IS

So many times I wake up and find myself bombarded with feelings and emotions that are so discouraging.  If find myself assuming things that make sense.  “I’m better than him.”  “He is better than me.”¹  “I’m doing good.”  “I’m doing bad.”²  “My efforts are fruitless.”  Things that are so discouraging and degrading.  Then I realize that these are lies of the enemy.  If I can focus on myself I am defeated.³  The problem is a lack of absolutes.  I must live by absolutes, to me that means extremely firm faith in something.  An absolute is the core of me, as if I were persecuted for them; I would know that I know that I could not relent in these.  I think by manipulation and tolerance and strategy that the things that ought to be pillars of my faith have become more like ataman.  With the proper absolutes in live I find that confusion, self reliance, and inadequacy dissipate. 

Now while I read scripture I will find that I will skim over something because I heard it before.  If I read it again it does something amazing and it is usually because of a word.  If I could think one way I would like to think this way.  Because it eliminates the flexibility of moral tolerance or acceptance.  It eliminates inner groaning.  It is IS.  What a wonderful word, I first started with a verse Heb 4:12: “For the word of God is living and active.  Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit…”.

Psalms 1:1-3

“Blessed is the man…” whose “delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.”

Romans 1:16

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes…”

You could give the same authority to other words to help in absolutes: are, was, were, etc.

John 1:1:3-4

“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”

The authority that word of God cares is incredible and heals me.  From myself and my corrupt nature to have the nature that I am intended to have. 

¹  This is a lie the enemy uses in order to look at others and focus on myself.  The truth is that none of us deserve grace, none of us deserve eternal life.  I once heard Pastor Randy put it like this.  It is like two homeless people, both living out of trash cans, both living under a bridge, and both drinking out of old soup cans.  While one is 1 million dollars bankrupt and the other is 100,000 dollars bankrupt.  The one that is 100,000 dollars bankrupt may look at the other and say, “I’m better off that he is.  I’m only 100,000 dollars bankrupt and he is 1 million dollars bankrupt.”  Although they both still live under a bridge. 

²  Lie of the Enemy used for me to look at how good or bad I’m doing.  When I am good I look to myself, independent from God. when I am doing bad I feel guilt when I look at myself.  I look to God being dependent on Him, but I still feel guilty.  I think too much about me and not enough about Him.  I have my mind always depending on God, in order that I will not be focused on how well I am doing or not doing.

³  The principle of the having my mind focused on God and not myself, I take either lightly or I take not at all.  A good friend of mine Daniel would always relay this to me.  Another good friend Eli just reminded me of this.  I was visiting with him and telling of my issues with guilt.  It is that Satan does try to make me focus on myself.  Eli says what he does is that he always turns it over to the Lord.  If I am mad, he thinks; What makes the Lord mad?  If I am sad, what makes the Lord sad? – So I trust the Lord giving him my guilt, my shame, and my sin.  I do have eternal life.  If I focus on God and not myself I find that Christ deserves my guilt, as he does my shame and my sin.  He paid for it.  To hold it back is injustice to Christ.  Christ doesn’t save the lost for their sake but for His sake; which just so happens to be beneficial for them as well.  Christ paid for me, I want to be his.

Being the Best

Yes my wife has disgraced my site with pink lettering.  I hope removal of this will renew the common respect that people have of me as a person without pink lettering on my, what ever this is.

Being the Best

I don’t have to be the best.  I should do my best for the Lord.  I have been thinking that I am now in fulltime ministry.  What does that mean?  Sleep in?  A comfortable life?  I don’t think either should imply.  I have to be self motivated to honor the Lord in my time.  Instead of less responsible I have to be more responsible.  At the end of the quarter I don’t look to see if I get my bonus but how responsible I was with affecting eternity.  While training myself for ministry, I have to maintain a constant increasing devotional life.

The aggressive competitor in me thinks I must be the best.  My efforts are put into putting much time into reading the ‘best materials’.  Praying ‘earnest’ prayers.  What is my motive?  To be a man of God, to see Sam Houston State reached, thousands of sinners that will see and submit to the light of God?  To be the best servant I can be?  No my motive is to be successful, just to be successful.

The great thing is that I am a disgrace to myself and my efforts.  Everything I do lacks and is not enough.  My voice cannot touch heaven…so my prayers are not heard.  My mind cannot grasp the word of God…so spiritual awareness remains in slumber. 

What a great thing that I’m so inadequate that although my mind is on God inconsistently.  That my prayers are imperfect and my study is incomplete.  Still God he is prefect, he is the best.  My in abilities lead me to see the miracle of God sustaining my life and my efforts.  That the Best, God would use my incomplete efforts to make the Best results.  How can I get to God?  He will even help me get to him; the Holy Spirit.  Lord keep me filled.