I Am Perfect And There Is Nothing About Me That I Need To Change

According to God's Word I am being perfected in Christ Jesus. My perfectness will come through Him and from Him , therefore there is nothing that " I " need to change.

He has been given the authority and the power to do all things.

My need to change myself has just been terminated.

He is Lord of my life , therefore He will see that the work He has begun in me will be completed .

This one thing I can tell you for sure . He is not lazy ! He is not a procrastinator ! He does not quit when I whine ! He has all things worked together for my good . He saw me at the beginning and He knows my endless life with Him .

So today when I thanked Him for empowering me to eat like a thin person today , I knew that He saw me already thin. He sees me as a person freed from the sin of gluttony because He knows that He has already done the work needed for me to be perfected in Him.

I can share a word of testimony today that is the result of someone else sharing a word of testimony with me .
This person has a desire to see me as Jesus does.
Yesterday I went to be her helper to set things up for an activity involving a large community of people . I went thinking , "I am her last resort. Surely she wishes that she had other people to help her to set up today." So as we started in I was hoping that she would be encouraged when I told her that I had prayed and asked the LORD to help me be able to do what she asked , and that she would only have to tell me one time. "

Would you like to know what she said ? She said, "Diane , you do just fine." I then interrupted her and said ,"I know I just need to not worry about what people think! "
And then she said, " Diane I want you to listen to me . You are perfect and there is not one thing about you that you need to change. "

The reason this has meant to so much to me is because I know this person is believing in the same LORD and Saviour I do . Now I also know she knows Him as the One Who does the work in us.

So many people who say that they believe Jesus is their saviour , still act as though "they "need to work on their own perfecting. This gives me the idea that they expect me to work on my own perfecting . This is where I get all messed up because if I am suppose to do it , how can I let the LORD do it ? There is not room enough for me and God to work on me.

Diane has left the building ! Now LORD , You can build the house and I know that I will not labor in vain.

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:

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose.

Psalms 127 :1 [[A Song of degrees for Solomon.]] Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh [but] in vain.

By The Blood of The Lamb

My word of testimony has turned into a quest to be an over comer. There is a lot to each of the three signs that the over comers are given in Revelation .
What I have found is that it is not intended that I pick out one and do that for a while, then pick out another. Actually it is a three fold arena that I am to walk into all at once.
I had stopped writing a word of testimony for a while because I had felt like a failure .
Then I saw that I would only be a failure if I gave up. Once my perspective was aligned up with God's word , life became a joy to live again.
This makes for a better atmosphere for a word of testimony to be sure.
Some word of testimonies that I would like to share on line might bring discomfort for some people that I care about very much. So let me make a summarizing statement that covers several individuals and several different situations.

I have been seeing God work in their lives like I have never witnessed before. It is so exciting to visit with people now that have a word of testimony too.

In my own life I am also excited to see that God is working, leading, helping, encouraging, empowering me, loving me, helping me think soundly more than ever before.

I am just finishing up a 12 unit Bible study and had an idea that when this was done I should go back to another study that I had stopped in the middle of to start this one.
As I was completing this last lesson a section was devoted to the importance of waiting on the Lord. The scripture in the margin to back up what they were saying was found in Ps 130.
Suddenly it occurred to me that perhaps my Bible Study that I had set aside for awhile might be teaching on Ps 130. It had been so long since I had looked at it I could not remember. It is the Stepping Up Study by Beth Moore. When I found my book it just seemed right, I stopped a few pages short of finishing Ps 129 , close enough I think to go ahead and begin on Ps 130. The two studies just seem to tie into each other.
What a gracious loving God I serve. He brings me comfort in so many ways.

Who Am I in Christ Jesus ?

For the past few testimonies I have been talking about doing things in the power of the Holy Spirit. The one area I have wanted this truth to be applied to my life is being thankful.

You see I realized that if I want the power of the Holy Spirit to be the power that turns me away from following my sinful nature then I better be letting the Holy Spirit work full time. To say to the Holy Spirit, "that's okay, I can do this without You," and then holler help when I could not do things without Him , just is not going to work.

He is not like water that comes out of a faucet. Turn on, turn off. No .


Now that I have started letting the Holy Spirit turn me towards thankfulness my joy has been restored. After all the kingdom is " righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." When I started losing my joy , I knew it was because I was quenching the Spirit. It took me a while to figure out how to quit it.



For me following the Holy Spirit is like an adventure. Sometimes I feel as though I have been lifted up and see the big picture. My hopes get all stirred up when I realize that I will someday be a part of the bride of Christ. I can just imagine what a wonderful husband Jesus will be ! He'll never tell me I did a lousy job cooking the pork chops. He will be pleased with me every day. I really am looking forward to being with Jesus , full time.



Then I realize I have to day to live , here in this world.

Jesus said, "be of good cheer , I have overcome this world."

Now Jesus must have known that His overcoming the world would be a reason for me to be of good cheer. It must have something to do with that since I belong to Him , everything He has is mine.



The way that I see myself able to receive all that He has for me , will not be by something I do.

The way that I can receive what He has for me will be by me being empowered by the Holy Spirit .

There is nothing that I will be able to say that I have done myself.

The very fact that I want to be with Him is because He wanted me . The very desire I have for Him was produced by His own great love that He poured out on me .


Who I am in Christ Jesus is Forgiven and Free.

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 .