Jesus Adjective Exercise (continued)

I hope the first part of the exercise blessed you as much as it has me, especially as I have listened to friends and family share their three adjectives and why they picked them. Each time was a glorious sharing of Jesus' love and sufficiency in so many lives. If you feel so led, please comment and share your three. I will share mine in a later post.
I was going to take three posts to share the exercise, but I decided to do it in two so there here is the remaining parts.

Read the continuation of the paragraph from the last post. It is a question and answer. Meditate on what the Lord has provided to you through His life and His Spirit in you.

". . . this Christ has chosen to place all of His fullness where?
Inside of you! To [you] God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."

Do you believe the fullness of Christ through the Holy Spirit is in you? If so, how does it work itself out in how you love Christ and all He has done for and in you?

When you have meditated on the question and answer, read the partial devotional below and meditate on the bolded sentences.
My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers - A Life of Pure and Holy Sacrifice
Sep 02 2010
He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow . . . —John 7:38
Jesus did not say, “He who believes in Me will realize all the blessings of the fullness of God,” but, in essence, “He who believes in Me will have everything he receives escape out of him.” Our Lord’s teaching was always anti-self-realization. His purpose is not the development of a person— His purpose is to make a person exactly like Himself, and the Son of God is characterized by self-expenditure. If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain but what He pours through us that really counts. God’s purpose is not simply to make us beautiful, plump grapes, but to make us grapes so that He may squeeze the sweetness out of us. Our spiritual life cannot be measured by success as the world measures it, but only by what God pours through us— and we cannot measure that at all.
Suggestion: Get a copy of My Utmost for His Highest and read the rest of this devotional.
Mike’s comment –
So, Jesus Christ is all the adjectives above and has given them to us through His life in us. It is not for us, but so His life which is like living water can be ‘poured’ out, ‘poured’ over and flow into other people. Amen!

mike

Jesus’ Adjectives Exercise

Read the partial paragraph below from a great book on Jesus Christ. When you are done, please work the exercise shown below.

Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ
by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola
Kindle Edition - Location 768 - 804
“. . . the One who is supreme in every realm and holds the first place in all things – the Son the Father loves; the One whose significance is unmatched in human history; the One who holds the title deed to the universe . . . this
glorious,
limitless,
amazing,
incredible,
expansive,
incomparable,
marvelous,
stunning,
staggering,
majestic,
mighty,
matchless,
spectacular,
outstanding,
tremendous,
immense,
infinite,
vast,
grand,
triumphant,
victorious,
precious,
radiant,
peerless,
wonderful,
magnificent,
Christ . . .

Contemplate the adjectives for Jesus and pick out three (3) which made an impression on you. Highlight them in your mind, consider why these impressed you and how Jesus fulfills these in your life. If I was a betting man (and I am not) I would bet if you shared it would be a glorious word of your love for Him and what He has done in your life.

We will continue with the part two of the exercise in the next posting.
mike

Thanksgiving

I know, I know, here comes the question,
Where has Mike been and why has he not put something on his blog.
No lame excuses, but the Lord moved me this morning and I wanted everyone to read this and ask themselves a few questions.

http://blog.faithteam.org/faithnotes.php/2009/11/23/should-we-keep-thanksgiving

1) Am I the one who continues to come back to the Lord with thanksgiving as we let the world takes us away from Him?
2) or will I be one who 'walks with Him and talks with Him' as we go and not let the world take us away?
3) Am I going to make this Thanksgiving one which I and others can recall in the next year and say, it was a glorious day because we allowed Jesus Christ to be the main focus of our thanksgiving.
Amen.

Glorify God (Part 3)

We waste our lives when we do not pray and think and dream and plan and work toward magnifying God in all spheres of life. God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that he really is. In the night sky of this world God appears to most people, if at all, like a pinprick of light in a heaven of darkness. But he created us and called up to make him look like he really is. This is what it means to be created in the image of God. We are meant to image forth in the world what he is really like.
End of Quote

Lord, may we live our lifes to magnify You in everything we do. In how (and what) we eat and drink whether it be physical or spiritual. In how we love our family, friends and even our enemies. In how we work each day at home or in our vocation. In how we spend time alone with You and 'be still' before You.
May we look at the stars in the sky and let them be a reminder of the opportunity to magnify You as the Hubble Space Telescope magnifies the heavens.
You are majestic and worthy of all our praise. Amen.

Glorify God (Part 2)

What does it mean to glorify God? It may get a dangerous twist if we are not careful. Glorify is like the word beautify. But beautify usually means “make something more beautiful than it is,” improve its beauty. That is emphatically not what we mean by glorify in relation to God. God cannot be made more glorious or more beautiful than he is. He cannot be improved, “nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything” (Acts 17:25). Glorify does not mean add more glory to God.
It is more like the word magnify. But here too we can go wrong. Magnify has two distinct meanings. In relation to God, one is worship and one is wickedness. You can magnify like a telescope or like a microscope. When you magnify like a microscope, you make something tiny look bigger than it is. A dust mite can look like a monster. Pretending to magnify like that is wickedness. But when you magnify like a telescope, you make something unimaginably great look like it really is. With the Hubble Space Telescope, pinprick galaxies in the sky are revealed for the billion-star giants they are. Magnifying God like that is worship.

Final part tomorrow, Grace and Peace

Glorify God

I have started reading and studying the book by John Piper titled, Don’t Waste Your Life.
These words jumped out at me as I was reading it. I do not want to waste my life (one year, one month, one week, one day, one hour, one minute or one second) and want to live it to glorify my Lord and Savior.
Chapter 2 - Breakthrough – The Beauty of Christ, My Joy p. 31

The Crystal-Clear Reason for Living
The Bible is crystal-clear: God created us for his glory. Thus says the Lord, “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory” (Isaiah 43:6-7). Life is wasted when we do not live for the glory of God. And I mean all of life. It is all for his glory. That is why the Bible gets down into the details of eating and drinking. “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31) We waste our lives when we do not weave God into our eating and drinking and every other part by enjoying and displaying him.

More on this will follow.
Grace and Peace

One by Phil Stacey

On August 29th, Carol and I had the pleasure of attending a CD release party for Phil Stacey’s album (old school wording) Into the Light. It was a wonderful evening and this album has become my favorite listen. It is full of great tunes with uplifting lyrics, but the song which has become the anthem of my life in Christ is ‘One.’
What is the one blessing, one prayer, one hug, one phone call, one e-mail, one $, the Lord wants me to give today, this hour, this minute?

You can hear it on youtube at this link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skjPLRNnLPo

One by Phil Stacey/Cindy Morgan/Jeremy Bose

One simple man
One simple plan
Not a blaze, just a spark
No certainties
No guarantees
Just taking steps in the dark
Not for fame or the glory
For the words that add up to the story

One drop in the ocean
One prayer from your heart
One mercy
One struggle
One cup of cold water
One dollar
One promise
Even though it seems small
Sometimes one is the biggest thing of all

Too many words
Too many hurts
‘Til you can’t hear your heart
Too many ways to make mistakes
That you don’t even start
But you can’t change the world
With your one chance to live
Until one day you wake up
Knowing all you must give is
One word
One life
One truth that will shine like the sun
Shine a light on your path
‘Cause the road leads back to . . .

One drop in the ocean
One prayer from your heart
One mercy
One struggle
One cup of cold water
One dollar
One promise
Even though it seems small
Sometimes one is the biggest thing of all
Written by Phil Stacey/Cindy Morgan/Jeremy Bose