The High Calling of God

Coming to the close of another year, the Lord has impressed on me the verses from Philippines 3:7-14:  " 7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. 8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, 9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: 10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; 11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. 12 Not as though I had already attained , either were already perfect : but I follow after , if that I may apprehend that for which also I a

I love this time of year and I especially love the old Christmas carols. One of my favorites is “Joy to The World”. The words are so relevant to today. If you really look at the verses of many of the old carols, you get the whole picture of why Jesus came to earth as a baby. Many of them take you from the prophecies of old up to the age of glory when Christ shall rule and reign on this earth. One of the verses in “Joy to the World” says- “Let earth receive her King.” When Jesus walked on this earth many thought that He was going to set up His earthly kingdom at that time. In fact, most of His disciples and the Pharisees thought that He would .(See Luke 17: 20-24 ) But His kingdom was and is not of this world ( John 18:36 ). I was just reminded of this recently when I recalled the words of this song. We must let earth—receive Him as King- our “earth” meaning our lives. We are earthly- but we receive His spirit when we come to Him and allow Him to fill us with His Spirit

Romans 12:21  "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." With all of the injustices that are taking place throughout the world today, the Lord reminded me of this verse. The word overcome originally means to have the victory over something.  It is easy to let all the evil that is taking place overwhelm us to such a point that we are not effective Christians. We can become so burdened down with all that is taking place that we aren't able to pray or intercede. We may think that things are never going to change and that Christians are not going to be vindicated. But the Word says that "vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord" ( Romans 12:19 ) We must not give in, be overwhelmed, depressed or dysfunctional-- but overcome evil by the goodness of God.  We can overcome evil, overcome the burden and overcome the state of being ineffective by influencing the environment around us. For example, our neighborhood, our families and our co-

Revelation 2:4 " Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lamptstand from its place- unless you repent."  This was a message to the loveless church in Ephesus.  They had lost that fervent love for the Lord that they had in the beginning and had slipped into an empty routine. The Lord is reminding them here that if it continued and they didn't repent, that He would remove their lampstand- their light- their witness in the world. The Lord is giving His church and individual Christians the same warning today. That word "left" carries with it the element of neglect, forsake and leaving alone. We may not have actually "left" the Lord, but we may have neglected Him, not paying enough attention to Him. We may not be maintaining or nurturing our relationship with Christ. Many  Christians' love

Ephesians 1:17-19 : "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe; according to the working of His mighty power" This was a section of a long prayer that Paul prayed for the church in Ephesus. If there ever was a time when the Church needs wisdom and revelation it is today! We have enough of the world's wisdom. What we truly need in this day and hour is the wisdom and revelation ~ ~ in the KNOWLEDGE of God. I'm not talking about "head" knowledge. I'm not talking about knowing a character out of history. I'm not even talking about the life of Christ. What I am talking about is have a relational knowledge of Christ. Some C

Psalm 84  This psalm is about David's thoughts and desires to be in the "house of the Lord". It is a beautiful description of how he longs for, faints and cries out for the "living God". At this time he was hiding from Absalom and wasn't able to get to the "house of the Lord". In verse 5 he describes how blessed is the person who finds his strength in God and has his heart "set on pilgrimage". In that time and that area- the way to Jerusalem could be very dangerous. They had to pass through the Valley of Baca which means “weeping”. They had to travel through rough and dry land but because of their desire to go to “the house of the Lord” the way became a spring with many blessings. The word “pools” in verse 6 is rendered “blessings”. Baca was a type of balsam plant that can survive in very dry conditions . “The tree is called a weeper, probably because it exudes tears of gum. There is no trace of a real tree with the name. Th

Genesis 43:23 : “But he said, ‘Peace be with you, do not be afraid. Your God and the God of your father has given you treasure in your sacks; ..”   This verse comes from the story of Joseph and his brothers. His brothers had come to Egypt for grain, not knowing that the man in charge was their brother, Joseph- whom they had sold years before. After the men had bought grain and prepared to go back to their father Jacob, Joseph had ordered that their money be placed in their sacks of grain.  Years ago, the Lord dealt with me on these words- “Treasure in your sacks.”  What He was showing me was that it is in the ‘small things’, the everyday things, and the mundane things of our lives- it is there very often that we find true meaning and purpose in our lives. It may be in the least likely place that we find that “treasure” in our sacks--our sack life- our every day order, routine responsibilities--the treasures of His love, grace, loving-kindness, sacrifice and on and on. I w

Romans 8:35-37 : “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” Those words: “more than conquerors” come from one original word- “hupernikao” (Strong’s #5245) meaning over and above. It has the idea of being super victorious, executing an  extraordinary victory. When we are born again through the blood of Jesus and filled with His Spirit- we are more than conquerors through Christ. We triumph and glory in Christ’s victory ( 2 Corinthians 2:14 ). The battle has already been won through Christ. Our triumph and victory is in Him. We are part of His victory and we should leave no one behind. I believe it is the Marines’ motto- to leave no man behind. It should be the Christian’s motto as well.  Sad to

The other day as I was reading in Acts something neat happened. As I read a subtitle for a chapter, my eyes did one of those tricks that happen from time to time. The subtitle was “Journeys in Greece” but my eyes read it as “Journeys in Grace”. I chuckled to myself but I thought-how neat—Journeys in Grace. Our Christian walk truly is a Journey in Grace. From the very first moment we are born again through the blood of Jesus Christ and every day thereafter, it is a journey of grace. As I look back at my 40+ years of serving the Lord, I can say it has been a journey in His grace. I haven‘t always made the right choices. I have done some pretty stupid things at times, but as I obeyed the Spirit’s leading, I was lead back to the right path. There are many, many verses about grace but one of my favorites is 2 Corinthians 12:9 . Paul is saying: “And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather bo

Col 3:1, 3 (Gods Word) “Since you were brought back to life with Christ, focus on the things that are above—where Christ holds the highest position.  Keep your mind on things above, not on worldly things.  You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God Recently my husband bought me a new camera. I was used to the point and click digital with limited zoom lens. I did get a lot of use and enjoyment out of that camera but was ready to move on to something with a little more zoom potential. So, off we go into the woods to experiment with my new camera. Since it was towards the end of winter and very early spring, I soon found out there wasn’t much to practice on but birds. Nothing wrong with birds- and it did give me great opportunity to try out the zoom lens. My husband commented that I had chosen the hardest thing to take pictures of- birds in trees. You have to deal with all the bare branches that normally are around a bird perched in the tree. But I tried and did bec

1 Samuel 30:6: "Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God." David had been through a lot up to this point. King Saul was trying to kill him.David ended up in the wilderness running and hiding from Saul, even though David had been anointed as king by Samuel. He had allied himself with the Philistines and while he was away from his home, invaders came and burned the city and took all the women and children, including David's wives. Then the people turned on him and wanted to stone him. "But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God." Other versions render "strengthened" as "encouraged" but really "strengthened" is a much more accurate word. It comes from the original which means to "fasten upon"; "fortify"; "to bind"; "

"But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God's instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you-from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted."  1 Peter 2:9 (The Message Bible) Webster defines "instrument" as "2. A tool; utensil; implement."   (1).  An instrument doesn't do any good unless it is picked up and used. My garden will not get dug, watered or weeded as long as the tools are still in the shed. The violin or piano can make no beautiful music on their own. It has to be used by someone. I was reminded recently how we, as children of the living God are His instruments--His tools to get the job done. The work of the kingdom will never get done unless we- his instruments- allow Him to use us in the way that He desires. If we don't allow ourselves to be used by God- can we really call ourselve

Colossians 3:3 : "For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." I like the way the Message Bible states the first 6 verses of that chapter: “So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ,  act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides.  2 Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from  his perspective. 3 Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your  real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God.  He is your life.  4 When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ. 5 And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it