Is Your Greatest Responsibility to Serve God?

 Listen to the average sermon in the average church building on a Sunday, and it’s almost inevitable that you’ll come away believing that the most important thing about your relationship to God is your spiritual service. Service is the battle cry of legalistic religion. Many people believe it’s the very reason why they were brought to faith in Jesus Christ. The motto “saved to serve” has found a nesting place in too many places in the modern church world.

This erroneous idea is shared among all religions, even among the most primitive pagans. People who practiced ancient pagan religions often went to great lengths to appease their gods. After all, angry gods might do really bad things. Their focus was all about placating their gods by giving them sacrifices. To keep people in line, people told stories about the gods getting angry and hurling bolts of divine judgment on those who dared to neglect doing what was expected. Angry gods might hit you with a plague, earthquake, or famine if you’re not careful.

This is the pathetic reality: In the modern days, with a complete Bible telling us the truth of the matter, there are many who still hold that pagan viewpoint. They really think that if they don’t live up to the demands they imagine that God places on them, something terrible may happen to them. As a result, their lot in life becomes trying to stay on God’s good side by doing what He expects.

Some would argue, “I don’t serve God because I’m afraid of Him. I do it because it’s my responsibility toward Him.” That view is related to the same fear motivation I’ve described. To think that God is interested in what we do for Him is bizarre in light of what the Bible actually teaches.

There is a fundamental error embedded in this kind of thinking. It’s the idea that God needs anything you or I have to give. We’re talking about an Almighty God here! What could He possibly need us to do?

Just like today, Christian history is full of stories of believers who desperately worked to serve God. There’s no doubting their sincerity or effort. But there is a serious problem with someone’s conception of God when He is seen as an employer or master whose interest in us is based on what we have to offer to the relationship.

The Truth Is So Much Better!

Your greatest responsibility has nothing to do with serving God. In fact, when Paul addressed the pagans on Mars Hill, here’s what he had to say about the notion that our God needs something from us.

The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people, life and breath and all things (Acts 17:24-25).

God is a Giver. He is utterly self-sufficient, the only Being who truly needs nothing. He doesn’t need man to do things for Him. One time He explained it like this: “If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is Mine, and all it contains” (Psalm 50:12). That statement almost sounds like a sort of divine humor. Imagine God saying, “If I wanted something to eat, I wouldn’t bother mentioning it to you because you couldn’t do a single thing about it!”

Clarify Your Thinking.

This reality is a bad news/good news proposition. The bad news is that God doesn’t need you. Sorry, but there’s nothing you have that He needs. What could we possibly think God needs us to do to serve Him? He’s the One who spoke the world into existence. If we think God needs us, we either greatly overestimate our own value and contribution or else greatly underestimate His ability to do what needs to be done.

I said it’s a bad news/good news proposition. Here’s the good news: God wants you! He isn’t looking for a maid, but He does want a bride— and that means you.

Does service not fit into the picture at all? Of course it does, but we serve from an overflow of the love we have for Him. Love makes us want to do the things that honor Him.

It isn’t a drudgery or duty to serve our God. It’s all about love. His love for us moves us to love Him right back, and that shared love becomes the catalyst for our service. “We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19), says the Bible. So the greatest thing isn’t serving God. It’s knowing how much He loves us. When we know that, we will discover a passion to serve Him rising up within us. It’s a passion that comes from our love for Him. When you are serving God as an overflow of His love poured out in your heart, serving becomes the exact opposite of a job. It is a joy!

Feeling Secure

Your emotions will gradually begin to react because you have chosen to act the way that safe people act. You can never get complete control over your emotions. True, you can exercise some control over them, but never total control. It is humanly impossible to do so.

God has created us to be unable to control our emotions. As a saved person, you can control your mind and your will, but not your feelings. God's plan is for us to believe Him and choose to submit ourselves to His loving care and authority regardless of how we feel.

Human beings often cannot understand the peace of which Christ speaks, because the only peace they typically comprehend is a feeling. They want to feel peaceful. They will say that they have great peace of mind, but they don't. It's just that they feel good, so they set their minds on how good they feel. Let adverse circumstances arise, and they'll say they've lost their peace of mind. However, they never had peace of mind in the first place.

It's simply that their emotions have topped the scale, and now they're keeping their minds set on how bad they feel. It was feel peace instead of mind peace all the time.

- Bill Gillham

You Are Bonded to God

You are bonded to God. There is nothing that can separate you from Him, not death, not life, not angels, not kings, not rulers, not the economy, not war, not the government ... nothing! You can let worry, distress, fear, concerns, demands, your history, and your misconceptions make it seem as though God’s love is remote, heavy-handed, and persnickety. But God can no more love imperfectly than He can act unjustly. God is love. To be anything less than love to you would be a denial of His basic identity. You are God’s loved one!

Consider that for a moment. You are God’s loved one. Say that out loud to yourself: “I am God’s loved one.” But realize this: Anything you allow to diminish the profound nature and depth of God’s love for you is a direct slap in God’s face. Considering yourself as someone who is loved by God in some reserved fashion is to adopt an attitude that believes God loves you because of what you do or can become. I repeat: God does not love you for what you are supposed to be because you will never be that. God loves you because He is love and you are you.

As God’s loved one, consider this as well: Since you are the primary person on God’s mind, wouldn’t it stand to reason that your day must be filled with efforts on God’s part to communicate His love to you? I’m sure it is. All that is lacking is for you to take notice.

- Bill, Anabel, and Preston Gillham

Jesus Fulfilled His Commandments

Jesus Fulfilled His "Love God" and "Love Others" Commandments in our New Hearts

The Scriptures say that God has written His laws on our hearts and minds (Hebrews 10:16). Let’s clarify that. Romans 13:8-10 says that agape love summarizes the whole law.

Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was. He gave two imperatives that summed up the whole law of God: “...‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).

That summary of the whole law is “written on your heart and mind.” Let me prove it. You love God, and that’s a ten! You don’t always act like it, but you love Him at level ten. Now for the second part: You love people. You may not like them, but you love them—even the world’s current despot. You wish he could get saved. You hate what he does, but you wish he could know Jesus, and that’s a ten! You realize that under other circumstances you could have been just as weird as that guy is. Right? The fact that you have these two loves proves that you’ve had the heart transplant spoken of in Ezekiel 36:26-27.

- Bill Gillham

Mother Teresa

People are often unreasonable and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. 
Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Give the world the BEST you have and it may never be enough.
Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

Mother Teresa

Again Mark Virkler Writes.....

.  Lord, what about this replacement theory rather than the self-improvement theory?

Well, Mark, it is true that I am replacing you, not trying to improve the self-conscious you.  However, what am I replacing you with?  It is with a Christ-conscious you, a new you, a you who lives out of the vine, a you who lives out of divine flow.  So there is still a you living, just a new you.  Not an improved version of the self-conscious you, but a divinely enabled Christ-conscious you.  It is you replaced with Me.  It is separation replaced with union.  It is self-effort replaced with divine effort.  It is self’s wisdom replaced with Christ’s wisdom.  It is self-initiative replaced with divine initiative.  It is an isolated dying branch, re-grafted back into the tree that it was cut from.  That is what replacement is all about.  And that does bring an improvement to you, but not to the self-conscious you, but to a restored Christ-conscious you.

The self-conscious you is what is done away with.  And it is replaced with a Christ-conscious you.  Self-initiative, which flows out of the self-conscious you, is replaced with divine initiative.  This happens because conscious union has been restored between you and God. 

On one hand, I have never gone away.  You have gone away.  You have left the place of abiding.  You have gone from “divine flow” to “I can reason on my own.”  So you have descended from your destined place as an extension of Me to thinking you can live and reason on your own.  And thus you have gone from life unto death.  In experiencing salvation, you have been restored from death unto life.

For truly the man who reasons on his own has reasoned faultily, for man was never designed to reason on his own, or to talk on his own, or to work on his own, or to do anything on his own but rather to live out of Me, to let Me experientially live through him.

Man fell from divine initiative to self-initiative.  Jesus did nothing of His own initiative, but only what He heard and saw.  He lived out of divine flow.  That is why Jesus would not claim goodness as something He was, because Jesus knew what they meant.  They meant that He Himself had become good, and He knew that all goodness flowed from the God that lived within and Who lived in heaven.  So He would not accept their acclaim that He was good, even though He was good.  He was living out of divine flow, so He could have claimed it, but He chose instead not to, as He wanted to teach them a lesson.

So what is replaced is self consciousness.  It is replaced with divine consciousness.  You step from self initiated action to divinely initiated action.  What dies is self consciousness.  What comes alive is the restoration of divine consciousness -- not as a theory but as a reality, as one tunes to My voice and My vision and My strength which flows from My river within.  It is called abiding in Christ, abiding in the vine, living Christ conscious.  It is living out of Me rather than living out of you.  It is a step back to the original position man had in the Garden of Eden.

My flow is effortlessly there within you at all times.  It never goes away.  You just need to be tuned to it.  You tune away from your own self-confidence, and to a divine self-confidence.

Mark Virkler Writes.....

Q.  Lord, am I to speak of the old man, or only the new man?  Would I want any more to speak of the illusion, or only the reality?

Mark, you only want to speak of the new reality you have found in Christ.  You only want to speak of the truth, never the illusion, never error.  So don’t speak of whom the “self I” is.  If self seeks to rear his ugly head (resurrect himself), confess that which is true (who you are in Christ).  That is whom you are to speak of, and only of that, not of error.  Not of the old man, because he has been done away with and a new man now lives.  Speak and live only out of the new man, never the old man who has been done away with.  Thus I have spoken, and thus it is to be done.

Mark, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.  So the flesh will express weakness, but the spirit will not.  So you may say, “My flesh is weak but my spirit is strong.”   That is a true confession and that is permissible.  However, your focus should always be on energizing your spirit through My Holy Spirit, so that its energy overcomes the weakness of the flesh.  Always put the accent on the spirit, never on the flesh.  Always speak of the spirit much more than you speak of the flesh.  Always fix your eyes on the spirit much more than you fix your eyes on the flesh.  Even though you acknowledge the flesh, you never fix your attention upon it.  You always fix your attention on the union of My Spirit to your spirit and the flow of My life into and through you.  That way you are always fixed upon the positive and never the negative. 

So you will never accentuate the fact that you are weak, or powerless, or ignorant.   It may be true from time to time that your flesh is, or you are, if you step back from the “Christ I” to the “self I,” but speak instead of who you are in Christ.  Your eyes are fixed on Christ.  Your mouth confesses who you are in Christ.  And you live in Christ.  Thus you have been overcome by Christ, and it is the “Christ I” who lives, and not the “self I.”

Thank You, Lord.

Grieve Not the Holy Spirit!

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. --Ephesians 4:30-32

Why are we not to grieve the Holy Spirit? Many have taken this passage to mean that they can push the Holy Spirit to the place where He will either leave or God will severely punish them. However, we must first look at why the Holy Spirit is given. Acts 9:31, “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.” The Comforter is technically a Helper. John 14:16, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever,” and John 14:26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” So, then, how does the believer grieve the Holy Spirit? Simply by refusing His help.

Often I have had the unpleasant experience of “helping” someone learn the computer. I must admit that most of the time it has been a grievous experience, for, out of necessity, the person learning must be at the keyboard, the control center. The problem is that he is always asking questions, and then before I can suggest the answer, he starts moving the mouse all around, madly clicking here and there and already creating a problem much worse than if he had done nothing. He wants help but does not want help, and I am grieved. I am the helper there to make his life easier, but to the extent that he refuses to listen, his life will be less than productive and he will know nothing. I was there for his good, not my own, and if he does not listen, I am grieved for him but have not cut him off.

The same is true for our children. As parents we are helpers. However, if our young ones refuse to listen and go their own way, we are grieved for their sake. The Holy Spirit only tells us the things that will make us happy; if we follow, the Holy Spirit is not grieved. It is a difficult concept, but sin no longer hurts Jesus; He already died for the sin of all men. We are not to sin because sin hurts us, and when we are hurt, the Helper is grieved. Therefore, to be happy and not grieve the Helper, do the following, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”  

It has been my experience as a pastor to see very few Christians ever giving thought to whether or not they are “grieving the Holy Spirit.”  Most of them because they do not think they have committed a “big” enough sin that qualifies for that.  To even think of “refusing the Spirit’s help” is not even what most Christians would consider as something that would grieve the Spirit.

The “difficult concepts” are those that keep us from experiencing God.

Why God Made You

The life God has for each one of us is a life of perfect love, one that eternally unites us with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is why God made us. It’s what we long for, to love and be loved.

However, things like the love of the Trinity are not part of our normal language. So let’s unpack this a bit.

The great pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards painted a portrait of the Trinity in which the love and joy of the three divine persons was so full and intense, it simply could not be contained. God’s fullness thus yearned to be expressed and replicated by sharing it with others. So this fullness overflowed as God brought forth a creation that mirrored his triune beauty.

The pinnacle of this creation is human beings, those who reflect, in a small way, the yearning to participate in the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The God of overflowing love longs to pour his love into others, so he creates beings that long for his love to be poured into them. This is why you were created. However, because of our rebellion, living without the fullness of God is a reality that shapes our daily lives.

It’s a state that is completely unnatural, an emptiness that points to our true purpose.

Jesus reveals this purpose when he prays to the Father that his disciples and “those who will believe in me through their message” would be “one as we are one.” (The entire prayer can be read in John 17.) Then he prays that he would be in us in the same way that the Father is in him. God apparently wants the loving unity of his own triune being to be replicated in the way we relate to one another as well as in the way he relates to us and dwells in us.

Then Jesus proclaims to the Father that he “will continue to make you [the Father] known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and I myself may be in them.” And he essentially says the same thing when he says to the Father, “I have given them the glory that you gave me” for the “glory” that the Father gives the Son and that the Son shares with us is simply the weighty, brilliant radiance of the self-giving love of the three persons of the Trinity.

This means that God’s ultimate goal in creation is nothing less than for the very same perfect love that the Father has for his own Son to be given to us and to be placed within us.

We become the recipients of the Father’s eternal love for the Son because we are in the Son as he is perfectly loved, and the Son is in us, as he is perfectly loved.

This is the true life that we created to experience. It’s what we thirst for. And nothing else, no other purpose, can quench it. While some of us may be blessed with loving people in our lives, with worthwhile work, and with some measure of security, no one, and nothing, could come close to meeting this need.

Only God can satisfy your longing for perfect, unconditional love, unsurpassable worth, and absolute security.

—Adapted from Benefit of the Doubt, pages 58-60 – Greg Boyd

The Easiest (and Hardest) Spiritual Discipline

The glory of God surrounds you every second of every day. What a profound truth! But most of the time—like a dark cloud blocking the sun—the mental chatter about the past and the future keeps us from seeing it. We are absorbed in the past—with all the regrets and pain—or the future—shaped by both hopes and fears—and this causes us to miss the wonder of the present.

The present is all that is real.

The past is gone. The future is not yet. We remember the past and anticipate the future, but we always do so in the present. Reality is now. And the single most important aspect of reality is that God is present every moment.

Now.

Now.

And now.

To forget that God is present in any given moment is to forget the most important aspect of that moment.

God is the God of the living, not the God of the already-past or the not-yet-present. He’s the great “I am,” not the great “I was” or the great “I will be.” He’s been present in every moment in the past, for which we can be thankful, and he’ll be present at every moment in the future, which gives us great hope. But he’s only alive and active now, in the present.

Whatever else is going on in your life, the ultimate goal is to “seek first the kingdom of God,” as Jesus commanded … moment by moment. This can only be done now, and when we do this, we transform ordinary moments into sacred moments, and our lives become a living sacrament.

Traditionally, the discipline of waking up to the reality of God’s presence in the now is called “practicing the presence.” My book Present Perfect introduces this practice, based on the writings of Brother Lawrence, J.-P. de Caussade and Frank Laubach, writers who claim that the single most important task of the Christian life is to live in the awareness of God’s presence in the now.

No spiritual disciple, I believe, is easier or more accessible to everyone than this one, for waking up to God’s presence requires nothing more than remembering God’s presence each moment. Right now, as you read this sentence, remind yourself that you are submerged in God’s love. That is the practice of the presence of God. It’s not hard at all.

At the same time, no spiritual discipline could be more challenging. The challenge is not in doing the discipline: It’s in remembering the discipline.

Whatever task occupies you at any given moment, you’ll tend to do it better if you include God. Remaining aware of God’s presence doesn’t compete with our attention to other things. It augments it.

God is present in the now. Are you awake to it?

- Greg Boyd

The Goodnews IS.....

"Christians tend to think that people don’t become Christians because they aren’t willing to give up the bad things in their lives. But I think the real reason that people don’t become Christians is that it’s just too good to be true. We can’t trust things that are too good to be true. It makes us anxious. We find ourselves waiting for the other shoe to drop or for the too-good-to-be-true thing to disappear. Or it might feel like we haven’t really heard the punch line yet. People are waiting for the “but” that comes after “God loves you.” They know it is there.

When I was on the staff of a local church, people would hear that it was a safe place. They would come hear ... the sermon, and they would sit there and cry because it sounded too good to be true. Some people would look ahead in the biblical text from which the pastor was preaching to find the “but.” This sounds good, but wait until he gets down here to this part. Then the other shoe will drop. People anticipate that the rest of the story will be Bad News. It couldn’t be just Good News. That would be so totally foreign to what I have experienced in life so far. But that is exactly what the Good News is"

- Jeff VanVonderen

Never a Bridesmaid, Always a Bride

Look at this mind-blowing passage: “And it will come about in that day,” declares the Lord, “that you will call Me [Husband (Ishi)] and will no longer call Me [Master (Baali)]. For I will remove the names of the [idols] from [your] mouth [your false sources from which you seek to extract your need-supply— your flesh]” (Hosea 1:16-17). Once you give up all of those false sources you’ll wonder why they ever held a higher place than Christ. “I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in lovingkindness and in compassion, and I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord” (Hosea 2:19-20). Folks, we are experiencing “that day” in line two of this paragraph. Although this passage is yet future for Israel, it is reality for us. You have been betrothed to Christ in righteousness and in justice, in lovingkindness and in compassion, and faithfulness. Amazing. You are the precious, desirable fiancée of the King of the universe.

- Bill Gillham

Despite our Rebirth

Despite our rebirth, suffering and evil still buffet us. God says of the redeemed, “When [not if] you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When [not if] you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched nor will the flame burn.... Since you are precious in My sight ... do not fear, for I am with you” (Isaiah 43:2-4-5). When you are in a fix, understanding:

• what God has stated about His commitment to your well-being

• that hard times are a product of the fall, but are necessary for being conformed to the image of Christ

• that your sufferings are not always caused by God, but allowed by Him

• that your sufferings can be used by God to your eternal benefit

• the big picture will strengthen your resolve to stay in the fight with vigor.

Understanding the big picture is the key to producing Christians with a resolve to self-sacrifice. Conversely, a lack of clear understanding, or a disagreement with the big picture, erodes morale in spiritual warfare. This is especially true when you’re suffering.

Satan is more aware of this than we, therefore much of his strategy targets your mind during suffering. He seeks to deceive you through the power of sin to blind you from obtaining an accurate view of God’s big picture and the role that suffering plays in it.

- Bill Gillham

Praise Him IN as well as FOR all things

God wants us to praise Him in as well as for all things. That’s a hard teaching, but God told us to praise Him through thick and thin. When you consider the alternatives the choice is a no-brainer. Are you praising God in and for all of the things that God allows to come into your life? I’m not saying God always causes your hard times, but He allows them. Folks, take it from one who practices praising God in and for all things: Praising God in all things will enable you to see miracles.

"Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." (James 1:2-4)

"In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold ... even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 1:6-7)

By praising Him in and for your circumstances, you leave God two alternatives: Change the circumstance, or give you so much grace that you’ll actually become glad for the experience. Either way, you’re the winner.

- Bill Gillham

Personal Weakness

The world’s definition of personal weakness is “a lack of individual power or strength—one who must depend on another.” By that definition, Jesus of Nazareth was the weakest sound-of-mind-and-body human who ever lived because He totally depended on the Father in Him.

Examine the temptations He endured. Satan tempted Him to go independent to satisfy His personal need of the moment: to turn a stone into bread when He was 40-days hungry; to kick off His ministry with a bang by diving off the top of the Temple and swooping in for a two-point landing; to throw off the bondage of being under submission to the Father and take over the earth—all of which would have been independent acts! Have you ever noticed that Jesus did not say that He could call down thousands of angels to rescue Himself from danger? “Do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:53, emphasis added). Jesus never lifted an independent hand for 33 years!

- Bill Gillham

"Flawless" (Who I am in Christ)

No more guilt, no more shame

Without spot, without blame

I stand before my Lord sublime

In this life, in this time.

How is sinful man to be

Ever holy unto thee?

How is Perfect Man to be

The sole Life and source of me?

Sinful man ... perfected man

When Perfect Man became his sin

Died as man and rose again

to take His brother to His God.

With God, impossible nothing is

With His great love, He me did kiss

Through His Son; I'm in His Son

by Kim Siles

Feeling Secure

Your emotions will gradually begin to react because you have chosen to act the way that safe people act. You can never get complete control over your emotions. True, you can exercise some control over them, but never total control. It is humanly impossible to do so.

God has created us to be unable to control our emotions. As a saved person, you can control your mind and your will, but not your feelings. God's plan is for us to believe Him and choose to submit ourselves to His loving care and authority regardless of how we feel.

Human beings often cannot understand the peace of which Christ speaks, because the only peace they typically comprehend is a feeling. They want to feel peaceful. They will say that they have great peace of mind, but they don't. It's just that they feel good, so they set their minds on how good they feel. Let adverse circumstances arise, and they'll say they've lost their peace of mind. However, they never had peace of mind in the first place.

It's simply that their emotions have topped the scale, and now they're keeping their minds set on how bad they feel. It was feel peace instead of mind peace all the time.

- Bill Gillham

Grace Opposers or Jesus Opposers

The Sinning Gospel, sleazy grace, false grace gospel, lovey dovey grace,  license to sin gospel, the lazy gospel are terms that are loosely thrown around by grace opposers who fail to understand God's grace.

Because of the deceptive deception of Satan they have a shrouded understanding regarding the fulfillment of the Law in Christ and that it  is no longer invoke to maintain the believer's relational relationship with God or for nonbelievers to gain a relationship with God.

The Grace and Law mixers are unaware that a stand against the Grace Gospel given to Paul by Jesus is a choice not to believe in God's amazing grace. These grace opposers, without realizing it, are condemning themselves because in refusing to believe in Christ's grace message they are refusing to believe in Jesus Himself. “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (John (3:18)

The grace opposers are still depending on the Law to let them know what sin is so they can do their best to measure up to some standard by not committing sin.

They freely accuse the Grace Gospel as a license to sin when in actual fact it is entirely the opposite.

"For the grace of God has come forward (appeared) for the deliverance from sin and the eternal salvation for ALL mankind."

"It has trained us to reject and renounce all ungodliness (irreligion) and worldly (passionate) desires, to live discreet (temperate, self-controlled), upright, devout (spiritually whole) lives in this present world," (Titus (2:11-12)

Grace does not render one a slave to sin...Law keeping is responsible for that.

Grace opposers maintain that grace lovers fail to BALANCE the Gospel of Grace by excluding the Law as part of the complete gospel, causing grace to have run-a-muck. They feel that grace believers will not know what sin is (if they don't point out the sin in people) and conclude that people will begin to “sin like crazy” and feel justified in being a sin-cop. This argument mixes the covenants. It places new wine (New Covenant) into old wine-skins (Old Covenant) which never balances out either message, it mystifies them both and nullifies the truth of grace. (Luke 5:36-39).

When we trust in our own ability to do what is right to avoid what is wrong we are eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as Adam did in the Garden of Eden. We have been taught that the way to not commit sin is to be aware of evil and run hard and fast away from it, let me tell you, sin has outrun ALL who have tried to out run it. Prior to his eating of the tree Adam knew not what sin was, that was knowledge that God alone held. After the the eating the forbidden fruit Adam then had the ability to determine what was wrong and instead of dependence on God he was now trying to make amends for what he thought was sin by his sense knowledge because it felt like sin. This thinking has made its way into Christendom and believers constantly point out all of the evils of the world and warning saints avoid teh evil and condemn sinners to hell if they do not repent of their evil. That message puts all of the responsibility onto the believer and sinner to change themselves. This causes them to do penance when they fail and to place themselves under stricter discipline to keep from doing it again. This is the “spirit of bondage again to fear” (Romans 8:15).

Most believers believe that the grace of God brings salvation, and no one who preaches Jesus, either by law or by grace would question that; "For the grace of God (His unmerited favor and blessing) has come forward (appeared) for the deliverance from sin and the eternal salvation for all mankind (Titus 2:11). He further states that this grace “hath appeared to ALL men”. The “appearance” of grace is in the man Jesus Christ. John tells us that the law was given by Moses but that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ (John 1:17).

Notice that when grace appears it appears for a purpose, “Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world” (Titus 2:12. This is directly opposite to the charges laid against grace believers by grace opposers. The grace of God teaches us and continues to teach people through the personage of Jesus through His community of the redeemed.

The more sin conscious we are the more we try in and of ourselves to measure up to some expected standard to keep from sinning. The more God conscious we are the more of Jesus is revealed to the believer and the more we are empowered to live above sin. In essence, the more we are aware of Jesus, the more of Jesus' life and character is lived through us.

Contrary to what Grace opposers accuse those who believe the Grace Gospel, no one who teaches the gospel of grace supports believers living in sin. Paul defended his message on more than one occasion, feeling the need to do so because he was being misrepresented. “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” he asks. “God forbid,” (Romans 6:1, 2). But note something...he doesn’t say that we shouldn’t sin because it will send us to hell, but rather he asks how can continue to do those evil things seeing that our old man is dead and Christ is alive in us (Romans 6:2-7). Paul is showing us how to live by reinforcing our position in Christ and allowing grace to do its work in each person’s heart.

The grace of God that saved us is also the grace that keeps us. All of us have the Spirit within showing us the way to live. When we fail and sin, the Spirit doesn’t uppercut us to the face or threaten us with hell, condemning our every thought and deed...the Spirit of God is not a condemner...instead, the Holy Spirit reinforces who we are in Christ, causing us to “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called” (Ephesians 4:1).

Grace opposers...your accusations are without scriptural merit! Listen to the voice of Grace within your life, believe in Gods grace and allow it to work its work in you to live  God conscious unto holiness rather than sin conscious unto sinning.

Confessions we can Make

I am blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Ephesians 1:3.

I am chosen chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world that I may be holy and blameless before the before the Father. Ephesians 1:4.

I am predestined to adoption as a son or daughter by the Father through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of His will. Ephesians 1:5.

The Father has accepted me in the beloved. Ephesians 1:6.

I have redemption through Jesus Christ’s blood and the forgiveness of sins. Ephesians 1:7, Colossians 1:14.

I have obtained an inheritance in Christ. Ephesians 1:11.

I am sealed with the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of my inheritance. Ephesians 1:13-14.

God raised me up in heavenly places to sit with Him in Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2:6.

I am saved by grace through faith. I am not saved by my own works. Ephesians 2:8-9.

I am God's masterpiece. He created me anew in Christ Jesus, so I can do the good things

He planned for me long ago. Ephesians 2:10 NLT.

I have been brought to Father by the blood of Christ. Ephesians 2:13.

For He Himself is my peace. He made the Gentiles and the Jews into one by breaking down the barrier of the dividing wall. Ephesians 2:14 (NAS).

I have access by one Spirit to the Father through Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:18.

I am strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man according to the riches of His glory. Ephesians 3:16.

Christ dwells in my heart by faith. I am rooted and grounded in love. Ephesians 3:17.

God does exceedingly abundantly above all that I could ask or think according to His power that works in me. Ephesians 3:20.

God gives me the victory through Jesus Christ my Lord. 1 Corinthians 15:57.

I thank God! He always leads me triumphantly by the Messiah and through me spreads everywhere the fragrance of knowing Him. 2 Corinthians 2:14 (ISV).

I have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:16.

He made Christ who knew no sin to be sin for me that I might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21.

I am in Christ Jesus and therefore I am a new creation. Old things have passed away and all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17.

If I sin, I have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 1 John 2:1 (ESV).

All of God’s promises are yes and amen for me because I am in Christ. 2 Corinthians 1:20.

I am qualified in Christ to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints. Colossians 1:12.

God my Father has delivered me from the power of darkness and transferred me into the kingdom of His beloved Son. Colossians 1:13. 

Turn Over the Burden

How would you like to turn over the burden of living to Jesus?

What if it were God’s plan for Christ to express His life through you similar to flowing water empowering a turbine? What if God rejected the familiar man-developed plan of grading on the curve of world achievement for a new plan, a grace-filled plan—a pass/fail plan hatched in heaven by a unanimous vote of Three to zero? But, that’s getting ahead of the story.

Let me leave you to ponder a hint: The flesh is man’s best effort at facing life on his own—independently—and God makes it very clear in the Bible that He will not share His glory of grace with any man. It was His idea from the beginning, and He is convinced it is the very best way to demonstrate His amazing love.

"If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.’" — John 7:37b-38

- Bill, Anabel, and Preston Gillham

Crucified with Christ

Even though the Bible clearly states that we were crucified in Christ, the overt or tacit denial of the literality of this truth by most theologians is often explained away as “positional truth.” The bare bones of positional truth is much like an insurance policy. It teaches that we Christians must physically die before we can collect the benefits. The Bible does indeed speak of experiences that will be actualized only after we leave our earthsuits, but the language in such instances carries the future tense to indicate that this is the case. Our crucifixion in Christ is exactly the opposite. It is conveyed in past-tense verbs: “Knowing this, that our old [man] was crucified with Him”; “I have been crucified with Christ” (Romans 6:6; Galatians 2:20). It’s a done deal.

The Christian who treats this teaching as if it were not present-day reality is misinterpreting God’s word. The verbs don’t lie. And we’re not dealing with an insignificant issue, such as whether you will get to name your white horse in heaven (Revelation 19:14). We’re dealing with the key to experiencing an overcoming life. God had no plan for making something beautiful of your life— that do-it-yourself life inherited from Adam. God’s plan is to kill that life and re-create you with an overcoming, obedient life—Christ as life. Christ is more than Savior and Lord; He is our life: “Jesus said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life’” (John 14:6). God did not change your life, He exchanged your life— your old life for Christ as life.

- Bill Gillham

What Adam and Eve Did

What Adam and Eve did, and the result of what they did, has been canceled, obliterated, and made null and void by the new Adam, Jesus (Colossians 2:13-14).

His wounds have healed our wounds. We have a new Adam, and just as the first Adam’s trespass led to condemnation, the new Adam’s obedience leads us to righteousness, life, and freedom.

Our physical birth identified us with the first Adam (birth determines identity, right?). It placed us in bondage, under the curse of God, and brought death—we were spiritual stillbirths. But our rebirth (spiritual, Romans 10:9), our union, with the second Adam, Jesus, has set us free!

Remember? Our whole history changed. We tasted death with Him when He was crucified (Galatians 2:20), and because of Him, all the bonds, debts, and curses that were once ours were erased. So you see, death truly does set us free! "For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin." (Romans 6:7).

- Anabel Gillham

Breaking Self Sufficiency

The time that we live here on this earth is the only opportunity we'll have to walk in trust and obedience to the Father. If He automatically erased the learning opportunities that we have (stemming from having to deal with our old, fleshly ways), we would have no chance to grow in the character and likeness of Jesus Christ. We must face these challenges in order to recognize the Lord Jesus' sufficiency in our lives.

Although there are many reasons that you could be experiencing frustration at every turn, perhaps the primary point that should be focused on is this: Your loving heavenly Father may be trying to break your self-sufficiency, strength, and independence so that you can adequately and willfully cry out to Him as your sufficiency. Unless the Father helps you to realize your insufficiency, you might never recognize His sufficiency. This is often a difficult lesson to learn.

Now that you have come to recognize your fleshly patterns, you should be looking for specific ways in which God is choreographing circumstances, challenging you to deal with these areas of fleshly disobedience. He could be doing this in a variety of ways, from something you have read in His Word to a specific circumstance that is causing your flesh stress and pointing you to Christ as the answer.

- Bill Gillham

Replace your Head Noise with your Heart Voice

Diminishing stress from our lives is always an inside job. We are in the process of learning how to put off our old nature and put on the new nature of Jesus.

The old nature is a product of our environment and upbringing, contact with a worldly system of values, and our learned behaviors. We take on board negative experiences and traumatic occasions and treat them as though they are the truth about us for all of time.

The old self, until it is replaced in our experience, carries some weight in our personality. It supplies the head-noise, the background tape that runs on a loop incessantly in our thinking. All stress is already on that tape. When situations arise that are difficult for us, the button gets pressed and the old messages about ourselves get played. Stress is the result.

The new nature is a product of Heaven, not of your doing.

It is the way that God thinks about us in Christ. He has nothing but appr4oval for us because that’s why He put us into Christ in the first place—so that we could always be accepted in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:6).

The Lord has a way of thinking about us that builds us up, empowers us to grow, and causes us to be constantly renewed in the Spirit. We need never lose heart because our outer man (old self ) is being killed off,  when our inner man (our true self in Jesus) is being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16).

Each day, in Christ, we are practicing the joyful discipline of being renewed in the spirit of our mind (Ephesians 4:23). That means we are enabling our thinking to come from a source that is full of love for us and wants to see become more of who Jesus is for us.

The new man hears a heart voice, not old head-noise.

We have put on a new self which is renewed in a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him (Colossians 3:10). The true knowledge is that our head-noise belongs to the old man, crucified in Christ, and our new inner voice is made in the image of Jesus. We can only ever be fully transformed by the renewing of our mind (Romans 12:2).

- Graham Cooke

Smouldering...

A thin cloud of smoke was hovering over a certain spot on the opposite side of the little Swiss valley. Day after day it had been hanging there, without increasing or diminishing. At last I asked what it was. "Oh, it is a tree," they answered. "A wood-cutter lit his fire under it a week ago to cook his dinner, and it has been smouldering ever since." "But it will spread, will it not?" "No, there is no flame, so it cannot spread," was the answer.

It was damp with mists around it and with the sap within it, so it smouldered on and nothing happened. When we left a few days later, it was still smouldering. "There is no flame, so it cannot spread." The words have often rung in my ears ever since.

May God send them on to ring in other ears too! For if the hearts in England, where God's Fire smoulders now were lit up into a flame, the glow would be felt around this poor, dark, cold world before long. It is such a cold, dark world to the God who "so loved" it, that nothing but love will meet His longing! The false religious systems at their best are frozen still with formalism and slavish fears. They are chilled through and through with meaningless ceremonies and silly superstitions, and a dull morality with no power to make it workable...

Oh, the hugeness of the need - what can touch it? These days of ours are slipping between our fingers as it were, and their chances will soon be over forever. The months that we still have to live, even the youngest of us - how fast they go by! What does Christ feel about the priceless months that pass, like with our Swiss tree, where nothing happens around the spot where we stand? Nothing happens - is it so? There is no flame so it cannot spread. Oh, the smouldering lives and their possibilities! More sorrowful in one way than the unlit souls around; for of all the sad words of the tongue or pen, the saddest are these - "it might have been."

First - It is not a question of doing more, but of being more. If that Swiss tree had given itself for just a few more moments to the fire that was kindled in it, the outward results would have been very different. A flame must spread, but the tree would not let itself go. The strong sap within it fought out the battle; the tree held itself carefully back, and it saved its life. The autumn storms were coming on, and I daresay that the tree is safe and stands to this day.

The autumn storms are coming on the world too, and the chances of spreading a fire round us are dwindling day by day. If we will save our lives for ourselves, save our money to spend on our own pleasures, save our time for our own interests and pursuits, save our homes from the sorrow of a parting - well, if we will, we must. But remember, "He that saves his life shall lose it" and all that saving will be proven to be as a deadly loss when Christ comes.

Let us give ourselves away to Him for His world - away, away down to the deepest depths of our being, money, time, influence - and home if He call us to it - all as fuel to His fire. But let us give Him our heart of hearts first. "They... first gave their own selves to the Lord and unto us by the will of God": that was God's order in the beginning, and it still is. Where will the influence of those who give themselves away finally end? Who can say - like a flame once aroused it may sweep on and on.

May I tell you a bit of personal history? It is just the case in point. Years ago I was busy in London work. All were prospering with God's blessing, and I had no thought but to spend my life there. The whole missionary subject seemed to me rather dull and was altogether beyond the horizon.

But I had two friends with whom I was often thrown together with at work, and they both had taken to heart the needs of a dark world. I do not remember that they ever said anything personally to me about it, but one could sense it right through them. They were all aglow and after a bit, though I took no more personal interest in the matter, I began to feel that they had a fellowship with Jesus that I knew nothing about. I did love Him, and I did not like to be out in the cold over it, so I began to pray - "Lord give me the fellowship with Thee about the nations  that Thou hast given to those two."

It was not many weeks before it began to come - a strange, yearning love over those who were "in the land of the shadow of death" - a feeling that Jesus could speak to me about them, and that I could speak to Him - that a great barrier between Him and me had been broken right down and swept away. I had no thought of leaving England then or even at first of trying to stir others at home, but soon God made my way out into the darkness before eighteen months were over, and through eternity I shall thank Him for the silent flame in the hearts of those two friends, and what it did for me. Neither of them has ever had her path opened into foreign work, but the light of day is coming when He will show what they have done in kindling other souls.

- by Lilias Trotter

The Call to Suffer

Paul tells us that in all our relations, we are to “have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had” (Phil 2:5). Though he was “in very nature God,” he didn’t cling to this status. Rather, for our sake he set aside his divine prerogatives, took on the nature of a servant and “humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-8).

Along similar lines, Peter encourages us to be willing to suffer injustice out of “reverent fear of God,” for “it is commendable if you bear up under the pain of unjust suffering because you are conscious of God (1 Pet 2:18-19). He then adds, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (vs. 21). When people “hurled their insults at him,” Peter continues, “he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats.” Instead, Peter says, “he entrusted himself to him who judges justly (vs. 23).

This is the example, Peter says, we are to follow, and it precludes picking up the sword even though one might be justified, by normal worldly standards, for doing so.

Paul teaches the same thing when he tells Christians to never “repay anyone evil for evil” (Rom 12:17) and to never “take revenge … but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord” Rom 12:18). Knowing that God alone has the right to pass judgment on people, and remaining confident that God will do this in his own time and by his own means, kingdom people are commanded and empowered to refrain from ever executing judgment on their own.

This doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for kingdom people to enjoy ruminating about the future judgment of their enemies. Such an attitude reflects hostility in the heart that has no place in the life of a kingdom person. Our attitude toward our enemies is rather to be that of Jesus who with his last dying breath prayed that his Father would forgive his persecutors (Lk 23:34).

Paul and Peter are simply pointing out that kingdom people are to be confident that, if an enemy needs to be punished, God will do it in due time. We are to relinquish all judgment to God and self-sacrificially love those who treat our loved ones or us unjustly.

Peter returns to the example of Christ in the next chapter of his epistle when he encourages people who are facing persecution to “revere Christ as Lord” in “their hearts” by responding to their persecutors with “gentleness and respect.” Following the example of Christ who “suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring [them] to God (1 Pet 3:15), followers of Jesus are to maintain a gentle, loving attitude so that “those who speak maliciously against [their] good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander” (vs 16).

If ever one would be justified in using violence to protect oneself, it’s when they’re being persecuted for doing good. Yet followers of Jesus are to do what Jesus did in these circumstances. We’re to choose to suffer on behalf of the persecutor instead of retaliating.

The example of Jesus’ willingness to suffer rather than violently resist enemies is not just relevant to people facing possible martyrdom. Instead, it is to characterize our entire life. “Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did (1 Jn 2:6). As “Jesus laid down his life for us,” John wrote, “we ought to lay down our lives for one another (1 Jn 3:16). There may be times when we are called to do this literally, but this loving, sacrificial attitude is supposed to permeate every aspect of our life.

Hence, as stated in the video yesterday, the justice of the kingdom is manifest when we reflect this sacrificial character of God – Greg Boyd

Treasures

One by one He took them from me,

All the things I valued most.

Until I was empty-handed;

Every glittering toy was lost.

Then I walked earth's highway grieving,

In my rags and poverty;

'Til I heard His voice inviting:

Lift your empty hands to me.

So I held my hands toward Heaven,

And He filled them with a store

Of His own transcendent riches,

'Til they could contain no more.

Then at last I comprehended

With my stupid mind and dull,

That God could not pour out His riches

Into hands already full.

Song by William Cowper