Abiding In Christ (long...but good stuff)

I downloaded these notes this morning...sure wish I would have heard the sermon! I might go to IHOP and see if I can purchase the CD. There are some powerful statements here.

Then tonight I was reading I Samuel and chapters 13 -15 sure do show what obedience and disobedience do to a person in relationship to God. We often hear the story of David and Goliath. Amazing story...but that was one to one. Jonathan and his armor bearer go against "3,000 chariots, 6,000 charioteers, and as many warriors as the grains of sand on the seashore!" with the mindset of, "Perhaps the Lord will help us, for nothing can hinder the Lord. He can win a battle whether he has many warriors or only a few!" ...And God honored that!!!!

AWESOME!!!!!!

Abiding in Christ: Releasing the Kingdom on Earth
I. foundational premise of the Kingdom: voluntary love (relationship)
A. God desires to release His heavenly power (power of the age-to-come) into the earthly realm.
10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (Mt. 6:10)

4 Those who…have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come… (Heb. 6:4-5)
B. In Gen. 1, God manifested His power without using us. After He created Adam and Eve, He determined to only manifest His power through relationship with His people. He longs to share His life with His family, thus He runs His Kingdom and releases His power through them.
C. The Father has chosen to release the Presence and power of the Spirit in us and through us in direct proportion to how much we live in relationship with Him by dialoging and agreeing with His heart. He will not violate our free will by forcing us to live in relationship with Him.
D. The Holy Spirit continues to draw close to us only as we deliberately draw close to Him by asking for His help and obeying His leadership.
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. (Jas. 4:8)
E. Our relationship with the Holy Spirit will stop growing if we intentionally neglect His leadership in any area of our life. He stops talking to us and imparting more to us when we stop agreeing with His leadership. He will not force us to relate to Him in love.
3 Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 These things we write to you that your joy may be full…7 If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus…cleanses us from all sin. (1 Jn. 1:3-7)
F. God withholds blessing that He intends to give us until we interact with Him in relationship. Pressure, pain and spiritual barrenness are meant to cause us to arise out of our passivity to more deeply relate to Him by calling out to Him. Asking the Lord for help is invasive.
2 You…covet and cannot obtain…Yet you do not have because you do not ask… (Jas. 4:2)
G. In Jn. 14-15, Jesus summed up the main principles of how God runs His Kingdom. Jesus promised to manifest His presence to those (v. 21, 23) who dialog with or ask God (v. 13-14) and who agree with the Spirit’s leadership or keep God’s commandments (v. 15, 21, 23).
13 Whatever you ask (persistently) in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask anything (for our heart and circumstances) in My name, I will do it. 15 If you love Me, keep My commandments…21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him… 23 If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. (Jn. 14:13-23)
H. The Father loves everyone in the sense of valuing and caring for them. However, He only loves the lifestyle, choices and fruit of those who pursue Him with the intention of 100-fold obedience.
I. Whatever increases our activate dialog (prayer) and agreement with God’s heart (obedience) results in a greater release of God’s Presence and power in our lives. This is the essence of wisdom. Whatever decreases this dialog and agreement diminishes our experience of God’s Presence and power in our lives. This is the essence of folly. It is worth any price that we must pay to cultivate greater dialog and agreement with God’s heart.
J. Abiding in Christ refers to our dialog and agreement with God’s heart. It results in a greater release of God’s Presence and power in our lives. This is the simple yet prevailing condition for how God’s Kingdom is manifest into the earthly realm in this age and in the age-to-come.
4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. 5…He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing...7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. (Jn. 15:4-7)
K. Fruit refers both to godliness in having a vibrant heart in God (Rom. 6:22; 7:4-5; Gal. 5:22; Eph. 5:9; Heb. 12:11; 13:15; Jas. 3:18) and to being a vessel that God releases His presence through in ministry to others (Jn. 4:36; Rom. 1:13; 15:28; Phil. 1:22; Col. 1:5-6).
L. Abiding in Christ is a concept that is so simple that anyone can understand and do it but it is so simple that few do. Scripture validates the wisdom of a lifestyle of abiding in Christ.
27 God has chosen the (so called) foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and…the (so called) weak things of the world to put to shame the… mighty… (1 Cor. 1:27)
M. Satan’s priority against us is to lead us astray from cultivating a responsive heart of devotion.

Cultivating a responsive heart of extravagant devotion to Jesus takes time and effort. It does not automatically grow. Rather it automatically diminishes unless we cultivate it.
3 I am afraid, lest as the serpent (Satan) deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. (2 Cor 11:3, NAS)
N. There are three main components necessary for the Word to abide or live in us. First, we choose to pursue God with a loving obedience. Second, we regularly feed our heart on the Word. Third, we need the activity of the Spirit to turn our meditation into living revelation so that it delivers us from sinful desires. We do this best as we fellowship with the Spirit (by talking to Him).

Summary:

we obey God, feed on the Word and talk to the Spirit.

Nice to Have Jonathan Home

But I sure miss him already!

I Want A Lot of Things

I spend my days thinking about what I want and my hours trying to get what I want. That may sound completely self-involved, but think about your own days and hours. We want food and we go get it. We want coffee and there's a Starbucks every 1.2 miles. We want sleep, we take a nap. We want to talk, we flip open our cell phones or hop on the computer. We want to express ourselves, so we laugh and cry and get angry and become sad.

What about need?

What exactly is the line between our need and our want?
Fortunately, there isn't always a line. We need food, we need sleep, we need to talk and hang out, we need to express ourselves. We may not need those $60 jeans, but we do need clothes in some form. Still we are mostly a desire-driven generation, and many of our desires spring out of a desperateness to connect with something, anything-for the connection that will stop the ache.
This can lead us down some dangerous paths. Yet the question rears its head, how are we to view our desire-driven, thirsty selves?
Is it all just selfishness and greed locked in a perpetual and fruitless chase, or is it possible that we were made like this by a Creator who is also driven by desire? I'm inclined to believe the latter. I cannot fathom that all my needs and wants have everything to do with little ole me. Surely my desire to connect with something greater is rooted and founded in God. Despite all of the stuff I try to obtain to fill myself up, I really just want one thing:

TO CONNECT.

I need connection with people, and this is such an integral part of living, but underneath all other connections lies that for which we were made:

to know God and be known by Him.

That's the longing that nothing else seems to satisfy. I want to connect with something outside of myself, something that is bigger and better than any other human being.
We all do. I spend a great deal of energy making my life revolve around me, but I really don't want the world to exist for me. Chasing myself around never satisfies and it is exhausting. In tracing the path of my pursuit through brambles and thorns, I find the roots of my desire:

***God***

At the beginning, in the middle, and at the end, there He is. I want connection; therefore, what I really want is God. All of my desires are shadows and types of my desire for Him. All the hunger pangs I experience that stubbornly refuse to be filled with the world serve to show me that God alone is all-satisfying. He wants to use all of my desire and thirsting to push me toward Him, to lead me to the One Who alone satisfies.

Here's where the story gets a little crazy-

God wants connection too.

Since the beginning of time and before, God has desired connection He desired a creation and so He created one. He desired a relationship with His creatures and so He forged one. He desired to be with us forever and so He sent Christ. The Psalms tell us He does as He pleases in the heavens and earth and in all deeps and it pleases Him to be connected with us. Because we are made in His image, we too are creatures of desire who long to connect. Connections of all sorts and shapes exist. We were ultimately made to connect with God Himself, the Holy One-the profane and the sacred become one in His economy.

I often wonder why a sovereign God wants a connection to such ones as you and me. The answer is so simple but so stupefying that it sends my mind spinning.

He Loves Us!

This reality is difficult for us to accept. Even as I type it out, I am shaking my head and thinking, You must be joking! That's just preposterous. I am a flawed, finite being trying to embrace a perfect, infinite Love. Thankful, even though I struggle to believe it, that doesn't change the truth: He loves me just as I am. It is the outrageous, unmatchable love of God that loves creatures such as me. I can't even begin to comprehend the love He has toward us-but I've experienced it, and I'm changed forever. It's perplexing. He loves because He loves. It pleases Him to love me. This is the foundation of connection-He loves us; therefore He stops at nothing, not the cross not death not even our own humanity, to connect with us forever.

This longing for connection is divinely natural.

Is is the cry of the eternity in our heart that Solomon speaks about in Ecclesiastes. So what's my problem? Why do I run to everything and everyone and not to Him? Well the fact is , I am human and I am driven by (controlled by and obsessed with is more accurate) my five senses. I ignore the "Divine Whisper" because it's just too mysterious, too unknown. So I try to be fulfilled with things I can see and hear and taste here and now.

Daily, my flesh proves to be my worst enemy! Despite my willing acknowledgement that my desires can and will only be met and fulfilled through intimacy and connectedness with Christ, sin has left a stain upon me that is hard to fight. The tale of running after other things to satiate us is as old as Adam and Eve. My desires take me on many paths-some seemingly harmless, some not-so-seemingly harmless. Some are benign and even good in and of themselves, but I often use them to fill up what only He can fill up and that leads me further and further from the divine connection I need.

If you dig deeper, past any undesirable behavior, you can see the longing-you can even hear it. Looking past my own efforts and strivings, I recognize the root. These behaviors aren't really the problem; they are only a result and a ramification of the problem. The problem is the fount from which they spring; a famished heart. Me desires are crying out for satisfaction and I convince myself that these other things will fill. We all do it. Shouldn't we know better by now? You'd think so, but I never cease to become a completely forgetful imbecile at least a few times a day. While wrestling with a certain temptation or a besetting sin, taking a step back for some perspective reveals the same thing every time.

Why do I want to run to this thing, this idol" Because I'm hungry for connection. I'm desperate and starving. So what do I do? There is a feast fit for a princess spread on the table above me, and here I am licking up the dirt on the floor! I'm hugging the toilet because I can't imagine He wants to set me upon a throne of jewels! Call the dirt and the toilet what you will. I can glamorize it and make it pretty by adding a little pink bow, but is is still the same thing as it always was: a cheap substitute for immeasurable riches. Each moment is a wrestling match between my flesh and spirit: to connect with stuff in the world or to connect with God.

Some times are easier than others, as we can all attest. But in the dark moments, I will let the howling of my heart show me the pieces of eternity that He has placed within me.

I will let it teach me that I was made for another world and for a connection that surpasses any earthly experience.

He has been pursuing me through my desires since before I was born. He has loved me forever and He is drawing me, with every bit of my humanity, with His unfailing love, to connection-to an intimate relationship with Him.

As I listen to the groaning of creation for its Creator, heard in every alley and every bar and every church and every home and every heart, I will hope. For every human cry, there is an answer. Hunger was not created for the sake of being hungry, but for the sake of the experience of being filled with what is good. I don't know much, but I do know this; those who hunger and thirst will be satisfied.

Ashley Herring

Smile!

It Just Makes You Smile! :?)

JESUS IS AWESOME!

He is the First and Last,

The Beginning and the End!

He is the keeper of Creation and the Creator of all!

He is the Architect of the universe and the manager of all times.

He always was, He always is, and He always will be...

Unmoved,

Unchanged,

Undefeated,

And never Undone!

He was bruised and brought healing!

He was pierced and eased pain!

He was persecuted and brought freedom!

He was dead and brought life!

He is risen and brings power!

He reigns and brings Peace!

The world can't understand Him,

The armies can't defeat Him,

The schools can't explain Him,

And the leaders can't ignore Him.

Herod couldn't kill Him,

The Pharisees couldn't confuse Him,

And the people couldn't hold Him!

Nero couldn't crush Him,

Hitler couldn't silence Him,

The New Age can't replace Him, and Donahue can't explain Him away!

He is light,

Love,

Longevity,

And Lord.

He is goodness,

Kindness,

Gentleness,

And God

He is Holy,

Righteous,

Mighty,

Powerful,

And Pure.

His ways are right,

His word is eternal,

His will is unchanging,

And His mind is on me.

He is my Redeemer,

He is my Savior,

He is my guide, and

He is my peace!

He is my Joy,

He is my comfort,

He is my Lord, and

He rules my life!

I serve Him because

His bond is love,

His burden is light,

And His goal for me is abundant life.

I follow Him because He is

The wisdom of the wise,

The power of the powerful,

The ancient of days,

The ruler of rulers, the leader of leaders,

The overeer and the overcomer,

And the sovereign Lord of all that was and is and is to come.

And if that seems impressive to you,

Try this for size.

His goal is a relationship with ME!

He will never leave me,

Never forsake me,

Never mislead me,

Never forget me,

Never overlook me,

And never cancel my appointment in His appointment book!

When I fall, He lifts me up!

When I fail, He forgives!

When I am weak, He is strong!

When I am lost, He is the way!

When I am afraid, He is my courage!

When I stumble, He steadies me!

When I am hurt, He heals me!

When I am broken, He mends me!

When I am blind, He leads me!

When I am hungry, He feeds me!

When I face trials, He is with me!

When I face persecution, He shields me!

When I face problems, He comforts me!

When I face loss, He provides for me!

When I face death, He carries me Home!

He is everything for everybody, everywhere,

Every time and every way.

HE IS GOD!

He is faithful.

I am His, and He is mine!

My Father in Heaven can whip the father of the world.

So, if you are wondering why I feel so secure,

understand this...

HE SAID IT AND THAT SETTLES IT!

God is in control,

I am on His side,

Ant that means all is well with my soul!

Everyday is a blessing for

GOD IS!!!!!!

(I received this in an e-mail years ago. I do not know who authored it.)