I have the wonderful privilege of meeting with a group of men (Men of Risk) every Tuesday morning for coffee, breakfast (sometimes), prayer, fellowship, and Bible study. This morning I was sharing how in the last week or so it seemed the Lord was orchestrating some things in my life. When I got to work later, I looked up and read this little note a friend of mine gave me. He had found it on a box of cards he had bought the night before. It touched me when he first gave it to me and deeply touched me this morning.
"God goes before you today and His presence is with you. He has a lifefor you to live, a plan for you to follow, and a purpose for you tofulfill. He has allowed you to be here, at this time in history, to beHis watchman to this generation."
Roy Lessin, Co-founder Dayspring Cards
It also became very real to me about not only is He going before us and His presence is with us - He is in us. He has given us His life and from this He is orchestrating our lives for His glory. A new prayer I have been praying: Thank you, Lord, for infusing my obedience with your glory. As I respond to His life in me, His glory is fulfilled in my life. Amen.
Gal. 2:20. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (NIV)
What a wonderful paradox. I am dead, but yet I live.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
Obedience - Part 4 (Final)
In closing I must reiterate what I have said before, my writing on obedience is personal. Each one of us needs to review our lives and actions during it to see if we are being obedient to Him and His leading.
I was touched by what Jenny commented on for the last post. She wrote: “Also I'm touched that obedience was worked out in the Godhead first. The Son became obedient to the Father. This obedience is therefore divine - eternal, indestructible and incorruptible, yet we can partake of it.” I say, Amen.
As we come to the last post on obedience I would like to close with a quote from Murray which shows the way to obedience and by it we can become partakers of Jesus’ example.
He wrote, “The secret of true obedience, I believe, is a clear and close personal relationship to God. All our attempts to achieve full obedience will fail until we have access to His abiding fellowship. It is God’s holy presence, consciously abiding with us, that keeps us from disobeying Him. Imperfect obedience is the result of a life that is lacking. To defend our life by arguments and faulty motives will only make us feel the need of a more committed life, one that is entirely under the power of God, iin which place obedience becomes natural. A life of broken and spasmodic fellowship with God must be healed to make way for a full and healthy life of obedience. The secret of true obedience, then is the return to close and continual fellowship with God.” Page 34
And finally he writes, “Our Lord, who learned obedience by waiting every moment to see and hear the Father, has a great lesson to teach us: It is only when, like Him, with Him, in and through Him, we continually walk with God and hear His voice that we can possibly attempt to offer God the obedience He asks." Page 37
Andrew Murray – The Life of Obedience - From the chapter titled The Secret of True Obedience
Amen, my prayer from this sharing on obedience is for each of us to become so ‘in love’ with our Lord, that the only thing we want is to show this love by waiting on Him and obeying His leading.
I was touched by what Jenny commented on for the last post. She wrote: “Also I'm touched that obedience was worked out in the Godhead first. The Son became obedient to the Father. This obedience is therefore divine - eternal, indestructible and incorruptible, yet we can partake of it.” I say, Amen.
As we come to the last post on obedience I would like to close with a quote from Murray which shows the way to obedience and by it we can become partakers of Jesus’ example.
He wrote, “The secret of true obedience, I believe, is a clear and close personal relationship to God. All our attempts to achieve full obedience will fail until we have access to His abiding fellowship. It is God’s holy presence, consciously abiding with us, that keeps us from disobeying Him. Imperfect obedience is the result of a life that is lacking. To defend our life by arguments and faulty motives will only make us feel the need of a more committed life, one that is entirely under the power of God, iin which place obedience becomes natural. A life of broken and spasmodic fellowship with God must be healed to make way for a full and healthy life of obedience. The secret of true obedience, then is the return to close and continual fellowship with God.” Page 34
And finally he writes, “Our Lord, who learned obedience by waiting every moment to see and hear the Father, has a great lesson to teach us: It is only when, like Him, with Him, in and through Him, we continually walk with God and hear His voice that we can possibly attempt to offer God the obedience He asks." Page 37
Andrew Murray – The Life of Obedience - From the chapter titled The Secret of True Obedience
Amen, my prayer from this sharing on obedience is for each of us to become so ‘in love’ with our Lord, that the only thing we want is to show this love by waiting on Him and obeying His leading.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Obedience - Part 3
The idea of obedience to the will of the Lord or leading of the Holy Spirit (which in my estimation is one in the same, but not always received the same) is not one for using to measure other Christians. However, I believe it is a measurement we should each use individually to understand our own love of the Lord. I believe it is an indicator of how much we are maturing in our faith. If we are becoming obedient in aspects of our lives as Jesus was obedient then we are growing.
As Murray points out, in the book we are discussing, in chapter 2, The Obedience of Christ, the scripture Romans 5:19 is one to study and learn about Christ’s obedience. It says, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”
He goes on to state in the same chapter, “The object of Christ’s life of obedience was threefold:
- as our example, to show us what true obedience was;
- as our surety, by His obedience to fulfill all righteousness for us;
- as our head, to prepare a new and obedient nature to impart to us.
And so He died to show us that full obedience is a readiness to obey to the uttermost, even to die for God.” Page 25
Later he writes, “To know what obedience is, consider how the obedience of Christ is the secret of our righteousness and our salvation. Obedience is the very essence of that righteousness. Obedience results in our salvation. His obedience, first of all to be accepted, trusted, and rejoiced in, as covering and making an end of my disobedience, is the one unchanging, never-to-be-forsaken ground of my acceptance. . . . Christ’s obedience becomes the life-power of my new nature.” Page 26
As Murray points out, in the book we are discussing, in chapter 2, The Obedience of Christ, the scripture Romans 5:19 is one to study and learn about Christ’s obedience. It says, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”
He goes on to state in the same chapter, “The object of Christ’s life of obedience was threefold:
- as our example, to show us what true obedience was;
- as our surety, by His obedience to fulfill all righteousness for us;
- as our head, to prepare a new and obedient nature to impart to us.
And so He died to show us that full obedience is a readiness to obey to the uttermost, even to die for God.” Page 25
Later he writes, “To know what obedience is, consider how the obedience of Christ is the secret of our righteousness and our salvation. Obedience is the very essence of that righteousness. Obedience results in our salvation. His obedience, first of all to be accepted, trusted, and rejoiced in, as covering and making an end of my disobedience, is the one unchanging, never-to-be-forsaken ground of my acceptance. . . . Christ’s obedience becomes the life-power of my new nature.” Page 26
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