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?

Why Does Paul Seemingly Ask For More Afflictions

Excerpt From The 3rd Chapter Of My Newly Released  Christian Book

 "Apprehended & Apprehending"

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hen you really think about it, it appears that Paul’s desire in Philippians 3:10 to know God in the fellowship of His sufferings was a strange one. Since his life was already plagued with sufferings, why would he want more of it? This is the reality of being truly Christian. Paul’s desire is the fruit of his faith in Christ, His love for Him and part of the true meaning of working out your Salvation with fear and trembling. Before we can get to a real desire of the fellowship of His sufferings, we have to learn obedience to the point where suffering with Him and for Him becomes natural to us—as natural as it was for Christ to obey His Father! Jesus left Heaven and His position as His Son and made Himself a nobody for our sake and the glory of His Father. As His ministry advanced Christ said in Matthew 26:38

“…My soul is exceedingly sorrowful…”

While I have no doubt no one can ever experience the depth of His sorrow—not even Paul—mimicking Christ and Paul also means getting through this very path of suffering. Christ will decide the intensity of the sorrow in our soul. Scriptures made it clear to us that Christianity is about persecutions and afflictions. Christ could not say it clearer when He said in Mark 8:34,

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Paul also said in 2 Corinthians 1:5,

 “…we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ…" 

It is important to understand first of all that it is not our idea of what the cross might be  but Christ’s idea. The cross in this verse is simply Christ’s Cross we have inherited through our identification with Him. As we move forward with Him, the deeper we go, the more sufferings within our sufferings is to be expected if we wish to be prepared for His purpose in our lives. Paul is not just talking about sufferings in this realm. There is a kind of suffering that we go through within our suffering that is so heavy, we literally have a hard time walking and talking in this realm. We go on with a  heavy sorrow in the soul and it is not up to us to say when it is enough or when we get out of it. 

In the meantime God is having His way with our soul. We know beyond the shadow of a doubt that death is being worked in us—we are dying to self, inwardly, as we learn to take up the cross of Christ, not our man-made cross. This kind of sufferings can never be explained, only except experienced. There is no earthly pain to match it.  The first time I experienced this kind of pain was when I went through the biggest crisis in my life. My life was falling apart completely, and I was losing everything. Only then did God feel it was time to bring on that pain. Even though I was new to this kind of spiritual training and sanctification process, I  knew the sorrow in my soul was spiritual. After He confirmed that I was regenerated, He explained what the pain was about a few days later. This exceedingly heavy sorrow in my soul was Him dealing with my soul while using the Word as a double-edged sword. To that revelation I replied, “Wow! You made provisions for everything in the Bible!” It was that day He illuminated my mind to understand what He meant when He said, “His word will not return void.” I started understanding how precious each word in the Bible is to our soul and to our Salvation, here and now.

Amazon.ca has Apprehended & Apprehending on sale

Personal Relationship With Him!

Excerpt of My Book Apprehended & Apprehending" From Chapter 2

There is such a misunderstanding among Christians about what a personal relationship with Christ means. Personal relationship with Him is not about going on through our cultural type of Christianity while mimicking Christ. Think about it. There are comedians out there making a living on mimicking well known and famous people, but just the fact that they imitate other people does not make them someone else nor do they become good friends with those they mimic. Our lack of understanding of the Scriptures and lack of walking in the Spirit cause us to think that it is okay to go about doing the external things that the apostles and Christ did when they were on earth. The footprints to imitate them are found inwardly in the person of Jesus-Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit.  We tend to forget that, before we are judged for our work, Christ will look at who we are in Him first. If you do not know Him, there is a strong indication that He does not know you either. Our work has to be an extension of who we are in Christ, and if I do not have enough faith, obedience, and love to go forward in getting intimate with Him, then who’s doing the work? And why? What is the purpose? What is behind that misplaced zeal?

Our personal relationship with God starts with our personal story of salvation according to non-watered down Gospel. We become grounded through acquiring sound biblical doctrines through the body of Christ, yes, but it comes primarily through the Holy Spirit expounding the Word of God to us. Through the right understanding of these doctrines, we find ourselves at His feet in fear and gratitude for His goodness to us and for who He is. Then we move forward in utter abandonment to Him in complete trust. We are told in John 7:17 that the key to knowing God is found in our obedience to Him. Therefore, before we go on with our Bible rituals, it would do us good to resolve to obey His Word by any means. I do not have the slightest doubt that if we do not have sound doctrines from the Holy Spirit Himself, our relationship with God will be off.

I was told by a few people who are serious about their walk with God that they keep my book like a reference book and go back to it over and over again. So, please get the book. I give you my word that you will be glad you did. It is an amazing thing to have intimacy with Him!

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Leaving Behind The Entitlement Type Of Christianity

Excerpt From The First Chapter Of  The Book "Apprehended & Apprehending"

LEAVING BEHIND THE ENTITLEMENT TYPE OF CHRISTIANITY

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AYING hold of God simply means becoming aware of Him. This translates into learning to get to know Him intimately, practicing His presence, becoming familiar with His activities in our lives. It also means, falling into agreement with His plan for us, while submitting to Him in faith and obedience, and living daily in His righteousness. Therefore, if you have been saved and God feels it is necessary to keep you on this planet, you can be sure there is a good reason for it. Every one of us who calls ourselves Christians should be continually going forward with Him and getting hold of our portion of what He has planned for us. In short, we go on apprehending what God has planned for us through continual spiritual maturity with Him.

Several Christians have asked me what the title of my book means. Strangely, they are way more educated than I will ever be in this lifetime. While I understood the message of my title and can vividly see both worlds with the eyes of my heart, I took for granted that it was clear to everyone else too. Webster dictionary defines the word ‘apprehending’ as follows: “To take into custody; arrest by legal warrant or authority.” In my case, I was living in darkness, minding my own business and happy in my ignorance—much like the people of Noah’s time just before the flood. I had no idea that I was in darkness let alone needing Him. He came, took me into custody (captivated my heart) and changed my life. Hence, I have been apprehended by Him. The second meaning is: “To grasp with the understanding; to recognize the meaning of; to perceive.”

With no pretension, I offer this explanation that comes from the life of Job.  The best way to describe why I go on apprehending God is by showing you what happened to Job when his spiritual eyes finally opened. In chapter 42:1-6, Job replied to the Lord,

“I know that you can do all things;  no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. ‘You said, Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’  My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

Job’s spiritual eyes were open as such his understanding of God was different now. When this happens to you, more than ever, you are captivated and there is nothing else to do except to follow hard after Him.  This is why Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:18. He knew, once our spiritual eyes opened, we would then have insight into the mystery of our Salvation in Christ. I make no excuse for my agenda and I am not ashamed of it. My goal is set and my path clear. As Paul urged us to imitate him, so my job is to go on, following hard after Him, so that I too may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

Go to Amazon to get the book, you will be glad you did!