Compelled By Reality

Seeking to be Poor in Spirit

Filed under: Christianity, Intimacy, Jesus, Practicals of Life

I’ve been meditating lately on what it means when Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus has set the bar high for all believers when He set the vision before us in Mt. 5:48 - “You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” The foundational call in the Sermon on the Mount is to cultivate the 8 beatitudes, and being poor in spirit is the first of the eight. Seeking to be perfect is seeking to be mature in the Spirit by pursuing complete obedience (2 Pet. 1:10; Jas 3:2). This pursuit is not to be confused with attainment. We will never fully attain perfection on this side of eternity, but Jesus is perfecting His bride through a process that takes time. We must work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

First, I wanted to define being poor in spirit, and this is what I found:

“to continually acknowledge in the depth of my heart that I am in great need of help to attain genuine love for God and righteousness.”

Being poor in spirit is to accept that we are in a serious dilemma with God and need understanding and power to live in mature godliness. We come before God broken knowing that He is truly our only hope. 

Having this understanding and continually acknowledging that we have no righteousness of our own is the only way we will truly lean soley and completely on Jesus. We’re given His strength and His purity in our poverty. Only when we are in touch with our weakness is He truly strong for us. Then and only then, when we die daily to our own strength, embrace weakness, and in all our ways acknowledge Him will we truly be found perfect, whole, successful and complete before God. 

Tags: Beatitudes, Complete Obedience, Poor in Spirit, Sermon on the Mount, Weakness

Intimacy with the Beautiful God

Filed under: Christianity, Intimacy

Psalm 16:11
“You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

David had firsthand knowledge, intimate knowledge about the pleasures of God, and the fullness of joy that is in His presence.

When we fail we feel so condemned we feel like we can’t go on. And when we succeed we get so proud about what we just accomplished. We need to walk out our lives knowing that whether we succeed or fail, this is not what makes God happy with us. God is happy with us because we love Him. God enjoys us whether we succed or fail in the things in life.

God isn’t surprised when we fail. WE are surprised when we fail and when we do THAT thing again. When we come to God AGAIN, asking for forgiveness AGAIN. We tend to think that God is mostly annoyed or disappointed with us in those times. However, God is so moved when we come to Him in those times. He loves to forgive and loves it when we come to Him. God commands us to forgive someone 70×7 when someone sins against you, how much more with God?

There’s a huge difference between rebellion and immaturity. There are many people who are saying no to God, but the only thing that separates you from them is there is a “yes” in your spirit. God sees that. Weak love is authentic to God and its real to Him even while its still maturing. It’s not enough to believe that God love us, but we need to know and be convinced that God believes that we love Him.

Onething is needed

Filed under: IHOP, Intimacy, Prayer

Living Now is to our Advantage!

Filed under: Blogging, Christianity, Intimacy, Knowledge of God, Power on the Gospel, Prayer

The generation we are living in right now is more important and more significant than we know. Many have said that it would be so much better if we could have lived in the time when Jesus was on the earth; oh to be a disciple and to walk in his footsteps and see the miracles He did and to get to talk to Him face to face. And while those things seem desirable, Jesus disagrees.

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.” John 16:7

It is “TO YOUR ADVANTAGE”, to my advantage, to our advantage that He no longer be here on the earth with us. How is this possible? Wouldn’t be so much easier to witness to people about the man who is fully God and fully man, who’s name is Jesus of Nazareth if He was here on the earth and we could introduce Him? Wouldn’t it be so much easier for people to believe that He was God if people could see Him?

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Our Response

Filed under: Blogging, Christianity, End Times, Evangelism, Intimacy

You are coming back. Soon.

That should spark 2 responses in a follower of Christ.

1. An urgency to get our hearts right, to get to know Him, to prepare our hearts for the coming revival and the coming judgments by having a life of prayer.
2. An urgency to tell others and prepare others. Evangelism that is fueled by the complete Good News of of the Gospel of Christ.

Is your heart driven by this hope?Do you love Him so much that you are longing for His return?

If there is urgency burning within you, is this just something you feel and don’t act on, or do you actively tell people about this good news? And when you tell them about Jesus, do you leave out the part about He’s coming back?  

We must not live unbalanced lives. There is a man who is completely in love with you and is coming back for you. Do we know him? We must make sure that we prepare our hearts, and let God take control and give us the grace to move forward.

We must not neglect this message we have inside of us while we are continually preparing our hearts and interceding for those we want this message to go to. He will give us the strength to follow through. We must make sure that we lean on Him for the strength and not think we can do it on our own. But intentionally walk in weakness so that we have to rely on Him. So much more can be accomplished for His kingdom if we rely on Him more than on ourselves, but we still have to go.  

He will establish it, but we have to commit our works to Him and turn our plans over to Him. 

Building a History with God

Filed under: Christianity, End Times, Featured, Intimacy, Knowledge of God, Prayer

God is really pressing some things on my heart lately. This is one of them and I wanted to share it with you and encourage you in your pursuit of God. Many of you may have this reality pressing on your heart already, and for some this may be something that isn’t normally talked about. So please share your experiences and thoughts on this pressing issue because I feel its an issue that God is really highlighting in this hour of history.

Without a history, it’s sooo easy to cut and run.
It is very easy to leave someone or a group of people if you do not have a history with them. If you are not really connected relationally when troubles come it is sooo easy to just cut and run because of the lack of ties you have. This is what happens to many relationships within the church, and I believe it is why so many people leave the church.

The more history you have the stronger your cord becomes that is tieing you to that relationship. It’s like a rope that is tied to each of us. The more you build relationally together the stronger that rope is. It becomes thicker and thicker. Usually that rope will start out as a small piece of thread which can be easliy torn apart with two hands and even kids scissors. But the more history that is built with good communication and good relationship building the stronger and thicker that tie becomes, and it is not easily broken at all.

2 things that I see that help strengthen the ties we have to one another are: (more…)

Power on the Gospel

Filed under: Evangelism, Intimacy, Power on the Gospel, Prayer

Acts 2:37 “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart.” As I was reading this verse today I realized that this is what we are really talking about when we say “we want to see power on the gospel.” Peter was speaking to the multitudes that gathered when they all had apparantly heard the sound of something like a powerful wind. Then they were cut to the heart and 3,000 souls were added to the kingdom that day.

Where did this come from? How did Peter get this boldness and confidence before God? Was it the power that they recieved from an instantaneous moment when the spirit came on them in the upper room? Was it something more? I’d like to share my thoughts on this and am interested in what you have to say as well.

I do not believe that the power that was on the gospel at that gathering was due ONLY to the instantaneous enduing of power from on high that occured in Acts 2. I believe that was only part of it.

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You did not choose Me!

Filed under: Christianity, Intimacy

When you try to explain and teach a 4 year old about the love of God and why we should love Him and how He sees us, you really have to take a step back and take a look at what you are saying. You have to take all of the fluff off of it and really break it down to the simplicity of it. One reason because of his limited vocabulary and inability to understand complex metaphors (which we so often use to speak about God).

I was talking with David this morning about how special we are to God and realized that this is not just something that 4 year olds need to hear, but its something we all need to hear again and again because we so often lose sight of what is of value when faced with what this world values day after day.

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