Should I try again?

 Should I try again to keep updating my blog?

A quote I heard today:  Even if we do not take time to write in our journal, we need to allow time for Him to write something on our hearts.  Amen and Amen.

The Starfish and the Spirit Book

 I love this new book I've been reading which is being released at the end of the month. Some of the insights in The Starfish and The Spirit have the potential unleash kingdom movements. I highly recommend you check it out.

The Starfish and the Spirit

THESTARFISHANDTHESPIRIT.COM

The Body of Christ, Watchman Nee

Watchman Nee, Twelve Baskets Full, Vol. 3, The Body of Christ

 

". . . personal holiness . . .  is really precious. Victory in living is really precious. Salvation is really precious. . . . Praise the Lord for forgiveness of sins, for justification before Him, for deliverance from the power of sin. But remember that God did not set Himself to save us to give us spiritual experiences like deliverance and victory in life, personal holiness, and so on, just so we could be hundreds and thousands and myriads of individual Christians, all separate units dotted over this earth for God. . . .

The Lord opens your eyes to see that salvation is in terms of the Body. Having personal holiness is in terms of the Body, having the power of the Spirit is in terms of the Body, having an experience of the Cross is in terms of the Body. You see that the Divine thought is one Man - not a host of small men. It is one Man: the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and His people making up one Man before God. The whole thought of God is centered in Christ, and we are in Him. If it not only a question of the Head, but of the Body. . . .

You begin as an individual, but you must end as a member of the Body."

Sitting at Sam's getting a new tire.  Read this and wanted to share.  My prayer is that we allow His greatness to permeate us and overflow to others.  Grace and Peace.
Link to the Post below.

True Greatness

True greatness is not a what but a how. It’s how you understand what it means to follow your Lord, how you see yourself and your fellow human beings, how and who you serve in the days after November 8. It’s about becoming, serving, giving, sacrificing. It’s about loving people and standing up for the weak, regardless of whether that platform was voted for or not. It’s about offering those around you an alternative source of hope – one that is not dependent on earthly wins or losses but is sustained by our Creator and made accessible to all.

http://www.missioalliance.org/its-time-to-be-great-again/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reclaimingthemission%2Fgo+%28Reclaiming+the+Mission%29

Are You Normal?

In His book, The Indwelling Life Of Christ, Major Ian Thomas has a chapter entitled, Are You Normal.  Does this sound familiar in relation to the name of the blog?

Eph. 4:23-24 - Be renewed in the spirit of your mind and . . .  put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

"God Himself, as our Creator, always intended that He should indwell us; His cherished ambition was to be seen and heard in those He created. That is normality for a human being, when God Himself is behaving in and through a man or woman. This is the purpose for which He created us, that we might be a physical, visible expression on this earth of the God who is otherwise invisible, as John tells us: "No one has seen God at any time" (John 1:18).

. . . He must be within us the origin of His own image, the source of His own activity, the dynamic of His own demands, and the cause of His own effect.

Therefore if any human being is truly normal in his or her behavior, there is only One Person to be congratulated, and that is God Himself.  Normality for a human being is when God can be seen by anything and everything which that person does and says and is."  Pages 17-18

May we all strive to be normal humans and let Him permeate us moment by moment.

Grace and Peace

Let Him Permeate Your Now

My prayer for all my brothers and sisters in Christ is for Him to permeate your now.  May you allow Him to be your focus moment by moment.

May you allow Him to permeate your now so you can live Christ in this moment and then He can live His life through you.

Grace and Peace

Daily exhorting / Turn to Jesus

Quote from a young man who connects with me daily.

. . . the daily checking in really does keep me centered.
. . . moving toward Jesus and not simply away from what I do not want to be.  I find grace more quickly and get my eyes back on Jesus faster.

Two thoughts -
1)  In Hebrews, it shows the daily speaking together of the Lord is of value.
Hebrews 3:13-14, But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
2)  It is more important for us to move or turn to Jesus instead of just turning away from what gives us problems or causes us to sin.
I say, "Amen." 

Do All Things Happen . . .

Repost from Tangence on 'Do All Things Happen for a Reason?' ( link below)
I have not read a more clear understand of a tough subject than what the blogger has shared.  This portion especially on defining the "middle way."

"One “middle way” in this circumstance is to recognize that while God does not cause every thing that happens, and some things happen for no clear reason, God remains connected to us in the experience in such a way that he will redeem it. Rather than orchestrating every moment of our life, programming us like computer code, he is allowing our experiences, our stories to unfold, and through his omnicompetence he redeems every sadness, every injury, every loss no matter how great or devastating.

Does everything happen for a reason? No. Everything does not happen for a divine reason. Yet everything that does happen remains a thread of grace that God weaves in the fabric of a life of grace and redemption."

https://tangence.wordpress.com/2016/08/29/do-all-things-happen-for-a-reason/

Grace and Peace,
mike

Is Jesus Enough? Chip Brogden

Great Question we need to keep in front of us.

Is Jesus Enough? by Chip Brogden

“After they had eaten, Jesus asked Simon Peter,

‘Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me

more than these other things?'”

John 21:15

If Jesus was all you had, would Jesus be enough for you?

Many precious believers are in love with the things of the Lord, but they are not in love with the Lord Himself. Many Christian workers and ministers are in love with the Lord’s work. Almost without realizing it, the work of the Lord becomes more important than the Lord of the work.

There are prophets and teachers who hold words from God in higher esteem than the God Who speaks the words they attribute as being from Him. People seek these words and teachings. The more they receive, the more they want. Before one word is digested they are craving another. They are seeking “things” – words, prophecies, teachings, visions, dreams – but they are not seeking the Lord Himself.

Is Jesus enough?

Read the complete blog post from Chip Brogden here

http://www.chipbrogden.com/is-jesus-enough/

A Full Meal

A Full Meal

And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over. Ruth 2:14

Whenever we are privileged to eat the bread that Jesus gives, we are, like Ruth, satisfied with a full and sweet provision. When Jesus is the host, no guest goes empty from the table. Our head is satisfied with the precious truth that Christ reveals; our heart is content with Jesus as the altogether lovely object of affection; our hope is satisfied, for who do we have in heaven but Jesus? And our desire is fulfilled, for what more can we wish for than to "gain Christ and be found in him"?¹ Jesus fills our conscience until it is at perfect peace, our judgment with persuasion of the certainty of His teachings, our memory with recollections of what He has done, and our imagination with the prospects of what He is still to do.

Later in the devotional he writes:

Yes, there are graces to which we have not attained, places of fellowship nearer to Christ that we have not reached, and heights of communion that our feet have not climbed. At every banquet of love there are many baskets left.

From Truth for Life, a Bible-teaching ministry of Alistair Begg

https://www.truthforlife.org/resources/daily-devotionals/03/19/2016/

My prayer - May we allow this truth to permeate us today: Only the Lord can satisfy us and may we continue to search the depths, heights, widths and lengths of our Lord's graces and resources.

Step to Yes - Brother Andrew

Reading a book I have seen for years as a bookaholic, but never picked up to read. It has captured me and has provided me some thoughts and quotes.

God's Smuggler by Brother Andrew w/John & Elizabeth Sherrill
Quote from Brother Andrew as he was “praying through” to find the answer if he was to serve his Lord by becoming a missionary.
He wrote, “What is it, Lord?” What am I holding back? What am I using as an excuse for not serving You in whatever You want me to do?”
     And then, there by the canal, I finally had my answer. My “yes” to God had always been a “yes, but,” Yes, but I'm not educated. Yes, but I'm lame.
     With the next breath, I did say “Yes.” I said it in a brand-new way, without qualification. “I'll go, Lord,” I said, “no matter whether it's through the route of ordination, or through the WEC program, or through working on at Ringers'. Whenever, wherever, however You want me, I'll go. And I'll begin this very minute. Lord, as I stand up from this place, and as I take my first step forward, will You consider that this is a step toward complete obedience to You? I'll call it the Step of Yes.” Page 57

I have not finished the book so I do not know yet if this was a one time happening for Brother Andrew, but the idea of Step to Yes, I believe, is in line with the phrase I shared at the end of the last post. LET HIM PERMEATE YOUR NOW. I believe as we let Him permeate our now, we will move into a Step of Yes and will be obedient to His leading. 

My prayer is that we may live this moment by moment in our lives.

Grace and Peace

The Normal Christian Life, Watchman Nee, Part 2

I have not heard a more clear understanding of the last Adam and second Man as presented by Nee.  Enjoy!

As the last Adam, Christ is the sum total of humanity; as the second Man He is the

Head of a new race. So we have here two unions, the one relating to His death and the
other to His resurrection. In the first place His union with the race as "the last Adam"
began historically at Bethlehem and ended at the cross and the tomb. In it He gathered up
into Himself all that was in Adam and took it to judgment and death. In the second place
our union with Him as "the second man" begins in resurrection and ends in eternity --
which is to say, it never ends -- for, having in His death done away with the first man in
whom God's purpose was frustrated, He rose again as Head of a new race of men, in
whom that purpose shall be fully realized.

When therefore the Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross, He was crucified as the last

Adam. All that was in the first Adam was gathered up and done away in Him. We were
included there. As the last Adam He wiped out the old race; as the second Man He brings
in the new race. It is in His resurrection that He stands forth as the second Man, and there
too we are included. "For if we have become united with him by the likeness of his death,
we shall be also by the likeness of his resurrection" (Romans 6:5). We died in Him as the
last Adam; we live in Him as the second Man. The Cross is thus the power of God which
translates us from Adam to Christ. 

Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life, p. 32.

The Normal Christian Life, Watchman Nee

I made a commitment this weekend to start writing on the blog again.  I have been reading, The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee again with a friend so what better way to start the blog up again where the name of the blog came into existence.

"What is the normal Christian life? We do well at the outset to ponder this question.

The Apostle Paul gives us his own definition of the Christian life in Galations 2:20. It is "no longer I, but Christ". Here he is not stating something special or peculiar -- a high level of Christianity. He is, we believe, presenting God's normal for a Christian, which can be summarized in the words: I live no longer, but Christ lives His life in me.

God makes it quite clear in His Word that He has only one answer to every human need -- His Son, Jesus Christ. In all His dealings with us He works by taking us out of the way and substituting Christ in our place. The Son of God died instead of us for our forgiveness: He lives instead of us for our deliverance. So we can speak of two substitutions -- a Substitute on the Cross who secures our forgiveness and a Substitute within who secures our victory. It will help us greatly, and save us from much confusion, if we keep constantly before us this fact, that God will answer all our questions in one way only, namely, by showing us more of His Son."   Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life, page 9.

I will continue to provide quotes from each chapter as we work through the book.  

PS - New saying the Lord has given me since last I wrote and it is:                                         LET HIM PERMEATE YOUR NOW. 

Grace and Peace

 

Diet Centered on Jesus - Jeff Clarke

On his blog about the church being in the entertainment business, Jeff Clarke (see jeffkclarke.com) makes a few statements we all need to keep in front of us as we are being the Church, including us who have moved to less traditional gatherings.

He writes:

Cultivating a Diet and Culture Centered on Jesus

   Jesus makes faith real and alive. He moves faith beyond the abstract into the realness of flesh and blood. Jesus makes the invisible God human and approachable. Jesus makes the picture of a distant God into a God who is near. Jesus makes God human – someone who can identify with all of our insecurities, pain and loss. God is no longer distant, but close. God is no longer ‘out there’ but ‘right here.’ In Jesus, God became one of us.
   We as the church will always lose our way when anything other than Jesus captures our attention. If anything usurps the central, defining place of Jesus, everything will slowly begin to unravel, sometimes without us even realizing it.
   In a recent interview, Leonard Sweet said it this way, “There is only one singularity that matters and if this singularity is in place everything else coheres. And, that singularity is Christ. In everyone’s life, in the life of the church, when Christ is made the single, supreme focus – when the person of Jesus himself becomes that supreme, singular focus, than everything comes together.”
   What we need in order to maintain a healthy body, individually and collectively, is to feast on a steady diet of Jesus – his body in the bread and his blood in the wine.
   When the sacraments of Jesus, served within community, by community and for community, in the form of prayer, scripture reading, communion, and baptism, become the food that feeds the church, then and only then will “we grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).
   In communion, followers of Jesus partake and share with one another the body and blood of Jesus. They are formed by the sacrament of prayer, baptized into his death – raised in newness of life, and delight in eating the bread of scripture, while serving one other in an attitude of humility.

You can find the full post at:

http://www.jeffkclarke.com/entertainment-fatigue-why-people-are-growing-tired-of-the-churchs-glitzy-stage/

Questions on Unity

I owe the dear “reader of my blog” a wrap up post on what the Lord taught me during my journey as shared in the last four (4) posts. But, I have this burden to share below and then will provide the promised post.

The Lord has been putting the need for unity of believers on my heart lately and I ran into a good definition of the Church while I was reading a blog from a new friend (see PS below).

He wrote: “. . . a community of saints who gather on the ground of fellowship in Christ among all the disciples of Jesus in their locality.” I agree with this and will be sharing on this, but today I want to propose a couple of questions.

In my locality how do we move from “going” to church in division to “being” the church in unity?

How does this work itself out practically?

PS – I have not made it a practice of plugging other blogs here, but I would like to recommend one which I have found to be enlightening. The author, Josh Lawson, wrote a post where he presented, much better than I ever could, the unity of the Body. I will be using portions of it as I present my thoughts on the unity,

It is:     http://www.insearchofthecity.com/

Grace and Peace

4th part of the Journey - "All things . . ."

From the writings of Chip Brogden, http://theschoolofchrist.org/articles/one-thing-is-needed.html

“And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow,   He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:27-29).”

Because Christ knows the Mind of the Spirit and He is making intercession for us according to the Will of God, “we know that all things are working together… according to His purpose.” And to leave no doubt as to the purpose, we are told that the purpose is “to be conformed to the image of His Son.” Christ as All in All.
 

We frequently quote these verses and interpret them to mean that no matter what happens, good or bad, God is going to make it all work out for our good, and it will all turn out right in the end. That is not what Paul is saying at all. What he is telling us is that all things are moving in relation to God’s purpose of summing up everything into Christ. God’s End is Christ as All in All. Everything in heaven and on earth is moving in relation to this.
 

So in Romans we are told that God is “working all things together… according to His Purpose” and in Ephesians we are told that God is “working all things after the counsel of His own will.” The key phrase here is “all things”. How do we judge if a thing is of God or not? We need only determine its relationship to the one thing. Either it is in harmony with the one thing or it is one of the “many things” which may be good, spiritual, or moral, but does nothing to move us towards God’s eternal purpose.
 

From http://theschoolofchrist.org/ and the writings of Chip Brogden, http://theschoolofchrist.org/articles/one-thing-is-needed.html

3rd Part of the Journey - Holiness (cont.)

From John Stott’s Message of Romans page 222

The moral law has not been abolished for us; it is to be fulfilled in us. Although law-obedience is not the ground of our justification (it is in this sense that we are ‘not under law but under grace’), it is the fruit of it and the very meaning of sanctification. Holiness is Christlikeness, and Christlikeness is fulfilling the righteousness of the law. . . .  holiness is the work of the Holy Spirit. Romans 7 insists that we cannot keep the law because of our indwelling ‘flesh’; Romans 8:4 insists that we can and must because of the indwelling Spirit.

     . . . Our freedom from the law (proclaimed for instance in 7:4, 6 and 8:2) is not freedom to disobey it. On the contrary the law-obedience of the people of God is so important to God that he sent his Son to die for us and his Spirit to live in us, in order to secure it. Holiness is the fruit of trinitarian grace, of the Father sending his Son into the world and his Spirit into our hearts.

2nd Part of the Journey - Process

Second part of the journey came when I read July 28th of My Utmost for His Highest – Chambers:

“He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side . . . —Mark 6:45

We tend to think that if Jesus Christ compels us to do something and we are obedient to Him, He will lead us to great success. We should never have the thought that our dreams of success are God’s purpose for us. In fact, His purpose may be exactly the opposite. . . . What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself.

What is my vision of God’s purpose for me? Whatever it may be, His purpose is for me to depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay calm, faithful, and unconfused while in the middle of the turmoil of life, the goal of the purpose of God is being accomplished in me. God is not working toward a particular finish— His purpose is the process itself. . . . It is the process, not the outcome, that is glorifying to God.

God’s training is for now, not later. His purpose is for this very minute, not for sometime in the future. We have nothing to do with what will follow our obedience . . . . What people call preparation, God sees as the goal itself.

. . . if we realize that moment-by-moment obedience is the goal, then each moment as it comes is precious.”

In the last post of this journey, I will provide what I believe the Holy Spirit revealed to me, so stay tuned.
Some words to consider: Holiness, Impartation, Obedience, Process, Now

Grace and Peace

1st Part of the Journey - Holiness

This week in my study of the Word and reading, I was taken on a journey which I will be sharing over the next few posts. It is interesting when I pick up and read different devotionals and weekly writings such as My Utmost For His Highest (MUfHH) by Oswald Chambers (http://utmost.org/) or by T. Austin Sparks (http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/openwindows/003303.html) sometimes I will read a couple of days and not be “moved” and other times the words leap off the page at me. I was impacted this week by a few writings.

First part of the journey:

I was reading MufHH from July 23^rd (I was doing some catch up on ones I had not read) and his writing on Sanctification moved me.

His referrence was - But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us . . . sanctification . . .—1 Corinthians 1:30

“The mystery of sanctification – perfect qualities of Jesus Christ are imparted as a gift to me, . . . instantly . . . nothing less than the holiness of Jesus becoming mine and being exhibited in my life.

- Sanctification is “Christ in you” Col. 1:27

- Sanctification means the impartation of the holy qualities of Jesus Christ to me. It is the gift of His patience, love, holiness, faith, purity, and godliness that is exhibited in and through every sanctified soul.

- Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy— it is drawing from Jesus the very holiness that was exhibited in Him, and that He now exhibits in me.

- Sanctification is an impartation not and imitation"

Let this be included in our thoughts this week as we live our life in the now. How can we let His holiness permeate our every NOW?

The Hope of the Glory of God, NT Wright

As I was studying through Romans, I read a commentary by N.T. Wright on Romans 5:1-2. I became excited about the 'hope of the glory of God' and all He has provided us through His Son and the giving of the Holy Spirit. Read and celebrate Him as I did. Amen.

 

Romans 5:1-2 (NIV), Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of glory of God. 

N.T. Wright writes on Romans 5:2,

“ . . . celebrate our access into the very presence of God himself. We have 'the right to approach': this is the language of the Temple, where certain people get to come near to where God is. 'Grace' here is almost a shorthand for the presence and power of God himself. As a result of being justified by faith, we are, in the old phrase, 'in a state of grace', a status, a position where we are surrounded by God's love and generosity, invited to breathe it in as our native air. As we do so, we realize that this is what we were made for; that this is what truly human existence ought to be like; and that it is the beginning of something so big, so massive, so unimaginably beautiful and powerful, that we almost burst as we think of it. When we stand there in God's own presence, not trembling but deeply grateful, and begin to inhale his goodness, his wisdom, his power and his joy, we sense that we are being invited to go all the way, to become the true reflections-of-God, the true image-bearers, that we were made to be. Paul puts it like this: 'we celebrate the hope of the glory of God'.”

N.T. Wright, Paul for Everyone, Romans: Part One p. 83