I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20
Before King David gave his son Solomon the plans for The Temple complex he said, “And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts” (1 Chronicles 28:9a).
Confession time. More often then I’d like to admit when God searched the motives behind my service, they fell far short of His command that my attitude be the same as that of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). I’ve volunteered out of a desire to fix and rescue the project, rather than to love and serve people. I’ve stepped into neighborhoods that looked different than mine out of selfish ambition or vain conceit instead of humbly considering them better than myself (Philippians 2:3). That service may have looked admirable on the outside, but the lukewarm waters that God saw when He searched my heart and mind must’ve made Him sick.
Four years into Dr. Helen Roseveare’s twenty-year service (1953-1973) to God in Africa she became aware of some wrong motives in her service, too. It was a Sunday evening when Pastor Ndugu and his wife Tamoma called her out to the fireside to talk and pray. He showed her some hidden areas of her heart that pertained to race prejudice. She said, “The Spirit forced me to acknowledge that subconsciously I did not really believe that an African could be as good a Christian as I was, or could know the Lord Jesus or understand the Bible as I did.”
Pastor Ndugu opened his Bible to Galatians 2:20. With his heal, he draw a straight line in the dirt floor. “I,” he said, “The capital I in our lives, Self, is the great enemy . . .
“Helen . . . the trouble with you is that we can see so much Helen that we cannot see Jesus.”
Her eyes filled with tears. Pastor Ndugu’s object lesson continued. He drew another line in the dirt across the I he had previously drawn and said, “May I suggest that you lift your heart to God and pray, ‘Please, God, cross out the I.’”
Helen wrote, “There in the dirt was his lesson of simplified theology – the Cross – the crossed-out I life.” I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20).
PASSION Step: What is central to your service: Your ego or Christ’s life in you? Zealously serve with a crossed-out I life.
The greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is the service we do for Him. It is easier to serve than to pour out our lives completely for Him. Are we more devoted to service than we are to Jesus Himself?
Oswald Chambers
Grace and peace,
Lenae
A connecting place for British Columbia GEMS counselors and club coordinators. . .
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
STUDY GOD’S WORD
Happy Monday! I pray that you’re continuing to feed the fire by practicing the spiritual disciplines of PASSION. This week we’ll focus on studying God’s Word.
In David Nasser’s book, A Call to Die, he asks, “Can you walk with God and not know God’s word? That’s a good question. Many people believe that God will somehow give them His treasure of wisdom and insight by osmosis. It doesn’t happen like that. We have to mine for it, and the mine shaft goes through the pages of the Scriptures.”
Let’s go mining together, Sisters! Have a Scripture-saturated week!
STUDY GOD’S WORD
"Do not snatch the word of truth from my mouth, for I have put my hope in your laws."
Psalm 119:42
You are what you eat is a well-known phrase that the food one eats comes with consequences to a person’s mind and health. Eat good food: experience good health. Eat junk food: experience poor health. Food becomes part of our inner being – strengthening or weakening our bodies.
What’s true for feeding our physical bodies is true for our spiritual health as well. In the book of Revelation when John went to the angel and asked him to give him the little scroll, the angel said to him, “Take it and eat it” (Revelation 10:9). Eugene Peterson writes, “The book he ate was Holy Scripture. John got it into his nerve endings, his reflexes, his imagination.”
Chew your food. We chew on Scripture through meditation, understanding, and obedience. Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful (Joshua 1:8). Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly (Colossians 3:16).
Clean your plate. Like children who eat their favorite part of the meal and shove the vegetables under their napkin hoping no one will notice, there’s a temptation to feast on our favorite Scripture passages and push verses like love your enemies (Matthew 5:44) and forgive your brother and sister from your heart (18:21-35) to the side. We mustn’t read our Bibles like picky eaters – picking and choosing what we want to hear. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16).
Fresh is best. Warren Wiersbe writes, “Just as the Jews could not live on yesterday’s manna, so you cannot live on yesterday’s spiritual diet.” Don’t live on the leftovers of Sunday’s sermon. Get in the Word yourself, every day! Love God’s Word and meditate on it all day long (Psalm 119:97). I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word (Psalm 119:16).
Feasting on God’s Word will keep us pure, counsel us, preserve our life, strengthen us, cause us to walk in true freedom, comfort us in suffering, encourage us in affliction, light our path, give us understanding, sustain us, and uphold us. (See Psalm 119 for a full listing of spiritual health benefits.)
These blessings won’t through a drive through window of a short devotional or power verse for the day. Feed the fire by studying God’s Word, listening to it, and doing what it says (James 1:22).
PASSION Step: Ask God to increase your hunger pains for His holy Word.
If all church members were like you, would the church be more like the world? Or would the church be more powerful in its witness because it would be deeper into the Word?
Anne Graham Lotz
Grace and peace,
Lenae
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
PRAY CONSTANTLY
"Pray continually."
1 Thessalonians 5:17
In 1 Samuel 7, the Israelites assembled at Mizpah for Samuel to intercede with the Lord for them. When they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the LORD. On that day they fasted” (1 Samuel 7:5).
The Philistines mistook the Israelite prayer meeting as a preparation-for-war assembly. Their leaders came up to attack the Israelites. When the Israelites heard that the Philistines were coming they were afraid and said to Samuel, “Do not stop crying out to the LORD our God for us, that he may rescue us from the hand of the Philistines” (1 Samuel 7:8).
Samuel took a young lamb, offered it as a whole burnt offering, and prayed fervently to the LORD, interceding for Israel. And GOD answered.
The Israelites were not physically equipped for battle, but through prayer they fought with weapons that are not the weapons of the world. They had God’s divine power to demolish strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4).
The LORD thundered with loud thunder against the Philistines and threw them into such a panic that they were routed before the Israelites. The men of Israel rushed out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, slaughtering them along the way to a point below Beth Car (1 Samuel 7:10b-11).
Samuel fed the fire by praying constantly. He was born in prayer as an answer to his mother’s petitions for a child (1 Samuel 1:15-17). He started talking and listening to God as a young boy (1 Samuel 3), and he lived in dependence on prayer from boyhood to his farewell speech when he said to the Israelites, “As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you what is good and right. But be sure to fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you” (1 Samuel 12:23-24).
As you think about the children in your sphere of influence within your family, neighborhood, and at the GEMS Club down the street or in Zambia, are you an intercessor like Samuel? Can it be said of you and I that we never fail to pray for these little ones? Do we teach them what is good and right?
Oswald Chambers gives this challenge to intercessors. “Get involved in the real work of intercession, remembering that it truly is work – work that demands all your energy.” It’s a work of passion and action. May the LORD never look at us and be appalled at the lukewarm hearts because there was no one to intervene in prayer (Isaiah 59:15-16).
PASSION Step: Renew your commitment to intercede for children. What will you do this week to pray for them more?
Do you find yourself thinking that there is no one interceding properly? Then be that person yourself.
Oswald Chambers
Grace and peace,
Lenae
1 Thessalonians 5:17
In 1 Samuel 7, the Israelites assembled at Mizpah for Samuel to intercede with the Lord for them. When they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the LORD. On that day they fasted” (1 Samuel 7:5).
The Philistines mistook the Israelite prayer meeting as a preparation-for-war assembly. Their leaders came up to attack the Israelites. When the Israelites heard that the Philistines were coming they were afraid and said to Samuel, “Do not stop crying out to the LORD our God for us, that he may rescue us from the hand of the Philistines” (1 Samuel 7:8).
Samuel took a young lamb, offered it as a whole burnt offering, and prayed fervently to the LORD, interceding for Israel. And GOD answered.
The Israelites were not physically equipped for battle, but through prayer they fought with weapons that are not the weapons of the world. They had God’s divine power to demolish strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4).
The LORD thundered with loud thunder against the Philistines and threw them into such a panic that they were routed before the Israelites. The men of Israel rushed out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, slaughtering them along the way to a point below Beth Car (1 Samuel 7:10b-11).
Samuel fed the fire by praying constantly. He was born in prayer as an answer to his mother’s petitions for a child (1 Samuel 1:15-17). He started talking and listening to God as a young boy (1 Samuel 3), and he lived in dependence on prayer from boyhood to his farewell speech when he said to the Israelites, “As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you what is good and right. But be sure to fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you” (1 Samuel 12:23-24).
As you think about the children in your sphere of influence within your family, neighborhood, and at the GEMS Club down the street or in Zambia, are you an intercessor like Samuel? Can it be said of you and I that we never fail to pray for these little ones? Do we teach them what is good and right?
Oswald Chambers gives this challenge to intercessors. “Get involved in the real work of intercession, remembering that it truly is work – work that demands all your energy.” It’s a work of passion and action. May the LORD never look at us and be appalled at the lukewarm hearts because there was no one to intervene in prayer (Isaiah 59:15-16).
PASSION Step: Renew your commitment to intercede for children. What will you do this week to pray for them more?
Do you find yourself thinking that there is no one interceding properly? Then be that person yourself.
Oswald Chambers
Grace and peace,
Lenae
Monday, May 10, 2010
PASSION
Good morning, sisters! Humming, rocking, and singing lullabies are just a few of the ways that mothers bring comfort to their babies. Nearly everyone loves rocking babies or teasing toddlers, but once they start to cry, they’re quickly returned to their mothers’ arms for no one seems to understand a baby’s tears or needs like his or her mother.
To help us picture God’s tender love for His children, God’s Word points us to a mother and her child. Isaiah 66:13 says, As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you. God’s compassion goes beyond the best of the best mothers! God says through Isaiah in chapter 49, verses 15 and 16, Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.
And like a mother singing a lullaby over her baby, God sings over us with deep love and pure delight. Zephaniah chapter 3 verse 17 reads, The Lord your God . . . will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.
Whether you spent yesterday remembering your mother who is now with Jesus, or you continue to experience her love and care today, consider how she is an earthly picture of the Heavenly Father’s everlasting, unconditional, and perfect love for you and me.
Have a great week!
PASSION
Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
1 Timothy 4:16
Within the concise, but commanding book, Stand – A Call for the Endurance of the Saints, Randy Alcorn writes about when he and his wife Nanci attended a thirty-year reunion of their church college group. He recorded that forty came and five of their original group had died. He hinted at the losses that many had experienced in their lives, yet there was beauty in that night as person after person talked about God’s faithfulness.
Some were unable to attend the reunion due to practical challenges like scheduling conflicts, distance, and poor health. Others intentionally stayed away because their love for Jesus had grown cold. Why didn’t these saints endure Randy asked. His answer? “Their hour-to-hour and day-to-day choices set them up for spiritual distraction and failure.”
The choice to sleep in or to set the alarm clock earlier than yesterday so we can talk to God will determine if we’re going to be women of apathy or of action. The choice to go with the flow of the culture or to move in what Eugene Peterson calls “a long obedience in the same direction” will guide us into casual Christianity or Christ-like living. The choice to just live life as it comes or to establish and persevere in spiritual disciplines will lead to warming the pews or feeding the fire.
To be women of PASSION that love God and serve Him by serving others there are six spiritual disciplines that we must add to our heart’s fire. (We’ll dig deeper in the weeks to come.)
P ray constantly. Make the day-to-day choice to talk and listen to God (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
A is for And,
S tudy God’s Word. Make the day-to-day choice to read your Bible to learn how God wants you to live (Psalm 119:9).
S erve others. Make the day-to-day choice to serve others no matter what the task (John 13:14-15).
I nteract with God’s people. Make the day-to-day choice to encourage one another in the Lord (Hebrews 10:25).
O pen up and talk about God. Make the day-to-day choice to tell people about Jesus’ love (Matthew 28:19-20).
N otice God in the ordinary. Make the day-to-day choice to seek God and to take note of all the tender ways He cares for you (Jeremiah 29:13).
PASSION Step: What PASSION discipline will you choose to establish this week?
We never grow closer to God when we just live life; it takes deliberate pursuit and attentiveness.
Francis Chan
Grace and peace,
Lenae
To help us picture God’s tender love for His children, God’s Word points us to a mother and her child. Isaiah 66:13 says, As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you. God’s compassion goes beyond the best of the best mothers! God says through Isaiah in chapter 49, verses 15 and 16, Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.
And like a mother singing a lullaby over her baby, God sings over us with deep love and pure delight. Zephaniah chapter 3 verse 17 reads, The Lord your God . . . will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.
Whether you spent yesterday remembering your mother who is now with Jesus, or you continue to experience her love and care today, consider how she is an earthly picture of the Heavenly Father’s everlasting, unconditional, and perfect love for you and me.
Have a great week!
PASSION
Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
1 Timothy 4:16
Within the concise, but commanding book, Stand – A Call for the Endurance of the Saints, Randy Alcorn writes about when he and his wife Nanci attended a thirty-year reunion of their church college group. He recorded that forty came and five of their original group had died. He hinted at the losses that many had experienced in their lives, yet there was beauty in that night as person after person talked about God’s faithfulness.
Some were unable to attend the reunion due to practical challenges like scheduling conflicts, distance, and poor health. Others intentionally stayed away because their love for Jesus had grown cold. Why didn’t these saints endure Randy asked. His answer? “Their hour-to-hour and day-to-day choices set them up for spiritual distraction and failure.”
The choice to sleep in or to set the alarm clock earlier than yesterday so we can talk to God will determine if we’re going to be women of apathy or of action. The choice to go with the flow of the culture or to move in what Eugene Peterson calls “a long obedience in the same direction” will guide us into casual Christianity or Christ-like living. The choice to just live life as it comes or to establish and persevere in spiritual disciplines will lead to warming the pews or feeding the fire.
To be women of PASSION that love God and serve Him by serving others there are six spiritual disciplines that we must add to our heart’s fire. (We’ll dig deeper in the weeks to come.)
P ray constantly. Make the day-to-day choice to talk and listen to God (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
A is for And,
S tudy God’s Word. Make the day-to-day choice to read your Bible to learn how God wants you to live (Psalm 119:9).
S erve others. Make the day-to-day choice to serve others no matter what the task (John 13:14-15).
I nteract with God’s people. Make the day-to-day choice to encourage one another in the Lord (Hebrews 10:25).
O pen up and talk about God. Make the day-to-day choice to tell people about Jesus’ love (Matthew 28:19-20).
N otice God in the ordinary. Make the day-to-day choice to seek God and to take note of all the tender ways He cares for you (Jeremiah 29:13).
PASSION Step: What PASSION discipline will you choose to establish this week?
We never grow closer to God when we just live life; it takes deliberate pursuit and attentiveness.
Francis Chan
Grace and peace,
Lenae
Monday, May 3, 2010
Feed the Fire
"Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord."
Romans 12:11
Although the old saying, “A watched pot never boils” may seem accurate when we’re in a hurry to make pasta for dinner, any pot of water left long enough on the right temperature will eventually boil. It’s not boiling water, but boiling spirits that is contained in God’s command for His children in Romans 12:11, Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. The word fervor comes from the Latin word fervens, which means, “boiling.” To have great spiritual fervor is to have a boiling heart for God!
Boiling hearts chill when we serve God and Money (Matthew 6:24), worry (Matthew 6:25-27), are timid in testifying about our Lord (2 Timothy 1:7-8), participate in godless chatter (2 Timothy 2:16) and foolish and stupid arguments (2 Timothy 2:23), walk in darkness (1 John 1:6), are lukewarm (Revelation 3:15-16), turn away from our first love (Revelation 2:4), and love the ways of the world (2 Timothy 4:10).
Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world – wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important – has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him (1 John 2:15-16, MSG).
Sin isolates us from God and extinguishes flames! To feed the fire of love for God and zeal to serve others we must ruthlessly eliminate sin from our lives. Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles (Hebrews 12:1), get rid of it (Ephesians 4:31), take it off (Ephesians 4:25), and put it to death (Colossians 3:5). If we become apathetic to sin and get comfortable with the things that God has told us to strip out of our lives there is a consequence for our choice. Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:21).
Although a watched pot will eventually boil, a heart that houses sin won’t. If your heart isn’t boiling, take a look at what’s hindering the heat. What sin has entangled you?
Once we’ve repented of sin, we can persevere in the race that He’s marked out for us (Hebrews 12:1). Keep your spiritual fervor by fixing your eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2) and forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead (Philippians 3:13). With Paul, let’s press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called [us] heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14).
PASSION Step: Ask God to reveal any sin that is keeping your heart from boiling with spiritual fervor.
Spirit filled souls are ablaze for God. They love with a love that glows. They serve with a faith that kindles. They serve with a devotion that consumes. They hate sin with fierceness that burns. They rejoice with a joy that radiates. Love is perfected in the fire of God.
Samuel Chadwick
Grace and peace,
Lenae
Romans 12:11
Although the old saying, “A watched pot never boils” may seem accurate when we’re in a hurry to make pasta for dinner, any pot of water left long enough on the right temperature will eventually boil. It’s not boiling water, but boiling spirits that is contained in God’s command for His children in Romans 12:11, Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. The word fervor comes from the Latin word fervens, which means, “boiling.” To have great spiritual fervor is to have a boiling heart for God!
Boiling hearts chill when we serve God and Money (Matthew 6:24), worry (Matthew 6:25-27), are timid in testifying about our Lord (2 Timothy 1:7-8), participate in godless chatter (2 Timothy 2:16) and foolish and stupid arguments (2 Timothy 2:23), walk in darkness (1 John 1:6), are lukewarm (Revelation 3:15-16), turn away from our first love (Revelation 2:4), and love the ways of the world (2 Timothy 4:10).
Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world – wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important – has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him (1 John 2:15-16, MSG).
Sin isolates us from God and extinguishes flames! To feed the fire of love for God and zeal to serve others we must ruthlessly eliminate sin from our lives. Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles (Hebrews 12:1), get rid of it (Ephesians 4:31), take it off (Ephesians 4:25), and put it to death (Colossians 3:5). If we become apathetic to sin and get comfortable with the things that God has told us to strip out of our lives there is a consequence for our choice. Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:21).
Although a watched pot will eventually boil, a heart that houses sin won’t. If your heart isn’t boiling, take a look at what’s hindering the heat. What sin has entangled you?
Once we’ve repented of sin, we can persevere in the race that He’s marked out for us (Hebrews 12:1). Keep your spiritual fervor by fixing your eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2) and forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead (Philippians 3:13). With Paul, let’s press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called [us] heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14).
PASSION Step: Ask God to reveal any sin that is keeping your heart from boiling with spiritual fervor.
Spirit filled souls are ablaze for God. They love with a love that glows. They serve with a faith that kindles. They serve with a devotion that consumes. They hate sin with fierceness that burns. They rejoice with a joy that radiates. Love is perfected in the fire of God.
Samuel Chadwick
Grace and peace,
Lenae
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