Springs in the Valley - Devotional January 15

" And he said unto me, It is done"
Revelation 21:6

How many persons are everlastingly doing, but how few ever get through with it! How few settle a thing and know that it is accomplished and can say "it is done"!

The moment we really believe we are conscious that there is power. We can touch God at such times, and the fire in our souls makes us sure that soemthing is settled forever.

Faith must be a clear -cut taking hold of God; a grasping Him with fingers of iron, with an uncompromising commitment of all to God. In learning to float you must utterly abandon yourself to the water; you must believe that the water is able to hold you up: so you must take this steps of commitment, and then look up to God with confidence and say "it is done." Our part is to commit; God's part is to work. The very moment that we commit, that  very moment He undertakes. We must believe that He has undertaken what we have commited. Faith must re-echo God's promise and dare to say "it is done."

The thing is as good as done, since He has taken it in hand. 

Step out upon a bare promise right now, and "count the things that be not as though they were," and God will make your reckoning real. It will be done by actual experience.
-----Days of Heaven upon Earth.

My olf professor, Lord Kelvin, once said in class a very striking thing. He said that there came a point in all his great discoveries when he had to take a leap into the dark.  And nobody who is afraid of such a leap from the solid ground of what is demonstrated, will know the exhilaration of believing!

To commit ourselves unresevedly to Christ is just the biggest venture in the world!  The wonderful thing is that wehn, with a certain dring, we take Lord Kelvin's  "leap into the dark" we discover it is not dark at all, but life abundant, and liberty and peace.    ----George H. Morrison, D. D

Believe that it is settled becasue God says so!

"God said, and it happened." (Genesis 1:2-7, Finnish trans.)

MY TWO CENTS

I was told by an elder in 2006 that the whole gospel and everything all the apostles are teaching us can be summed up in "live by faith and do not go beyond the moment and if I can do that, then my life would be a prayer to God."

All I cared about that day was the depth of what was said to me. I knew such a life could only be pleasing to Him and I could trust Him with the rest. I went home and committed myself to learn to live moment by moment. I gave it to God as the desire of my heart and trusted Him to make it real in my life. I sort of let go when I found out, even a life of practicing His presence does not help me live every moment for Him the way I wanted to. What I mean by that, even when you practice God’s presence daily and all the time, there are moments during the days that are yours and the flesh flairs up easily.

Here we are in 2016, although, the past few weeks, He has been giving me hints here and there about this need to live moment by moment, but, two days ago, I was interrupted by the Spirit of God while reading the Bible and He confirmed to me that this year is the year that we are going to learn to apply this promise. It was a great moment that makes me feel the need to live with anticipation because He showed me how much living moment by moment with God is a life where there is no such thing as trivial matters to God and He showed me the most trivial thing that I can think of or say with my mouth, matters a great deal to Him.  

Right then and there, I experienced another side of the meaning of God’s word when He says "apart from me you can do nothing."  The anticipation in my heart came from the fact that through this tidbit of revelation, He showed me that He is the one who has to live every moment in me in order to make it a reality in me and in my life. I could also see that the past ten years, He has been laying the foundation of my claim. So, when we claim something from God, we must continue the path as guided by the Spirit, and trust that God is never late and what we entrust in His hands is safe. 

My point here is that, real commitment to the indwelling Christ in us is much harder than we think. In fact, true commitment to Him makes you feel like you have worked so hard for your salvation that you are tempted to believe just that.  But, in reality, all we are doing is committing to Him.  How do I know that? He showed me.

There was a time in the wilderness I was so sure I have worked like crazy to reach where I was with Him.  The Holy Spirit was upset at me for the first time. Then, He told me that I was appropriating what belongs to God.  He then showed me all the time that I felt as if I have been working so hard for my salvation, so much so that I felt truly tired, the spirit said to me "all those years, all you have been doing is committing yourself to me, to the work being done in you and agreeing with me."

When He showed it to me, I could see the effort it takes to agree with God, remain down on your knees and under His mighty hands while He is doing His work in you. IT TAKES EVERYTHING WE GET!

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, don't be content with an easy Christianity while you go glibly through life thinking you actually get it. Be careful of those who keep telling you that you are okay when inside of you, you know something is wrong. Misery loves company.  Those who are working hard at telling you to go forward, have nothing to gain, except your contempt for no allowing you to feel comfortable with your choices. 

Isaiah 55:8 "My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the LORD. "And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine."



2 Timothy 1:12  "..... I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return."

LISTEN TO PAUL WASHER'S WIFE TESTIMONY

The Desires Of The Flesh

I found such a great description from John cassian from the 4th century. It reminds me so much of my own struggle mostly at the beginning of my walk. I said the beginning of my walk because as time goes by and we learn to put to death the deeds of the flesh, we learn to practice “put off & put on” the struggle truly subsides. It feels as if you reach a place where your soul knows your spirit has taken charge of things now, so, it can rest because you have made the decision to give the throne that was occupied by the self for so long, to Him our only Master.

While it takes a tremendous work and commitment to put off the deed of the flesh but we do it through learning to stand on God’s Word by faith. If we learn to do it just because we have a “to do list” kind of attitude in our mind, well, it’s going to make a major difference whether we overcome or not. It is the difference between the victorious life and a life in bondage.  

Here you go:

What the Apostle means by flesh in this passage, and what the lust of the flesh is.

Wherefore in this passage we ought to take “flesh” as meaning not man, i.e., his material substance, but the carnal will and evil desires, just as “spirit” does not mean anything material, but the good and spiritual desires of the soul: a meaning which the blessed Apostle has clearly given just before, where he begins: “But I say, walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the desires of the flesh; for the flesh lust against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh: but these are contrary the one to the other, that ye may not do what ye would.”

And since these two the desires of the flesh and of the spirit co-exist in one and the same man, there arises an internal warfare daily carried on within us, while the lust of the flesh which rushes blindly towards sin, revels in those delights which are connected with present ease. And on the other hand the desire of the spirit is opposed to these, and wishes to be entirely absorbed in spiritual efforts, so that it actually wants to be rid of even the necessary uses of the flesh, longing to be so constantly taken up with these things as to desire to have no share of anxiety about the weakness of the flesh.

The flesh delights in wantonness and lust: the spirit does not even tolerate natural desires. The one wants to have plenty of sleep, and to be satiated with food: the other is nourished with vigils and fasting, so as to be unwilling even to admit of sleep and food for the needful purposes of life. The one longs to be enriched with plenty of everything, the other is satisfied even without the possession of a daily supply of scanty food. The one seeks to look sleek by means of baths, and to be surrounded every day by crowds of flatterers, the other delights in dirt and filth, and the solitude of the inaccessible desert, and dreads the approach of all mortal men. The one lives on the esteem and applause of men, the other glories in injuries offered to it, and in persecutions.