Yesterday there were a few emails between a kindred sister in Christ that I met on LinkedIN website a few months ago. Through our emails we shared how our lives both suck yet God does not light up at all. We are both surrendered to Him, we both have been through very hard times with Him and we both have intimacy with Him. Yet, through our emails we were amazed to see how God keeps testing us for the same reasons.  So we encouraged each other and I went to bed. To my surprise I read Oswald Chambers devotional today and it is exactly what we talked about in our emails. I give you my word that I did not read the devotional yesterday nor I knew what the subject was about. It is just one more way God uses to strengthen those who are committed to Him (2 Chronicles 16:9)

I already shared in different posts how my life with God seems to suck. Even though I am out of the wilderness, God does not seem to be in a hurry to do anything that I have come to expect from all the testimonies I read and heard from friends after they left their wilderness time behind. It got so bad that for a few minutes a doubted that I was in His will for my life. To me, it was either that or God had chosen to pick on me. At one point I was pleading my case with Him to share with me what was going on because if indeed I was out of His will for my life I needed to correct the situation. But He never answered me, yet He seems to come at me at all angles. In fact, I did not label what was happening to me “spiritual warfare” nor that I saw Satan in it. I knew very well it was God’s doing. I got a bit annoyed because I could not see the use of it.  I kept asking why when I just finished spending seven years in the wilderness with you, why is it the testing is not going away? What is going on? I got to the point where I really got stressed out. The answer came recently when I insisted on one question “am I doing something wrong in the way I follow you?  Then He basically said to me “bingo”

It turns out by getting all riled up about how my life sucks it was exactly the lesson I missed. He wanted to show me because I have gone through a surrender process with Him for about nine years now (I surrendered all almost two years before He took me to the wilderness) I am to constantly be very aware of thinking that I cannot stumble into that area. To prove His point, He shared with me, while in the wilderness I would have surrendered in a flash all those things that have been happening to me and caused my life to suck, and He was right. When I realized how I failed Him miserably, I surrendered all the mess my life has become since my so called “coming out of the wilderness.” Even though in some of those things, I needed Him to act now, but I learned to say “may your will be done regardless what I expect or desire.”

But even after this sharing time with Him, instead of getting a break He sets out to test me once again. This past Sunday I worshipped Him for about two hours without anything big happening. In the third hour He came and divulged to me two things that He wants for me because He is going to use me to reach other people. These things He told me, I do not want them anymore in my life. In fact I was praying for one of them to go away, and when I realized the answer to my prayer was no, my heart ached but I could feel the Holy Spirit in me praying where my strength was lacking and all of the sudden I sang with all the strength I could muster “I stand with arms high and heart abandoned to the one who gave it all. I stand my soul Lord to you surrendered, all I am is yours. (This is a Hillsong song)

Just one I thought the testing was over, I got a phone call last night about my little brother who has been hospitalized and apparently it is so bad that everyone has gone over to see him and said goodbye. After they shared the complications he was facing along with his last word of love for me, my heart sank down like it contained bricks. I also realized I cannot hop on a train right away to see him because of all the complications in my life now that God decided not to remove or work out soon. So, I realized I had two pains to deal with: one my brother over the years has become an atheist, so he is on his deathbed  unsaved. The second thing is that I have not seen him for years and I might not see him before he died. As I was crying I said God when is enough is enough? At that time, I could feel the Holy Spirit strengthening me and reminded me, that it is one opportunity to give it all to Him and let Him deal with the consequences of it all. What my pain might be like tomorrow is irrelevant tonight, right this moment. I realized in that moment all that God cares is that I surrender all once again, and through His grace, I did. In exchange He gave me His peace. I am now praying and hoping for a miracle that my brother would live.

God tends to test us over and over again like He did with the Israelites in the wilderness. It is hard to remain strong unless we make it a point to walk in the Spirit because our flesh will fail us every time. If we are not walking in the Spirit through surrender, often times, we miss the point altogether because we cannot hear the Spirit or feel His nudges. The Israelites not only did not pass one test out of all those tests God set for them in the wilderness, and they also got tired of them. Oswald Chambers is right in his assessment because many of God's strong man stumbled over their strong points. When I look at my trials now, in this light, I realize God is not picking on me He is actually strengthening me to avoid more pain later in my walk with Him. As I got hold of what is truly happening with me, my heart was filled with tenderness toward Him and I felt bad to the need of repentance for being so upset, blind, resistant and ignorant these past few months. 

Beware of the Least Likely Temptation

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Joab had defected to Adonijah, though he had not defected to Absalom —1 Kings 2:28

Joab withstood the greatest test of his life, remaining absolutely loyal to David by not turning to follow after the fascinating and ambitious Absalom. Yet toward the end of his life he turned to follow after the weak and cowardly Adonijah. Always remain alert to the fact that where one person has turned back is exactly where anyone may be tempted to turn back (see 1 Corinthians 10:11-13). You may have just victoriously gone through a great crisis, but now be alert about the things that may appear to be the least likely to tempt you. Beware of thinking that the areas of your life where you have experienced victory in the past are now the least likely to cause you to stumble and fall.

We are apt to say, “It is not at all likely that having been through the greatest crisis of my life I would now turn back to the things of the world.” Do not try to predict where the temptation will come; it is the least likely thing that is the real danger. It is in the aftermath of a great spiritual event that the least likely things begin to have an effect. They may not be forceful and dominant, but they are there. And if you are not careful to be forewarned, they will trip you. You have remained true to God under great and intense trials— now beware of the undercurrent. Do not be abnormally examining your inner self, looking forward with dread, but stay alert; keep your memory sharp before God. Unguarded strength is actually a double weakness, because that is where the least likely temptations will be effective in sapping strength. The Bible characters stumbled over their strong points, never their weak ones.

“. . . kept by the power of God . . .”— that is the only safety. (1 Peter 1:5).

Courtesy of: http://utmost.org/

Examine Yourself!

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This is such a tall order for those of us who call ourselves Christians. When I was not walking in the Spirit yet, I used to wonder about how do I do this in the light of God’s Word. I know to some people it sounds stupid to ask such a question when it is written down in the Bible in black and white. So finally, I concurred with those who kept telling me the definition of this verse simply meant that everything in my life has to pass the test of God’s Word. While the explanation did not help and did not answer the “how” part of my question I assumed I had to let it go. As I learned through the Holy Spirit, to examine myself in the light of God’s Word according to His standards, I understood why it was difficult for people to answer this question properly.  Simply put, this command can leave you like a dog chasing its tail.

I realized two important things: first the awesome job of the Holy Spirit never let me be satisfied with head knowledge, always calling upon me to come up higher and draw near to God. Even though I did not know yet how to hear Him or communicate with Him. The second thing is that if you are not walking in the Spirit, then examining yourself in the light of God’s Word is as clear to your soul as someone who is born blind, yet you are telling this person to behold the beauty of the stars in the sky. Without God’s grace, there is no way I would have known that I was not examining my thoughts in the light of His Word. Every time I recall how He pursued me and never let me be satisfied with shallow understanding and my own explanations of things, I cannot help but feel privileged to be amongst those fortunate enough to be living under His grace. It is certainly not because of who I am but because of who He is.  

When you examine your thoughts in the light of His Word, the end result is you choosing to live out His truth. Not the truth according to how you see it in your own interpretation of things. But rather how He sees it.  Here is where we Christians we get in trouble, we cannot know the truth if the Holy Spirit is not revealing God’s Word to us. We cannot know the truth if our soul does not go forward possessing Christ within. In this simple command “examine yourself”, everything collides. The truth is no less than Him in all His fullness. The truth is living a righteous life, and a true righteous life means you are living in oneness with Him so you can partake in His righteousness. It also means living an obedient life, not a life where you decide on a case by case basis which one of His Word suits you best. Can you see where I am going with this?  While there are a lot of Christians out there who do not bother to examine themselves, but the majority of those who actually examine themselves are not really doing it in the light of His Word. They do it according to their own understanding; hence they keep following the wrong path, They keep doing the same wrong things over and over again and Christianity keeps declining because we are not walking as we should. Righteousness, faithfulness and obedience have to be right in the middle of our examinations.

  

PRAYER: Father God, you are indeed a great God and everything you have done, through Christ has made provision for us to walk in the light. But, we do not like the light, so we hide behind excuses which affect drastically our walk with you. I pray saviour you would revive us in our slumber to see how important meeting your standard is to you and that your Word will not come back void to you. Teach us to fear you. Do whatever it takes to bring us back to the reality of Christ’s Cross. Help us my Lord! 

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Commitment To The Faith

 

In my book "Apprehended & Apprehending" I have a small chapter about commitment. The reason commitment is so important to me and I felt I had to include it in the book is because while I had no idea what it meant to walk in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit was hard at work in the background to help me come up higher. I realize He has never let me be satisfied with my own explanations of the Word of God in the Bible. Pushing people to not be satisfied with data tucked away while living in the flesh, makes knowing someone like me, a little bit annoying if you like your comfort zone. It is harder if you are an immediate member of my family. But, in my defense, I have no idea how to live the Christian life any other way because the Holy Spirit targeted me right at the onset of Salvation.  (Although I suspect He targets all of us) I shared almost throughout every chapter of my book how He called me to come up higher over and over again. Since I talked about it at length, I will refrain from going into more details.

You see, while some professed Christians are busy separating Salvation, discipleship commitment and grace to excuse their behaviors God showed me they are all one in the same according to His standards at work in us. I was surprised to find out that Christ’s call to us in Mathew 16:24 “to take up our cross and follow” actually meant “make the commitment, come up higher, live like you have a Master and surrender to me at any cost.”  Later on, I was more surprised to find out that not only this is Salvation being worked out in me, but the strength to do all these above were in Him,  through His grace alone.  This walk, the Holy Spirit was constantly working in the background to get me to question what I understood only in the flesh, in order to get to the point where I would make the commitment to follow and step into my discipleship role. Indeed, making the commitment to Him to let Him be the Master of your life it is not an easy thing to do. When you make this commitment you know what you have done is in effect what all the other disciples in the Bible did as they left everything behind and follow Christ on the onset of His ministry. The commitment to follow Him, if it is done with the right understanding, attitude, motive and with the Holy Spirit makes you realize that you are aware you found something that deserve your full attention. You feel, there is a Master in town now, and you have to go with Him to hear what He has to say. Like Paul turning his back away from his honourable position with Gamael, like Peter leaving his lucrative fishing business behind, like Matthew the tax collector who left his booth and lucrative business to follow and so forth.  

Just in case you are wondering what I mean in the paragraph above when I said the right attitude, motivation and understanding it is about understanding we have to do it knowing even though it will hurt but it has to be done. We know this mean we will lose complete control over our lives and we are no longer in charge. It means going forward with His plans, not ours. It means we will have to be broken and the self has to be eradicated etc. The end result will mean fellowship, oneness, pride left behind to embrace humility, deeper worship and love for Him and so forth.

Being compelled to go forward is a work of the Holy Spirit in us. It is a work of grace and there is no way left on our own we would understand the need to go forward with Him. I was pleasantly surprised to find out how all of it relates to each other. Through receiving Him I received the light. If I receive the light and I am no longer the “old me”, then I need to learn how to live the new life. While the Church put together discipleship classes and preaching the Word to get us to understand this new life, but it is my duty to hear His call to come up higher. When we go forward to become His disciple, all we are doing is making a commitment to study with the Master. Why do we need to study with the Master? Because not only He needs us to accept our position as His pupil, He also needs our total commitment so that He can make real in us the work He has started, meaning Salvation.

So, God’s call and wooing to come up higher along with Christ giving us a choice to take up our cross and follow Him, plus we have Romans 12:1 where Paul told us to surrender ourselves to Him, are all the same. Meaning same goal, same purpose and all of it is wrapped up in a commitment to this life through His grace. When you live according to His standards, all of it is there in black and white, there is no need to hold a debate. Everything we have in this Christian walk build on each other. The whole thing is like building a foundation for a house where Christ is the builder and He is putting the materials needed together to build this house. While this house starts with Salvation entering our hearts and souls, but we cannot separate it from the builder and the materials needed to erect the house.

This post was meant to be Sunday’s post. But this morning in my quiet time with Him I read Oswald Chambers, I knew this was not a coincidence and that I had to switch the post. So, instead of ending with a prayer, I will end with copying Oswald Chambers devotion for you.

Keep in mind that the second chapter of my book which is about commitment to this life is available for you to download for free. Go to my website

www.apprehended.ca

Here is Oswald Chambers today's devotion

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me . . . —Galatians 2:20

These words mean the breaking and collapse of my independence brought about by my own hands, and the surrendering of my life to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. No one can do this for me, I must do it myself. God may bring me up to this point three hundred and sixty-five times a year, but He cannot push me through it. It means breaking the hard outer layer of my individual independence from God, and the liberating of myself and my nature into oneness with Him; not following my own ideas, but choosing absolute loyalty to Jesus. Once I am at that point, there is no possibility of misunderstanding. Very few of us know anything about loyalty to Christ or understand what He meant when He said, “. . . for My sake” (Matthew 5:11). That is what makes a strong saint.

Has that breaking of my independence come? All the rest is religious fraud. The one point to decide is— will I give up? Will I surrender to Jesus Christ, placing no conditions whatsoever as to how the brokenness will come? I must be broken from my own understanding of myself. When I reach that point, immediately the reality of the supernatural identification with Jesus Christ takes place. And the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable— “I have been crucified with Christ . . . .”

The passion of Christianity comes from deliberately signing away my own rights and becoming a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I will not begin to be a saint.

One student a year who hears God’s call would be sufficient for God to have called the Bible Training College into existence. This college has no value as an organization, not even academically. Its sole value for existence is for God to help Himself to lives. Will we allow Him to help Himself to us, or are we more concerned with our own ideas of what we are going to be?

Review of Apprehended & Apprehending - A Christian book

This review on Amazon captured my vision, my goal, the attitude, the motive of my heart and all that the book embodied!

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Revealing "Must Read" Book Concerning The Christian Church October 27, 2012

By Margaret Lukasik

Author M. J. Andre has just written this much needed commentary of the Christian church. It's also a loving contribution of self-help, that if followed, will apprehend the hearts of Christians to live their lives according to the work of Jesus Christ on the cross rather than the man-made doctrines floating about many of our churches.

Sadly, many Christians have been left on their own after salvation, not realizing that they've only taken the first step into God's will for their lives. They have yet to fulfill living the truth of God's Word and obeying the purpose for their lives that has been set for them by God since before the beginning of creation.

This very deep and sensitive information, written from the author's heart and His active knowledge of God's Word embraces the true doctrine of Jesus Christ, dispelling the idea that we can live Christianity by our own actions rather than identifying with Christ in order to achieve full confidence in who we are and what we can accomplish by the power of God.

So many Christians are left to take up their own cross by trying to achieve God's will through "self" instead of "denial of self" through Christ. As M. J. Andre so profoundly wrote in Apprehended and Apprehending, "we have to stop living as if Christ had never been resurrected and ascended to Heaven where He can see everything. Christ never meant for something as important as the foundation of our faith to be mere head knowledge. No wonder those that have assumed a position of growth without Christ have become so sinister when it comes to experiencing God.

I wish I could say that M. J. Andre was incorrect in stating that some Christians have become sinister. But I've seen it, I've been abused by it and I've made sure to stay in a position with Christ where I cannot be touched by it. We must remain close to Christ to avoid the influence of "ego" and "pride" and the damage they can do to the Christian church. However we learn through M. J. Andre's writing that with Christ we can walk with God through the power of humility by yielding to the complete truth of God's Word. This gives us the assurance that we'll be exalted in due time as told in 1 Peter 5:6 without having to go against God's will to move forward.

1 Peter 5:6
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.

Pride and ego can only lead us to our own conclusions for what path we'll take in life, but Apprehended and Apprehending gives us the antidote of humility that will take us from our own works to the power of the cross of Jesus Christ to insure that we follow God's will in it's entirety. We've been blessed with forgiveness, so we take it and then begin fresh with God this moment. This is not something we can intellectualize, but take only from a spiritual standpoint.

If you're questioning your salvation or your calling in life, I implore you to get more understanding from this powerful book that will help you approach the things of God not by your head, emotions or your body, but by your heart or spirit as you allow the living Word of God to transform and renew your life through Christ.

Please visit my site www.apprehended.ca and download the first 

chapter of this book for free

Or  go to Amazon to buy the book