God's Consuming Fire

Hey readers,

This is a Post from my other blog that I thought I would re-post for you all to read.  I am probably going to post more from this sight over the next few months.  I am also still waiting to post the story behind "compelled" just hang on, all will be explained soon. Hope you find something in this post for YOU :-) ...


Scripture states in Hebrews 12:28-9 in the NKJV...

"Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and Godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire."

Here's my reflection from this particular passage of scripture: We each have different things that we will have to face in our lives and may be facing even today. Sometimes it may feel like we are losing everything that matters to us. There are several different situations that can make us feel this way and many times it leads to a great discouragement that begins to destroy the things that are important to us.

I cannot count the times that I have personally let the things of this world take control and have had to face the consequences that follow. I am never going to be perfect and I hate to say this, but neither will you :-). We will have to work through these things many times during our time here on this earth. One thing though, we must remember that those times we have only come for a season, and that while they may come many times throughout our lives, what we have here on earth is only a prelude to what God has in store for us in heaven.

One final word, remember that God is your consuming fire and that no matter what waters may come to blow your fire out, He has promised you something great and that HIS fire will never fade.





Thanks again for visiting "The Gathering Room"

Stand Strong and continue to believe the teachings given to you

(2 Thes. 2:15b NCV),

M.E.

"Compelled" part 1

Dear Readers,


Finally the time has come and I can post part 1 of my sermon "Compelled".  I have waited so long for this because Traci and I have been searching for about 6 or 7 months now and we have finally found it.  However that is a post for another time and it will be titled "The Struggle". I will write that this next week and post it for you to read.


With that said I have been looking forward sharing this part of "Compelled" for some time now.  Again these are only my sermon notes and not what was spoken completely.

I have a very personal message to share with you all today. It is a message that compelled my heart to change, to trust in the unknown, to depend on the Lord completely and to give up any doubt I had in my mind about “The Struggle” we have been facing these past few months. Don’t start freaking out though it wasn't a bad one. 

The message I have for you is a message that I pray will have the same effect on all of you as it did on me.

This message is so important that I even have notes for you to take home with you.

This is a message in which we can learn four lessons that compel us to change.

God divine power instills upon us who believe, the calling He has placed upon each of us, he has called us to live a life that is humble, hopeful, healthy, and holy. God compels us all to grow in our faith.

How do we embrace a life that is humble?

There are so many things that we can do in our own lives that we can do to help us get to a point of A HUMBLE SPIRIT.  It is not easy by any means and it will be a life long journey of learning but in the end it will be worth it.

In our daily lives,

ARK- acts of random kindness

Encouraging others even when we feel they don’t deserve it

Loving those that are deemed unlovable

Submitting to authority even when we know they are wrong

Look at the scripture again; here is a simple example,

⁵ For this very reason make every effort to add to your faith goodness;and to goodness, knowledge;⁶ and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; ⁷ and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. ⁸ For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (NIV 2011)

Because God loves us HE compels us to establish these things in our life and when we do, we begin to let the fruits of the spirit grow in our hearts, and we will begin to embrace the humble spirit.

What are those?

Love, Joy, Piece, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and self control

Yes they are almost identical to what has been mentioned in our passage for today...

Again I hope you enjoyed this little piece of the sermon the Lord gave me to share with as many people as I could. I will be posting "The Struggle" that lead to this sermon soon, but in the mean time I might be posting other interesting blogs for you to read :-).


Thanks again for visiting "The Gathering Room"

Stand Strong and continue to believe the teachings given to you

(2 Thes. 2:15b NCV),

M.E.

"Compelled" part 2

Readers, 


I know I said I would post this a little bit faster than I have, and I am sorry for that but it's been a bit busy :-)  In any case, here is part 2 of my sermon "Compelled"  I will try to post part 1 and the introduction by the end of the week. Remember though these are only my notes and not the actual sermon :-) Hope you find something from God in this :-)

How do we embrace a life that is hopeful?

This is an important matter in everyone’s life; if we don’t have a hopeful attitude then we will never experience the blessings God sets before us.

He has so much to offer us; because He does we are compelled to embrace A HOPEFUL ATTITUDE.

In our daily lives,

Stepping out on faith and trusting in what God has to offer us

Encouraging ourselves to build a foundation in the word

Praising God when things don’t go the way we want them to.

Letting go of the desires of our youth and embracing the desires of God

Look at the scripture again; here is a simple example,

³ By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. ⁴ And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.⁸ For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (NLT)

You see God has blessed us with some amazing promises, and he did so out of love for us. We are called to embrace those promises and trust that HE knows the outcome is in our best interest.

If we look in Peter’s 1^st letter we get a deeper understanding of this…

“¹⁰ God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. ¹¹ Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.” (1 Peter 4:10-11, NLT)

Don’t let the world around you keep you from embracing a Hopeful attitude, it will only limit what God can do with your life.

Again I hope you enjoyed this little piece of the sermon the Lord gave me to share with as many people as I could. Again, I will be posting part 1 soon, but I will more than likely post other interesting things for you to read in the mean time :-)


Thanks again for visiting "The Gathering Room"

Stand Strong and continue to believe the teachings given to you

(2 Thes. 2:15b NCV),

M.E.

Seek Who? How?

Readers,


It's been a while since I've posted a devotional blog so I thought I'd better get back in the game :-).


"And you will seek and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found in you, and bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations..." Jer. 29:13-14a


When we think of Jeremiah chapter 29 the verse we typically think of is verse 11 "For I know the plans I have for you...", but I think that we have missed the point behind that verse.  Sure God knows the plans he has for us and they are good but how do we find them? Verse 12 say we must call upon HIM, pray to HIM, and he will listen. In verses 13 and 14a an even deeper statement. I would write it a little like this "Seek me my dear child and you will find me, search for me with all heart and you will find me."


This is where the message lies, sure we can take verse 11 and hold on to that but the peace that 11 speaks of will never come if we are not applying the other verses to our lives on a daily basis. How many times in life have we found our selves searching for answers and never finding them? Typically, well at least for me, we begin to over analyze the questions on our hearts and it makes us  over think everything and worry way to much. 


Because of how much we over analyse the situations we are faced with, in the end we find our selves with 20 more questions, no answers, and a brain that just won't quit thinking.  Where does that leave us; with a very bad headache that simply won't go away and a restless nights sleep that we could have done without :-). So the question comes to mind, where did we go wrong?  It's another simple answer, without realizing it we often begin searching for the answers in the wrong places.  We take what verse 11 states, repeat it over and over and over again, and seek our answers in every place but to one place we should be looking, in the arms of God.  


It states we must seek HIM, not something else. It states we must find HIM, not something else. It states we must search for HIM, not something else and it states we must do these things WITH ALL OUR HEART.  (3 HIMS, 1 HEART, interesting isn't it).  So the next question that I think of is how do we get past our analytical approach to solving our life's issues? Simple, "take it to the LORD in prayer" as the song What a Friend in We have in Jesus states :-).  Let us take a chance and look to that once place we tend to over look first with everything we face. Let us go to God, give it all to HIM who is able, then simply wait. Even if our answer doesn't come as fast as we'd like it to, it will come.  All we have to do is SEEK HIM, FIND HIM, and SEARCH for HIM with ALL OUR HEART...


Thanks again for visiting "The Gathering Room"

Stand Strong and continue to believe the teachings given to you

(2 Thes. 2:15b NCV),

M.E.

"Compelled" part 3

Readers,


This is the third part of a sermon I gave in my church recently.  It was such a powerful sermon for my life that I felt I should share it with as many people as I could :-).  Again this is not the actual sermon, just the sermon notes  I wrote to give me a base line to start from. I hope it intrigues you enough to come back and look at other postings of mine.  

How do we embrace a life that is healthy?

This does not only speak of spiritual health but also of physical health. Both of these things are very important. God compels us to embrace both A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP and to live A HEALTY LIFE.

In our daily life,

Choosing to do things that will help us grow spiritually and keep healthy.

Reaching out beyond that which we know into the things we don’t know, (that are godly)

Keeping a healthy lifestyle, going to bed on time, eating right, etc

Choosing to get into the word

Choosing to live in the world and not of the world

Look at the scripture again; here is a simple example,

 ⁸ The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins. (NLT)

You see, the more we work towards building that foundation for a healthy relationship with Christ the more we will grow in knowledge of who he is and what he calls us to.

The more we work towards building a healthy life is the more energy we will have to serve God and to serve others.  So in the end God compels us to A HEALTHY LIFE and A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP so we can grow in HIM.

Again I hope you enjoyed this little piece of the sermon the Lord gave me to share with as many people as I could. I will be posting part 2 soon, but I will more than likely post other interesting things for you to read in the mean time :-)

Stand Strong and continue to believe the teachings given to you

(2 Thes. 2:15b NCV),

M.E.

HIS Merciful Sacrifice

^"But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life." Jude 1:20-21

A few years ago someone pointed this passage out to me and asked 'what do you think this passage is saying to us'? At that time I wasn't ultimately sure but I believe that I have a better understanding of this passage today. Lets take it block by block so to speak (or write). 

But you, refers to us as Christians.  As Christian believers we are called to build ourselves up in the most holy faith.  Holy faith refers to, the relationship we are meant to have and share with Christ, this is the relationship we should hold to or stand by. We are called to devote ourselves to learning more about our faith and to develop a deep relationship with Christ and to pray in the Holy Spirit. Praying in the spirit, refers to devoting time in our lives to communicate with God through the Holy Spirit by consistently living a life of prayer and worship.  How do we do that simple, taking time to do so. When we do this we are working to keep ourselves in God's Love. This is self explanatory :-)

Next we come to the latter part of our passage, when we work to keep ourselves in Gods love we open our hearts to receive HIS mercy. HIS mercy is HIS love.  Gods mercy brings us out of the worst of situations and prepares us for what is to come in the days ahead.  It is that mercy that is the basis of everything that God has done for us.  HIS merciful sacrifice is what paved the way for the eternal life that the end of this passage speaks about.  The purpose of this sacrifice was to give us that eternal life.

All in all this is a very valuable passage for us to remember.  From the beginning it teaches us that we are called to devote ourselves to a life that is pleasing to the Loving God who is all merciful to us.  We have a chance to embrace a life that is built on nothing less than our love for God.  When we embrace this life and wholeheartedly surrender to HIM we receive our ticket to eternal life, our ticket to Salvation...

Stand Strong and continue to believe the teachings given to you

(2 Thes. 2:15b NCV),

M.E.

The Harvest

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.'" Matthew 9:37-38 NIV

Jesus once said these words to his followers and I believe that he is saying those same words to us today.  There is such a need for the workers of the field in the harvest of world we live in today. Many are gifted but few stand up to take on the responsibility.

We are all a part of something bigger than ourselves and it is time that we stand up for what we were created for. This particular verse sparks a question in my heart. Why is there such a need for people to stand up and work the field?  I believe that the answer is simple, we are called to stand up because deep down we know the harvest will always be incomplete with out that deeper love guiding each of our lives.  Stellar Kart puts it beautifully don't they.

I believe with all my heart that we are called to be a part of something bigger than all our lives, we are called to something holy.  Until we embrace that holiness in our lives the harvest will always be incomplete.  Peter wrote that we were to "Love each other deeply with all our hearts" 1 Peter 1:25b and yes I have posted this verse before but it is so relevant to our hearts and to our lives.

We as Gods adopted family need to stand up and work the fields of harvest all over the world and more importantly in our very own communities and churches.  However, we must be careful because if we lead and have not been led ourselves. Yes, we are called to lead but we are also called to be led :-). 

Simply put, Love God, Love Others, Lead others, be led by others, embrace the harvest and be the harvest :-)

Stand Strong and continue to believe the teachings given to you

(2 Thes. 2:15b NCV),

M.E.