Salvation
God is using the least intense means necessary to draw as many to Himself as will humble themselves and submit to His leadership. Because God's leadership of creation is based in voluntary love and not involuntary submission, the effect this process has on me, my family, my church, and my city is largely up to me. If I will enter into repentance, which simply means to agree with God, I will find my life stirring others to decide if they will respond to the Lord.
There are two enemies that war against this voluntary submission to God's leadership: the flesh and Satan. I must defeat both in my life in order to really come into an experience of the leadership, and the life that leadership brings, of Jesus. Submitting to Jesus is super wise, because His leadership makes life more enjoyable...more full. Jesus' way of doing things seems restrictive and dull from the viewpoint of the flesh but once you get into it, you find it is really the only satisfying way to live.
The way to get free of the flesh and Satan is to deny their right to run my life. When God made mankind, He made us to live led by our spirit, which is the "receptor" of the Holy Spirit. God put a bit of Himself in the first people, which is what makes people come to life. Adam and Eve denied the free leadership of the Spirit and evicted Him from their Spirit. Death began happening right away. But, Jesus paid the price to reverse this process of death. We still must choose. Jesus didn't die to cancel voluntary love, He paid to make a way for us to choose it again, but it must be chosen. Step by step...choice by choice... Problem by problem. God is in the process of drawing out voluntary love. In one generation, our generation, it will actually mature into a company of people that totally want God to have all the leadership of their lives, called a "Bride" :
Revelation 19:7“Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.”
8And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
This drawing of people into this reality happens in a process. This process might make it seem as though God gives Himself to man in little bits, but that is a misperception. God is drawing out voluntary love. He will only lead the amount of ourselves we give to Him to lead. This is what makes the false grace message so deadly...it keeps a man convinced he is led by God, while at the same time denying God any increasing leadership in that very life. False grace is theft, because it short circuits the process of giving more and more of my heart to Jesus. Declaring Jesus paid for me to keep sinning keeps me sinning. Jesus paid for me to overcome sin...bit by bit....to overcome my flesh and the devil...to submit my flesh to God and get the leadership of God that actually resists the devil!
James 4:6But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:
“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”
7Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
8Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
This process happens as I reach for God. Reaching into my self for more holiness is a waste of time. Instead, I humble myself and reach for a bit of God to defeat the enemies of my life: my own selfish leadership and the lies of Satan that fuel self....the tempter who says "it is your right to be angry, or lustful, or unforgiving" and then uses that open door to come and make his messy home in my life.
As I lay down the rights I'm tempted to think I have, I get the rights of heaven...the right to be clean, delivered, happy, and satisfied. This happens in bits, because I choose to give myself to God in bits. He fills every place I give Him and grows His leadership by wooing me to give Him more.
A bit of God is a bit of infinite, that means any amount of God is all of God....a crumb of infinite is still without limit. God cannot be divided...mathematically. This is what the woman in the parable of Matthew 15 got that most people don't:
Matthrw 15:22And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.”
23But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she cries out after us.”
24But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
25Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help me!”
26But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”
27And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”
28Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
She wasn't asking for a little, she was humbling herself in the presence of an infinite source of power. What she got was power in full.
This is how we are made to truly live: reaching for God to be the center of leadership in our lives...whatever amount we may experience today. Any amount of the tangible experience of God is still God. This takes persistence in asking. It is easier to go to the default mode of death...make the best decisions your mind can muster and keep on dying. To choose life is to reach for God to get a little more. This is an exercise that requires faith... Believing that asking God really works because God is real and God is Good...believing He is for me and not against me, that He really does immediately reward those who diligently seek Him, even if they don't necessarily feel it right away.
Just because the sky doesn't open and angelic choirs appear when I ask God for more of Himself, doesn't mean I'm not getting all of Him....it means He is producing something in me called faith. God is growing my ability to be entirely led by Him as I choose it...decision by decision... Trouble by trouble...challenge by challenge.
Romans 5:1Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
2through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
3And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance;
4and perseverance, character; and character, hope.
5Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Life is worth the reach...forever, it will be worth the reach now.
There are two enemies that war against this voluntary submission to God's leadership: the flesh and Satan. I must defeat both in my life in order to really come into an experience of the leadership, and the life that leadership brings, of Jesus. Submitting to Jesus is super wise, because His leadership makes life more enjoyable...more full. Jesus' way of doing things seems restrictive and dull from the viewpoint of the flesh but once you get into it, you find it is really the only satisfying way to live.
The way to get free of the flesh and Satan is to deny their right to run my life. When God made mankind, He made us to live led by our spirit, which is the "receptor" of the Holy Spirit. God put a bit of Himself in the first people, which is what makes people come to life. Adam and Eve denied the free leadership of the Spirit and evicted Him from their Spirit. Death began happening right away. But, Jesus paid the price to reverse this process of death. We still must choose. Jesus didn't die to cancel voluntary love, He paid to make a way for us to choose it again, but it must be chosen. Step by step...choice by choice... Problem by problem. God is in the process of drawing out voluntary love. In one generation, our generation, it will actually mature into a company of people that totally want God to have all the leadership of their lives, called a "Bride" :
Revelation 19:7“Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.”
8And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
This drawing of people into this reality happens in a process. This process might make it seem as though God gives Himself to man in little bits, but that is a misperception. God is drawing out voluntary love. He will only lead the amount of ourselves we give to Him to lead. This is what makes the false grace message so deadly...it keeps a man convinced he is led by God, while at the same time denying God any increasing leadership in that very life. False grace is theft, because it short circuits the process of giving more and more of my heart to Jesus. Declaring Jesus paid for me to keep sinning keeps me sinning. Jesus paid for me to overcome sin...bit by bit....to overcome my flesh and the devil...to submit my flesh to God and get the leadership of God that actually resists the devil!
James 4:6But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:
“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”
7Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
8Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
This process happens as I reach for God. Reaching into my self for more holiness is a waste of time. Instead, I humble myself and reach for a bit of God to defeat the enemies of my life: my own selfish leadership and the lies of Satan that fuel self....the tempter who says "it is your right to be angry, or lustful, or unforgiving" and then uses that open door to come and make his messy home in my life.
As I lay down the rights I'm tempted to think I have, I get the rights of heaven...the right to be clean, delivered, happy, and satisfied. This happens in bits, because I choose to give myself to God in bits. He fills every place I give Him and grows His leadership by wooing me to give Him more.
A bit of God is a bit of infinite, that means any amount of God is all of God....a crumb of infinite is still without limit. God cannot be divided...mathematically. This is what the woman in the parable of Matthew 15 got that most people don't:
Matthrw 15:22And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.”
23But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she cries out after us.”
24But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
25Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help me!”
26But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”
27And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”
28Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
She wasn't asking for a little, she was humbling herself in the presence of an infinite source of power. What she got was power in full.
This is how we are made to truly live: reaching for God to be the center of leadership in our lives...whatever amount we may experience today. Any amount of the tangible experience of God is still God. This takes persistence in asking. It is easier to go to the default mode of death...make the best decisions your mind can muster and keep on dying. To choose life is to reach for God to get a little more. This is an exercise that requires faith... Believing that asking God really works because God is real and God is Good...believing He is for me and not against me, that He really does immediately reward those who diligently seek Him, even if they don't necessarily feel it right away.
Just because the sky doesn't open and angelic choirs appear when I ask God for more of Himself, doesn't mean I'm not getting all of Him....it means He is producing something in me called faith. God is growing my ability to be entirely led by Him as I choose it...decision by decision... Trouble by trouble...challenge by challenge.
Romans 5:1Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
2through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
3And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance;
4and perseverance, character; and character, hope.
5Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Life is worth the reach...forever, it will be worth the reach now.
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