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Live Like You Are Dying

29 Aug

Live Like You Are Dying

Philippians 1:21 For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

I have been praying about a study I am working on for the India trip; a study on the Spiritual Disciplines, such as prayer, meditation, and fasting. All of these have a spine of the measure of your heart of love for your Lord. Without the heart of love, these disciplines become meaningless; they become another religious duty to falsely self-fulfill your salvation. A heart not born out of love for your Savior, is a heart that becomes hardened to the drudgery of the duty of religion. We fulfill these duties along with Sunday’s, and seemingly think we are headed to heaven while we live the other six days a week for all this world offers. Is that the picture that the Apostle Paul wrote of above? That is the measure of a heart for Christ; nothing else matters unto death except to live for the One who gives you eternal life. To consecrate your life for the One who provides the opportunity for eternal paradise with him. To live every aspect of your daily life pursuing righteousness; to seek to abide by the law and to live for the rewards that await you with him. To not focus on the troubles of the day, to not worry about the future, to live for the joy found in him, the security found through him, and the peace the world cannot provide. John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Paul was in prison writing this epistle; Paul didn’t know whether he would live or die when writing this letter to the church at Phillipi. Paul only sought to point all that God put around him to their need for Jesus, to share the hope that lied within him. To show that even prison, nor the fear of death, could weaken his faith. Paul understood God was letting him be there; God had a design for him there; God was using him mightily there to encourage a people group previously unreached. 12 But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, 13 so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ; 14 and most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
Everything about this world, every day in this world, Satan tries to steal away your joy as a Christian. Every bad thing that comes your way has the ability to take your eyes off heaven. Many blame God, many question why to God, many fall victim to Satan’s attack and run from God due to some trial in their life. Why…….because they have not sought God, pursued God with a heart for him through the understanding of his Word. They have not prepared themselves for the spiritual warfare they have entered claiming Christianity. They have not sought God through the spiritual disciplines with a heart borne out of their love for Him. They have not consecrated their lives to him and lived like Paul; lived like they were dying, seeking to make every day count for the one who gave them eternal life.

 
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Posted by on August 29, 2015 in Daily Devotions

 

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His Spirit, his Word, his saints

26 Apr

His Spirit, his Word, his saints

Galatians 5:16-17 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.
The battle of good and evil is portrayed, evident, and real in all our lives and in every part of our lives. It is a battle from within, and a battle that plays out in front of us every day. This battle has been around since the Fall of Man at the Garden of Eden; sin came into this world and paradise was lost until Jesus Christ returns to eternally restore his creation. There is no one of us that does not struggle with sin every, single, day. There is no lofty pastor in any pulpit that does not struggle; even the great apostle Paul wondered why he did the things he did; he wrote in Romans 7:15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. There is so much to unpack in this chapter, but Paul is speaking about the struggle of good and evil, the struggle that all of us face, one that even himself battles from within. Paul goes on to explain how sin has such a hold over us, that he really can’t explain. My study Bible puts it like this, “Being fleshly, sold over to sin, involves a conflict that mystifies Paul and other believers. Paul feels he does not understand himself. He finds himself defeated, not doing what he wants to do, and doing what he hates to do. the conflict indicates that there is a battle between two identities in the believer. First there is something that acknowledges that the law is good. Second there is something within, called sin, which produces evil.” The battle of good and evil inside of us.

God uses his Spirit, his Word (the Bible), and his saints to convict us of sin. He uses the Spirit to put that tug in our conscious, the same Spirit that tugs at our conscious when we read our Bible, and his saints (pastors and friends) to bring those convictions to us. Are we listening, or are we wrapped up in the temporal pleasures of it? I am no different; sin creates many temporal pleasures for me too; the convictions sting and produce great pains. I would be much more scared if I didn’t feel convicted of sin. Can you imagine the realization that one day you did not feel any inward pain related to sin? Romans 1:24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves. One of the best sermons I have ever heard was from Dr. Adrian Rogers on when God gave up on us and let us die in sin; conviction and reverent fear does not do that message justice.

You are going to fail, but you can be eternally forgiven. You are never going to be sinless, and the battle of good and evil will always be present until you die. You can only seek with your heart to draw closer to God today than you were yesterday, and to seek him for the strength to resist sin. There is just as much power of God in the conviction of sin as there is in the hope of the Gospel. Paul puts that promise on the heels of Romans seven. Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Just take life with an eternal view; rest in your Salvation and seek to work out your salvation by abiding each day with Him. The more you seek him with your heart, the closer you draw to him, and the more sin will sting and produce a cleansing effect on your soul. All of this work is accomplished by his Spirit, his Word, and his Saints.

 
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Posted by on April 26, 2015 in Daily Devotions

 

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Go….live…share

07 Nov

Go….live…share

2 Corinthians 10:7-11 Do you look at things according to the outward appearance? If anyone is convinced in himself that he is Christ’s, let him again consider this in himself, that just as he is Christ’s, even so we are Christ’s. 8 For even if I should boast somewhat more about our authority, which the Lord gave us for edification and not for your destruction, I shall not be ashamed– 9 lest I seem to terrify you by letters. 10 “For his letters,” they say, “are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.” 11 Let such a person consider this, that what we are in word by letters when we are absent, such we will also be in deed when we are present.

The apostle Paul was an incredibly educated man. He has studied under the greatest scholars, and his knowledge of God’s Word and how to speak were likely unsurpassed. Paul could sway a crowd in any direction that he wished. His letters to the churches were many times weighty and convicting to those who read them, but when he came to town he preached the simplicity of the gospel. His preaching was being attacked by the religious of the day; they said he was hiding behind a pen and likely contemptible in some way. Paul took offense, and knew that God was doing a greater work in the sanctification process of Paul than anyone else understood. God was chipping away at Paul’s pride one big blow after another. Paul never wanted to draw any attention to himself; he had seen Jesus and understood just how little anything that was measured by earthly means meant in eternity. All that mattered to Paul was to share the good news that he had obtained; that salvation was available to everyone, and he as the chief of sinners was the proof to all that would listen.

I look back on my life, and realize how much I understand how Paul felt. I am not “edjumicated”, but I too lived a life full of sin until I saw Jesus and grasped the gospel. I did not have an experience on the road to Damascus, but I responded by accepting the free gift of grace He died for, and realizing that this life was all in preparation for the next. My heart hurts when I see so many that are wound up in the world, wound up in religion, or would up thinking that the world revolves around them. When you truly begin to understand how lost you are without Jesus as your savior and Lord of your life, you begin to live your life for the One who gives you life. You will begin to have a desire from deep within that prods you to share your faith and the gospel that saves. You will begin to realize that church is not about you, but the lost that have found their way there. You will begin to worry only what you can do for Jesus out of a response to the love He has shown you. You will begin to only give yourself to Him for the day, and to try and not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow may never come.

Paul is only worried about living his life for Christ. Paul is only worried about being the same in person as he is on paper. Are you the same person outside of the church for that hour on Sunday morning? Are you living your life with eternity in mind? Colossians 3:2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. Do that for today; live for Him today; be the person He wants you to be wherever your feet find you today. Share the Good News that Jesus Christ came for everyone; everyone that will repent and believe in him shall be saved. Go…live….share.

 
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Posted by on November 7, 2014 in Daily Devotions

 

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Basic Training

11 Nov

Basic Training

2 Timothy 2:1-4    You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. 2 And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. 3 You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 4 No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.

The apostle Paul’s second letter to Timothy is one of encouragement; one that is likely Paul’s last words to his protege, his son in the faith who had been by his side from Paul’s second missionary trip on. Paul had poured his heart into Timothy, he had stretched the boundaries of what Timothy thought he could do at a young age. Paul knew he had the upbringing and the capability of being a great leader in the church for Christ. Paul knew Timothy would make a good soldier for Christ. Here he reminds him of those struggles that will come to face a soldier for Christ. He is not only telling him to teach, and to delegate, but to remain focused. Soldiers must have a keen eye or focus on the mission at hand; Timothy’s mission was to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all that he encountered. Satan in the spiritual warfare that is the Christian life, brings all that he can to distract one’s eye from the mission at hand. Paul was consistently urging believers to remain focused on the eternal; he wrote in Colossians 3:1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. Timothy understood these things for he had been with Paul and known first hand the troubles that came as a soldier of Christ.

Today is Veterans Day; the day we salute those who have served our country in the military forces. Many have paid the ultimate price for their service with their lives. One thing is assured; very early in all of their basic training is instilled the necessity of a focused mind. Seeing the goal of the mission at hand; doing whatever it takes to accomplish the mission, no matter what the difficulties or the cost. A well trained soldier is like a machine with only the ability to accomplish the tasks at hand. Is that your mindset when it comes to your faith? Do you waiver when the going gets tough and see the distraction in front of you? Are you able to keep the mindset of a soldier and endure the distraction and press onward and upwards towards the goal? Being a soldier for Christ means you will suffer with him. Listen how Paul points to the promises to those that remain focused: 2 Timothy 2:10 Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. 11 The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful–for he cannot deny himself. (ESV) When the going gets tough, remember your basic training; focus on the eternal.

 
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Posted by on November 11, 2013 in Daily Devotions

 

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Recharging Batteries

03 Jun

Recharging Batteries

Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

This ol’ world we live in will run you down if you let it. The pressures of life, and the seemingly endless problems in life, can take the joy out of life, without Christ in your life. Satan does all that he can to take your eyes off the eternal reward; he wants you to dwell in the present tribulation, to sink into the despair of it, and blame God for it. With a heart for God, you will seek God in it, and your faith will grow and deepen; Satan’s plan backfires. Satan may even come to you as the worldly blessing; this is a slippery slope where the joy of it slowly takes your eyes off the Provider. You become wrapped up in it, and forget to praise the One whom gave it. Anything that takes your focus off Christ is from the enemy, but in it all you can use it against the enemy, in that realization of a heart for God.

The apostle Paul has just laid out the doctrines of Christianity and he is now about to lay out the duties of it. He is plainly speaking of how to live your life as a follower of Christ; how to become a disciple by which you are called. 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. You are not of this world any longer when you come to Salvation through Christ. You are to live your life differently; you are now a child of an eternal king; you are in-dwelt with His Spirit living inside you. That gut feeling you get sometimes is Him speaking to you; listen and obey. I still remember early in my walk, my pastor plainly putting it to me; “That gut feeling is the Holy Spirit pal.” That simple statement stuck with me; Christ is living inside me now.

I speak of getting my batteries recharged a lot. This world seems to suck the life power out of me, and it is through seeking God every day that I find His power to face the day. It can be in prayer, His Word, a conversation, an encounter with someone; it is always just the right thing, at just the right time. It gives me a renewed spirit; it renews my mind; it re-charges my spiritual batteries to face the world again. Matthew Henry describes it well, “It is the same with making a new heart and a new spirit-new dispositions and inclinations, new sympathies and antipathies; the understanding enlightened, the conscience softened, the thoughts rectified; the will bowed to the will of God, and the affections made spiritual and heavenly: so that the man is not what he was-old things are passed away, all things are become new; he acts from new principles, by new rules, with new designs.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. You too can recharge your batteries every day with a heart, mind, body, and soul that seeks Him daily. His power supply is endless and eternal.

 
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Posted by on June 3, 2013 in Daily Devotions

 

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Soldier disciples

27 May

Soldier disciples

John 15:8-17    By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. 9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. 17 These things I command you, that you love one another. 18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.

It’s Memorial Day, the day when we solemnly remember those who have paid the ultimate price, sacrificing their lives for ours. Those who have died fighting for our freedom, paying the ultimate price for those who may not even appreciate the price that they have paid. We take time to remember those who were the good soldiers; fighting for a cause they believed in to the point of death. Can you see the similarity in what Christ has done for you? Can you see that He paid the ultimate price to pay for your freedom from the eternal pain of sin? The One who created you, died to save you, to give his life for yours; I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. (John 10:10b).

The apostle Paul in his final letter to Timothy, uses the analogy of a soldier; Timothy must understand that the road as a disciple of Christ will be as a soldier for Christ. 2 Timothy 2:3 You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 4 No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. I am reading an incredibly powerful book, The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that goes into detail the call of discipleship that is placed by Christ on those he calls. Of the conscious act of making that commitment to follow His call. To place that effort in the act of obedience to what He lays on our heart. In this act of free will, is the heart of a disciple; a heart that desires to draw nearer to Christ in these acts of immediate obedience to what He calls us to do. This intimacy is found, cultivated, and continually sought in the life of a soldier, a disciple of Christ’s.

Do you claim the promises of Christ, but yet fail to live for Him? Do you in your mind see yourself in heaven since you signed a paper, or prayed a prayer? Do you have any evidences in your heart that something changed; is there evidences in your external of the internal change? Will you obey or delay that call He placed on you? Will you become a disciple of His even if it means to the point of death; dying to yourself and the false needs wrapped up in the ideal of sin from your enemy? Your enemy lurks behind your front lines placing doubt and false desire. A good soldier for Christ only seeks to please the One who enlisted him, who called him out to be a soldier for the heavenly army. Place your life’s focus, trust, and obedience in the commander of the heavenly army that will have assured victory over Satan and sin in the end; the beginning of eternal paradise for His soldiers.

 
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Posted by on May 27, 2013 in Daily Devotions

 

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A Choice: God’s Word or TV

23 May

A Choice: God’s Word or TV

1 John 4:4-6     You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 5 They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. 6 We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

John is speaking directly to the false teachers of the day. Those that had divided the Word, and transformed it unto their liking. They had mangled it into a blend of philosophies and religions, and twisted it into religions that suited lifestyles; religions that suited some, elevated others, but for the most part took Christ out of the picture. If He remained there, he had been transformed into differing ideals; not remaining the Incarnated Son of God that had come to save the world from sin. They had provided their concoctions that would, as the apostle Paul spoke of their ministries, teaching what people wanted to hear. 2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.

You are given the blessing of the Holy Spirit living inside of you, when you answer that call upon your life of the grace of God found in Salvation. The Spirit is your teacher; it is He who grants you the understanding of spiritual things. It is He inside you that makes you see things through your heart. John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. It is He that makes you question, what you hear. That is the discernment of the Holy Spirit living inside you, and the greater discernment is cultivated by a heart that is in daily pursuit in God’s Word. There are many wolves in sheep’s clothing today preaching a blend of their own around the gospel of God. The prosperity preaching by so many elevated in today’s media has become the accepted normal. This blend of Christ and all the financial and material blessings he wants you to have, fit very well into the American society with the desire of excess.

The blessings that God intends for you are eternal; they are not money, houses, cars, vacations, power, and all the riches that are measured by the standards of this world. If you believe that you have been deceived by a false prophet. You may have come to find Christ, but you need to concentrate on following your Savior in the Word, and not the false preacher on TV. Pray for the Holy Spirit living inside you to open your eyes to God through His Word. You will find eternal riches in the peace that comes in the understanding of the Word. John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. If you continue to feed yourself by sitting under the false teachers, you will only be led farther away in the opposite direction.

 
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Posted by on May 23, 2013 in Daily Devotions

 

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Non-adjustable

07 May

Non-adjustable

Ephesians 5:1-2   Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

The apostle Paul spends the second half of the book of Ephesians with great instructions on how to live our lives as Christians. He tells us of how we are separated now; we are children of light, instead of the children of darkness before our Salvation. 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. (ESV). The world is lost in sin, living in the darkness and death of it. Most are blind to it, and sadly there are those that deny it. There are eternal consequences for both. You must understand that the world is not a good place; as a whole it is condemned by the fallen state of the world through the generational sin by Adam in the garden of Eden. We as descendants of Adam, must be rescued from that snare of sin, through the perfect sacrifice for sin through Christ, to atone for our sin debt to a Holy God.

So many times we want both; we want the temporal pleasure of sin, and the eternal reward of heaven. We want to live in our sin as long as possible, and then claim the victory of Christ when it is convenient to us. We may even claim Christ, but continue in sin, living our lives in a false gospel of God’s grace. We feel that we can always do as we wish, then ask for forgiveness afterwards. That is sadly a soul that has not been redeemed, a soul that is truly not saved, but a soul that hopefully will have their hearts opened to the truth before it is too late. 5 For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Our nation has become so weak, and that weakness has infiltrated our church. We have tread upon the sanctity of marriage, allowing the acceptance of homosexuality into our pulpits. We have moved to a place that we adapt the Bible into what we want to hear, and delete that which requires repentance and turning from our sin. We move to take up issues with hunger or persecution; those issues that are safe, yet we tread upon abortion and gay rights in the ruse of equality and decision. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. There is a such thing as Absolute Truth, and it is found in the Word of God. There is a standard which is not able to be bent into our liking, a standard that we all will come to answer to the One who gave it to us. We will stand before a righteous judge and account for all our lives one day; will you do the best you can to live by the truths you have found, or adjust them to fit?

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2013 in Daily Devotions

 

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Do your part

24 Apr

Do your part

Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

Pastor Jack asked the question of what this scripture meant to us yesterday. This falls in the context of when Christ was speaking to his disciples regarding his second coming and the end of times. They were seeking to know what the signs were for the end of times, and how to be on the lookout for His return. Matthew 24 is Christ’s prophecy of the last days. Early in this prophecy is this scripture above; a prelude to the Great Commission He gives them upon his ascension to heaven after his crucifixion and resurrection. Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. Christ was telling them of how it is their ultimate life responsibility to spread the Gospel; and the spreading of the Gospel to all those who will hear must happen before He returns.

Matthew Henry summarized it well, “That which seems chiefly intended here, is, that the end of the world shall be then, and not till then, when the gospel has done its work in the world. The gospel shall be preached, and that work carried on, when you are dead; so that all nations, first or last, shall have either the enjoyment, or the refusal, of the gospel; and then cometh the end, when the kingdom shall be delivered up to God, even the Father; when the mystery of God shall be finished, the mystical body completed, and the nations either converted and saved, or convicted and silenced, by the gospel.” The apostle Paul summarized it well in Romans 10:13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” 14 How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? You are called by Christ, the one who saved you, to preach that message of Salvation to all that will hear. It is your responsibility, unto your debt to Him, to evangelize and spread the Good News found in Him.

Ten years ago the internet was a new fad. A new means of communication that would likely fade. In that short time we now cannot imagine life without it. We now are instantly connected 24 hours a day to all the world. All the world is receiving this technology at an alarming rate. Even missionaries in the far reaches of the earth are carrying this technology into those foreign lands. This can easily be seen as a means for all to hear. You can even look shortly into the future of this technology and begin to understand how “all may see or hear.” In the book of Revelation we are told of the two great prophets that come and preach repentance to all the earth for 1,260 days. When they have finished their testimony, they are killed, and all the world living in sin rejoices at the sight of their bodies. 9 Then those from the peoples, tribes, tongues, and nations will see their dead bodies three-and-a-half days, and not allow their dead bodies to be put into graves. The means for all the world to see and hear lies before you today. God has given us the technology for the Good News to be spread to every nation. Today should be the day you begin to do your part.

 
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Posted by on April 24, 2013 in Daily Devotions

 

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Paddle, paddle, paddle…….

02 Apr

Paddle, paddle, paddle…….

Philippians 1:12 But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel,

My best friend told me in ministry one of the hardest things to do, is to know what not to say. When I gave my testimony a few weeks back I understood what he meant. I struggle with it in this ministry; I know God is allowing these trials in my life, but I struggle with how much to reveal. In my pride I am a contained person; even those closest to me do not know the level of my struggles, I do not wish to reveal them for they have their own burdens. Only God truly knows what I hide behind smiles. I am trying to draw near to God right now for discernment, clarity, and wisdom for these paths I am on. Those big things in life that affect more than just you; they affect those around you. The things that keep you awake, and occupy your mind during the day. Only God knows the level of struggles, and only God can get help you get through them.

I want to have the apostle Paul’s attitude; he understood every single thing in his life flowed through God’s hands and it could be used to draw glory to God. Paul wrote Philippians from prison, and in prison God was glorified. 13 so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ; 14 and most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. God was using Paul in prison to reach into the Roman military and royal courts. To his fellow brethren on the outside, he was inspiring. They heard of how he was preaching in prison, and that was what had landed him there to begin with. His faith was so strong he feared no man. His life, strength, and focus is found in Philippians 1:21 For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Paul knew that God had his feet where He wanted him for that day. He was to remain there and preach the gospel wherever he was for that day. Paul was in the center of God’s Will for him.

I can just about guarantee that most of you are struggling in some way too. It is seemingly becoming a mark of a Christian to be struggling now. There comes with that an understanding that you are not of this world, and of how this world is headed downstream away from God. You must be constantly fighting against this world to swim upstream to keep your eyes and heart on Him. The enemy will provide you all the comforts of this world to keep your eyes off God. Living in this world and the ways of it, are much easier than living for the promises after it; but in this life determines the rewards, or punishment of it, for eternity.

 
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Posted by on April 2, 2013 in Daily Devotions

 

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