In The Name of Jesus

Col. 3:12-17 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

I have a desire to do these things in the power of the Holy Spirit ,even being thankful . I was brought up to be a smiler. Oh you just don't know what an obedient child I was.
I thought smiling must be the answer to everything. If I smiled even Satan would go away. A false teaching I now realize so I am now not to concerned about smiling. I am more concerned about doing what I do in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Being thankful can appear like smiling. "Thank you," I can say, without much thought. However, am I thankful ? Do I just say , "thank you" to be polite or obedient ? Can the thankful heart that the LORD desires be a put on , kind of thankfullness ?

Since it is an order for the elect of God the Holy Spirit is sure to be able to help me do what my flesh does not want to do. I can chose to be thankful and then fall back into the Holy Spirit to help me follow through with my choice. Kind of like learning to float on water , maybe.
When I fall back believing for the Holy Spirit to empower me to be thankful , rather than I doing it in my strength I think I must believe in the power of the name of Jesus.

This is what the verse says , "do all in the name of the LORD Jesus." His name holds power and authority for those who believe.

Expectations

My thoughts affect my feelings and my feelings can affect my actions. I would say when I am most at ease and living the abundant life Jesus gave me the thoughts , feelings and actions are all going the same way.

When I am aware that my thoughts are not going the way that Jesus would be thinking I can choose to have my thoughts brought captive to the obedience of Christ , or not.

I do not want to go with the "or not" but the doing of bringing my thoughts captive and to the obedience of Christ can sure be a chore , sometimes.

I praise Him that I do not have to do this single handedly. The power of the Holy Spirit is within me and empowers me to bring those thoughts around.

I could say that I expect the Holy Spirit to empower me but that would be a false statement.
I have faith in God's word and believe the Holy Spirit will empower me , this is true.
That means when I put faith in God's word to be thankful , I knew I was building a house on a firm foundation .

So what does this mean that I can expect ? Nothing.
Expectations really have no place in the spirit led Christians life. There is no , if you follow this you will get this.

There is , if I follow Jesus I'll live the life and purpose for which I was created. How that will look to myself or other people is purely speculation.

I've had some experiences lately that has made me realize that I better go back and look again at my foundation. While taking a good look at what I was thankful for , and what I was not thankful for , I realized that I had put a lot of expectations into this equation that really may not fit.
On the other hand by realizing that I will (by choice) be thankful "in" the situation I will have what I have always wanted.

A life that glorifies Jesus.

On Sundays my pastor is teaching out of 1 & 2 Corinthians. Over and over I hear how Paul is writing a letter to these people and trying to help them understand some thing . Paul's love for these people is evident as he labors over and over again with his words to help them understand a thing that they don't. He tells them quite honestly your actions are an indication that you do not understand. If you understood your actions would be different. He is telling them the truth in love.

If I could understand how he was able to make this statement :
1 Cr 1:4 I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;
I could then proceed on with my life as God intended.
I am glad that over and over again He brings me back to this place. Hopefully I will not take off this time with a false expectation or a delusion of some kind.

David Gusik says ,"Paul is sincerely thankful for God's work in them. " This reminds me of Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform [it] until the day of Jesus Christ:

Who Has The Light Today?

Since I have begun sharing more life experiences I feel that my word of testimony is becoming more to what the Holy Spirit wants from me.

The "word" is the word of God and the "testimony" is how I see it being experienced in me.

I see that the word being experienced by me it is then living in me.

So if I all I can take is one word and experience it , this would be better than sharing five words that I can not.

If the only word I can say is , "I have a thankful heart " this does not sound like a very interesting testimony to me.

Col 3:16 Let the words of Christ, in all their richness, live in your hearts and make you wise. Use his words to teach and counsel each other. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.

However to one who is troubling over the lack of understanding they have , it might be very interesting , especially if they are aware of what Romans 1:21 says..

Romans 1:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified [him] not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

This is my word of testimony . I can see that even though I had set my heart to glorify God but became unthankful my vain imaginations started taking over. Even though I had once enjoyed having the eyes of my heart opened the darkness was coming in , due to a lack of thankfulness.

I have a friend that shared a word of testimony about thankfulness with me yesterday.
She said that when she realized that she did not have to be thankful "for" all things but thankful " in " all things , she was comforted.

Her sharing brought comfort to me too.

I am also trying to be aware of what I am truly thankful for or not. Those things that I am not thankful for I am taking to God and saying "Here is thing I am not thankful for. Please help me with this. I know the power of the Holy Spirit is available to help me here. Please help me receive His help. " Then I go back to being thankful for what I can be thankful for. There are a lot of things on this list that that the Holy Spirit has helped me to be thankful for. A lot of ugly things that I wondered how I could ever be thankful for, the power of the Holy Spirit moved me into place with God's word.

Oh, This Is Perfect !

Eph 4:12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

Living under the blood of the Lamb, by the word of my testimony and loving not my life unto death seems way out there to me. Especially since I know where I am in this loving not my life unto death part.
However, I can remember a day that I was not living under the blood of the Lamb nor was I living by the word of my testimony. The only way these things became a reality for me was to head towards them .
Once I found this was what I really wanted to do , a lot of help came . I found other believers who believed that they also were to live under the blood of the Lamb. I found a few more who believe that the word of our testimony is just as important. I've found a small number who are just about where I am ,wanting to love not our lives even unto death .

So I share what light I have on the subject. They share what light they have. As we share this seems to produce more light for us. This sharing of the light I think is also a word of our testimony. This talking about the light that we have I think aids us to come to a sense of balance so that we can then walk in this light. The more I try to walk in the light , even if I fall down , the better it is for my spiritual growth process.

I have wanted to talk this week about the perfecting of the saints.

2 Cr 12:9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Jesus was answering Paul's request to have an affliction removed from him. And then Paul says , "He will most gladly ..................(read above passage.)

I think I am beginning to catch on to why he could say , "most gladly. "

The other night my daughter and I attended a home group fellowship. I commented on how one way I saw to begin to change from following the flesh was to be thankful for all things. As an example I talked about wanting to be thankful while being the passenger when my daughter learns how to drive.
My daughter at first thought my comment would infer to the group that I thought she was a bad driver. So she said something relevant to that . Then she thought a minute and she said, "My mom has issues. "

She knows that is right. It is not about her driving. She is doing well for the amount of practice that she's had. It is about her mom having issues.

The unhealthy fear I have about riding with her is because of my issues. I am not looking forward to someday getting in the car and no fear. Because some fear is healthy. A certain amount of fear will keep me on my toes so to speak.

If I did not confess it to anyone , maybe no one would know that I have an unhealthy fear that I am trying to overcome. Almost everyone suspects that I just have an overly sensitive healthy fear and even though it keeps me grabbing at my seat and pushing the imaginary brake on my side, we'll make it.

And make it we will. For those who are traveling with me in this journey of how to love not our lives unto death they know that an unhealthy fear quenches the Holy Spirit . We believe that it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we move on into this giving of our lives . I am talking about being the same kind of Christian that Paul was.

He most gladly would rather glory in his infirmities that the power of Christ might rest upon him.

I started telling the LORD that I wanted to be thankful for all things. I have been thanking Him all week for all things that I was thankful for . I especially would start a prayer of thanksgiving when I began to feel the fear and dread of yet another driving excursion to come.

I do not know when He will chose to heal me of my issues but I am believing that His grace is sufficient for me. I also believe that His strength is made perfect in weakness. I most gladly then am glad that I have a weakness for His strength to be made perfect in.

Made perfect infers there is a progress to this process. I am not planning on keeping the weakness just because I am thankful for it. I believe that I will see these weaknesses in me replaced by His power .

Be It Unto Me

Luke 1:38 And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

My word of testimony is a work in progress.
I have been talking about doing things not in my power but in God's power.
I pointed out a particular task that I know I must do but at this point still unable to do with out fear and dread.
I don't mind telling you what the task is but I certainly wish I could talk in generalities about it to other people.
Unfortunately when I tell them what the task is they do not seem to hear that I am wanting to do this in God's power.
They do not hear that I was feeling like a total failure because I was/have been doing it in my strength.

The "was feeling like a total failure" is just a few days ago and I do not want to go back there.

I do not feel like a total failure today because I see this is a work in progress. For one thing I realized to walk in the Spirit I have to chose to not walk in my flesh. Rather than take one giant step into the task and find that I can not do it in the Spirit , I have decided to take a smaller step.

My flesh certainly does not want to be thankful for this situation, however my spirit does want to be thankful.
My spirit wants to be thankful because I have asked the Father to help my will to line up with His word.

So now when ever I remember I must do this task , I chose to thank Him for the situation.

I wish I could thank Him just naturally but right now I am having to make a definite choice of my will to thank Him.

I am careful to thank Him also for all the things that come to my mind that He has done.
I realize this is bringing my thoughts captive and to the obedience of Christ.
This one small step requires that I do it in His power. I could not be thankful that He is God and I am not , in my flesh. My flesh wants to be the boss you know.

But His Spirit does dwell within me and does give me the power to turn away from what my flesh wants to do .

My spirit and the Holy Spirit wants to be thankful for all things. I start where I can , in the Spirit and go as close to the task , that I do not want to do, as I can in my mind.

I try not to think about what will happen if I do not get this right soon.

I do think about what doing this task but with a wrong attitude , (which will quench the Spirit, ) will produce.

I remember a story about Moses' wife , Zipporah . Moses told her she must obey God and perform a task that she did not want to do. Well , she did it, however it was plain that she did not do it with a right spirit. In Exodus 4:25b she says, Surely a bloody husband [art] thou to me.

So with Zipporah being the least person I want to be like and Mary being the most like I want to be like I find myself on scale somewhere in between.

Not quite like Mary , but going that way. Choosing not to be like Zipporah and just do it and choosing to be like Mary who held the hope of a promise in her heart.

She endured many unpleasantness's because of her choice. Yet she believed that what was told her would happen.

A Word of Testimony

My days have been full of uncertainty about many things. My attempt to fast ( a money fast) had been failing. Things were looking bleak and then they looked as though they could get worse than ever.
Above every thing else that I was trying to do , but could not do successfully , hovered this horrible awful fear.

There had been assigned to me , by a person , to do a task. I knew he was right to assign this task to me but every time I tried to do it, I was afraid. A horrible , horrible fear would grip me .

I began dreading the next time I would have to do this task.

The dread of knowing I was going to have to do this task , coming up, even the next day, would ruin the very day I was thinking about it.

No wonder my joy was beginning to slip a way from me. It has been a horrible 3 or 4 weeks.

I can not remember exactly when this started , but it was only getting worse and worse.



Finally I decided fear was a sin and I was going to start confessing my sin to God. While I was at it I decided I'd confess all kinds of other sins too.



The hard part about confessing a sin to God is that it must be done humbly. I must admit that all sin can only be blotted out by His Son's blood and that I myself can not remove my sin for Him.



I know my parents meant well when they taught me to be sorry for something I did wrong. This is how most situations were addressed. "Are you sorry ?" "Yes" "Are you going to do it again ?" "No."
So what I learned about being sorry was , don't do it again. But with God it is not be sorry , don't do it again , in your power. It is be sorry and don't do it again in His power.

Even better is receive His grace for having done the sin , He has forgiven me.
That means the fear I have while riding in the passenger seat as my daughter learns to drive. Some times fear is healthy. What if I become so calm that I forget she still is learning to drive so I don't look to see if she has noticed the up coming stop light ?

However, this miserable existence that I had made for myself had to stop.
Finally I said to the LORD, "I know I should not be afraid. I know that it is a sin. I know that I have asked You to take this sin away. "

Then I thought about what really was making me so miserable. It wasn't the fear. It wasn't the list of things that I felt I should do but just couldn't do. It was that I was pulling back from Him. I was projecting that He should be waiting for me to say , "I'm sorry and I won't do it again." He was not doing that , this was my projected opinion of how a righteous and just God would be responding to my mess.

I told Him that I wanted to praise Him. I did not ask Him if it was alright. I just decided that He was worthy, is worthy and would always be worthy of my praise.

I know to obey is better than sacrifice. However, since I can not obey , I will continue to try , I will praise Him. He is still doing great . It is me with all the mess.
I will praise Him when I remember that I have to ride in the car with my daughter.
I will praise Him when I remember how much I dread it and how afraid I am.
I will praise Him when I am not sure if I am going to be able to stick to the money fast.
I will praise Him when the list of I shoulds don't get done today.

He is still doing a great job. I praise Him for creating the heavens and the earth. I praise Him for loving me. I praise Him for opening the eyes of my heart to see His light. I praise Him for opening the eyes of my heart and giving me power to turn away from the power of Satan. I praise Him for His river of forgiveness that runs beautiful and deep for me to drink of. I praise Him for the inheritance that I have along with all the saints who are sanctified by their faith in Him.

Also I have decided to read Psalm 91 at least once a day.

Praying God's Word

When I ask the Holy Spirit where am I in the word , the answers make sense to me. Not because it is theologically correct or going to line up with any one's (even my own) ideas about what the Spirit is really saying in these passages.
However, this is where my joy in the Holy Ghost comes from. These passages of scripture come to me and day after day I see them as a light unto my path. A very great help in time of need.

My greatest need , He cares about. When I hear the Spirit's comforting words I am caught up in Him.

Isaiah 42: 5-7 Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein: I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, [and] them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

The above verses are the vision statement for the church I attend.