I am back!!!!

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I know it has been a long time since I have posted a blog, and I have missed it so very much.  Now that my summer projects are nearly completed, I am back!  And I am excited to share with you what the Lord has been teaching me this summer.

Last May, after teaching my Ladies Group at church on Colossians 3: 1-17, I challenged them to take the summer and attempt to memorize the entire passage.  Realizing that it would just be completely "wrong" for me to ask it of them, and not follow through myself, I set out with a little notebook and a sincere desire to memorize the passage and hear what the Lord would speak to me about it. 

Now here is the embarrassing part.  I love the Word of God, but I have never been very interested in the memorizing part.  I am quite sure that the Lord would have loved for me to be memorizing along with my study, but I never thought that it was for me.  What a shame!  I have found it to be a delight to my soul, and I will be aiming at memorizing more complete passages in the future.

Colossians 3: 1-17 is chocked full of meaty tidbits that every believer should not only know, but LIVE!  This passage is to be walked out!  It is a challenge to even the most seasoned Christian, but none-the-less, it is part of our holiness training.   The closer look at this passage leaves me with just one question, "What would happen in the world if every believer took these words to heart, surrendered themselves to the Holy Spirit within, and just allowed Him to live it our through them?"  I know what the answer is:  REVIVAL in us and the opportunity for the lost to see Christ!

So let me begin, taking one verse at a time, and I pray that the Lord will be revealing more to you than what I share.  I will not be going into great detail, but instead, just offering a morsel to think about, just a few comments from my little journal.  I pray that we will all heed the call and be challenged to actually begin to live the life that Paul is describing.  

Colossians 3: 1     "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God."

I spend far too much time seeking the things that are here on earth.  What do you seek?  If you are like me, the first thing that I am going to have to do to  "seek the things that are above" is change my focus.  I tend to look out and around, but Jesus is saying, "Look up!  Look where I am!  I am sitting next to My Father.   You must train yourself to set your eyes on Me and My Kingdom."  

Now, to me that means a shift in all of my thinking.  It means that I will have to change my gaze in order to have a correct view --  a view of what is eternal.  When I change what I think about, then that automatically should bring about a change in what I focus on.  So, my "seeking the things above" means that I will have to think differently about the things all around me, my circumstances, my feelings, my desires....well, I think you get the point.  I will have to stop thinking about me.  And you will have to stop thinking about you.  I recorded it this way in my journal:  

"The constant seeking of things of the earth, the worldly chase of money, position, notoriety, prestige, beauty, power, acceptance . . . must end and be replaced with the search for the godly and the eternal.  There must be a shift of focus."

Though we do not often live like we have been raised with Christ, we have already been.   Our life as believers has already been translated out of this world, and into His world.  We should then have Heaven on our minds, even while we are still living here on earth.  

This is a good place to begin, looking up to the Heavens and seeing ourselves there, not here.  It seems that this one small shift of focus makes it more than possible to change how I think and act here while living day to day.  Would it change the way you think and act?  Maybe we should give it a try!

God's Call To Surrender--Part 1

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(Excerpted from Cheryl Gnagey's Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory, Chapter 9)

"Take a moment now to remind yourself of the definition of surrender.  See for certain that surrendering is not a negative thing when it comes to your relationship with God.  It is the most positive thing you can do.  It is also the one discipline that will catapult you into a true love relationship with God.  Surrender is giving God possession and power over your will, your desires, your goals and dreams, and your whole heart.  It is yielding to Him and His commands.  When you surrender in a particular area of your life, in a sinful chamber of your heart, you give up your selfish desire to do as you wish.  Surrender is the resignation of your flesh.  And that leads you to a place where you can joyfully come under the power and control of the Holy Spirit.  Surrender was graphically described to you in the story of Abraham and his altar of death [Genesis 22].  His test of obedience and surrender was a part of his growth in the Lord, and it will be a part of our growth as well.

Second Chronicles 7: 13-14 also points us to surrender as a way of worship.  Though it is often quoted on patriotic holidays as a call for our country to turn back to God for revival, these verses are specific to God's Body as well, and maybe even more specific to the individual believer.  Read through them and take note of the verbs that the Lord uses as he speaks to us.  Notice that they demand action.  Pay close attention also to the events and circumstances that surround God's call to us to worship.  They are found in verse 13.

If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people . . .

God may be allowing some very difficult circumstances to touch your life.  Maybe they are the result of your sin and idolatry. Or maybe they are being allowed simply to bring you to the end of yourself.  Either way, our call is the same.  We are to surrender to Him."

Where is God requiring your surrender today?  Will you hear His call to surrender to Him as an insult to your flesh, as it rises up to have its own way, or will you hear it as a loving invitation to check your flesh at the door and reside in the embrace of your Father? 

(More tomorrow in God's Call To Surrender--Part 2)