Category: joy

He Was at Home

“A few days later, when Jesus came back to Capernaum, the news spread that he was at home.” 

Mark 2:1

You can’t hide the presence of Jesus.  There is a ‘built-in’ need for Him in the hearts of men and women.  You can’t keep it quiet, it is an open secret.  Believing people let it out in many ways.  You can see it in their faces, and hear it in their voices.  They become gentle and caring, where once was selfishness and anger.  Peace is present, and a wonderful new thing called joy.  They can’t help but share about their new guest, when they speak it spontaneously spills out.

Spring flowers can’t help but emit a beautiful fragrance. 

And there is a spiritual fragrance that announces that He is present.  You might say that He takes over, just as a bright light takes over the darkness.  When Jesus is present, His brightness pushes through the cracks and shines out every window.  He will not be contained or hidden.  Now it’s true that love itself is invisible.  But it has an effect on all who take it in.  The very presence of Jesus transforms us, and can change the world around us.

Our little hearts are now His home.

People travel and gather great works of art.  They collect these things of beauty and culture.  They will go out of their way to search for paintings and statues of grace and elegance, and finding them they will spend a great deal of money to obtain them.  But no one or nothing can compare to having Christ as the honored guest. The poorest farmer can be the wealthiest man. No matter how quietly Jesus enters, His presence will soon make itself known.  Where Christ truly abides, nothing but good will be observed.

“Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.”

Ephesians 3:17

Repeated Sin

I must tell you this right from the start! You must believe it before we can go any further.

God is not against you because of your repeated sin. Rather He is for you against that repeated sin.

(I want to apologize for my brother pastors who may have told you otherwise.)

“Anyone who continues to live in him will not sin. But anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or understand who he is.”

“7 Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. 9 Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God.”

1 John 3:6-9 

Over and over, we sin the same sin until it has become habitual. It is exactly the opposite of godliness (that’s why we call it ungodliness.) It’s truly the other side of the proverbial coin. It haunts everyone who sincerely wants to follow Jesus.

Let’s understand these things. I’ve listed seven consequences of repeated sin.

  1. It creates hypocrisy and self-hatred.
  2. It nullifies witness, and the work of missions.
  3. It cancels out real praise, worship, and Bible reading.
  4. It destroys real fellowship between other believers.
  5. Any personal ministry is degraded and turned upside down.
  6. It blinds others, and deceives them to who we really are inside.
  7. It always engenders guilt and unworthiness, especially toward God.

I once lived in a house that had a severe mold problem. The previous owner, in an attempt to make things liveable, painted over the offending walls. He meant well, of that I am sure, but the problem of the mold was never dealt with properly. No matter how much you slathered on the paint, the mold was still alive and well. It simply worked its way to the surface. Sin is like this.

Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 7, gets to the root of our “mold.” If we read it carefully (as we should) we’ll start to grasp what it means to walk biblically.

“I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. 16 But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. 17 So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.”

“And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. 19 I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 20 But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.”

Paul floats different concepts our way. Law, sin, nature. Each word must be processed.

“Law” is something that is always true. (Think of the Law of gravity.) “Sin” or falling short. The Greek word is pretty descriptive–it means “an arrow that misses the target.” “Nature,” or the intrinsic character of something.

We use these words so seldom that they seem archaic and outdated; but not so. Understanding these three opens up the entire realm of spiritual holiness. When we realize that the Word explains our situation so clearly we become convinced that holiness is possible. We begin to hope again.

Tolerating repeated sin is a terrible form of “spiritual suicide.” It always breaks fellowship with the living God. But as a believer, God doesn’t break fellowship with us, rather He comes closer and patches up our self-inflicted wounds. But even then we will not understand Him.

The Father’s heart is for us to be heart-holy. This is His perfect plan for us. 

“So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. 15 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. 16 For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”

1 Peter 1:4-6

But there is an all powerful remedy to our sickness-plague of repeated sin. Almost always we stare at this ugliness, it seems we’re fixated on it. Often there are two approaches we take regarding repeated sin. 1) We ignore and flail out a life of “holiness.” We minimize this. 2) We become hyper-aware of our sin and guilt. We maximize sin to the point where we lose all joy and peace.

“Looking at the wound of sin will never save anyone. What you must do is look at the remedy.”

D.L. Moody

I need to stop teaching now. Rereading this has made me slightly frustrated about what I’ve written. If any of this has helped, I’m glad. I’d like to close this with a Billy Sunday quote. He explains the seriousness of repeated sin. 

“I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I’ve got a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old and fistless and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition!” 

 Billy Sunday

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I Know He Loves Me (But is that Enough?)

Gods-love

“Yet Jerusalem says, “The Lord has deserted us;  the Lord has forgotten us.”
Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child?  Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible,    
 I would not forget you! 16 See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands. Always in my mind is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins.”

Isaiah 49:14-16, NLT

Some of us need to be persuaded of God’s love. We are unconvinced. But Isaiah understands. We grasp the theology, but not the meaning. Our own native ideas keep us in disbelief. Perhaps the greatest liability we have as believers is this doubt that God really feels this way about us. But, He does.

Isaiah claims the impossible, yet grounds himself in what is real. The Father loves us and we’re His very own. Even if we don’t seem as holy as we ought to be. In His out reached hands, we discover scars.  This is the price He has purchased us with. We once were blind, and very lost— but now we are His own children and can see.

God may love me. But does He like me?

We are given the impression that He more than ‘loves’ us; He ‘likes’ us. That dear ones, is not a point I’m prepared to support it with scripture, but that isn’t the truth, it doesn’t exist except in my own thinking. I know that He theologically loves me. But to be really honest I sometimes think that God is irritable with me, and He just gets tired of having me around.

But I also must believe God also likes me as well. Surely, there is such a fine line here, between ‘like’ and love. The more I walk with the Lord, and it’s been over 50 years now, the more I love/like Him. I have learned to like Him as much as I love Him. And if God doesn’t like me, I think it actually diminishes His love.

Isaiah speaks for the Lord using tender metaphors. Among the people some had the mindset that God had somehow forgotten them. They thought that they were ‘the lost ones.’

God then uses the analogy of a mother. A nurturing mother. This metaphor is strong and sure. No, God hasn’t forgotten His people. Look at His hands, your name is ‘tattooed’ on them. You’re His, forever. (I hope you like that truth.)

“In math, if you divide an infinite number by any number, no matter how large, you still have an infinite quotient. So Jesus’ love, being infinite, even though it is divided up for every person on earth, is still infinitely poured out on each one of us!” 

Charles Spurgeon

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Your Master’s Voice

“But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.”

Matthew 13:16, ESV

There is a vast audio ocean that surrounds us.  Did you know that in the room where you are reading this, that there are “voices” going on? You just don’t see or hear them unless you have your radio or television tuned in to the right frequency, or they’re just too far away. We live in this golden age of Bluetooth, and cell phones. ( I suppose that they have positives, but also negatives.)

There is a frequency that we must lock into, where we can hear important things (or block-out confusing sounds.) But the Holy Spirit really wants to talk with us.  We soon understand that He wants us to communicate with Him. He yearns for a dialogue with us,  just like He had once a long time ago in the early chapters of Genesis. (Gen. 3:9)

“Prayer is not monologue, but dialogue. Gods voice in response to mine is its most essential part.”

Andrew Murray

Knowing that I’ve been created in His image I can ponder the visible, which is a shadow of the real world. Mankind in general, creates and communicates–this is what we do–because it’s how God acts. After all, we are in His image. Just look at a mountain or an apple tree, in a way they explain God, if we can listen with our hearts. We will hear Him.

He is always speaking, but we’re not always listening.

The attribute of listening is amazingly profound.  Forty years ago, I listened to my local radio station while I’m driving. When I moved away from the radio tower, the signal got weaker and weaker. But if I turned the car around and drive back into town, the signal becomes stronger and I can hear it again.

In the same way, we stop hearing God when we drift away from Him. But if we will turn around and come back to Him, we’ll hear His voice again. The closer we are to God, the clearer we can hear Him. “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8).

Dear one, if you foster listening to Him you’ll be really hearing, and that is why God created you. Hey. Read your Bible, and ponder a passage, and then prepare to hear Him.

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