Spirit Led Living

Of all the things that I look forward to when I get to heaven, the thing that I will enjoy the most is being united, being one with Jesus. I tremble with anticipation at experiencing intimacy with the lover of my soul. Eph 5:31-32 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."   32 This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and the church. Rev 19:7 For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. This is a difficult concept for most men to grasp, that we, as the church, are His Bride. We will become one with him as a husband becomes one with his wife. Throughout the entire Bible there are parallels between the intimacy experienced by a husband and wife on the marital bed and Jesus’ desire to be one with us. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Solomon’s Song of Songs. While this is a human love letter it is also a type of Christ and His brid

Matt 28:16-17 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Ah, doubts, we all have them at some point even if we don’t admit to it. Our minds can’t catch up to the reality of the kingdom because the reality of this realm doesn’t allow it. There are two realities vying for recognition and in spite of our limited experience we tend to go with what our mind tells us is more real in the moment. That the disciples struggled with this is only human. In their experience and according to the laws of physics a human being can’t walk on water, they sink. And yet, they saw Jesus walk on water. A few loaves of bread and a few fish can’t feed a crowd of thousands and yet they saw it happen and had barrels of food left over. The dead are dead, especially when they start to decompose and yet they saw Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead. Some things just do not compute.

Acceptable Worship Heb 12:28-29 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29 for our "God is a consuming fire." There is a worship that God accepts and there is a worship that is not worship at all. Many times we put forth a performance that, while it may be pleasing to those that hear it, is not pleasing to God. While we should do our best to do an excellent job with our instruments and our voices, if it is not accompanied by a lifestyle of worship, it just dribbles from our mouths and falls down on the floor like so much drool. Musicians too often get too focused on musicality and not enough on the One they are worshiping. I know folks that only moments before they get on a worship team are listening to secular music and grooving to the kind of music they enjoy. Instead of preparing their hearts to be in God’s presence they are texting, playing video gam

Eph 5:18-20 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. 19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, 20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. People are used to quoting verse 18, but they forget that 19 and 20 are part of the same paragraph. Our walk in the Spirit should be such that it overflows with love and thanksgiving. We praise Him for what He has done for us and we worship Him for who He is. At least in some shape or form we understand that. However, do we really understand what it means to “ Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs”? Our discourse when walking a naturally supernatural life should be such that we desire to share with each other what God has done for us and what He means to us. It should give birth to a natural expression of worship. We should build each othe

If you follow Facebook, the Twitter-verse or haven’t gone off the grid completely, then you are aware that the sky is falling. We live in a totally amoral world (as well as immoral). What is bad is good, what is wrong is right and it is the masses who determine what we should think and believe. To believe in the Bible makes you an out-of-touch, hate-mongering dinosaur who has misinterpreted Jesus’ message of love. The world has gone to hell in a handbasket while God was asleep at the switch. It has gotten so bad that God’s only choice is to bring about the Apocalypse and put an end to it all. There is much hand wringing and the Chicken Littles among us want the rest of us to wake up to fact that the sky is falling. When I woke up this morning and started reading my Bible I found that, surprise, God is still sovereign and that there is nothing new under the sky (which is still firmly in place). I have lived long enough to go through many crises in the world and through many

A Devotional based on Draw Me Close by Kelly Carpenter (Inspired by an idea from Stephen Newby) Draw me close to You             Because I feel so far away never let me go I tend to get distracted and walk away I lay it all down again Because I forget and pick it back up To hear You say that I'm Your friend I feel so alone and in need of a friend You are my desire But so many other desires compete for my attention  no one else will do I’ve tried others but they leave me empty 'Cause nothing else could take Your place I’ve substituted others but they have been untrue To feel the warmth of Your embrace Nothing feels safer or more loving Help me find the way I get lost so easily bring me back to You             I can’t find the way on my own You're all I want You're all I've ever needed You're all I want Help me know You are near             Lord, let this be my prayer and my desire every moment of every day

Phil 1:29-30 For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him,  since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have. As we were going over this passage in Bible study last night this verse simply jumped out at me.    Paul wrote this to the church at Philippi. Unlike some of the diatribes in Corinthians where he is addressing a litany of misdeeds by many in the local church, the letter to the Philippians is a letter of thanksgiving for a church the “got it” and had steadfastly supported him through all his trials. The predominant theme of the letter is “joy”. And yet in the midst of it he writes, in a joyous kind of way, how thankful he is that they have been counted worthy of being “granted” to suffer for Christ’s sake. In my mind this seemed to contradict the words of Jesus when He said, “I came that you might have life and have it to the full”. In other versions this is