Freedom in Christ

Galatians 5: 1-5

So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.

² Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. ³ I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses. ⁴ For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.

⁵ But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us.

 Galatians 5: 1-5

So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.

² Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. ³ I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses. ⁴ For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.

⁵ But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us.

The text begins with a clear and refreshing statement of Christ's will for our lives. Sometimes we get bogged down in a quandary about God's will. And often we worry about decisions which are simply not a great issue with God (where to go to school, what job to take, where to live, etc.). We need to orient our lives on the clear statements of Scripture regarding God's will. And here is one: "For freedom Christ has set us free." Christ's will for you is that you enjoy freedom. Where you study, what job you do, where you live, etc., are not nearly so crucial as whether you stand fast in freedom. If they were, the Bible would have commanded those things as clearly as it here commands freedom. But it doesn't.

So your enjoyment of freedom is much more important to God than many of the day-to-day decisions that fill us with so much concern. A good test of your priorities in life would be whether you are just as concerned about the command to enjoy your freedom as you are about other pressing decisions in your life. Do you exercise as much diligence in prayer and study to stand fast in freedom as you do to decide about home, job, studies, marriage partner? It is a clear and unqualified command: "Stand fast and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." This is the will of God for you: your freedom. Uncompromising, unrelenting, indomitable freedom. For this Christ died. For this he rose. For this he sent his Spirit. There is nothing he wills with more intensity under the glory of his own name than this; your freedom.

Still hungry? Acts 15:1- Galatians 2:4

The Cross is Stronger than Sin!

1 Peter 2: ²⁴ who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. 

You know, believe it or not, condemnation is not our real mission. But, we Christians have a pretty good track record of condemning sins, particularly those in which we are not currently participating! Do you realize that God demands that we embrace the spirit of Jesus? While we are to hate sin, we are to love the sinner.

Anyone who is a sinner (which, by the way, includes ALL of us) can take great comfort in this fact: the Gospel clearly states that Christ paid the penalty for your sins. Anyone who confesses and repents of their sins will receive forgiveness and salvation. Recognize that Christ did not die just for certain sins, or "little" sins, as we sometimes like to say, but for all sins. Never fear that your life has been so sinful or that your sins are so very horrid that you are beyond the power of the cross. And certainly, never declare that other people are so sinful that they are beyond forgiveness. The cross of Jesus Christ is stronger than any sin!

Yes, we Christians must take a firm stand against sin. But we completely fail in our duties if we do not pair this condemnation with the proclamation that the cross of Christ is big enough to forgive any sin.

Still Hungry? Deuteronomy 32:9- Psalm 103:3

Gratitude

God inhabits the praises of His people (Psalm 22:3 KJV).

Gratitude is the most effective way to deepen your consciousness to the fact that you are the object of God's affection and love. Giving thanks awakens your senses to see God, to hear God, to taste and see that He is good. When you feel far from God, praise will bring you back. When you have strayed from acknowledging God's presence, when you have forgotten in him we live and move and have our being, praise and gratitude will be the ramp to get you back on the right road.
I shudder at the words of Romans chapter one. "They neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened," (Romans 1:21). They did not glorify Him. They did not give thanks to Him. The light of their eyes went dark.

Praise keeps you alert to the glimpses of glory all around. The more you glorify God with praise and thanksgiving, the more your eyes will be opened to the deep well of His love that is but a bowshot away (Genesis 21:19). God inhabits the praises of His people. He feels right at home in a heart that praises Him. He enjoys being there!

I believe gratitude grows with practice. When you thank God, regardless of your feelings, it primes the pump of your heart until gratitude begins to flow freely.
If this is a language you have not spoken often, you can become fluent…with practice. Paul wrote, "I have learned how to get along happily whether I have much or little. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything" (Philippians 4:11-12 NLT, emphasis mine). "I have learned."

As with any foreign language we attempt to learn, the more we use it, the more fluent we become. Is it too strong to say that the language of gratitude is a "foreign" tongue? I don't think so. We come into the world screaming with our very first breath, "It's all about me and my needs!" With tightly closed fists and squeezed shut eyes we demand attention. A newborn babe can think of nothing more than his wants and his needs: feed me, hold me, change me, nurse me…and do it right now! I would like to think we eventually grow out of that infantile attitude, but I'm sorry to say, many never do.

But we don't have to live like self-centered, self-absorbed ingrates. We can learn God's love language of gratitude that opens our eyes and unfurls the fingers. We can speak words of gratitude that remove the blinders to see glimpses of His glory every day. As we discover and practice the beautiful language of gratitude, our native tongue of self-focused dissatisfaction begins to fade.

And we practice. And we practice. And we practice, Gratitude!!!!

Still Hungry? Romans1:24

Normal? What is Normal??

1Peter 4: ¹² Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you^(U) to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. ¹³ But rejoice^(V) inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ,^(W) so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed (NIV)

As we look back over the lives of those who made the biggest difference in the early Kingdom days, they were anything but normal. A bag of mixed nuts is more like it - quirky men and broken women from all walks of life who were radical in their devotion to God - to the point of placing their lives on the line every day for the cause of Christ. They were normal in that they celebrated their "sameness" with the pagans who were shunned by religious zealots but stubbornly loved by the Father. Yet, they were profoundly abnormal in the love they showed and the depth of their commitment to God and to His cause.

When an ordinary woman meets an extraordinary God, normal life takes on a whole new meaning. Knowing God changes everything. We cannot encounter the living God and be the same. A personal relationship with Him produces a holy discontent with the status quo and compels us to live in such a way that miracles are a daily occurrence.

Miracles come in all shapes and sizes. A woman chooses not to have an abortion.  An alcoholic makes it through one more day without a drink. An underground church meets to worship God. A husband who has been unemployed for over a year gets a job. Bibles are smuggled into Afghanistan and distributed to remote mountains. A couple seeks counseling instead of a divorce. Cancer goes into remission. The sun rises and sets. We have food to eat and water to drink. A life is changed in response to what God has done in ours.

People are desperately looking for ordinary women like you and me whose lives have been changed by an extraordinary God - the One who is calling us to be "God with skin on" to those who don't even believe He exists. I want to love every excuse and doubt right out of their minds. I want them to see a power in me that they cannot explain in human terms and a message that shouts of God's mercy and forgiveness. I want to be hungry and thirsty for God as never before. I want my normal life to be abnormally extraordinary because God is alive and well and at work in and around me.

How about you? Are you ready to step out in faith? Are you willing to live a normal life filled with people and circumstances that can only be explained by the extraordinary power and presence of God? Let's do it!

Still Hungry? 2 Timothy 2

The Profit Of Labor

             

  The Profit of labor

        In all labor there is profit,

     But idle chatter leads only to poverty

                  Proverb 14:23 , 1Corithians 15 :58, Matthew 20 :1-9

                  What then is labor?

To labor means to work, to carry out a task.

Types of labor

Spiritual :  Studying of the word, praying, fellowship     

( 2 Timothy 2:15, John 6:27 )

Physical :Engage your mind, your time, and your talent. Proverb 13 :11

   Ways to ensure your labor profits you in 2013

 

1.    Find out what you have been called to do.

2.    Acquire the necessary knowledge needed in your area of calling

3.    Don’t try to be someone else (be content)

4.    Avoid things and places that discourages you from

 laboring in d line of your calling.

    Scripture for meditation 

The labor of fools wearies them, for they do not even know how to go to the City!   

         Ecclesiastes 10 :15