When God Looks Back and Remembers

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC

"I remember the loyalty (undying devotion) of your youth, your love as a bride--how you followed Me in the wilderness in a land not sown..."     (Jeremiah 2:2)

Looking back and remembering the past can be a very good thing.  Even very recently when we met up with a man we had known well so long ago, we remembered together how very wonderful those 'days of our youth' were.  The 'good old days' have a strange draw to them, days that we were more innocent, more excited, and we delight in looking back at them with smiles.  But sometimes when God looks back and remembers, it often brings sorrow to His heart.

It happened that way to Israel. They had been loyal in their youth, they had loved Him like a young bride loves her husband, and they had followed their God in their early journeys with Him through the wilderness.  But as more and more time passed, they became disloyal to God, loving other gods instead of Him, and beginning to follow the paths that they chose instead of His.  And I am sorry to say that I have been guilty of the same things. God looks back and remembers my past walk with Him and compares it to my 'now', and when He does, He often sees something better in my past than He sees in my now.   

Time, age, and experience has a way of hardening you when you are not looking, slowly over time.  Then one day you realize that, while in some ways you have grown closer to the Lord, in other ways you have stepped further away from Him.  What was once your unfailing devotion and loyalty has cooled to lukewarm; your love for God and others can turn to irritation and frustration while other things in your life take on a greater and greater priority; and you may make decisions based on your own desires instead of seeking God and His will.

But I don't want to be deceived any longer into thinking that the 'good old days' of my deeper loyalty to God can never be the 'good new days' today!  With God all things are possible; therefore, I can enjoy an even deeper intimacy with my Lord and Savior, my Father God, and my Helper Friend than I have ever known before.  Israel never turned back. I do not want that to be my testimony.  

PRAYER

Daddy Father, I have let the coals in some of the chambers of my heart become dying embers of smoke and ash.  Breathe on my Holy Spirit the fire of loyalty, love, and desire to follow.   Fan the cold coals in me until there is a roaring fire blazing through my whole heart.  Let me burn for Your glory!  facebook

Freshness Born Out of the Spirit

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC

January 20, 2016

"Jesus replied, 'I assure you: Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God'
 'But how can anyone be born when he is old?' Nicodemus asked Him. 'Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?
Jesus answered, 'I assure you: Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.  Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.'"     John 3:3-6

I love what Oswald Chambers wrote in My Utmost For His Highest on John 3:3 (January 20).  He gives a great definition of what "being born again" is.  

"Being born again from above is a perennial, perpetual and eternal beginning; a freshness all the time in thinking and in talking and in living, the continual surprise of the life of God..."

My life is to continually show others my "freshness".  So just how does this freshness come forth from me?  And what does it look like?

This freshness will never be created out of what I do; my obedience to God does not produce it and my flesh cannot produce it either.  This freshness that Chambers speaks of can only be born out of the Spirit; it is the Spirit's fruit born out of me.  It is Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control in all of my thinking, talking, and living.  This only occurs when I am walking freshly in the Spirit, and will never occur in those times when I am walking in my flesh.  

My whole heart, everything good and bad, but be opened up to the Spirit and surrendered to Him.  He and I must be one, with absolutely nothing coming between us in order for this to be produced.  This is not a one time event, but an on-going, perpetual, endless, moment-to-moment consideration of being a born again child of God.  Following after my consideration of my new life in Christ, I am called to quickly surrender to the Spirit inside of me to walk out the life of Christ through me.   To draw from any other means than God Himself is to consider that means a better choice than God. Depending on my own fleshly strengths is to make me the god of my life and de-throne Jesus. and His Spirit.  It is only as I allow the Spirit who brought me new life through rebirth that His "fresh fruit" can be produced in me.

When I try to produce this fruit of freshness in any given moment, it takes but a few seconds for me to realize that it is not fresh at all. It is stale and close to spoiled, instead.  Truthfully, I am not always fresh.  When I am under my own control I go my own way, in my own opinions, under my own rule and authority.  But when I am surrendered to the Spirit, and under His control, I am go the way that He chooses, which often looks quite different than the path I would choose.  I wear out and get frustrated going my way, but when I stay in the Spirit my strength to love and give and obey comes in an endless supply of Godly freshness.  This kind of freshness can only be born out of the Spirit.

PRAYER
Holy Spirit, I have not surrendered enough of my life to You if even one tiny place in me refuses to surrender.  Forgive my arrogant and self-reliant bent that thinks of "my way" first in so many cases.  I know the truth, but I am not fully surrendered to it.  You are my Helper, and I need Your help!  The problem is this:  usually my first response is to fix and do and think my own thoughts as things crop up in my life.  Yet, I know I am being called to a different response than what I can come up with.  Help me to stop and think of You first in all matters.  Help me to ask of You what You would desire me to think or say or do before I respond in the flesh.  I desire greatly for 2016 to be the year that I grow in the area of walking by the Spirit.  Help me, I pray...  I cannot do this...only You can as I surrender to You. 

Seeing Is Believing (But So is NOT Seeing!)

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC

January 18, 2016

"Then He said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here and observe My hands.  Reach out your hand and put it into My side.  Don't be an unbeliever, but a believer.'  Thomas responded to Him, 'My Lord and my God!'  Jesus said, 'Because you have seen Me, you have believed.  Those who believe without seeing are blessed.'"     (John 20: 27-29)

I have read this many times and thought, as many have, that Thomas was rightfully referred to as Doubting Thomas.  He demanded proof that it was truly Jesus that was standing before him.  He had already stated in John 20:25 that he must see and touch the scars in Jesus' hands and feet and side if he was going to believe for himself.  But I had never considered that Jesus had already graciously, and without request, shown the other 10 disciples His wounds (John 20:20).  Thomas was not a doubter; he simply wanted to see what the others had been shown.  He wanted what they had been given, something that Jesus chose to reveal to them when he was absent from the group.  

Because I can see these verses in a different light today, I am also able to discern that Jesus was not differentiating between Thomas (the one who had to see to believe) and the 10 disciples (the ones who believed because they had seen), but instead was pointing to their commonality.  All 11 of the disciples were given the great privilege of seeing  the marks on Jesus that proved to them He was truly their Messiah.  This was a great help to their faith.  When Jesus then refers to "those who believe without seeing," He was speaking of all the believers who would not see the nail and sword scars until they met Him in Heaven.    

Seeing the scars or not seeing the scars is not the point.  The point is whether or not we have come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the Living God.   The believer's response to Jesus is will always be the same, whether in the 1st century (seeing) or the 21st century (not yet seeing).  It will always be, "My Lord and my God!"  This is the statement of the one who believes.  The blessing comes to all who believe!

PRAYER
Oh Lord, what joy it must have been to have witnessed Your resurrected body!  Who could have not believed who saw You after Your death and burial!  Yet today I see You with my spiritual eyes and believe You are Messiah, and You are my Savior, and You are my Lord God and my soon coming King!  I have believed without seeing with my eyes.  I see with my heart.  Oh Jesus, my precious sacrificial Lamb, how I thank You for taking on Your body what I deserve.  You took my blows, my crown of thorns, my humiliation, my 39 lashes, my crucifixion scars, and my death for sin.  I am overwhelmed to think of it, but my thoughts turn quickly to gratitude that You would seek me out and find me.  I am grateful for the Holy Spirit who called me to You.  I am grateful to be adopted and grafted into Your family.  I am grateful that though not of Your chosen race, I am loved as if I was.  I am forever grateful that all my sin no longer is able to be judged by You, but instead it has been washed away by the blood of Your sacrifice.  "Thank You" will never truly convey what my heart feels right now.  I can only worship You for who You are. . . thanking You for all You have done.

God REVEALS in the Alone Times

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC

January 13, 2016

"When He was alone with the Twelve, those who were around Him asked Him about the parables."    (Mark 4:10)

It was not among the crowd that the true disciples and followers of Jesus went deeper with Him.  No one asked Him to explain the parables of living while they were in public.  But it was in the quiet and alone times with Him that they sought His answers to all of their questions.  This is interesting to me because I minister in a "crowd" sort of way.  And while questions do come forth in that setting, God's revelation is most evident when I am working with someone one on one. This seems to be a picture to me from my life as to what Oswald Chambers is getting at today.

It is completely by God's design that He works to get us alone.  The very ways that He does this are often blamed on the Devil and his attacks.  We blame him for the things that God is allowing for our own good.  We blame the Devil while all the while God is wanting to reveal something to us.  He uses our alone times of  affliction, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, thwarted affection, and broken friendships to capture our attention.  I have seen, quite recently, how this is playing out in my life.  

My Christmas holiday was wonderful;  all the kids and their spouses and children, and one "almost" spouse, all gathered at varying times to celebrate together.   It was lovely . . . all except for the situations of the great-grandmothers.  One had fallen just prior to Christmas and was hurting, both physically and emotionally. For this one, the most of the holiday was about her.  The other one was emotionally disconnected, but that was no new thing.   The first one's situation was much more easily handled; but the second one hurt my heart through a form of yet another rejection.  Regarding her, it was about my own disappointment in her ability to thwart my affection.  She simply did not draw near to me and held me at arm's length.  But since she has been gone, I have heard the voice of Jesus speaking to me, not about her, but about me!  He has not spoken in His normal way to me, through His Word, but clearly to my heart and through others.  In. my heart the whole situation was confusing and upsetting, but then today I read this devotion, and He speaks again:

" . . . the only thing that is clear to you, and the only thing God intends to be clear, is the way He deals with your own soul.  Your brother's sorrows and perplexities are an absolute confusion to you."

I am beginning to understand in these alone times that not only is Jesus here with me in them, but also that He  wants to bring revelation to my soul.  The first revelation came through my almost "daughter," who, when I was sharing my hurts with her, wisely said, "You cannot do her part for her; you can only do your part."  That pierced my heart through, in a very good way.  Jesus clearly was speaking to me through her.  

The second revelation came from her again.  "Just let her be happy in what she believes is happiness.  You won't change her."  Again my heart was pierced by her words.

Now today, this third revelation comes.  The second great-grandma's perplexities are not for me to figure out.  They are "absolute confusion"  to me.  Really, they are irrelevant to me.  Not because of any reason except that God wants to deal with me and my soul.  So, He got me alone in my heartbreak and disappointment to do just that.  He wants to work some more on my heart.

"There are whole tracts of stubbornness and ignorance to be revealed by the Holy Spirit in each one of us, and it can only be done when Jesus gets us alone."

So, at the beginning of this new year,  I want God to deal with more of the complexities of my own heart.  I want my alone times to be times of His revelation to me.  I want, in my alone times, to be free and comfortable to ask the Lord about my idiosyncrasies that need to be rooted out of me.  I want to move forward, toward utter trust in Him.

PRAYER
Dear sweet Jesus, I am ready to lay down all of my issues with my mom.  I am ready to let go of her.  I am ready to let go (again) of all of my hopes and dreams and expectations for a wonderful mother-daughter relationship.  It is enough that You want to work on my responses to her, while at the same time, enjoying what I have in my relationships with You and so many others.  I want to return to feeling blessed in spite of the fact that my mother and I have no emotional connection.  I think I am done with all the "noisy questions of the head" that keep me from being alone with You, that keep me from hearing Your voice calling me to higher ground.  I surrender my broken emotions to You, entrusting them to Your perfect care.  I am ready to leave behind the "victim" mindset and to step into the "victorious" lifestyle.  Help me, Holy Spirit!

Private Encounters With Jesus

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC

January 12, 2016

"He would speak the Word to them with many parables like these as they were able to understand.  And He did not speak to them without a parable.  Privately, however, He would explain everything to His own disciples."  
(Mark 4: 33-34)

Just like with His disciples, Jesus has both public and private conversations with me.  In church, in Sunday School, and even in my daily study Jesus speaks to me, giving me things to ponder and consider as I am able to understand them.  But there are those not-so-common times when in the privacy of my quiet time or other alone times, He seems to come into the room, pull up a chair beside the fire, lean in closely and explain the deepest of things with me that I had not been able to understand before.

Sometimes those are the nooks and crannies of theology, Hebrew, Greek, etc.  You know what I am talking about...the "Ah-Hah!" moments of conversation.  I enjoy that greatly when I come to fully understand something that has been standing aloof for awhile.  But there are so many other times when Jesus comes to speak privately to me that are not nearly as enjoyable.  In those times He draws near to open my eyes to my sin.  He comes to make me  connect the dots from behavior and attitude to my sinful heart.  These times are even more necessary than the times of enlightenment of the Word, for it is these times that are intended to transform me into the greater likeness of my Lord.  Dear Oswald speaks the necessity of these times in this way:

"The only way we can be of use to God is to let Him take us through the crooks and crannies of our own characters.  It i astounding how ignorant we are about ourselves . . . How many of us have learned to look in with courage?"

It is those very crooks and crannies in my needy heart that will take God all time and eternity to make me after His purposes.  I must see myself as I truly am, without God, in order to see how unworthy I am.  God must bring me to this place, because it is there that I am stripped of all pride and conceit.  He does this by "narrowing" me to the place where it is just Him and me--so private that nothing else exists for me--the place where my pride, conceit, intellect, worldly affections, and a dirty heart no longer exist.

"We listen to many things in classes, but they are noT an exposition to us yet.  They will be when God gets us alone over them."

PRAYER
Lord Jesus, how I have run from these close encounters with You, fearing what will come forth as well as struggling with surrender on Your anvil.  But I pray that this year, 2016, will be the year that our private meetings will increase, that the sin in my heart and the attitudes and actions that follow will be brought under Your authority.  I pray for transformation by the Spirit after You talk with me.  Open my ears to hear all that You would speak to me, but not only hear, but act upon them in alignment with Your purposes.  Mold me into a woman that looks like what You described in Luke 6:47 . . . "I will show what someone is like who comes to Me, hears My words, and acts on them."  

Picking Up My Cross

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC

January 11, 2016

"As they led Him away, they seized Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming in from the country, and laid the cross on him to carry behind Jesus."     (Luke 23:26)

In today's devotional, My Utmost For His Highest, Oswald Chambers speaks of the cost to others when I choose to obey God.  He makes several valid points by pointing the Simon who was called upon to carry the cross of Jesus as He obeyed the Father's will for Him.  

• "We are so involved in the universal purposes of God that immediately we obey God, others are affected."
• We must trust God to "look after those who have been pressed into the consequences of our obedience.
• We should be careful not "to dictate to God as to what [we] will allow to happen if [we] obey Him."

While I completely agree with the points made, and they made me think about a consequence of my obedience that had never occurred to me, I can't get away from what the Spirit has led me to concentrate on as I read this passage.  This verse pointed me to Simon, the carrier of Jesus' cross, and my need to do the same.  For this is the obedience I am being called to.  Jesus carried His cross, then Simon carried it.  Now I must carry it, not as my own, but as the cross of Jesus.  This is obedience.  This is surrender.  This is the calling of the rest of my journey on this earth.  It is not a one-time act, as it was for Simon. It is not a physical act as it was for Simon.  It is a daily, moment-to-moment, spiritual act that reveals that I belong to Jesus.  But my position should be exactly the same as Simon's:  behind Jesus.

In order to properly carry the cross of Jesus, I must have Him clearly in my sights.  He must be directly in front of me.  If He is not, then it would be impossible for me to be carrying HIS.  I could be carrying my own, in my own strength, but that is not what He is calling me to do.  

The cross references of this verse are Luke 9:23 and 14: 27, and they are Jesus' words:

• "If anyone want to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me."
• "Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple."

I cannot escape the importance of these three verses in my heart and life right now.  I can never be a disciple of Jesus if I am not willing to experience self-denial.  To take up my cross daily is to expect painful situations every day because of my allegiance to Christ.  I cannot "go with Jesus" unless I daily crucify my own flesh.  I cannot crucify my own flesh unless I am truly following after Jesus.  This will be painful!  It will be humiliating, for this is the nature of crucifixion.  But to do this is to obey Christ, and this obedience means I am His disciple.

I fail miserably every day with such obedience.  My attitudes are rotten, and action flows out of those attitude constantly.  I cannot think of the consequences my obedience will cause to affect others because I am not sure that I obey enough to make a difference in their lives.  But this I know:  I desire for that to be changed in me.  I desire to know what it means to deny my feelings, my wants, my desires.  I desire to make the connection that such self-denial is the very crucifixion of my heart that Jesus wants from me.  I will be His follower and disciple as I practice this spiritual discipline.

PRAYER
"Lord I come, I confess.  Bowing here, I find my rest.  And without You, I fall apart.  You're the One that guides my heart.  Lord I need You, Oh I need You.  Every hour I need You.  My one defense, my righteousness.  O God how I need You.  Where sin runs deep, Your grace is more.  Where grace is found is where You are.  And where You are, Lord, I am free. Holiness is Christ in me.  So teach my song to rise to You when temptations comes my way.  And when I cannon stand I'll fall on You.  Jesus, You're my hope and stay.  Lord I need You, Oh I need You.  Every hour I need You.  My one defense, my righteousness.  O God how I need You."

I need You, my Father!  I need You, my Savior!  I need You, my Holy Spirit!  I am failing You and don't want to any more.  Take me up out of the miry clay of sin and set my feet on the solid Rock.  I want to be used for Your glory!

Not Forsaking My Conversion

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC

January 10, 2016

"Now I send you to them to open their eyes so they may tun from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that by faith in Me they may receive forgiveness of sins and a share among those who are sanctified."   (Acts 26:18)

This verse teaches me the two things that must be accomplished in my life:

• I must receive the forgiveness that Christ's death on the cross accomplished for me 
• I must receive the sanctification that Christ's resurrection from death makes available to me

I have lived many years in the forgiveness of God.  It has been the first part of my spiritual journey, but it cannot be my entire journey.  There is the second part that is the sanctifying of my heart, soul, and body.  It is simply not God's design that I receive only forgiveness and grace, but that I also be conformed to the image of His Son Jesus.  Just as He was resurrected from the dead in the physical, I am to be resurrected from the dead in my spirit, to the point that I look more and more like Jesus with each passing day.  Salvation is not only in belief and forgiveness of sin; it is in conversion from the flesh "me" to the spiritual "me".    

All too often I am found studying the Word.  I delight in the fact that it is in the reading and studying of God's Word that my eyes are opened to what God desires of me.  But that should never be my goal without considering my need to surrender, repent, seek forgiveness, and be transformed by all that I read and process.  This is my sanctifying conversion, and it should never be forsaken for the sake of knowledge and understanding.  According to Oswald Chambers defines this sanctification, this inner transformation, this true conversion as this:

"In sanctification the regenerated soul deliberately gives up his right to himself to Jesus Christ, and identifies himself entirely with God's interest in other men."

All focus must be on others for God's sake, not on myself, for my sake!

PRAYER
Oh Father God, how miserably short I have come of Your mark!  My knowledge is great, but my application is lacking!  In desire for You to turn all knowledge into practical application.  I know I cannot do it alone.  I need the help of Your Helper, the Holy Spirit.  And I know that what You need from me is a surrender to this process, a humbling of my all for the sake of Yours.  My prayer for 2016 is that You will work in me in ways I have never experienced before.  Use Your Word, Your Spirit, daily prayer and anything else You desire to fulfill Your goals for me.  My belief is not enough; neither is adding knowledge.  I want to be found walking by Your Spirit in all I do, all I say, all I think, all I feel.  Help me, I pray.... I have forsaken my true conversion long enough.