Saturday, November 10, 2012, 3:16 a.m. – the Lord woke me this morning with the song “Praise the ‘I AM’” playing in my mind.
Praise
the “I AM!” / An Original Work / February 24, 2012
Jesus,
my Savior, full of compassion,
Glorious
in power, mighty in strength;
Gracious
Redeemer, mighty deliv’rer,
My
heart adores Him. Praise to His name!
Perfect
salvation my Lord provided
When
He died for my sins on a tree;
Crucified
my sins; conquered in vict’ry,
When
He arose, so I could be free!
I
am so thankful for His forgiveness;
Grateful
that He chose to pardon me,
Giving
me new life full in His Spirit,
So
I can serve Him; His servant be!
Walking
in daily fellowship with Him,
Obeying
Him whate’er He commands;
Forsaking
my sins, living in freedom,
I
will endure with Him to the end!
He
gives me peace and calm reassurance
In
times of sorrow, or in distress.
His
grace is sure, and oh, how sufficient
To
meet me in my need for sweet rest.
Oh,
how I love You, Jesus, my Savior.
My
heart longs for You where’er I am.
Your
word is precious; speaks to my spirit;
Brings
comfort, healing. Praise the “I AM!”
Speak, Lord, for
your servant is listening. I read 1 John
3 (NIV 1984):
How great is the love the Father has lavished
on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The
reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends,
now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.
But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as
he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.
Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact,
sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away
our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No
one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
Dear children, do not let anyone lead you
astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. He who
does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from
the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s
work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed
remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This
is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil
are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who
does not love his brother.
This is the message you heard from the
beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the
evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own
actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, my
brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to
life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has
eternal life in him.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus
Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our
brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but
has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us
not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how
we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his
presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts,
and he knows everything.
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn
us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because
we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to
believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he
commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this
is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
God’s Love
When
I sleep at night, I pile (heap) the blankets on myself because I get cold. I
tuck them close around my body and snug up around my neck. Only my head sticks
out. Well, one day I looked up the term “lavish,” i.e. in the context of God
lavishing his great love on us, and it rendered “heap; cover; shower; and
smother,” etc. I thought, “How cool!” To lavish also means to give generously
and in abundance, i.e. he gives far beyond what we could ever think or imagine.
His love is never ending. Yet, what really touches my heart when I think about
him lavishing his love on us is this picture of blankets heaped on me to keep
me warm, and tucked closely around my body smothering me with his love, care
and protection. It is also kind of like the picture of a mom wrapping her baby
in a blanket and then holding her baby (child) close in her arms. His love is
wrapped closely around us in much the same way, because we are his children.
We
are his children because God loved us so much that he sent his Son, Jesus
Christ, to die on the cross for our sins. In love, Jesus willingly laid down
his life for us so we could go free from slavery to sin, free from the ultimate
penalty of sin (eternal damnation), and so we could be free to love and worship
God in his power and strength within us. We become children of God through
faith in Jesus Christ. Faith, though, is not an intellectual assent to what
Jesus did for us, or a mere acknowledgment that we are sinners in need of a
Savior. It is not an emotional decision we make at an altar after a passionate
plea or preceded by a moving story coupled with stirring music playing in the
background. Faith means turning from our sin, being changed in heart and mind
by the Holy Spirit of God in regeneration (new birth), and turning to God to
walk with him in faithful obedience and surrender to his will for our lives
(see Eph. 4:17-24; Luke 9:23-24, etc.). It means dying to our old way of living
in sin, and it means being reborn to live new lives in Jesus Christ our Lord
(boss).
The World
The
world, in this context, is a reference to the world of sin and wickedness;
worldliness; the worldly church; or to anything that stands in stark contrast
or opposition to God and to his words of truth. This world does not know God,
which is why this world also does not know us, i.e. it does not understand,
comprehend, or acknowledge (give credence to) who we are in Christ Jesus, nor
can it. There is no fellowship between us and this world, because there is no
fellowship between light and darkness. That is why scripture teaches that we
are to come out from them and be separate (see 2 Co 6:17; Rev. 18:4). We are to
live in the world, but we are not to partake in the things of this sinful and
fallen world to where we become like the world. God pulled us out of the world
so we could be shining lights for his gospel to the world (see Matt. 5:14; John
15:19; 1 Jn. 2:15-16).
Continuing in
Sin
John
contrasts a lifestyle of sin with a lifestyle of obedience to God/Jesus
throughout this letter in 1 John. Yet, this teaching is not as black and white
as it may appear on the surface, because John did acknowledge that we might
still sin, though he wrote this that we might not sin. We will not lose our
salvation every time we sin, though sin will definitely break our fellowship
with God, yet we also must not use God’s grace to us as a window of opportunity
to continue in willful and repeated sin, either. So, what we need to understand
here is, although being in Christ Jesus does not mean we will never sin again,
what it does mean is that we will not willfully continue in a lifestyle of sin
thinking God’s grace covers it all. John makes it quite clear, as does Jesus,
Paul, Peter, et al, that we cannot continue to walk in sin after we have
professed faith in Jesus Christ. If we continue in a lifestyle of sin, we have not
seen God nor do we know him.
Then,
John warns us to not let anyone lead us astray. No one who is born of God will
continue in a lifestyle of sin. He cannot go on sinning, John said, because he
has been born of God. So, if someone preaches a gospel message to you absent of
the need to repent (turn from sin) and absent of the need to obey Christ Jesus
for salvation, then he is one who is leading you astray to a false gospel,
which makes him a false teacher, especially or particularly if he does this
knowingly and purposefully. Some preach this false gospel by omission while
others teach it by commission, i.e. they teach that repentance and obedience to
Christ are not necessary for salvation and that God is pleased with you no
matter what you do. Ephesians 4:17-24 and Luke 9:23-24 directly refute that
teaching. So, don’t buy into a gospel that tells you that you don’t have to
turn from your sin or that omits that important ingredient from the gospel. The
gospel is an offense to those who are perishing, and when we preach the true
gospel, to the perishing we are the smell of death.
Love One
Another
Love
is the opposite of hate. Hate reveals itself in hostility or animosity toward
another. Hate can be rooted in jealousy, such as was the case with Cain who
murdered his brother because his own actions were evil while his brother Abel’s
actions were righteous. Hate is also rooted in pure selfishness, yet love does
no harm to its neighbor. Hate desires to get even, to harm, to play tricks on,
to withhold love and affection, and is often devious and willfully chooses to
inflict some type of pain or suffering on another, even to the point of
spreading lies about someone to have others hate that person. Love, on the
other hand, returns hate with love, wishes no ill to its neighbor, demonstrates
love and compassion, and follows Jesus Christ’s example in willingly giving of
one’s time, energies, emotion, reputation and very lives in order to meet the
legitimate needs of others, particularly their need of their Savior Jesus
Christ, of salvation from sin, and of eternal life with God in glory.
We
should not be surprised if the world hates us, because it hated Jesus, too,
because he told the world that what it did was evil. So, speaking the truth to
people can be love if it is motivated by love. Telling people the truth of the
gospel of Jesus Christ is also love if it comes from a heart motivated by love
and concern for those who are dying in their sins without Christ. Exposing
false teaching and false teachers is also love, because we don’t want people to
be led astray and to be given a false hope of salvation and for them to hear
God say to them one day, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” Teaching people
they need to turn from their sins and that they need to obey Christ is also
love, because we understand that this is the only way to salvation and to
eternal life with God in heaven. This is how Jesus laid down his life for us so
that we could go free, and this is how we need to lay down our lives for
others. Refusing to tell people the truth, because we think telling the truth
is not “polite,” or because we don’t want to hurt their feelings is not love.
It is selfishness.
We
also love one another by meeting others’ physical or emotional legitimate needs.
Jesus Christ had compassion on people for their physical and emotional needs,
as well as on their spiritual needs. He combined forgiveness of sins with
physical healing often in his ministry. If we see someone in financial need
(legitimate) and we have no pity on him, how can God’s love be in us? Obviously
we cannot meet all the needs of all people, but when the Lord Jesus, via his
Holy Spirit within our hearts, presses upon us that someone is in need and we
choose to ignore that need, though we may be quite able to help meet the need,
then we are not exercising Christ’s love within us. We have to love more than just
with our words, but we must love in action and in truth in meeting whatever needs
God says we should meet. Yet, we must pray for much discernment to know which are
legitimate needs and which are not. Sometimes the real need is for someone to
learn financial management or to get a job, and that is where we can best help him
or her.
Obey His
Commands
Lastly,
we must obey God’s commands and do what pleases him. Then we have confidence
before God in bringing our requests to him in prayer. Those who obey God’s
commands live in him, and he in them. This is truth, and it is the truth we
must live by if we are to be in Christ, if he is to be in us, and if we are to
have the hope of eternal life with God in glory.
Jesus, Lead Me / An Original
Work / July 22, 2011
Jesus, lead me
all the way.
Be my hope and
be my stay.
Gently lead me
where I should go,
So Your Spirit,
I want to know.
Open up my
heart to You.
Fill me with
Your love and truth.
Make my heart
want to obey.
Be my Lord
today. Gently lead always.
Jesus, lover of
my soul,
Cleanse my
heart, and make me whole;
Be transformed
in my heart today,
As I turn from
my sin and pray.
Make Your will
known to my heart.
May I not from
You depart.
How I long to
hear You now,
As I humbly
bow. Jesus, hear me now.
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