If I Love Him...

I love the little things in life. Sometime we miss those things that seem unimportant and yet when we really pay attention we see just how important they are.

Little things, like conjunctions.

In John 15  there is the little conjunction “if” and while I know God’s love of me is not conditional, this little word helps me to evaluate if I really love God.

If I love God then rest assured my life will show it. Yes there may be times of failure and inconsistencies but there should be a genuine pursuit of these things in my life as a result of my love for God.

If I love Him…

I will keep His commandments/words. (John 14:16,23; 15:10)
I will  abide in Him and I will bear fruit. (15:4-5)
I will  lay down my life for Him. (15:12)
I will be hated by the world. (15:18)
I will be persecuted. (15:20)
I will testify of Christ (15:27)

We  need to ask ourselves a few questions, "Does my life show that I love Jesus? Do I allow Him to mold and change me? Am I bearing fruit? Am I keeping His commandments? Am I willing to lay down my life for the life He calls me to?"

These can be hard questions but we must be willing to ask them and to allow the Holy Spirit to speak into those areas where we do not see growth.

Oh Father help me to love you not just in what I say, or write, but help me live a life that testifies of my love for You. Amen

Do Not Be Fearful, Walk in Peace

"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” John 14:27

The context of John 14 is that Jesus is preparing His disciples for when He will no longer be with them physically. He tells them in verse one to not let their hearts be troubled, believe in God and Christ. He comforts them by telling them that He is going to prepare a place for them. And that the only way to get there is through Jesus. He reminds them of the Father and through Christ they (we) can have oneness with Him.

When Jesus goes away He will not leave them without help, He will send the Spirit of God. In verse 23 Jesus says,  "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word ; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”

In verse 27 He tells them that He will leave them with peace, His peace. And since they have this peace of Christ their hearts do not need to be troubled or fearful which goes back to re-enforce what He said in verse one. “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.”

The Greek word for peace in this verse is Eirene which means, the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot, of whatsoever sort that is the blessed state of devout and upright men after death.

So what Jesus wants the disciples to understand is that regardless of what happens in this life we can have peace knowing that our salvation is secure in the work of Jesus Christ.  We can live this life in peace and without fear when we believe in God and Christ. We must keep our focus on the truth of knowing Jesus is preparing a place for those who believe in Him. We can live in peace knowing that we have the help of the Spirit of God who reminds us of truth.

Oh Father help us to live in the peace of Christ, knowing that our salvation is secure. Help us to remember that you do not promise peace as this world promises peace, but we do not need to live in fear, or be troubled for we can react in the knowledge that Your are God, and we are Yours. Amen

If You Love Me…

Sometimes when I sit and read the word of God it speaks so simply and I wonder how can the reader not understand? It’s so straight forward, the truth so obvious.   This morning was one of those times.

I sat down to read John 14, taking a break from Acts. This weekend we had a special speaker, one of our missionaries. He spoke on John 15 and as he brought forth the truth my heart was deeply pricked. It wasn’t a new truth, but I heard the Father ask a simple question of my heart. “Do you love me? Do you love me enough to allow me to prune you? Do you love me enough to allow me to lift up those parts of your life that are lying in the mud? Do you love me enough to allow me to reattach those places that no longer bear fruit?” (John15:1-6)

These are not easy questions. They trouble my heart. I am troubled because I am aware that if I truly loved Him the answer would be a whole hearted, “yes!”. Instead I think of how tired I am, how discouraged I have been and I think to my self, “maybe the pain, the surrender, the dying to self isn’t worth it”.

The Spirit speaks to my spirit and reminds me, “You have a Helper. You are not alone. “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.” (John 14:1)

I realize my thinking isn’t truth so I open the book of Truth and read John chapter 14.

This is Truth. Jesus is preparing a place for me with His Father. Jesus reminds me that He is THE way, THE truth and THE life and that no one comes to know the Father but through Him. (14:6) Jesus reminds me that if I truly believe in Him and the works that He does He will do even greater works in me and through me. All I need to do is ask in His name. And finally I am reminded that if I love Him I will keep His commandments. (14:15)

If I love Him? Of course I love Him! How could there even be a doubt in my mind?

“Do you love Me enough to allow Me to prune you?”

My heart is heavy and I see my sin, my weakness, my unwillingness to pay the cost of loving Him, of following Him.

I surrender. I confess. Again I am encouraged, by the words of Jesus. Through His word encouragement comes when He speaks to all and says that If you love Me not only will you keep my commandments but…

I will send a Helper to help you (14:16)

The Helper will abide with you and in you (14:17)

Jesus will not leave you (18)

Because He lives you live (19)

He is in His Father and you in Him and He is in you (20)

Jesus goes on to say that if we love Him we will -

Keep His commandments and will be loved by Him and the Father (21)

We will keep His word and the Father will love him (23)

We will come to Him and abide in Him (23)

Do I love Him? With great humility and honesty I must admit that at times my life and my thoughts testify against my love for Him. But I do love Him. I believe in Him, His words, His truth, His love for me. With all my life I choose to follow Him and count the cost, whatever it may be.

So yes, prune me, lift me up out of the mud, show me the areas of my life that have fallen from You. Teach me the things I still need to know, to see and to confess.

Oh Father I am forever in Your debt. These words that I have written seems so hollow in compared to all that I owe you. Help me. Remind me I am not alone in the pruning process. You have sent me Your Helper. He will teach me. He will remind me of all that You have said.  Father help me to live a life that shows I love You. Help me to do exactly what You command me to do. Help me to live like Jesus. Amen.

True Worship

I read a quote recently that said something along the lines of “If you want to know what your idol is look at what makes you angry”. It has stuck with me over the last couple of days and wish I could find where I saw it! Anyway, it keeps coming to me as I have noticed a certain thing that makes me angry to the point that it interrupts my worship of God through song. I realize this thing, which is a preference of style, has nothing to do with the root issue of my anger, or idolatry. Once again it comes back to my idol of self. I want to do things my way. I want to control the circumstances, but I know I can not.

I can not insist on my preference of a certain style of song  or music just as you can not insist on your preference. When we begin to demand our preferences in order to worship, we begin to walk a thin line of making it more about me (or you) than God.

So once again I find myself asking the question, what is worship? I know it’s more than the songs we sing on Sunday. It’s more than anything we do on a Sunday during “worship” services. But so many people, including myself at times, insist that the worship service must be a certain way. We all have opinions and preferences.

I want to know what God wants. How does He define worship? What does it look like according to His desires?

In John 4 Jesus tells the Samaritan woman, who believes in God and worshipped him according to the her traditions, that her worship is wrong. The Jews worshipped in Jerusalem, but even their worship had become apostate. He then says in verses 23 and 24, "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.  "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

What does it mean to worship in Spirit and Truth? What is true worship? If true worshippers will worship both in spirit and in truth, does that mean those who don’t worship this way are false worshippers? Is there a right way and a wrong way to worship?

As you can see I have a lot of questions. I want to worship in spirit and truth. I want to worship in a way that brings glory to God and allows me to totally focus on Him.

As I journey to seek answers I thought it would be fun to allow you to walk with me. Hopefully together we will answer these questions by searching scripture to see what it says about worship.  

Here is just a taste of some of the questions I hope to answer, not necessarily in this order.

• How do we worship?
• Who do we worship?
• Is individual worship different than corporate?
• What does worship in spirit and truth look like?
• Does God care how I worship as long as my heart is right?

I hope you join me as I would love to hear your heart and what God has taught you about true worship.