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