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Is “Right” All?
Right with God
All the reports are pointing to Jesus coming soon so TV is asking Christians if we are ready. Are we right with God? Leola thinks about this and asks her own question, “Am I right with God? What is right with God?” She researched this idea and concludes she IS right with God. She has faith in Jesus Christ. From Romans 1 to Romans 3:20 Paul tells us what being wrong with God is then he says “but now” to show us being right with God is having faith in Jesus Christ. So, her next question is, “Why is the ‘preacher’ preaching to the choir?” Leola remembers Revelation 2 and 3 where Jesus tells His churches about being an overcomer. Is “right with God” and “overcomer” being used interchangeably? The Bible tells us once we are saved we are right with God (Romans 3:21-26) therefore how often do we need to become “right with God”? Biblically speaking salvation makes us right with God so she says out loud, “Yes, I am right with God.”
Leola has confessed Jesus Christ as her Lord and Saviour (Romans 10:9-10). She knows she has eternal life (John 5:24). This is right with God according to Paul. Is she missing something? Is there more? This short speech needs to be preached in the street not in the church. It needs to be spoken to the unsaved not the saved. This “right with God” speech needs to be modified to help the saved preach this to the unsaved. As Leola thinks more about this topic it becomes clearer to her being right with God is His job. He is the one who saves us. He is the one who chooses us. We cannot make ourselves right with God. This is what Paul is telling us in Romans 3. Being right with God is the work of God and not of our own works. Salvation, sanctification, reconciliation, glorification, all of the ‘ations that go with it are all the work of God therefore being right with God is out of her hands. Is there more to what the “right with God” question? She supposes so.
We are definitely in a time of peril. Mankind is in love with itself and thinks it doesn’t need our God. As a matter of fact they cannot see God in what is happening to the land today. Not so in the church. End times preaching is commencing again. The saved are asking each other if we are right with God. Why? Why are we asking each other this question? The saved ARE right with God if they are indeed chosen. We can choose for ourselves to sit in the church building out of obligation or ritual but we cannot choose be chosen by the Father. There are plenty of those people sitting in the church today and until they are chosen they cannot be right with God. They may very well get bitter and become those folks who make their own gospel to lead many astray (Jude). Will this affect the people who are right with God? It will, I suppose, make us question our salvation but that should not be so. No one who is chosen by the Father should question their salvation. If you do question your salvation you are not working out your salvation with Him.
Right Relationship with God
Leola wonders if that is all there is? Why do we have a 2000 page book if this is all there is? There has to be more included in “the right with God” concept being preached today. Her works cannot make her right with God but they do put Leola and every Christian in a “right relationship with God”. Leola is learning that being “right with God” is different from being in a “right relationship with God”. She cannot make herself right with God no matter how hard she works. Salvation is a gift of God through grace and not of our own works (Ephesians 2:8-9). On the other hand having a “right relationship with God” is about overcoming our obstacles and continuing to have faith in Jesus through them all. Leola thinks the people preaching the “right with God” speeches actually mean for us to examine our relationship with God. How can she tell if our relationship with God is right? Sometimes Leola feels lost and disconnected from God then two days later she feel found and completely connected. There is one thing she knows for sure, she is ready to go home. She is torn between going home to be with Jesus and staying for the sake of the people she will help with their life skills. That is the key she teaches and follows. She is ready. Maybe us teachers of the Word should ask, “are you ready for God” rather than are you “right with God”. Leola has been ready for years.
We can tell we are ready for God when we can honestly say, “Jesus come,” and mean it. Jesus tells us in every one of those 2000+ pages He needs to be first in our lives but unfortunately that is much easier read then done. I can tell you from experience once you begin putting Him first life gets much easier to handle, stuff gets easier to relinquish, money gets easier to donate, love gets easier to give away, and the plan gets easier to follow. We begin to see this world is not our home and we long to go home to be with Jesus. If you are ready for Jesus to come you are in a right relationship with God but if you are not you need to begin working out your salvation. Ask the unsaved to see if they need to get ‘right’ with God but ask the saved if they are in a ‘right relationship’ with God. Jesus come!
Meditation Verses: Romans 1-3; Revelation 2-3; Romans 10:9-10; John 5:24; Jude; Ephesians 2:8-9
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Interesting or Interested
Be Interesting
Leola has spent her life trying to find ways to become interesting to people because she felt so invisible. She spent a lot of time training herself to be a good speaker. She joined Toastmasters. She spent a lot of time trying to look just right so her cloths wouldn’t stand out before her brilliance. She spent a lot of money. She gave herself completely to be interesting to people so they would talk with her, hear her, and see her. Today, it just all seems so silly because today she finds herself under the orders of God to be quiet, hide and be in secret with Him. Stop investing in being interesting. This was a blow to Leola. She doesn’t like to be in the background. She likes to be seen and she has done some pretty drastic things to get in front. Some of those things have even been an embarrassment to her. The levels she would stoop for attention brought her to her knees. At one of those despicable levels put her is such disgust with herself that God was finally able to get to her. Stop!
She stopped and began a long stint of loneliness. Is it going to be just her and God forever? How can she be interesting to God? He is the one who created the whole world. How can she top that? Leola has been alone now for many years to ponder her relationship with God and to modify her relationship with people. Now, she doesn’t think this forced loneliness was any different than the loneliness she felt with people. He has asked her to make changes to benefit other people when she comes in contact with them rather than feed her need to be seen. She cries today to think of the things she has said and done to be seen after professing to be a God loving person. What kind of model for Christianity has she been? She has been so much more interested in herself than anyone else. How does SHE look? What should SHE do? How can someone who serves themselves all the time be interesting? The antics Leola had been performing have made her less interesting not more.
I had convinced myself that becoming interesting was for others. Who would like a boring person around them? All work and no play made Kathleen a dull person but all play made her a disgrace. There was so many things I had done to become visible to people. I tried to get into the “right” crowd with the “popular” people, and the “known” ones. None of that worked because God had other plans for me. He was training me to want Him, see Him, and follow Him. He was not popular in His day nor was He with the kind I was trying to hang with either. Oh, they said they were Christians, but their behaviour was far from it. Their behaviour looked pretty much like mine. You know the behaviour that disgusts me after the fact especially when it doesn’t get me to where I want it to get me. Two mighty blows in one second.
Be Interested
Less interesting is not where Leola wants to be. She has spent a lot of time pining for popularity, fixing for friends and acting for accolades. This is what she knows. She doesn’t know how to keep silent, make herself invisible and preserve secrets. She is an extrovert who loves being an extrovert. She loves talking to new people. She loves talking. Leola is interesting according to God but she has to learn now to be interested. There is a way God wants her to speak. There is information God wants her to seek. She has spent most of her life seeking for her own sake now she has to learn to seek for another’s sake, to listen. She needs to seek information about them to make them feel visible, heard and loved by Jesus. Who better to do the job than a person who feels the opposite most of the time? Leola knows exactly how degrading it is to feel invisible and the last thing she wanted to do was turn the tables to make others feel visible while she remains invisible. For her to help anyone she needs to listen to what they have experienced. How will she know unless she hears it from them? Leola knows people want to be interesting but more so they want her to be interested in them. Being interested in people is exactly where God wants Leola to be. It isn’t about hiding herself from people it is putting them before herself in all subjects.
Jesus did not hide from anyone but sometimes he makes us hide from people because we are not suited to represent Him. I was not suited to represent Him because I wanted to be interesting to people. My interests were self-serving and there is nothing I personally can do for anyone. It is Jesus who does everything. He draws people to Himself and blesses us with being with Him. He teaches people how to live and allows us to tag along. It is Jesus who is interesting but some people don’t know that. How will I get that information to them if I am the one striving for their interest? I am only interesting for the short time I am with them. Jesus is with them 24/7. How can anyone or I deprive them of the interesting things Jesus did and said by talking about myself all the time instead of Him! I want to be interested in your life more than be interesting to you. When I talk, let my words direct you straight to the most interesting Man in the world, Jesus.
Meditation Reading this Week: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
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The Same Mind
Un-Jesus Like
Leola watches the television in horror! If Sam wasn’t watching the news she would have turned off the television long ago. She is not one for television or even the radio. Silence does not bother her at all but it used too. Leola’s head was a nasty place to be and still is sometimes but now she spends any ‘un-Jesus’ like time with Jesus getting her mind back to His. Leola had a hard mind then it became a soft mind, crying all the time over every little thing. She detested the vulnerability of that soft mind so she prayed for a hard mind again. Jesus taught her how to have His mind no matter what it caused in her emotions. Leola is a thinker who questions everything she feels she needs to know. Terrorism is the subject she wants to know about at this moment. Not specifically terror, but the terrorist. In her mind she is pondering how these people can watch themselves kill. She tries to see through their eyes and cries just thinking about it. They are still talking about it. It is still fresh in the mind of the people who witnessed it. She looks at her husband and asks, “Do these people believe the world will just lay down when they do these things?” His answer, “Yes!” Her response, “Why?” “Drugs!” was Sam’s response.
In David Wilkerson’s book The Cross & The Switchblade, he talks about how gangs are formed and how gang members are kept. One of the gang boys told him loneliness is why the boys and girls are in gangs and drugs is what keeps them there. Leola can believe this is the same mentality of these terrorist groups too. They scan the internet for lonely boys and girls (boys to shoot and girls to sell). They pose as loving friends who just want the best for these lonely children. They convince them, through their loneliness, they would be better with them than the people who hurt them every day. They promise them a love they don’t even give themselves and certainly do not intend to actually give them. Once they have these lonely boys and girls they fill them full of drugs to keep them passive then they brainwash them into thinking no one cares about them. They tell them they are hated by humanity therefore humanity must die. Pumped full of drugs these people do as they are told because now they are filled with the hatred of the gang they live with. Leola’s heart swells with a love for these kids, these terrorist. They need Jesus. He is the only one who can free them from this.
Despite all the publicity to unite we can never unite unless we have the same mind. 1 Corinthians 1:10 implores us to be of the same mind. In the very next chapter Paul tells us we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). If we have the mind of Christ we will unite on every cause as long as it is from Jesus. We are to have sympathy for the world but not stoop to their level to reach them. Gang members are united with the mind of the leader. If gangs are able to do this why can we not do this as Christians? Gangs are effective at using love to draw lonely people in, why are Christians not using the same tactic? Gangs are united in using drugs and bullying to make you stay. The church should use love from the Mind of Christ to make people stay. Love takes a lot of work and the result is pain. From experience I can tell you that not everyone is the same nor do they feel loved the same. I have been hurt many times by the things I have done, out of love or friendliness that were not appreciated by the receiver. If we think about the things Jesus did you can appreciate the pain. Being of the same mind of Jesus is very difficult and hardly popular.
To Jesus Like
Leola was not always of the mind of Christ. She wanted those who used people spitefully to die in their sin. She wanted abusive husbands to be tortured for what they did to their wives. She wanted those who abuse children to be hung. Her mind was not of Christ! God did a great work in healing her heart because of her past. When she started praying for the women of Essex County Jesus let her pray the way she wanted too filled with hatred and terror. Within months He was showing her in His Word how to pray and what to pray. David, in his Psalms, prayed for strongholds to be broken down but God would teach Leola what that means. She began praying for strongholds to be broken down and Jesus taught her they would not stay down unless the one who erected them became saved. Did she want women to remain safe? If so, she needed to pray for the salvation of the abuser, the bully, the gang leader, the terrorist, the ones she had grown to hate. Today, she has compassion for them, but still has a need to know what makes them tick. Sam enlightened her. She had read how drugs were being used and Sam enlightened her of drugs being used during wars by every army. Mind altering ways are being used by people who want to be in control because people are not taking control of their own minds. Pain hurts so we numb it, rejection stings so we defer the plan, lack of control makes us uneasy so we lash out! All of this, Leola thinks, is the cause of the horrors we see on television today. The mind can be a terrible thing and unless we have the mind of Christ our actions will cause great damage. Paul was correct. Until she got the mind of Christ she was all over the place from degrading herself to degrading other people. She could not unite with anyone because she wasn’t united with Christ.
As I united my mind with Christ I became more unpopular with friends and family and church people in general. I had to learn to relay Christ’s mind with a deeper compassion. I needed to learn to relent when someone wouldn’t listen. I needed to let my emotions follow the work of Jesus, be angry when He wanted me to be angry, show love when He saw fit, be indignant when He was and teach what He wanted them to learn. In other words, I needed to learn how to mind His business not mind my own! Minding my own business is what I wanted to do. I don’t want to hurt or cry because that makes me look weak. I don’t want to love my enemy because that makes me look tolerant of their behaviour. I want to push people to do the right thing but that makes me look like a bully. I want to unite with those I agree with but that makes me look double minded. I fight all this nastiness daily as I am sure you do or you will. If we learn to control what we are thinking we can control how we react to what we see on television. We need to have the same mind as Christ to do that. His mind and our mind can be one but we need a starting point. Attempt to do this for a week and see if it helps. When you think of something ‘un-Jesus like’ try to change your mind as quickly as possible to the face of Jesus. I know you have an image in your mind of what Jesus would have looked like – use it. If you haven’t an image, memorize a Psalm. Knowing a full Psalm (I use Psalm 23) is excellent because it takes your mind off the ‘un-Jesus like’ long enough to switch it to ‘Jesus like’. Every Word you know from the Bible gets your mind closer to being of the mind of Christ. We are not just knowing the Word to use it, we are knowing it to live it. The Word of God IS the mind of Christ! At the end of three days, post a comment on this blog to testify how it worked. You can do this!
Mediation Verses for this week: 1 Corinthians 1:10; 1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2; 1 Peter 3:8; Philippians 4:8; Psalm 23
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Come into the Deep with Me!
The Call
The term ‘In the deep with God’ came up in a conversation this week and Leola had some questions for God about that. What is the deep with You and how does one get into the deep? How do I know when I am in the deep? Do You tell me I am deep? Is it a feeling? Leola ponders these questions as she reads Psalm 91. If the deep means the secret place, is she there? Is deep the same for everyone? Can I ask people what deep means and get the same answer each time? Are You so predictable? Can I find the answer to these questions in Your Word? Leola ponders this Psalm against the term ‘deep’ and the ‘secret place’ talked about in this Psalm. She knows about having a secret place with God because she has one, on her ‘have-to-have-it couch’ staring out the window, but the distraction are becoming too much for her to stay in that secret place for too long. She needs alone time with Him to stay in the secret place long enough to hear God speak. Her call to the deep. At first she went out onto the back patio but when winter came it was to cold so she sat on her bed which turns out to be most uncomfortable. She knew God was calling her into ‘the deep’ (whatever that was) and she had to go alone. Her house is teaming with people so what can she do?
The chaos in the house is definitely holding Leola back from going deep with Jesus. There is nowhere to sit and read her Bible except the living room or her bed. She needs her own space. Her older kids had moved out but there was too much stuff in the house for her to have her own personal space. Leola had some organizing and purging to do. When a space was available Sam and Leola went shopping for what she now calls her ‘Jesus chair’. She converted one of the bedrooms into a ‘deep room’ she could go to be alone. She bought shelves for her many books and a carpet for her cold toes. She positioned the chair to look out the window because staring out the window is her secret place with Jesus and continues even to this day. If you see Leola staring out a window you know she is pondering something deep with God in their secret place.
The secret place from Psalm 91 and ‘the deep’ are two different things. Preachers talk about going deep with Jesus but what exactly do they mean? They get it from 1 Corinthians 2:10 which says the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. The Spirit who lives deep within us holding the deep things of God in His hand for us to take. The secret place referred to in Psalm 91 is the place you go to be alone with Jesus where you can hear Him speak. If you do not have a secret place you will not hear the call to the deep. As a new Christian I thought it was a physical place (and it was for me for a while) but as I matured I learned it is anywhere I am that I can hear God speak to me. The secret place is nowhere in particular and everywhere with God. The deep things of God can only be revealed in that secret place. This was confusing to me until I had my secret place modified into my secret alone place. I needed to be alone with Jesus to be able to ponder the deep place or even the deep things of God. It would still be years before all of it would come together for me. My secret place with Jesus can happen anytime He speaks to me no matter where I am and the deep is where I go when I study who He is.
The Deep
Leola was called into the deep with Jesus. She had to learn what that meant for her. It is in this quest for the deep with Jesus she learned of her own individuality. She learned what her purpose was for being in this world at this time. She learned Jesus actually saw her and she wasn’t invisible to Him. She learned her emotional pain was real and needed healing. Her wounds were deep and the healing needed to be deep. Surface fixes were not working but she didn’t know she was so shallow until she went deep. Up to this point she was wading in the Waters of God listening to people explain His Word. His deep calls for her to stop getting her information from people to hearing it from Him alone. She would have to learn to ponder His Word with Him and wait for the answer. As difficult as it was to do she learned how to do it and how fulfilling it was to know what He was teaching. What she was learning in the secret place had to remain a secret until she went deep with God for a full understanding. She would even talk out loud to Him as if He was standing right on the other side of the window. She cannot get over knowing Jesus deeply enough to ask any question and get an almost instant answer. If an answer doesn’t come quickly there is more to learn so she waits patiently to learn the answer. In her secret place where deepness is she learned she is not the only one called to the deep, all Christians are called to the deep but not all will go. Leola went and never looked back.
Jesus went to be alone with the Father (called to the deep) and He took the disciples to be alone with Him too (He called them to the deep). He pulled Saul away for three years to teach Him the deep things of God. The deep things of God cannot be found in a sermon or glancing through the Bible. They are found in your secret place deep inside you and God. This, unfortunately, is also where your deepest pain resides but also where the deepest knowledge of God resides. I understand not wanting to go there but if you choose not to go deep you are also choosing not to have a deep relationship with Jesus. When He calls you into the deep it is going to be painful but life altering. It is going to unnerve you but it is where the new creation of you resides. It is where the Spiritual Gifts you have get their power to reveal Jesus to those you serve. It is where your life as a Christian soldier marches onward. Deep death takes place and a deep life emerges for and with Jesus. He is calling you to die a deep death so you can live a deep life. I promise you, the pain is nothing compared to the joy! Will you go deep with me?
Meditation Verse for this week: Psalm 91; Psalm 42; 1 Corinthians 2:10; Luke 5:4
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The Time is Right!
The Wrong Time!
Leola sits in the front window dreaming about being on a ranch, in the Southern United States, riding horses and working the ranch. She has had this dream since she was a child but it has never come to pass. She thinks she was too lazy to go after it or too uninvolved in her own life to actual make it come true maybe simply side tracked. She was born in the wrong time, in the wrong city to the wrong parents. She just feels like her whole life is just wrong. Her vacations reflect country life with streams of rushing clean water and her mind is always going to country living. She dreams of redecorating her house to look like a country cabin. Her dreams of the Life Skills Center are all inside a country house with a wrap around porch for the women to have alone time and swing their cares away. The laziness and the work of it all draws her attention. She sees someone riding a horse and she is off daydreaming about doing it herself yet she has only ridden a horse twice. She loves to watch movies about ranches and horses. Oh, how she wishes she were born down South one hundred years ago.
When Leola was reading romance novels she would always choose the westerns. Her dream was not only to be born during that time but also to be married to a rancher. They would struggle together to make it work and it would flourish. “How childish,” she thought, “to have this dream still!” Sam, her husband, is aware of this dream because they discussed what they thought they would be when they grew up. She loves to watch the westerns from the fifties and sixties with Sam. He wasn’t shocked about her dream because his dreams were just as wild. Leola knows most people dream of a life when they are children but don’t see it come to fruition as an adult. Some are just too extravagant, some to wild and some are just plain impossible. Sam and Leola dreamed the impossible for the time they lived in and the people they were. One of the things they had in common is a love of the country so they vacation in the country. She has the best of both worlds where they live and she is happy but she still pines every now and then for what could have been. Or could it have been? God will show her she is useful in this era!
God’s timing is so frustrating for most of us. He takes people from us to soon, He moves us to other pastures to late, His plan looks like it makes no sense some times, He doesn’t bring us what we need when we think we need it and He makes us live in a time we feel uncomfortable living in. We feel useless because we are doing nothing we deem important. If we could just be in this time what we had to do would be important. It would be time consuming and we wouldn’t have to dream about being productive because we would be. We are waiting on a God we don’t expect the expected from. We have experienced the unexpected and we don’t like it. Solomon tells us He has made everything beautiful in its time even if we feel out of place and awkward we are in our time. As long as we remain in the dream of other times we will not see the beauty in our time. God will put a dream of eternity in our heart that will satisfy us but still we will question because we cannot know the work that God does from beginning to end.
The Right Time!
Still staring out the window God begins to point out the beauty in her world today, right now! All the things she loves today were not even a glimmer in the eyes of the inventors one hundred years ago. God had created her for this time because He wanted her to follow His plan for this moment in history. She is not living in the past nor is she living in the future she is living today and today is where God wants her. It is frightening to give up the dream she has had for so many years. It gave her comfort but it also caused her sorrow for what she didn’t have. There is nothing now. No dream of a ranch, no dream of horses, no dream of a house on rolling hills with a view of a running stream. Her feeling of being useless is overwhelming her. What is to work for? No future images to look forward too. Leola will spend a good six months with no future dream and no goals to go with it. God waited for her to be completely stripped of that time then He went to work. God brought her to Revelation where she discovered the dream she should have. The New Earth and the New Jerusalem are her dream now. She wonders about it and has great joy thinking about it. The God she so longs to be with will be there. Jesus has put a great dream in her head and it will be hers in the right time!
Scripture tells us we are to be eternity minded to see Jesus. If we continue to allow our mind to wander into our time and our space alone He can not be found. He is our future as Christians. He is in the right time with the Father and speaking to us through the Holy Spirit. In the Fathers time He will bring us into the future to a beauty we cannot even fathom but He did give us clues in Revelation about what the New Jerusalem will look like. I want to be there, do you? The time is eternity, the time is right!
Meditation Verses: Ecclesiastes 3:11; Revelation 21; 22
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The Strong Survive
The Animal Kingdom
While watching Animal Kingdom Leola was given a revelation from God. Among us in the church there are the strong and there are the weak. Thank the Lord we don’t eat each other although we do try to consume each other. What is it making one person strong and the other weak? She asks herself, “Am I strong or am I weak?” Then God asks here clearly, “Which do you choose?” Good questions. Of course she would choose strong but that is so much easier to say than to do. Strength doesn’t come from how well she can control others it comes from how well she can control herself. It comes from how well she does what the Lord has assigned for her. It comes from how much she knows Him. The strong, she thinks, survive what God has in store for them! There are two very prominent character traits of the strong, trust and courage. They are interchangeable daily. Strong people trust God to do what He says He will so they stand before the daunting task with courage. Every time they act with courage and survive they trust more. The strong have the courage to do what God tells them to do because they trust Him. Every time they trust Him they acquire more courage. How often does our Lord say, “Fear not and take courage!” Trust Him and stand before the task with courage to do what He wants us to do is the main theme. Can we learn this from the animal kingdom? No, we cannot, Leola tells herself! Their strong survive by instinct, size and fierceness! They fight for dominance and they win by fighting to injure, maim or kill. For the animal kingdom winning is living but for the Kingdom of God the strong are dying to live!
Only the dead will survive in the Kingdom of God. It is not about animal strength or instinct or even reasoning, it is about how well we kill ourselves and fill our lifeless bodies with God. In the Kingdom of God it is about giving others your food not eating it yourself. It is giving away our riches to provide for others. It’s about becoming foolish to gain wisdom. It’s about getting to the back of the line to be first in line. All of this goes against the grain of our world. It goes against the grain of our own soul. This is a fight we can only win when we concede. When we concede our strength becomes boundless.
The Kingdom of God
The people who are in the Kingdom of God kill themselves. They don’t wait to be killed by the dominant animal in the group or by predators. As they kill themselves God dominates them and that is when they become strong. They are not surviving by instinct and they don’t have to chase down their prey – God supplies it. This is the most peculiar concept in the world for Leola who is fiercely independent. God bids her to want the Kingdom of God by proving He can be trusted! Leola is killing what God tells her to kill because she trusts He will replace it with better. She improves what He tells her to improve because she trust He is going to use that someday. She only has the courage to do any of it because she trusts God to keep her safe. God knows Leola will survive in the Kingdom of God because He gives her His strength to survive.
It is not easy to trust God enough to kill yourself but to survive in the Kingdom of God we must learn to trust Him. The more we put our own life on the line the more courage we get because we tap into the strength given to us by God to do what He wants us to do. He created us knowing we would be filled with fear and doubt and He told us over and over He would be our strength. He has proven Himself to be faithful to us therefore we should prove ourselves to others to be strong enough to survive.
Meditation Verses for this week: Psalm 8 (HCSB Version). This versions speaks directly to this. Believe verse four when it says that we were created a little lower than God because the original Hebrew uses the word Elohim. Another verse to prove this out is 1 Corinthians 6:3 Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life? We are made a little lower than God – does that make you feel strong enough to survive. I hope so?
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The Answer to Every Question!
The Question
A question was asked at church this Sunday morning Leola knew right away the answer of or did she! If you could ask Jesus one question what would it be? That was the question? The only question allowed? Her question would be to ask why He waited until her forties to put this dream into her heart. And why can we only ask one question because surely the answer to that question would result in another one? This question bothered her for several days. Is life for him or anyone else about just one question? What if we ask the wrong question? Will it change our destiny? Why are we asking the question we are asking? Is one question better than another or do they all lead to one big answer? Leola thought and thought about what that question should be just in case the first question was the wrong question. She had to decide THE question. If she could come up with the perfect question would the answer be sufficient to answer all of her questions. Is there such a question?
She has been helping women with their life skills for twelve years and knows there is a plethora of questions to be answered but the answer is different for every single woman. You can ask ten questions of one woman to lead them into the answer they are looking for yet it might take one hundred to lead another. Each question depends on our direction and the level of truth we can handle. When Leola designs workshops the questions she asks never have one answer for that exact reason. The questions she asked are design to make women think about what answer they want. Some are even designed to make them think about what they don’t want because they may need to start there to make change. Some questions are designed to draw them directly to Jesus for the answer. How can she help women grow if she didn’t allow multiple answers from just one question? The problem is that question always leads to another one consequently we cannot stop at one question? What is stopping us from asking four thousand questions? Only Jesus knows!
Jesus asked a lot of questions of us in His ministry. He never stopped asking questions. Questions define what direction we are headed in. They help us focus on what is important. John tells us Thomas asked a powerful question after Jesus told us He is leaving to go to the Father. He asked in John 14 verse 5, “how can we know the way?” How indeed can we know the way? Would that question answer all of our questions? According to Jesus, yes. All the questions we ask lead us straight to the Father if we think about them. We think they may be self-serving but each time we allow the answer to come from Jesus it will lead us to the Father. The whole of Chapter 14 has Jesus telling us He is the answer to every question. How do I do this? Do what I tell you and it will happen! How can I do this? Take strength in Me and do can it! Where will I get what I need? Trust Me and you will have it!
The Answer
As Leola ponders all the questions people ask her in her classes plus all the questions she has asked over the years, she comes to the conclusion one question is not enough to fully get any answer. Some questions are relevant, irrelevant, nosey, inappropriate and appropriate but all are worth an answer that leads to another question. Jesus asked a lot of questions of us to help us discern what it is we want. We can ask people questions but we are still asking the questions that help us discern what we want. Our problem is who we are asking answers of. Who should answer our questions? Who can answer our questions? In her experience, only Jesus has been able to answer her questions with the truth she is looking for. No one can tell her where she is going because only Jesus knows that. No one can tell her what direction to go because only Jesus knows that. No one can tell her how to serve His women because only Jesus knows the way to do that. The relevant questions that need answers need to be asked of Jesus because He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. We cannot get to the Father who has all the answers if we do not ask the questions of Jesus (John 14:6). What He tells us is what the Father tells Him based solely on the plan the Father has for us (John 14:24). How wonderful is this to know? Knowing this tells Leola exactly where to go for answers and exactly what to do. The only answer she can rely on is Jesus. He is the answer to every question she has and He is the answer for every woman she serves. Jesus is the answer!
Jesus is the answer because the question leads to the way He wants us to go. Every question we ask relies on what the Father has planned for us. Should I go here or there? Should I do this or that? Here, there, this or that are all part of the grand plan of the Father. You might go here while I go there so you can do this and I can do that then we come together to do thus! Our whole life is planned out by the Father but we have to walk in it using Jesus as our answer to every question about direction. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father except through Him and that is the answer to every question.
Meditation Chapter for this week: John 14
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My Father Who Art in Heaven
Her Father
Father’s Day is coming and Leola doesn’t have one to regale with gifts and pleasantries. Her earthly father passed away in 2001 from the damage inflicted by a stroke the year before. She wasn’t a Christian then but was getting close. In just a couple of years she will be saved by the calling of her Heavenly Father. She is not sure if her earthly father is with her heavenly Father but she does know she will be. Her Father who art in Heaven has called her from the death into life. The sun is shining this morning because of Him. Her hope is secure because of Him. There is no father on earth who can promise the hope He can.
Leola used to be upset at her earthly father for not taking care of himself during his time on earth. She is without him today because of that yet today she is reflecting on her Heavenly Father and how she can talk to Him daily. She did not talk to her earthly father daily nor weekly for that matter even though he lived just miles away. The Father has taught her more than her earthly father ever could because he can never know her heart. The Father searches her heart and cleans it. His goodness brings her into repentance. His discipline grows her. His love teaches her to love. She sometimes questions how she lived without Him in her dead life but as she looks back she can see she never did. He has been with her from the day she was born. She understands she was predestined to be called to His purpose therefore her life has always been under the Wings of Love. He has ordered her steps and numbered her hairs for her whole life. She was created to live in this time by her Father who art in Heaven and she is eternally thankful to Him!
Ephesians 5:20 tells us to give thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. How fitting we should thank the Father through Jesus, His Son, for everything even for the time we were not saved from hell for all of our times belong to Him. It is during that time we were subject to the absence of the Father that makes us appreciate His presence today. Even though my father is dead I am subject to my Heavenly Father who shows His love toward me each and every day of my life. I offer myself as a gift to Him on this Father’s Day and every day because He created every single one of them. So I will pray to Him from Matthew 6;
Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
The Father
Leola is reminded of how the Lord taught His disciples to pray. It is all about giving thanks to the Father who is in Heaven but is also here. His closeness will never go unnoticed by Leola. She can do nothing for Him without Him. Her righteousness vanishes when He does. Her soul falls apart when she cannot see Him. How she loves the Father more than life itself! He gave her life for His glory. He gave her work for His Son. He is forever the lover of her soul and she will do anything for Him. The Father has proven Himself to be faithful to her therefore she will dedicate her life to Him, over and over again. Psalm 103 speaks her heart perfectly, Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me bless His Holy Name. Her soul still baulks against it, in its selfishness, but she does it anyway. She is beyond grateful for His presence in her life therefore she will bless the Father, O her soul!
Our gratefulness toward the Father in Heaven is paramount to our thankfulness for what we have and who the Father has placed our life. If you find yourself critical toward people and things look deeper into how you feel about the Father. When you are of the belief the Father is holding back His favour, you will be critical of everything He has given you. Remember He has chosen you and loves you as much as He loves His own Son. You can turn your thinking around by just blessing the Father one time each day. Your Father who is in Heaven is in love with you and wants to be your Father. He wants you to say Happy Father’s Day Father but more so He desires to prove to you He is a good Father worthy of praise.
Mediation verses this week: Matthew 6:9:13; Psalm 103
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His Dream is Deeper!
The Tit for Tat!
Setting her mind on the things of Heaven is one thing but setting her mind on doing what is His way is another thing all together. Leola is working on doing the right thing and has not been able to learn how to set her mind on lining up what she believes with what she needs to do. The struggle in her mind is how she has been used by people before to fulfill their goals without consideration for her goals. It is that whole tit for tat concept; you rub my back and I’ll rub yours. Those concepts are getting Leola nowhere in her life and her bitterness is definitely holding her back. She gave up on her dreams and packed it in because she was being used by so many people to accomplish their goals. Her goals were not being accomplished. She still worked hard for the Body of Christ but not toward the dream she had. She really had no goals for herself anymore which was ironic to her since she taught for years having goals is paramount in our life. What she didn’t understand was her goals need to be transformed into God’s goals. She is rewriting her goals.
Years ago, when God lead Leola to begin teaching life skills, she was very excited to do it. She is gifted with teaching and writing. This was going to be easy to accomplish. She would do fantastic at it and make millions in no time, goal set! Then, Hope Devoted Life Skills Center for Women would open its doors in Essex County with those millions, and women would flock from all over Canada to be trained, another goal set. Franchises would open in every province and women would flourish under the care of Hope Devoted, the perfect vision. Then, Leola discovered the truth. Just because she had the dream did not mean it was going to happen. There have been too many times she worked hard to get somewhere and someone else’s dream advanced instead of hers. She is going to throw in the towel because maybe she heard God wrong. Maybe the dream she had belongs to someone else and not her, taking into account she has seen so many people advance in teaching what she had been teaching for years. She is watching many people succeed in their ministries leaving her behind. It does look to her like she is not going in the right direction. She can see that people are hardly having to work and are successful but she is working hard to get nowhere. The sound of failure is ringing in her ears so loud she cannot hear anything else but God will remove the ringing and start reminding her the old dream is about to come alive again.
Have you ever questioned your directions because it doesn’t seem to be going in the direction you thought it would? For several years I have been questioning and losing verve over my direction. God has kept me going thankfully but I had lost hope in the old dream. I have been praying for someone else to pick it up and was okay with mentoring someone else to do it but at least I was hoping it would get done. I did get to the point of giving up on it! At that point my heart was truly broken because I wanted to do it so badly. I began to pray for a new goal. What am I going to do with my life? Just sit in my Jesus Room and read the Bible? Teach one woman the Bible weekly? Run a retreat for seven women bi-monthly? I’m okay with this but I need Jesus to remove the dream I had from before because it is killing me not to do it! Then, events started happening regarding the old dream because of new events taking place. John 14:26 started coming to life for me. All these years I had been taught by the Holy Spirit the new things I needed to know so the old things I already knew could take place. I cannot describe the moment I discovered this to be happening and I cannot today describe the feeling but I can describe the knowledge. Jesus said it and it will be! I know that more now than yesterday!
The Deep!
The ringing in her ears turns out to be the Holy Spirit blocking out any other dream she is dreaming up. She is by nature a dreamer and the Holy Spirit had to step in to stop the dreaming. His plan for her had to happen and He needed her to stop all fleshly dreaming and start conforming to His plan even thought she was convinced it was dead. He has been showing Leola the direction to go, she goes and then He reminds her of the time He told her this exact event would happen. How impossible it all seemed to her from over there, but now that she is here, she can begin to see it happening. She is not as giddy as she was when she was young because she is more mature now. It has all spun into joy rather than happiness. Happy was she to be able to help women when she was young but God has matured her into someone who now sees the joy and the sorrow with helping women become women of God. It is found deeper in her soul rather than more of a surface goal. The goal has to be number one outside of the surface emotions taking place. She needs to keep the goal at the front of her mind and do what needs to be done. It is hard for Leola to describe the feeling. She now knows how shallow and fluffy her emotions and her conviction to be successful were about this deep task she is about to embark on. The Lord could not have that, not for one second! When He sends her to accomplish this goal He needs to know she is committed to His goal for life! He has made His point! She will wait in the deep because that is the only place Jesus is!
I am convinced on this day just as yesterday and the years before God tells us from the beginning what His plan is for us. Thankfully He doesn’t tell us what we are going to go through to get to the deep point where He can actually use us for that task. Sometimes, like Gideon, His plan is quick but then there are others, like Joseph, whose plan is far off. Each one of us has the Holy Spirit living in us and directing our plan daily therefore we can be sure, if we are listening, that He will do what He said He will no matter how long it takes. The Spirit wants us to know that He is taking us through the ringer to get us to the dream He has planted deep in our soul because His dream is deeper than ours. This week get back in touch with that deep dream and live in it!
Meditation verses for this week: John 14:26; Philippians 1:6; 1 Corinthians 3:16
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Self-Serving Self
The Nothing
Leola is thinking about so many things lately that she cannot concentrate on one in particular. She is thinking about courage. How much courage does it take to be in the will of God and to be completely dependent on God? She is thinking about shallow loving. Her skills to love are shallow and she wants to love deeper. She is thinking about when God is going to use her to teach life skills again. Her mind races more often now than before. So much so that she cannot think well enough even to write her blog. She started with courage and couldn’t figure out what to say in the end. She decided to keep the idea for a future blog. The concept is lost to her. She is not sure how she will come out the other side of this whole brain fart days but she does know one thing – God knows everything and He knows about this too.
What subject does He want her to write about? If I go into the Bible and finger pick a verse will it give her revelation? Will anyone miss it if she didn’t post a blog? She is resting on the idea that this is a good thing because she is not as frustrated as she used to be. In the olden days she would have spent hours on the computer typing away and throwing it all away. She would shout at God because He is the one who gave her this talent to write in the first place. If he wants her to write He will give her the ideas but they all seem so far away. There is nothing!
In the fifteen years I’ve written for God I have had many days where I couldn’t write a thing. All of the ideas work out to nothing so I have come to one and only one conclusion when this happens – I have begun to rely on myself to do the writing. Proverbs 3:5 says we should trust in the Lord with all of our heart and lean not on our own understanding. When our own understanding takes over it is hard to trust in God. The work that we do, as good as it sounds, is not the work of God but the work of ourselves. It is self-serving even if it is for God. Courage to do what He wants us to do comes from Him alone. Deep love for His people will also come from Him. When God asks us to do something He will provide the way to do it. All we have to do is obey and trust.
The Worthlessness of Understanding Understanding!
There have been many times when Leola thought she was doing the will of God but she was doing what she had understood His will to be. She thinks about courage and thinks about shallow love but knows that even those huge topics belong to God. Leola cannot have courage to do what the folks in the book of Acts did if God has not gone before her to get the people ready to receive her. She will never love anyone with any kind of depth until God gives her the understanding to do it. She has been racking her brain to figure out how to do these things and cannot. They are to deep for her. Her understanding is worthless to her because her understanding proves she doesn’t trust God enough to take care of this in His time. How she has been working hard to do what she believes God is asking her to do. Leola has got to relax and let God do the work. She is learning this concept as she learns how worthless even her understanding of her understanding is. She is reminded of a Psalm she read and will now memorize because it speaks to these times. Psalm 131 says Lord, my heart is not haughty nor my eyes lofty, neither do I concern myself with great matters nor with things to profound for me. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother. Like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Leola, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever. [modifications mind] She has read this before and knew the implication yet forgot them. She has been talking to God for three days wondering what the problem was when all along she had fallen into the same trap of self-servingness she had fallen in so many times before. “Lord,” she says, “Please help me to recognize this sooner! Amen.”
There will be plenty of times in our lives we rely on our own understanding without even knowing it. It will sneak up on us and cause lawlessness or staleness in our walk with God. If we are going along like gangbusters then all of the sudden we are stopped check whose work we are doing. If we are aware that sin has crept into out walk with God, check whose work we are doing. Be vigilant about who we are following because we want to follow Jesus if we want our work to be good work.
Meditation verse for this week: Proverbs 3:5; Psalm 131
