Encouragement
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INCREASE OUR FAITH:
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When Jesus told His apostles how often they were required to forgive someone who had done them a wrong, they were a little hard pressed over that (Luke 17:3-5). It was a lot to ask them to forgive their abusers, not just once, but Jesus went further and said, “Take heed to yourselves; if your brother trespass against you, rebuke (Confront) him; and if he repent, forgive him.
4-And if he trespass (sins) against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to you, saying, I repent; you shall forgive him.” Can you imagine how crazy this must have sounded to them? You know, come to think of it---it probably wasn’t any crazier to them than it is for us today when Jesus tells us to forgive those who trespass against us over and over again.
Immediately, the disciples were asking Jesus to, “Increase our faith.” 5-“And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith." This is dealing with faith in the sense of, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, plant it and it will grow to produce a harvest. But I want to look at this from another view. If you notice, the apostles never acknowledged what Jesus had just told them about forgiving people who abused and treated them wrongly.
Instead, they said, “Increase our faith.” They were faced with a choice of which the result of that choice would either be, “forgive if you have aught against any: that your Father which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father, which is in heaven, forgive your trespasses” (Mark 11:25-26). That was their choice then. It is our choice today.
Of course, it takes faith to be able to forgive someone for abusing and mistreating you in any kind of way. And you can’t make a decision of your will except it be by your faith in God’s Word and in His ‘can do’ that will make you ‘able to’ do something as radically as forgiving an abuser (Phil. 4:13). And though we may know what God’s Word tells us to do---”forgive, so that you may be forgiven,” it is within this war-zone of radical choice that the spirit and flesh engages in a fierce battle against one another. For Jesus said Himself, “ Though the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41).
It seems absolutely ludicrous that in a world where your child may be playing in the neighborhood one day and the next day be lying in a morgue because he or she is the casualty of a drunken driver. And in the after-math of it, you realize that God expects you to choose life, love and forgiveness toward the driver instead of self-protection and its partner, self-centeredness. We are confronted with choice in many ways that we would never imagine.
To the reborn spirit of a man or woman, to go after justice while extending love to other’s as Jesus did---this is as natural as breathing. But the flesh is a whole different matter. It wants revenge and it seeks to protect itself in self-centeredness while it strains toward revenge, thus the battle rages on between the spirit and the flesh (Romans 8:5-8). Certainly loving those who have painfully abused us, much less to forgive them is a hard thing. Why is it hard? Because it goes against the flesh. The flesh doesn’t love anyone but self and it will choose for self first always.
Jesus said, “Love one another, even as I have loved YOU” (John 15:12). Love doesn’t magnify wrongs. Love says, “That's okay, I forgive you.” This is by choice because we can just as easily say, “forget it! For what you have done to me, I don’t owe you anything.” Jesus has told us through His Word, to “Own no man anything except to love him” (Romans 13:8). And in that love is grace and forgiveness that we’re to extend to those who wrong us. We are thus, sowing mercy seeds for a later harvest when we require mercy in our time of need from someone.
Isn’t this what God does for us? He shows us grace and mercy in our time of need? Doesn’t He toss our sins away from Him as far as the East is from the West? (Psalm 102:12). God made a choice Himself, not to keep bringing up old sins to us over and over again, but instead, to remove them far from Him for our sake. What grace. What mercy. What compassion---all wrapped up in God’s unconditional love for each and every one of us individually. Praise the Lord!
Once God has forgiven us when we repent of sin and ask Him to cleanse us with the blood of Jesus, He is then ready to move forward with the plan He has for our individual lives. But are we ready to choose love and forgiveness so we can move forward? Or are we still hanging around in the cemetery of the past where there is nothing but dead things?
Dead relationships that were not in God’s will in the first place. Dead dreams that were of our own making and not within the scope of our God-designed destiny. Bottom line, if you’ve been blood-washed and you’re born again by the Word and the Spirit of God, then the “old man” is dead. Quit keeping company with the “old man” of your past. Choose to leave him buried there in the cemetery of your past and you get out of there.
You’re alive unto God now and you don’t have any business hanging around in the cemetery where there is nothing but death and dead things. God has said, choose life and blessing. Choose to move forward with Him, putting on the “new” as you walk into your God-called, God-given destiny and purpose for being here on this earth (Eph.4:22-24). It is a choice, and God has told us which is the wise way to choose. Our choices are very important, let us not forget to endeavor to make the right one’s. Amen.
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THE CHOICE TO BLESS OR CURSE:
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Many times in relationships, we find our selves doing things that we really don’t want to do. These things may be pleasing to the other person but they are making you miserable and unhappy. I want to throw out a few possibilities for consideration. We know by now that our day, from the time we get up in the morning until the time we go to bed at night, is made up of right and wrong choices. Based on this, when we find ourselves in unwanted positions with other people, we can ask ourselves some of these questions:
1-What is my motive? (to bless or curse?)
2-Is it right to say no? (let your yes be yes, and your no be, no).
3-Am I operating from a Biblical standpoint? (Godly choices or influenced by the flesh).
4-What is my attitude? (grudging, humble, arrogant, peaceable, loving--choosing to love).
It doesn’t matter what kind of relationship you might be in at the moment---marriage, parent/children, you/church family, relatives, friends, co-workers (secular-ministry), just to name a few. Regardless, you will probably find yourself doing some things for these people that you don’t particularly want to do. Each of the relationships I listed has some differences in how we are to approach the people within those relationships. But still, there are some basic elements that run through all of them and this is what I want to address here now.
For instance, are you doing things for someone in a relationship that is more out of a sense of obligation than a true desire of the heart? There is a difference. Let’s define the word “obligation.” This word means, ‘oblige, require, pledge, bind, force, compel, duty, bond, compulsion, debt.’ The opposite of this word means, ‘freedom, choice, exemption.’ If you have entered into a purchase contract with someone, whether it is from a store or personal, you have obligated yourself to honor the debt. You made a pledge when you signed your name to uphold the debt. It is your duty now to be a man or woman of integrity and repay the debt. This is an obligation you chose to make and now you are responsible for it.
Entering into a purchase agreement can cover a lot of areas from a business out in the market place or a large church or ministry. Some choices in this are certainly wrong if you’re head over heels in personal financial debt already but yet, you’ve got to have a new car! Especially since “Rob and Cathy down the street just got one a few months ago!”
Making this kind of choice would certainly be wrong for you and your family at this time. Yet, you would be obligated to uphold the purchase agreement. And if you couldn’t keep up the payments, then they could threaten and carry out legal procedures to either get their money or take back the new car.
Under these kinds of circumstances, would making a choice like this bring blessing into your life and family? No, it certainly wouldn‘t. It’s not a blessing of God to be in this kind of obligated debt when He said, “owe no man anything except to love him”(Romans 13:8). On top of this, the husband and wife would begin to blame one another for the wrong choice and the place of bondage they now find themselves deeper in debt. The husband would say, “You just HAD to have a new car that you KNEW we couldn’t afford! Why did I ever listen to you?”
The wife would get on the defense, “Wait a minute! As I well remember, we talked about this and we were BOTH in agreement that we could afford to get a new car.” Husband, “Well, you didn’t have to pick out the most expensive one they had on the lot! I tried to get you to look at that one I liked, and which was less expensive.” Wife, “Excuse me? I was the one who pointed that particular car out to you, and YOU were the one who didn’t want it. It wasn’t sporty enough to suit you.”
This back and forth exchange of angry blame could go on and on and in fact, does in many families where wrong choice has been made. The truth of the matter is, each one is responsible for their own choice, whichever way that is. And a choice such as this, buying a new car when there was no room in your financial budget for one, would certainly bring cursing into your life instead of blessing. And many wrong choices such as this, by both partners, have turned out to be the death to a lot of marriage relationships.
Why? Because they CHOSE to remain in death’s stranglehold of blame and unforgiveness, blaming each other for the wrong choices they each one made. And by ignoring their own responsibility of choice, thereby, trying to make the other person take the responsibility for them both. This just does not work and it is one of the reasons why so many people in relationships---of all kinds, are in such trouble today.
We mentioned motive earlier, lets define the word motive. This word means, ‘purpose, cause, reason, impulse, spur (spur of the moment, impulsive), inducement, incitement (goad, provoke), idea.’ We certainly want to do acts of kindness toward other people. Galatians 5:6 says, “faith without works (the acts of love) is dead.’ And to show other’s love and kindness by our faith is to do acts of righteousness. It is to show another person compassion and a warm generosity of heart.
The Bible says, to “give according to what you’ve purposed in your heart to give. Don‘t give grudgingly or unwillingly because God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor.9:7)” Make sure that what you give to someone is done willingly from out of a generous heart motive. If you give a person money, your time, clothes, household goods, etc. where there is legitimate need, is your motive to give unselfishly? Are you giving of yourself, not wanting or expecting anything by way of self-gain in return from them?
But watch this now, Luke 6:38 said, “GIVE, and it SHALL be GIVEN unto you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over shall MEN GIVE UNTO YOUR BOSOM.” So, do we give to receive? Absolutely! But we have to remember that our source is God first of all, not other people. We have to give in confidence, believing and having faith in God, that His promises are true and if we do our part (give), then we can most assuredly, without question, EXPECT to RECEIVE from Him.
In light of this, our motive can be two-fold and be Scripturally correct. First, if we’re dealing with the giving of money, we purpose in our heart, (we’ve asked the Lord, He’s told us the amount) of what to give to a specific need. We have His Word to base our giving on. And secondly, we also have God’s Word to base our expectation of receiving upon also. Plus, there’s the plain truth that you just want to help somebody out in their time of need, because you realize it’s sowing grace and mercy seed, from which you may need to draw upon at a later time. No seed planted in preparation for this, no harvest in your time of need. But your basic motive is that you just want to be a blessing to somebody and encourage them to keep looking up to Jesus as their everything. As their source. But in being a blessing, you end up being blessed yourself.
Sometimes our true heart motives are hidden from us for reasons of unresolved sin in our lives in some certain area. But Hebrews 4:12 says, the Word of God is powerful and sharp as a two-edged sword, cutting deep, even to the dividing line of the spirit and soul, to the true intents and purposes of the heart. This is why we run from this so much. The fact that when God comes to us with that two-edged sword and begins digging around in things that have been buried so long, we don’t like that. It’s most uncomfortable.
We don’t want to have to look fully at the unlovely intents and purposes there in our hearts. Those wrong motives that we had convinced ourselves were right. This is a hard thing but God, in His loving grace and mercy, will bring this to us, to refine us and to prepare us in righteousness, purity and holiness. It is to prepare us to receive more of the GLORY of God. And that's not just a nice word. It means, more than any of us have really comprehended yet.
There comes the time when God takes us through spiritual surgery to prune unproductive things out of our lives so we can bear much fruit. And all surgery has a degree of pain to it, but once the surgery is over, healing and restoration comes. This is true both in the natural and in the spiritual. So, the Holy Spirit comes as the Refiner to do supernatural surgery on our hearts, but praise God! It will make more room for the glory of God to fill us.
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THROWING OUT BLATANT BLAME:
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Most people want the privilege of choice but not the responsibility and consequence should the choice you made turn out to be the wrong one. And if you recall, we also talked about wanting to blame other people for the wrong choices that we alone made. Making right choices and receiving the blessing off of that is easy and a joy. But when we’re faced with the cursing the wrong choice brought into our lives, there is no ease and joy in it.
Instead, there is unrest, confusion and misery. I bring your attention again to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The moment their spiritual system malfunctioned from the invasion of sin, they IMMEDIATELY began blaming each other for their own wrong choice. Adam: “I didn’t want to eat that stupid fruit but you just insisted.” Eve: “Hey, nobody twisted your arm. Besides, the devil made me do it.”
There are only two kinds of choice that each of us can make. We’ve already seen this, but lets go back to look at our foundational Scripture again in Deut. 30:19, “I’ve set before you this day, life and blessing, death and cursing, choose life, so that you may live and your seed also.”
There are no if’s and’s or but’s in there. It’s clearly defined and simple enough for a child to understand. Of your free will, you’re either going to make a choice that is morally, ethically, and spiritually right according to God’s Word. Or, you’re going to make a choice that is wrong morally, ethically and spiritually and clearly in disobedience against God’s Word. Again, there is no in-between according to what God said in Deut. 30:19.
The word blame means, ‘ to upbraid (scold). To criticize. To (find) fault, (make one feel) guilt, accuse (Satan is the accuser of the brethren), condemn (not under, Rom,8:1), indict.’ If you go back and read about the fall of Adam and Eve from God’s grace, you’ll see where every one of these definitions was used in the outburst of Adam toward God and his wife. He accused God blatantly about His giving Eve to him as a wife---indicating that she was the cause for his problems. And then, if God had not given Eve to be a wife to Adam, he believes he would have been able to avoid the consequences he now faced. So, bottom line, what was Adam trying to do? Justify himself in such a way so as to avoid taking the responsibility for the wrong choice he had made himself of his own free will.
This brings us to look at the word, ‘excuse’ to see what it means. And it means from the King James Bible, “An invalid reason for neglect of duty.” That means the excuses we make, trying to justify our wrong choices in order to avoid taking responsibility for them, is INVALID. And that means, any excuse we give to shift our fault onto someone else to try and make them responsible for it is unjustified. It is false and contrary to the truth, and it is to deceive the other person into thinking that they are the one who is guilty and responsible. Excuses are thin-skinned lies. And where did lying originate? From Satan. Jesus said, he’s a liar and there’s no truth in him (John 8:44-45).
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JESUS EXERCISED CHOICE:
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This brings new light and helps us see a little more truth, or to remind us of truth that God has been trying to get across to us but we’ve been avoiding a closer look. Either way, nobody can over-ride your free will of choice unless you allow them to. Not even the devil! For so long we’ve blamed the devil for the bad choices we’ve made from the smallest things to the biggest things when really, he only did what we gave him permission to do. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am NOT taking up for the devil. But Jesus took care of the devil for us on the cross when He defeated him by the shedding of His blood for the world’s sins.
Did you hear me? I said, Jesus DEFEATED the devil in our behalf on the cross. Somebody says, “Well, how come the devil’s still bothering me then?" Because YOU keep giving him permission to bother you, that's why. The problem is, we fail to do as Jesus did in the wilderness when he put Satan in his rightful place everytime with the Word of God. Don’t you remember what Jesus said when Satan SUGGESTED to Him that He must be hungry? Why not turn those stones into bread?
Now, what was Satan going to do? Literally drag Jesus over to those stones and MAKE Him turn them into bread and eat them? He couldn’t do that; he didn’t have the authority to do it. And neither can he do that to you. But he preyed on the weakened condition Jesus was in at the moment because of the forty days and night fast He‘d been on. This is symbolic of him always going for the weak places in our lives to attack us.
So, yes, Jesus was hungry. He was experiencing the same human experiences of hunger as we do when we’re hungry for food. Don’t you know for a moment that it was tempting to turn those stones into bread? Wouldn’t you be tempted for something to eat if you had not eaten in forty days and nights? Well sure you would. And Jesus could’ve had hot loaves of bread in an instant but what did He do instead? He had on the same armor of God that He left for us to use that's listed in Ephesians chapter six. And He used the Sword of the Spirit on the devil and said, “It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone but by every WORD that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Luke 4:4-Deut.8:3). Hallelujah! Praise God!
And what did Satan do when Jesus met his temptation with the WORD that had proceeded out of the mouth of God? He backed down and went about looking for another place of entry to attack. The same way he does you and me. He hasn’t changed his tactics one bit since the garden. But listen, neither has God changed His Word. He said, “I change not.” The book of James says, “there's no shadow of turning in God.” He’s not wishy-washy. He’s always the same and His Word is always the same, yesterday, today and forever. It worked for Jesus in the wilderness against the attack of Satan, and it will work for you and me today against Satan’s same attacks.
So, the problem is not mainly with the devil, it’s with you and me, not keeping the devil in his rightful place with the WORD that proceeds out of the very mouth of almighty God! James 4:7 says, “Submit yourselves therefore unto God: resist the devil and he WILL flee from you.” What do we resist him with? Every WORD that proceeds out of the mouth of God in the name of Jesus!
It is written, NO weapon that is formed against me shall prosper, and any lying tongue that rises up against me in judgment, I shall condemn; for as a servant of the Lord, that is my heritage and my righteousness is of Him because the LORD SAYS SO!” How? By His WORD! Are you getting hold of this? The sword of the Spirit--that powerful and sharp two-edged sword. Praise the Lord forevermore! I like that word, don’t you?
But now listen, Jesus, when He came to this earth---you have to remember, He willingly stripped Himself of His glory and power to come here and experience life as a man. To go to the cross and die for man spiritually so that man could be reborn spiritually unto God. After the resurrection power of God---the glory of God had raised Jesus from the dead, He became the first born (quickened in His spirit) of the (spiritually) dead. At the same time that Jesus was all man---He was also all God. He was God wrapped up in human flesh and He came to live among men.
So, in that humanness, Jesus also had to make choice. Now, some of you may not have ever thought about this before, and some of you have known this for a while now. And then, sometimes, we know but we have just not known. What do I mean by that? Simply, that our spirits have known things before our minds ever caught up with the knowledge. But when it does, you’ve got a solid knowing.
So, in the wilderness, facing off with Satan in three rounds, Jesus was faced with some of the toughest choices of his life so far. Yes, He made the right choice, based on the WORD that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And, watch this now, He put that WORD in HIS mouth, then He spoke it out loud to Satan and said, “It is written...” And contrary to a lot of beliefs, Jesus wasn’t wimpy about it when He told Satan, “It is written.” He didn’t cower in the shadows and whisper, “Oh, please, mr. devil, won’t you just shoo-fly and go away?” Dear God. That is NOT a correct and accurate picture of the Lord Jesus Christ whom the Bible says is the LION of Judah. Lion’s roar and they roar LOUDLY. Hallelujah!
John, on the Isle of Patmos, in trying to describe Jesus said, He was a FIRE from the loins up and a FIRE from the loins down. What was John describing here? The GLORY of God on Jesus. The same GLORY that knocked Saul off his horse on the road to Damascus. There wasn’t anything weak and wimpy about Jesus when He approached Saul that day. The glory of God was so bright on Jesus that it blinded Saul for three days and he had to have somebody come lay hands on him in order to receive his sight again. Praise God!
Jesus wasn’t trying to blind the man---it’s just the way of the glory. But Jesus didn’t wring His hands at Saul and say, “Oh, Saul, if you don’t mind, would you please stop harassing the church?” No, when Jesus met Saul on that road to Damascus, He was all serious business. He took what Saul was doing to the church, personal.
And do you think He whispered to Saul? NO! He said, “SAUL, SAUL, WHY ARE YOU PERSECUTING ME?” Don’t you know Saul did some quick thinking because when he spoke he said, “Lord...” And he was born again right then on the road to Damascus. That was the end result of the meeting. Jesus went to Saul because He took the persecution of His Church personal and enough was enough. Well, didn’t Saul make a choice that day himself? Yes, he did. And the right one quickly. What if he had chosen differently? Most of the New Testament would be missing if he had, but thank God he did make the right choice. Amen.
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