LOOKING CONSISTENTLY AT LIFE THROUGH GOD'S EYES
Greetings in the name of Jesus:
All of what we have been discussing over the last few weeks is useless unless we become consistent in our efforts to give to God the things He needs from us to gain full control in our lives. The only real way of being consistent in this is to look at life through God's eyes instead of through our own eyes. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 The greeting we read is dealing with receiving the comfort that is offered by God not to keep it for ourselves but so that we can give it, or pass it on to others. The basic information was given to us in the scriptures found in John 19;-21 concerning Jesus death burial and resurrection, and then in chapter 21: the account of Jesus again appearing by the seashore while the disciples were fishing shows us the difference between our ability to understand this life by ourselves and when we are lead by God's view of it.
They had tried everything they knew to catch fish and they had worked all night long. They were tired and frustrated with their efforts and had nothing to show for it until they recognized Jesus who told them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. It is a time when our human nature often kicks in to argue with God because we think we understand the fullness of the effort to do something because God tells us to instead of having control of it ourselves. In order for us to in the center of God's will, we also have to be directly under the control of His Holy Spirit. That means that even though we may have worked as hard as we can and have done as much as we can we still need to do that work under the leadership of God's Spirit or it may well yield nothing at all.
We cannot be vessels that can be used completely by God unless we have turned our complete will over to Him. I think that becomes the real issue for the church today. It is our human nature to survive this natural life that causes us to miss the truth of what God has asked us to do. We need to die to our own influence as well as to the influence of the world around us in order to say we are dead to this world because even we are still physically a part of this world. Our thoughts and reasonings as a person are many times a part of what holds us at an arm's
length from being used by God's Spirit.
If we are to be used by God for His glory and to do His will then we must come to a point where we realize that our sacrifice must be the same as God's sacrifice to us. We must not only be willing to die but as a living sacrifice that is in any way Holy and acceptable to God; which is our reasonable sacrifice, we should do this every day of our lives as a conscious act of our commitment to God in exchange for our eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. With that in mind also know that it is almost impossible for us to attain that as long as we seek to try to save our own lives in this physical setting. We must lay it all down at the feet of the cross if we are ever going to be able to let go of this world and hold on to the Kingdom of Heaven. That exchange is much more than just giving lip service to God. It involves giving all of our natural desire to live and fight for this life to God's Spirit. When we seek to save this life we will lose it, but when we seek to lose our life for His sake we will find life. You see everything about the truth of God's Kingdom is almost a mirror opposite from this world, and so our natural thoughts of what is right are many times leading us down the wrong pathway, and the only way to remedy that problem is to die to our own natural tendency to survive at any cost. That is the thought we start out with this week so we will dig a little deeper...may you richly bless God through your life iin Him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
All of what we have been discussing over the last few weeks is useless unless we become consistent in our efforts to give to God the things He needs from us to gain full control in our lives. The only real way of being consistent in this is to look at life through God's eyes instead of through our own eyes. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 The greeting we read is dealing with receiving the comfort that is offered by God not to keep it for ourselves but so that we can give it, or pass it on to others. The basic information was given to us in the scriptures found in John 19;-21 concerning Jesus death burial and resurrection, and then in chapter 21: the account of Jesus again appearing by the seashore while the disciples were fishing shows us the difference between our ability to understand this life by ourselves and when we are lead by God's view of it.
They had tried everything they knew to catch fish and they had worked all night long. They were tired and frustrated with their efforts and had nothing to show for it until they recognized Jesus who told them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. It is a time when our human nature often kicks in to argue with God because we think we understand the fullness of the effort to do something because God tells us to instead of having control of it ourselves. In order for us to in the center of God's will, we also have to be directly under the control of His Holy Spirit. That means that even though we may have worked as hard as we can and have done as much as we can we still need to do that work under the leadership of God's Spirit or it may well yield nothing at all.
We cannot be vessels that can be used completely by God unless we have turned our complete will over to Him. I think that becomes the real issue for the church today. It is our human nature to survive this natural life that causes us to miss the truth of what God has asked us to do. We need to die to our own influence as well as to the influence of the world around us in order to say we are dead to this world because even we are still physically a part of this world. Our thoughts and reasonings as a person are many times a part of what holds us at an arm's
If we are to be used by God for His glory and to do His will then we must come to a point where we realize that our sacrifice must be the same as God's sacrifice to us. We must not only be willing to die but as a living sacrifice that is in any way Holy and acceptable to God; which is our reasonable sacrifice, we should do this every day of our lives as a conscious act of our commitment to God in exchange for our eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. With that in mind also know that it is almost impossible for us to attain that as long as we seek to try to save our own lives in this physical setting. We must lay it all down at the feet of the cross if we are ever going to be able to let go of this world and hold on to the Kingdom of Heaven. That exchange is much more than just giving lip service to God. It involves giving all of our natural desire to live and fight for this life to God's Spirit. When we seek to save this life we will lose it, but when we seek to lose our life for His sake we will find life. You see everything about the truth of God's Kingdom is almost a mirror opposite from this world, and so our natural thoughts of what is right are many times leading us down the wrong pathway, and the only way to remedy that problem is to die to our own natural tendency to survive at any cost. That is the thought we start out with this week so we will dig a little deeper...may you richly bless God through your life iin Him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
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