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Showing posts with label walk in spirit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label walk in spirit. Show all posts

02 December, 2014

Our Walk in Spirit and Identity in Him




Neil Anderson’s devotional for December 2 is interesting and took me back to the old days. I can also see how anyone who knows God can take this devotional and develop it into an essay because there are many fascinating points one can make, but, I will keep it short today.

He is right when he said in the second paragraph that we do not have an identity problem, but a walk problem. Although we need to KNOW our identity in Him, to claim it and live it out as we live IN HIM, but, often times our problem is not one of identity in Christ but of a walk problem. When God was teaching me how to walk in the spirit, my leaders kept telling me that all Christians at the moment of Salvation, walk in the Spirit. God taught me that is a lie, one that is poisoning the Church. It is a lack of knowing God personally and a lack of Spiritual insight.  Think about it, if indeed we walk in Spirit automatically at the moment of Salvation, then we are saying, the mess that has become Christianity is the Holy Spirit’s fault. Furthermore, In Galatians 5:16 Paul gave a command to the Galatians to walk in the Spirit. Because I have been taught the steps that I took in between to learn to walk IN HIM as I found my identity in Him, I can see more through Neil Anderson today’s Devotional. Underneath it all, what he is not spelling out for us is that there is a span of time in between the walk in spirit to claiming our identity in Him and take a stand on it and never let go.
 Please understand that I am not criticizing Neil’s devotion. I am just deciphering what I know he is saying in between.

The up and down spiritual existence Neil talks about in the first paragraph are something that I lived the first five to six years of my Christian walk, and I knew through His grace, there was something wrong with it. When I complained, the Spirit of God told me to surrender. Then, a few months after I surrender, I was about seven years in the Christian life, all hell broke loose and my life has never been the same again as God turned it Topsy turvy. My point here is that, an up and down spiritual existence is not what we are called to live as Christian.

Yes, it is true, we become saints at the moment of Salvation, but, as we walk the walk we find that our sainthood is like an embryo germinating in the mother’s womb slowly to become a full formed fetus. I do not want to use a different example, because that is the one God used, to show me, most of the time, how He is working out our Salvation through us.  So, the point here is that if we do not walk in the Spirit to go forward knowing the victorious life where we stop having an up and down spiritual existence, we are like embryo between the first stages of a pregnancy, complete, but not developed.


Here is something to ponder…. What happen when an embryo remains at the same stage of an embryo and never developed throughout the pregnancy terms?



HERE IS NEIL ANDERSON'S DEVOTIONAL FOR DECEMBER 2

December 2
We Are Saints
 
Romans 1:7 
To all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
 
Have you ever heard a Christian refer to himself as "just a sinner saved by grace"? Have you referred to yourself that way? What do sinners do? They sin! If you are no different from a non-Christian, or even if you perceive yourself as no different, what will happen? Your Christian life will be mediocre at best, with little to distinguish you from a non-Christian. Satan will seize that opportunity, pour on the guilt, and convince you that you are doomed to an up-and-down spiritual existence. As a defeated Christian you will confess your sin and strive to do better, but inwardly you will admit that you are just a sinner saved by grace, hanging on until the rapture.
 
In Scripture, believers are called "brethren," "sons of God," "sons of light," and "saints." You are not a sinner; you are a saint who sins. "For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light" (Ephesians 5:8). According to that passage, we don't have an identity problem; we have a walk problem.
 
We become saints at the moment of salvation and live as saints in our daily experience as we continue to believe what God has done and as we continue to affirm who we really are in Christ. If you fail to see yourself as a child of God, you will struggle vainly to live like one, and Satan will have little trouble convincing you that you are no different from who you were before Christ and that you have no value to God or anyone else. But appropriating by faith the radical transformation of your core identity from sinner to saint will have a powerful, positive effect on your daily resistance to sin and Satan.
 
Prayer:
Lord, open my eyes that I may see myself as You see me. Then enable me to walk as a child of light.

COURTESY OF:  http://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/dailyinchrist/

12 September, 2014

SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD


A convincing evidence of true piety is the spirit of separation from the world. Saints are expectants of glory. They are born from above and have no home beneath their native skies. Here they are strangers and pilgrims and plainly declare that they seek a better country (Heb. 11:13-14). It is their avowed profession that their happiness and hopes are neither in nor from the present world. Their treasure is in heaven. They are not of this world even as Christ was not of this world (John 17:14). 

The spirit of the world is incompatible with the spirit of the Gospel. It is the spirit of pride and not of humility; of self-indulgence rather than of self-denial. Riches, honors, and pleasure form the grand object of pursuit with the men of the world. Their great inquiry is “Who will show us any good?” Indifferent to everything but that which is calculated to gratify a carnal mind, they lift up their souls unto vanity and pant after the dust of the earth. Their thoughts and their affections are chained down to the things of time and sense. And in these they seem to be irrecoverably immersed. They seldom think but they think of the world; they seldom converse but they converse of the world. The world is the cause of their perplexity and the source of their enjoyment. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life close every avenue of the soul to the exclusion of every holy desire. I had almost said, every serious reflection. This spirit the Christian has mortified. “Now we,” says St. Paul, “have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God” (I Cor. 2:12). 

The disciple of Jesus, as he has nobler affections than the worldling, has a higher object and more elevated joys. While the wise man glories in his wisdom, the mighty man glories in his might, and the rich man glories in his riches, it is the Christian’s privilege to glory in nothing save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto him, and he unto the world (Gal. 6:14). The character and cause of the blessed Redeemer lie so near to his heart that in comparison with these everything else vanishes to nothing. He views the world by the eye of faith and in a light that reflects its intrinsic importance—the light of eternity. There the world shrinks to a point and the fashion of it passes away. As the spirit of the world is not the spirit of God’s people, so the men of the world are not their companions. “We know that we are of God,” says the apostle, “and the whole world lies in wickedness” (I John 5:19).

Between the people of God and the men of the world there is an essential difference of character. The views, the desires, and the designs of the children of God are diametrically opposite to the views, the desires, and the designs of the men of the world. The one loves what the other hates; the one pursues what the other shuns. Saints are passing on the narrow way which leads to life; sinners the broad way which leads to death (Mat. 7:13-14). If there were no other ground for the expectation, therefore, than the common principles of human nature, we might look for dissension rather than unity between the disciples of Christ and the men of the world. “How can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3). What fellowship has light with darkness? Or what communion has Christ with Belial? (II Cor. 6:14-15). 

The same principles which prompt the men of the world not to select the people of God for their familiar companions also induce the people of God to choose other companions than the men of the world. There is an irreconcilable spirit between them. The friendship of the world is enmity with God (James 4:4). Many as may be mutual tokens of respect, civility, and kindness (and many there should be) between Christians and the men of the world, they are notwithstanding two distinct classes of men. Much as Christians esteem the men of the world as good members of civil society, much as they regard their happiness, and endeavor to advance it, much as they have compassion on their depravity, and deplore their prospects, much as they are conversant with them in the ordinary calls of duty, still they are not their chosen companions. They cannot court their friendship because they are afraid of it. “Evil communications corrupt good manners” (I Cor. 16:33). “He that walks with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed” (Prov. 13:20). 

Those who have mortified the spirit and who stand at a distance from the men of the world are also in some good degree above its corrupting influence. The claim, which from their numbers and strength, the world is apt to consider itself as warranted to make upon the opinions and practices of God’s people, is habitually resisted. Though good men may be often seduced by the smiles and awed by the frowns of the world, it is no part of their general character to conform either to its pleasure or displeasure. They act from higher motives and maintain a more consistent character than to give way to indulgences merely for the sake of pleasing the world or to avoid duty merely through the fear of offending it. While they regard the fear of God more than the fear of man, they will not dishonor God to please the world. And while they regard the favor of God more than the favor of man, they will not purchase the favor of man at the expense of the favor of God. 

A habitual regard to the will and the favor of God is an effectual security against the smiles of the world. The great object of the Christian is duty; his predominant desire to obey God. When he can please the world consistently with these, he will do so; otherwise, it is enough for him that God commands, and enough for them that he cannot disobey. While they dread to offend God, they cannot tamely bow to the favor or frowns of men. Whether it be right to hearken unto men rather than unto God, judge you? (Acts 4:19). There would be no difficulty in pointing out the path of duty upon this subject, but there is some in saying how far man may swerve from this path and yet be Christians. One thing is plain Christians cannot be worldlings. They cannot be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God (II Tim. 3:4). 

He who fixes his highest affections on wealth, honor, sensual pleasures, gay amusements, and the various pursuits of the present scene, cannot fix them supremely on God. Nor is the character of the vast multitude who attempt to make a compromise between God and the world better than that of the mere worldling. The mere fact that they are forever balancing between a life of devotion and a life of pleasure, that they design now to yield the empire to God and then to the world, decides the question against them. We may not deny that the children of God are sometimes guilty of awful defection from the standard of Christian character in their communion with the world. But after all, their prevailing feelings and conduct are not those of conformity to the world, but of habitual non-conformity. The principles of the new man are at war with the principles of the world. True believers have put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and have put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 4:22-24). “This I say then,” says the apostle, “Walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16). 

We cannot walk after the flesh while we walk after the spirit. While the love of God is the reigning affection of the heart, it will turn away from the allurements of the world. This subject presents a number of solemn questions to everyone who is anxious to ascertain whether his heart is right in the sight of God. It is a great point with all of us to know whether we are spiritually minded or worldly minded. Whether we are conformed to this world or transformed by the renewing of our minds. Whether the objects of faith or of sense, things present or to come, have the predominating influence over our hearts. What shall we say of those who exhibit to themselves and to others all the traits of character which belong to worldly men? What of those who pursue worldly things with all that ardor, all that intemperate zeal which enters into the pursuits of worldly men? Is there not reason to fear that they are supremely attached to earth and are as yet aliens from the commonwealth of Israel? What shall we say of those who love the circles of fashion more than the associations for prayer? And who court the friendship of the rich, the gay, and the honorable, more than that of the humble disciple of Jesus? What of those who “send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance; who take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ?” (Job 21:11-12). 

Was Job uncharitable when he ranked people of this character with those who say unto God, “Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of your ways”? What shall we say of those who are forever varying from the path of duty lest it should be unpopular, who never lisp a syllable or lift a finger for the honor of God lest they displease the world? What, but that they love the praise of men more than the praise of God (John 5:44). Conformity to the world is to be expected from the professed worldling: it is the character of the worldling. But is it to be expected from the professed disciple of Jesus? Is it the result of habitual determinations of a heavenly mind? Is it the character of one who looks on things that are unseen and eternal, of a stranger and sojourner, of one who sets his affections on things above and not on things on the earth? How many like the young man in the Gospel, exhibit a decent and regular outward profession, who are wholly devoted to the world! Here their affections center. From this polluted fountains all their joys flow. They had been Christians but for the world. But the world is the fatal snare. They have plunged down the precipice, and drifted almost beyond the hope of recovery. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him (I John 2:15). To be carnally minded is death (Rom. 8:6). 

Show me the men who imbibe the spirit of the world, who choose the company of the world, who imitate the example of the world, conform to the maxims of the world, are swallowed up in the gaiety, fashions, and amusements of the world—behold, these are the ungodly who are brought into desolation as in a moment! I have seen the wicked in great power, spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and lo he was not; yes, I sought him, but he could not be found (Psalm. 37:35)

25 March, 2014

Turning from Attachment to Desire


This piece from Ransomed heart is so beautifully said, I could not do it justice if I had said it with my own words. But, this process to teach us to turn away from self, from the longing to possess stuff, and from building the coveted earthly life that all of us wish for, is not easy to remove. It is so deeply ingrained in us that even Adam and Eve had it and they failed to deal with it properly. We can easily underestimate the self and its desires, goals and plans as we find ways to soothe our consciences to get what we want. This part of us is stronger than anything you know that God has to violently pull it out of us. I said violent because the pain that He has to bring us through to get us there is brutal. It is worse than having heart surgery with eyes wide open. By the time He finishes with you, it is strange to see how you are aware of all the scars in your soul. It is weird because it is an invisible surgery to your invisible soul. But, God is Himself a spirit, so the surgery is as real as any surgery you experience in real life.

One thing that I was grateful for is that before God dealt with me, He taught me to stop seeing the Bible as a story, but to live out in my soul the realness of His word. There are days that I was able to get through the pain as I remember what others before me have gone through. For instance, Moses, when he decided to leave toward the wilderness after He killed the Hebrews. I could literally feel his anguish. I could feel his confusion from the life he was leaving behind to go  toward this God forsaken place in the wilderness where he had no idea where it would lead him.  He had to deal with the uncertainty, the loss of what he was leaving behind, the lost of prestige, the loved ones that you are being separated from. There is pain all over but your mind is working miles an hour to get you nowhere. Strangely through the pain you are also numb all over. As the dust settles because you are too far ahead on this path to go back, you are suddenly becoming aware of God’s working in you. You wish He would stop because you cannot see how this path can be beneficial to you in any way. Then He tells you right there, that’s the attitude you have to lose because it is not about you.

Then, just to come to terms with the idea that it is not about you, is not that simple because you have to learn to lose yourself in Him, accept all that He brings you through, even being able to say ADIEU to everything you are attached to because you might never get them back. He will remain there with you until it is well with your soul. While He is with you, but He cannot work it out for you unless you come to terms with it to a point where your soul learn to cope with the loss and say it is well with my soul. It is funny now, to see how you cannot repeat those words when face with the reality of your life. You fight with everything you have to say “it is well with your soul.” Your soul has to go through the process of accepting there is a God and it is not you. Your soul, has to come to terms with the understanding that you have a master and only His will for your life counts.  Oh lala! It is painful. God does give riches, but only to those He wants to. If in the end all that we are doing is to get His blessings, He can see us coming miles away. Actually, He knows even before we knew we wanted to come to Him for His blessings. I had to lose this attitude of expecting anything from Him in return because He hates it with a passion. By the time God is finished with us, all that is left is His desires for us in our hearts. Our hearts are turned to Him and we find joy and delight in what delights Him.
  
Whenever I see someone going on and on about getting riches from God, I cringe. The Gospel of prosperity you see going on out there, is simply coming from people who have no idea who God is. They do not know Him personally, nor do they have a relationship with Him. Now it might be difficult for us to believe that is possible and the people coming to us from television with this kind of message are not that legitimate, but remember we can only look at the man on the outside and words are cheap. In the same ways Satan knows the Bible, they know it too. When we are captivated by the message as if we are a bunch of mindless sheep it is because we are not spiritual, so we cannot see what needs to be seen with the eyes of our hearts. The beauty and the captivation that comes from it all comes directly from Satan. Remember, everything that God does, Satan is able to replicate it to a certain degree. Unless we know Him personally and intimately, how do we know we are looking at a knock off? We can’t make that distinction unless we go on with Him through this journey that has room for one only in the furnace of fire and sorrows where we receive ourselves back from Him.

So, even though God has to take us through a process of the surgery of the soul to take that deeply rooted part of us out of the way, we find that it is a daily struggle and we have to live and walk diligently in the Spirit to avoid the temptation of the flesh. I am still struggling, but I am truly working in progress. When you think about how do you think Moses a man so admired by God, a man who loved God so much, a man so meek who has seen God’s glory, that God bragged about him. Yet he was able to sin against God in a moment when he was not watching and let what was happening in his life got the best of him.  I got to stop myself there. Those who are used to me know that I could go on and on….. and on… (LOL)


Take care and here is the Ransomed Heart devotion, below


So much of the journey forward involves a letting go of all that once brought us life. We turn away from the familiar abiding places of the heart, the false selves we have lived out, the strengths we have used to make a place for ourselves and all our false loves, and we venture forth in our hearts to trace the steps of the One who said, "Follow me." In a way, it means that we stop pretending: that life is better than it is, that we are happier than we are, that the false selves we present to the world are really us. We respond to the Haunting, the wooing, the longing for another life. Pilgrim begins his adventure toward redemption with a twofold turning: a turning away from attachment and a turning toward desire. He wanted life and so he stuck his fingers in his ears and ran like a madman ("a fool," to use Paul's term) in search of it. The freedom of heart needed to journey comes in the form of detachment. As Gerald May writes in Addiction and Grace,
Detachment is the word used in spiritual traditions to describe freedom of desire. Not freedom from desire, but freedom of desire . . . An authentic spiritual understanding of detachment devalues neither desire nor the objects of desire. Instead, it "aims at correcting one's own anxious grasping in order to free oneself for committed relationship to God." According to Meister Eckhart, detachment "enkindles the heart, awakens the spirit, stimulates our longings, and shows us where God is."
With an awakened heart, we turn and face the road ahead, knowing that no one can take the trip for us, nor can anyone plan our way.

25 April, 2013

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.

07 February, 2013

Temptation


One definition of temptation is a desire to do something, wrong or unwise. The truth is when we are tempted it does not mean we sin. Although whatever comes across our mind trying to entice us, draws our mind and heart to do something unwise, wrong, filthy or even vile might not be our fault. While we are not responsible for the thoughts that simply drop by in our mind, we are however responsible how we chose to entertain them.

Oswald Chambers said: “Not to be tempted would mean that we were already so shameful that we would be beneath contempt. Yet many of us suffer from temptations we should never have to suffer, simply because we have refused to allow God to lift us to a higher level where we would face temptations of another kind.” A person’s inner nature, what he possesses in the inner, spiritual part of his being, determines what he is tempted by on the outside. The temptation fits the true nature of the person being tempted and reveals the possibilities of his nature. Every person actually determines or sets the level of his own temptation, because temptation will come to him in accordance with the level of his controlling, inner nature.”

 This quote above has so many implications that one can use it over and over throughout one’s walk with God. It is true that the type of temptation we face changes as we get to know God deeper as we learn to abide and remain grounded in Him through our identity in Him. Oswald is right by saying we refuse to allow God to lift us up higher. In fact, I know people who have been Christian for decades, yet suffer temptation that a baby in the faith is dealing with. 

Satan is relentlessly trying to take us to places that go beyond God’s boundaries for us. Often he tempts us so gradually, that we are led to sin and we do not understand how we arrived there. Some of us do not even have the courage to acknowledge our sin, instead we blame Satan. But in reality Satan is just being Satan. He is doing what he knows best. It is our job to make sure we are fit in the faith so we can stand strong and empowered to meet with him head on.

I will give you an example: Two years after I became a Christian, God made it clear to me that my body was His temple. I guess this was very important for Him to tell me because He knew there were hard times ahead since I no longer had a spouse. This was the late nineties. To help me out He gave me the gift of celibacy which I knew nothing about until He told me. To my surprise, it was just so that I could get deeper in Him.
 Eight years ago, He took away the gift of celibacy. So, there were nights that I could not sleep, some nights I cried myself to sleep. When I asked God  “what gives?” He told me that I had to learn to do not to succumb to temptation to glorify Him if I wanted to be victorious. I raked my brain off trying to understand what that meant. I do not mind telling you the challenge to remain celibate without defiling yourself is enormous and through the pain a lot of time, I found God really mean.

Now, I understand what He meant when He said that I had to do it to glorify Him. What He did not tell me, this was something that I had to become and it was not in my power to produce in me. Temptation truly is easier to overcome as you live the abiding life. There you find protection, balance and a strong spiritual willingness to overcome. The reason I call this a spiritual willingness to overcome, is because you are not doing it as if you do not want to do Satan’s dirty job. But, the main reason behind your motives to resist with your mind, your heart and the willingness not to go there, is something that seems to be a strong sense of moral integrity. This sense of moral integrity definitely belongs to the new nature. I know the difference because I know when I am in spirit and in the flesh. I also know the person I am in the flesh does not have this superior moral integrity that flows through my choices so easily. This moral integrity when you act on it, actually glorifies God. This moral integrity has behind it the fact that I know I am His child, so, what Satan is trying to lure me with, is non-negotiable as far as I am concerned. I cannot be the King’s child and wrestle in the mud with Satan. I have to keep up my decorum.

 This is why Paul commanded us to walk in the Spirit. In this stinking fleshly part of us, it is easy to let temptation gets the best of us. It overpowers us and before we know it, we find that we get over God’s boundaries for us.

Don’t entertain those thoughts when they come to mind, do not rationalize them, do not indulge yourself. A simple example of that for both men and women would be, as you surf the internet even with all that you put in place not to encounter pornography, you find that once in a while, one of them somehow makes its way to you. Your only course of action is to close your browser so fast that you get dizzy. Not only that, purposely bring your mind back to God right away. You can do that by remember a verse, or a moment you had with Him, who you are in Him, anything that would allow this filth not to find a foothold in your life. The minute you allow yourself to look for a fraction of a second, it exerts an influence and your flesh reacts to it. I am not telling you anything that I have not put into practice in my life.

04 November, 2012

Examine Yourself!

www.Apprehended.ca

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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