Hands

John 10:25-29 “I did tell you and you don’t believe,” Jesus answered them. “The works that I do in My Father’s name testify about Me.  But you don’t believe because you are not My sheep. My sheep hear My voice I know them, and the follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish – ever! No one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

These four verses pack a vast amount of information, and each part should give us believers great comfort. Let’s break it down.

Jesus is talking to the Jews who have asked if He was the Messiah. His response is He did tell them, but they didn’t believe. Jesus doesn’t force anyone to believe in Him. It is up to each person to decide what they believe.

Jesus tells the Jews His works testify about Him. As believers, what do our works testify about us? Are we talking about people behind their backs masking it as a “prayer request?” Or are we using our words to build up believer and lead the lost to Christ? You understand this point without my belaboring it.

Believers are followers of Christ like sheep follow a shepherd. There are benefits to being Christ’s sheep. We get to hear His voice. Do you know what His voice sounds like? It takes some practice in being still, worship, meditation, quiet time with God, praying, and being silent.  Let me tell you about God’s voice. 1 Kings 19:11-13 says the Lord wasn’t in the great and mighty wind that shattered cliffs nor in an earthquake nor in a fire. Elijah heard a voice, a soft whisper. Elijah was so overwhelmed by this whisper, he wrapped his face in his mantle. Zephaniah 3:17 says God rejoices over us with singing. OH, the things we miss out on by not listening for and hearing the voice of God.

Another benefit in being a follower of Christ is eternal life. We will never perish. The Greek word is “apollymi” which means to destroy fully. We may endure hardships, and our physical bodies may fail, but we will NEVER be fully destroyed because we have eternal life with Jesus in heaven. Does that give you peace and comfort? If it doesn’t, the next part should.

Once we are the sheep of this Shepherd, no one can take us out of His hand. Hands are amazing instruments. I remember as a child studying my daddy’s hands when I would give him a manicure. No one else I know has hands like my daddy. They are very distinguishable. Jesus’ hands have our names engraved in them (Isaiah 49:16), and do you know where they are engraved? In the palm of His nail-pierced hands…that’s where. He has purchased His sheep with His blood. He isn’t about to let someone snatch them out of His hands now.

I love the next part. It’s almost as if it’s like, “My dad is better than your dad” kind of thing. Jesus says His Father has given Him those who believe, and His dad is greater than all fathers including the father of lies, Satan. I want to remind you of what God’s “greater” looks like. Louis Giglio on YouTube “How Great Is Our God” will tell you just how big God is. Giglio loves space, and he gives the audience a small glimpse of the size of our God. The audience is left feeling small and in awe. If you ever forget how great your Father is or just need reminding, watch this clip. We serve a great God.

Father and I are one. They are unified. There is no division. They are 2 parts of the Trinity. These two agree. God is His witness.

If you choose not to follow Christ, it is your choice. If you choose not to follow Christ on earth, you cannot choose heaven later. The reward for choosing Christ on earth is having a Father who is waiting on us, created heaven for us, and if you deny Christ on earth, He will deny you in heaven (Matthew 10:32-33).

His hands, His voice, His presence are a comfort to His sheep. This is why in Psalm 23 the sheep testify of the Shepherd’s rod and staff giving comfort. Those who do not know Him, who do not believe Him, do not have this comfort, nor do they understand it when you try to explain it to them.

Aren’t we blessed? We are safe and secure and comforted. If you aren’t giving thanks right now, you really should. I know I am.

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Spiritual Warfare 102 - Tactical Maneuvers

Tactical Maneuvers

Spiritual Warfare is real. If you don’t believe it is, then don’t waste your time reading the rest of the blog.

Just like if you ever go to court, you have a strategy for the case.

If you are on a sports team, there is a strategy for defense and offense depending on the adversary.

This is no different.

Let’s examine the tactics Satan used when he was attacking Jesus in the wilderness. Remember, you can read for yourself (and I encourage you to do so). Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-12

1.       When did he attack?

a.       Jesus was hungry – physical need

b.      Jesus was alone – lack of support and encouragement from friends and family

c.       Jesus was in the wilderness – many places for adversaries to hide and have an advantage

2.       What was the strategy of attack

a.       Tempt Jesus into proving He was the Son of God but taunting Him saying, “If you are the Son of God…”

b.      Quoting Scripture – Psalm 91:11-12. Yes, the devil has Scripture memorized. Do you?

3.       How did he attack?

a.       Acknowledging the physical need and offering to meet it, BUT with a conditions

b.      Making promises – shows Jesus the kingdoms present and kingdoms to come and wants to play Let’s Make a Deal

c.       Testing the authority and power of Jesus Christ – throw Yourself down from here because the angels are ordered to protect you. Let’s test it out.

Jesus was prepared. Let’s look at the moves Jesus made during the warfare:

1.       Jesus response – quote Scripture. You don’t see any other conversation other than Jesus quoting Scripture. This is a huge point. The more we run our mouths, the more ammunition we give the devil. God’s Word can stand on its own. Quote the Scripture and zip your lips.

2.       Jesus knew the physical need was temporal in nature. He knew He would not die from hunger. He knew how He was going to die and when, and this was not that day. Friends, if you are tempted by food, you will not die from hunger either.

3.       Jesus knew the errors in Satan’s logic. Yes, Satan had freedom to reign on this earth, but it’s temporary. Jesus’ reign is eternal. He knew when the time came all the kingdoms will bow and confess, so why say anything else but quote Scripture?

4.       Jesus did not have to prove himself to Satan. They both knew each other from when Satan was in heaven with Jesus. Satan knew Jesus was the Son of God, so why would Jesus have to defend it? He didn’t. He just quoted Scripture.

Luke’s version of events ends with a phrase, “he departed from Him for a time.” Spiritual warfare isn’t over just because a squirmish or battle is won. The war continues until Jesus’ triumphant return.

If you want to prepare for spiritual warfare and want to dig deeper into another story in the Bible, read Genesis 3 when Satan tempts Eve. Break down his tactics, strategies. Identify how she responded, and write down a correct response, should you ever find yourself facing spiritual warfare.

I encourage you to keep Scripture written on cards. Post on your mirror, in your car, at work, in the kitchen, etc. A sweet friend of mine has Scripture made of vinyl on her walls.

And study the armor of God found in Ephesians 6:10-18, and put it on every day without fail. Teach this to your children. Start them out young putting on the armor of God when you wake them in the morning. Shake their little heads as you put on the helmet of salvation, tickle those feet when you put on the gospel of peace, grab their arm to hold up the shield of faith, grab their hand and move it around like the sword which is the word of God, tighten their clothes around their waste for the belt of righteousness. Teach those sweet babies how to be ready. They are the future army of God.

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Spiritual Warfare 101 -- Unholy Sundays

There are some Sunday mornings in my house which are less than holy. As a matter of fact, they are downright ugly, and I know Satan is all up in my house. I’ve often thought of getting up early, grabbing some type of holy water whether it’s Lysol or oil, and sprinkle my household, praying at every door and window. What I don’t think Satan has realized yet, is the harder he tries on Sunday morning, the more determined I am to get to church because my little darlings go to small group. I go to my small group, and we return to each other in a much better frame of mind and focus. I am confident that spiritual warfare is the most active in most Christian homes on Sunday morning.

So how do you know if what you are going through is Spiritual Warfare or consequences of sin? Sometimes they feel a lot alike. Let’s look at Jesus’ example. He endured Spiritual Warfare, and these are a few things, I noticed:

1.       John had baptized Jesus.

a.       You become a threat to Satan when you become a child of God. Jesus was always God even while in the flesh, but at His baptism, He was publicly acknowledge to be God’s Son.

b.      If you have made a public stand of faith whether at home, church, work or school, you are a threat to Satan, and you will undergo spiritual warfare.

2.       Dr. Luke tells us Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit. Mountain top experience often results in Spiritual Warfare.

3.       He was led by the Spirit to go into the wilderness. Mark even went so far as to say, “the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness.”

a.       Ask yourself – Have I been walking so closely with God that I have followed the Spirit into this situation?

b.      Ask yourself – When was the last time I prayed, studied God’s word, worshiped Him?

c.       Why would the Holy Spirit lead anyone into a wilderness knowing they would be tempted? While Jesus did not need to grow in His faith, He is our example. Spiritual Warfare is one of the ways faith may be caused to grow.

If you know you’ve been walking closely with God, spending time with Him, then there’s a good chance, it is spiritual warfare.

d.      When you make decisions in your life, do you seek God first, or are you impulsive and reactionary in nature?

e.      When you are faced with a problem, do you do what makes sense, or do you look for God’s hand before making a decision?

f.        Look at those who are your confidants. Are they spiritually mature people giving you sound advice based on Biblical principles? In other words, are your closest friends walking close to God and growing in their faith? If they aren’t and you take their advice, you may be suffering consequences of sin.

4.       Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.

a.       While fasting draws us closer to God, it’s also a time of weakness and vulnerability because you are denying your physical wants and desires, and Satan knows exactly how to use that against us. While Jesus was all God when clothed in flesh, He still had fleshly needs.

b.      Fasting brings the believer into submission to God’s will. Yet another reason Satan attacks.

c.       If you have been fasting for spiritual reasons and difficulty arises, then it’s probably spiritual warfare.

There is no choice or decision Jesus made that would cause Him to suffer consequences for sin. He did, however, take on all of our sin when He hung on the cross.

People do make mistakes. People react. People make choices without thinking and even more importantly without praying for God’s guidance and His will.

When you buy things that are not in the budget, when you eat and are not hungry, when you choose an unhealthy lifestyle, when you choose to talk about people behind their backs – these are all choices you make. None of those choices are in-line with godly living. And this is not an all-inclusive list either.

Do you make a poor choice, and then tell people you are under spiritual warfare? No, you are under the consequences of your sin. Own it. Repent. Get right with God.

But girlfriend, if you are in spiritual warfare, draw closer to God, have prayer warriors praying for you, find a godly, growing Christian girlfriend that will hold you accountable, and dig deep. We know who is victorious. Romans 8 tells us everything we need to know about who has the power and dominion and who will be more than conquerors. So girlfriends, I challenge you to fight the good fight on your knees. God’s got you.

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I Passed Smooth Out. I Didn't Have the Endurance

2 Peter 1:5-8

5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement (present) your faith (conviction of truth, belief, requires trust, cannot have salvation without faith) with goodness, goodness with knowledge (general understanding of Christian religion), 6 knowledge with self-control (master desires and passions), self-control with endurance (steadfastness, passionate patience), endurance with godliness (God-likeness, image bearer of Christ), 7 godliness with brotherly affection (phileo – cherish each other, found easily in commonality), and brotherly affection with love (agape – loves despite differences). 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The first step in walking the Christian life is making a profession of faith. Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (HCSB) Once that confession is made, your relationship with God begins building, growing, maturing. Remember, in the prior blog, 2 Peter 1:3 tells us God provides us everything we need to live a godly life once we make that confession of faith. Now, it’s just a matter of maturing those areas in our lives, and there seems to be a progression that maturity takes. After all, your babies don’t start off eating steak with a knife and fork, do they?

So after the confession of faith comes goodness. Goodness is a virtue. But how does a Christian’s goodness differ from a non-Christian’s goodness? Because let’s face, there are a lot of good people in the world. There are a lot of good people in hell too, for that matter. A Christian’s goodness has a basis on and in faith in Christ. If Christ is working through you to do His will for the benefit of others and the kingdom, then it will be done. A Christian’s goodness is rooted in Christ who is the Author of goodness.

After goodness comes knowledge or spiritual understanding. This is learning what the Bible has to say, learning to read the Scripture, to meditate on Scripture, and to pray. There isn’t just one way to do any of these things. There are so many ways to learn and read the Bible, and just as many different ways to pray. The important thing is that you begin, that you try. Don’t you know your heavenly Father is thrilled to hear from you when you speak to him? He is!

With knowledge, one should be in a better position to learn self-control or discipline. This is mastering your desires. How do you manage the good things in your life? Knowledge is a key element to self-control because you need to be able to see what the Word of God says about your desires and cravings. There’s a lot of false doctrine that says if you name it and claim it, you’ll have it, but that’s just not Scriptural. Self-control requires you to read and study the Word in order to mature in this area.

And the flip side of the same coin of self-control is endurance. In the Bible translation called the Message the words “passionate patience” is used instead of “endurance.” I quite like that. How do you manage the hard things in life? If you cannot control your mind or body, how can you possibly endure? Doesn’t endurance require you to maintain self-control in order not to quit? When I was in high school, I ran track. I was a sprinter. I ran 100 and 200 yards. The relay team needed to compete and place in one more race in order to earn a trophy. The next race would require that I run 400 yards – 1 full lap. I had never trained to run a full lap. As a sprinter, as soon as I start running, I am full open speed. I don’t slow down until I cross the line and pass the baton. No one told me how to run a 400 yard leg, and I found out the hard way one does NOT sprint 400 yards. Well, I sprinted 400 yards, and I was sucking wind by the time I passed the baton and passed smooth out. You see, not only had I sprinted the whole way but my breathing was for a sprinter which was short pants. It was not a pretty sight. Endurance requires training. Endurance is something that is exercised in order to grow. Just like muscles that atrophy when they are not used, this list of qualities will atrophy. Continue working on your faith exercising the qualities and characteristics of Christ, and your walk and maturity as a Christian will grow.

After endurance or passionate patience, comes godliness or God-likeness. Can we be perfect? NO! But we are to be image-bearers of Christ. If you were to look at my parents, listen to my parent, and then watch and listen my sister and I, you would see that we favor both of them. We have our dad’s very warped sense of humor much to our mother’s chagrin. My sister is built like my mom and has her coloring. I’m built like the Timmons side of the family. We bear a resemblance to our parents. In verse 3 and 4, we discussed the divine power and divine nature in us which is the Holy Spirit. Our spiritual birth gave us a new nature to take on, a divine nature to emulate, to model. Will we succeed? Not always, but people should be able to see our lives, hear our speech, and know who our Father is.

And once we know who our Father is, and we become His image-bearer, then we mature to brotherly affection. This type of brotherly love is the kind of love when you can find something in common with a person. Truth is, commonalities can be found with everyone on the face of the planet because we all have the same Creator. The reason godliness must come before brother love is because some people are harder to love than others. There are mean people in the world. There are wounded people in the world, and if God burdens your heart to minister and to serve a particular person who is difficult to love, you will need godliness in your back pocket.

Progressing from brotherly type of love, we move to agape type of love. This is a love that loves no matter the differences. It’s the love that is found in Romans 5: 8,  But God proves His own (agape) love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us! It’s also found in 1 Corinthians 13 which is known as the “love” chapter. This chapter concludes with, “these three remain: faith, hope, and love.  But the greatest of these is love.”(agape)

So how are you progressing through this list? How would God say you are progressing?

Don’t be discouraged if you aren’t where you want to be. Be encouraged knowing “He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” Philippians 1:6. We are all a work in progress.

Are You Plugged In?

Last week was the last week of school. My son attends a small Christian school where the give character awards. My son received the “Respect” award. On the way out of school, he told my sister, “I can’t believe I got ‘respect’!” She chuckled, and then he said, “If they had given me self-control, I’d have to give that one back.” LOL. He’s a work in progress and knows where he needs to grow.

On the flip side of the coin is my daughter. This is her first year in a public school, and there are two teacher that have given her a hard time especially regarding her faith. Without being prompted, she wrote thank you notes to all of her teachers. I wouldn’t have thought to have done that, but she saw it as an opportunity to share her faith once more. She has grown so much in her faith this year, but she too is a work in progress.  Aren’t we all?

This Sunday, I had the privilege of teaching my small group, and after a crazy week, Saturday morning, this is where God led me. I’ll be breaking this down over the course of a few blogs, and I’d like to unpack this set of verses down to the word meaning and put it together because it’s so rich with instruction. The words I’ve put in bold are followed by the definition or descriptions in (parenthesis and italicized). Between the verses is the explanation, and we’ll pull it all together at the end.

2 Peter 1:3-4 Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

3 His divine (theios – general name of the deities, spoken only of God as Christ, Spirit and Father) power (dynamic – inherent power, power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature. Think “dynamic” or “dynamite”)  has given us everything (each, every, all, everyone) required for life (every living soul) and godliness (reverence, respect towards God) through the knowledge of Him who called us by[b] His own glory and goodness (virtue, course of thought, feeling action, moral, pure, fruit of the Spirit. So it stands to reason that God is good).

When we become children of God, the Holy Spirit (divine power) comes and resides in us bring with Him everything that we need to live a godly life.

4 By these He has given us very great and precious promises (Promises are good things. The opposite would be threats.), so that through them you may share (partner or associate) in the divine nature, escaping the corruption  (eternal misery in hell) that is in the world because of evil desires.

God doesn’t expect us to figure out life alone. He partners, He associates with us via the Holy Spirit. He lives in us to help us live a godly life and not a worldly life. He provides an escape (1 Cor 10:13) when Satan attempts to corrupt us, to trip us, to make up fall. This is a promise.

But if you notice in verse 3, we read about the divine power and in verse 4 the divine nature that partners with us. I’d like to remind you about this divine nature. It’s the same divine (dealing with the deities) nature that

·        Spoke the world into existence

·        Who names every star, keeps the planets and moons spinning and galaxies in their places

·        The same power that brought the plagues on Pharaoh

·        The same nature that blew the Red sea into two drying the land so the children of Israel could pass

·        The same power that flooded the Earth

·        The same nature who had a fish swallow a man whole for three days just to spit him out to go preach repentance and a city be saved

·        The same divine nature who blessed women who were passed the age of giving birth with babies of their own

·        The same divine power that raised dry boned up into an army

·        The same nature who used a harlot in the lineage of Jesus

·        The same power who gave victory to a small army by simply marching around the walls of a city,

·        The same divine power who impregnated a virgin with a Savior

·        The same power who performed miracles on Earth the same divine power who fulfilled EVERY PROPHESY foretold about the Savior

·        The same power who brought the dead to life, made the blind to see, the lame to walk and the deaf to hear

·        The same divine nature who calmed the sea

·        The same nature who excised demons

·        The same divine nature who knew you were going to sing, was going to need saving, created you anyway knowing Jesus would have to die, and He created you any way

·        The same divine power who conquered death and lives again also LIVES INSIDE YOU!

·        THIS DIVINE POWER IS VICTORIOUS!

·        This list could go on and one because John 21:25 says the world could not contain all the books needed to hold all the things Christ did

My questions for you today are these:

 Are you operating in your own power, or are you operating under the divine power within you?

Are you speaking the words the Spirit gives you or are you running your mouth when you shouldn’t?

Are you living in the power of Jesus Christ which is a victorious life, or are you the victim?

Are you using the divine nature within you to serve others?

Let me encourage you to spend time today tapping into the divine power, the divine nature of Jesus Christ through reading the Word, through worship, and through meditation. Life is so different when we operate from the position of God’s strength and wisdom rather than our own.