Meditation: April 26, 2014

“That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death…”  Phil 3:10

There is continuing aspects of Jesus Christ made available to us. Our spiritual hunger to fully identify with Him qualifies us to know what was unknown. We have come to know that He is our Savior and Lord through His Word. We believe on Him and apply faith in all of His promises. Yet the more we know of Him a fire is ignited within our hearts to experience Him. To share with Him in His experience of life is the grandest endeavor one could ever attain. The evidence that we know Him is that we recognize that there is much more to be known than what we have come to know. The height and depth of His love is to be explored throughout our lifetime. Oh the joy of knowing that it is Christ working in us and the sufficiency is not of us! We have been raised in newness of life. Now each experience whether it be painful or pleasurable, is ordered by our Master for a purpose far greater than any at this moment are able to see. “None of me, all of Thee; None of me, all unto Thee!” As portions of my self-life dies, I am attaining to the resurrection of the dead.

Meditation: April 24, 2014

“He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” Matthew 28:6

He is absent from the place to which He had been carried. His lifeless body lay in a tomb without the strength to either participate or resist. There He was carried and placed by others. But on Resurrection Sunday, the grave was robbed of its victory. The empty tomb served as a witness that He was no longer there. His was not the result of being carried away, for many are absent because they have been carried away by something or someone. “He is risen, as He said.” His Word was confirmed by action. His promise was fulfilled thus giving even greater validity to all that He ever said. The evidence was presented, thus allowing every skeptic and naysayer to see with their own eyes His power to defy death, hell, and the grave. The angel invited them to come inside and see the very place that He once laid. Where a body once laid, and empty tomb  reminds us of our own destinies . As we are in Christ Jesus, we too shall be made alive by the same Spirit and power that raised Him from the dead. He is not where men placed Him. For He is risen from the dead!

Meditation: April 18, 2014

“When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” Matthew 16:13

What men say cannot change the nature of a person or a thing. It has to do with recognizing and agreeing with the truth. Those who know Him merely by reputation can only repeat what they have heard and never share their truest knowledge of Him. Those who see Him from afar and can only see His silhouette may describe it with accuracy without ever knowing those special features that give expression to His passion. Only those who have answered the call to come to Him; to come close enough to see His face will be able to share with others the intimate things that would ignite a fire within the hearts of others to know what they may otherwise would have never known. What they say is not as important as what you say. Jesus Christ came to be known, but not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. The resurrected Christ invites us to come closer and see the nail prints in His hands that His love may be known through the price He paid for our redemption. He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. God is alive and His Spirit makes alive those who receive Him into their hearts.

Meditation: April 17, 2014

 “Death is the reward of an undisciplined life; your foolish decisions trap you in a dead end.” (MSG) Proverbs 5: 23

A warning to the wise is the anecdote to his falling away and divorcing himself from his wisdom. Disciples are to exercise disciplines in order to safeguard areas that would otherwise be vulnerable to the enemy. He is seeking to influence those who have taken pride in their stance as being invincible thus allowing their guards to be down. Death is the price paid for our redemption. Since we are alive to Christ and dead to the world, Satan’s ploy is to attempt in resurrecting things that once dominated and controlled our lives. Daily decisions have far-reaching and severe consequences. Nothing is done in isolation from a path leading to a destination. And nothing is done that does not follow a pattern of living modeled by a master. Our death in Jesus Christ produced life with a purpose. We are being led to triumph over all the works of darkness. Our thoughts must be directed towards the eternal unless we become entrapped by temporal pleasures requiring more than we have come to understand. We must allow wisdom to teach and guide us in a straight path.

April 2014 Article: “Dying To Self”

Unless there is death, there can be no resurrection. The things that remain alive within us determine the course of our lives along with God’s plan for the life that He gives. The natural tendency of each person is to get whatever he can for himself and live his life unto himself. Selfishness is hard to explain, but easy to practice because self-centeredness is deeply ingrained within the nature of fallen man. We do not know why we do the things that we do, and often are unaware that we are doing it. Ask a person what he thinks of himself and he will speak of his good intentions. Compare his assessment to God’s standard and the defects in his character are exposed.  Although you were created for a purpose far greater than you realize, what is accepted as normal competes with God’s original plan. It casts a shadow over the potential of your life and reduces living to merely settling for basic needs and meeting unrestrained passions.

Sin is defined as “missing the mark.” It is not just the act, but the life that is bent in the wrong direction. The tendency to rebel against God is deeply ingrained within the center of every person. It cannot be trained or reformed. Ultimately, it requires a death—bringing an end to the old life in order to receive the new life with promise. Sin works within the body, producing sicknesses and diseases, and eventually leads to physical death. But you are more than your body and God wants reveal to you a part of you are not aware. The mark that is established by Him gives life its truest meaning. While each of us was born, we must remember that we were born for a purpose. Without a purpose life is meaningless, which is why suicide is rampant in society today. These individuals died many years before their bodies ceased to function. Even though attempts were made to relocate the goalpost by lowering the bar or moving it within closer range, these were goals established by man and not by God.

The death of Jesus Christ was the death of sin for us. He died a martyr’s death in our stead, paying the price for our redemption. Similarly, sin requires a death. Although sin exists in our physical bodies, when we accept the sacrifice made for us, we have died with Him. Ours is to yield to what God is both willing and able to do in us by removing the residue of the past as we experience newness of life in Him. Simply stated, if we focus our attention upon Christ and receive the benefits that He offers us, a new expression of life will manifest in and through us. He gives us His life in exchange for our old life, His peace for our frustration and confusion, and His love in exchange for our selfish and limited love. No longer can sin rule over you and within your members. You will be free to love and serve God and others. The pain of dying to self is letting go of the familiar in exchange for an unfamiliar promise. The nostalgia of the old has the potential of enslavement to a value system that must be broken. However, the Holy Spirit will teach those that come to God as little children that they may learn how to live the new life in Christ Jesus. Each lesson learned produces liberty from habits once thought to be impossible to break. Resurrection life produces true freedom. Even though it must be preceded by death, the glorious life and peace that follows is beyond comparison and comprehension.

Meditation: February 19, 2014

“Not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life.” Hebrew 7:16

The High Priest, Melchizedek was a High Priest by the sheer force of resurrection life rather than mere genealogy. This was a different class of priesthood signifying an important future event. God’s promise to us is an endless life. Jesus, who is the Begotten of the Father was with the Father from the beginning. Those of us who are in Christ have entered into eternal life. He is our High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. Nothing of the law could produce it. All of its fleshly commandments could only point out to us our deficiencies. So many are yet trying to compensate for what is lacking, thus giving them a false hope of resolving issues that are too deep for them to even fathom. In Jesus Christ, we have eternal life. To know Him is to take full possession of His promises. We die to our former state and the futile efforts of reforms to preserve our souls. We then rest in Him as being our sufficiency. It is His grace alone that saves us and delivers us from bondage to liberty and life eternal.

Meditation: February 14, 2014

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:44

The Father draws us by way of His Spirit that we may be close to Him. There is a place in God awaiting each soul that is discontent and longing to be where He is. It is our desire that moves the heart of God to beckon us to come closer. He is not impressed with the things that men would be impressed with. Nor can one force his way into His presence without the necessary conditions of the soul being met. He seeks the humble and contrite who would feel undeserving of such an invitation. In Jesus’ earthly ministry, He would spend time with publicans, prostitutes, and tax-collectors. It was the Pharisees that thought to deserve special attention because of their pedigree. He will even beckon little children to come unto Him and rebuke any that would forbid their approaching Him. It is the Spirit of the Father working through the Son that draws us. We are drawn to be with Him forever. Even when we die, He does not leave us. The time will come when He will raise those who are with Him with the same power contained within His own resurrection.

Meditation: September 30, 2013

For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” 1 Corinthians 2:2

The strong language used by Paul was to express how he directed his will to block out all information that would in anywise compete with the knowledge of Christ that he had attained. This knowledge would serve as the filter because it was the highest level of knowledge ever made available to mankind. He was not limiting what was being made known to his intellect. He was in addition speaking of his experiences. His entire life was to be governed by the dimensions of Christ yet to be known and the deep meaning contained within His death on the cross. There are so many distractions in this life competing with our knowing the things that are most essential to life. Many will major in minors and minor in majors. But none of their information can produce anything that produce a permanent resolve to their challenges and survive beyond this life. To know Jesus is to have eternal life. To know Him as crucified is to identify with His death, thus possessing resurrection life. As with Paul, we must determine to close the door on all that would appear to be objective knowledge and bring it into subjection to the knowledge of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Meditation: September 28, 2013

“I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord sustained me.” Psalm 3:5

Sleep is like a form of death. When we sleep, we are no longer in control of our thoughts or body. All is as if it is in the grave without a conscious thought but trusting that at the proper time we will awake. Our dreams take to places we had not traveled before. It is always our desire to have a peaceful rest, thus a peaceful travel to the place that our dreams would take us. Our prayer is that God would protect us when we have no defense. There are the terrors of the night; invaders who may come and interrupt us and invade our homes; calamities over which we have no control; all the things that could happen in the night. The morning of our awakening is like our resurrection. The Lord has sustained us through the night!

As we trust God to keep us through one night in order to see a new day, we must also trust Him for the midnight’s of life’s experiences. Whatever we are going through in life, we go through it because we are in the darkest of night. But there will be the dawning of a new day when we will awaken fully to the light of His glory and never again lose sight of day. We will step into our dream of Him and see Him as He really is. The Lord will sustain us unto a new day!

Meditation: April 27, 2013

 “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.” Exodus 12:2

The Passover changed Israel’s calendar by orders from God. What God does affects the measure of everything. Our calendar reflects the birth of Jesus Christ and His death. B.C.  expressing before Christ and A.D., anno Domini, the year of our Lord signifying His death, burial, and resurrection. He made an indelible mark for all humanity. Even those who despise Him or deny Him cannot ignore Him. Eternity invaded time through the coming of our Lord and time would never be the same. God became one of us to completely identify with us, then to die for us. As vast as the universes are and heaven is, He chose this planet and chose us to be with Him forever! When we remember the day of our conversion we recall our new birthday. Life began anew for we became a new specifies of humanity enabled to give expression to the love of God with a will to please Him. Life may be the same around us, but for us who are being saved, we have a new beginning!