope that I will not convince myself that taking a day off would be okay.
Lord help me to persevere and to not something that I know is good.