And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
(Romans 4:5 – ESV)
(Romans 4:5 – ESV)
Do you need a revival in your soul? Then awake again, back to your first love. If your life needs a little life go back and revisit when you first knew you had it. Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now I am found was blind but now I see, ‘twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved, how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.
Sometimes all we need is a little adjustment. We just moved some things around in our living room and the result was indescribable. The room was the same, the furniture basically the same, but we needed to do some rearranging to see more clearly how beautiful it all is. What you need is not novelty but freshness. You need to rearrange your life around God.
Has your experience in Christ changed you for the better? If not you need to check on the source you are drawing from: is it true or is it just you? Emotions (and emotionally moving experiences) can make life beautiful, but they often make lousy guides for determining the direction of our lives. Experience gets its value from the one who has it. Do you value what God has given you? If so then your experience will ripen the fruit of the Spirit in your life, and a little will always go a long way, and you will be growing in God. If not your life will rot and spoil on the vine. Perhaps you need to actually experience being justified by faith. Have you had that decisive moment where you have seen your inability and the availability of His grace? Have you repented from thinking you can do it all yourself and trusted in Christ who has done it all for you?
People want change; well they need to look again at when they were changed. Have you been changed? Then you ought to still be changing into the likeness of the One who changed you. Are you justified? Well then you are going to use your life as if you were forgiven. If all your debts had been paid you would have a different look; people would see that you were a changed man, that the burden had been lifted. Well let me ask you; are you a changed man or woman? Have the burdens been lifted? Are you justified by faith or are you still working it out for yourself? What the world needs, and what you need is not self-confidence, or self-esteem, but confidence in God, and esteem for Christ. Can Christ lift your burdens and give you assurance – yes He can.
14 comments:
This is the sixth in a series of posts derived from the sermon of 3-2-08 titled "Yes HE Can"...
If these "Yes He Can!" posts seem excessive, superfluous, repetitive, and boring to you, perhaps you are not getting the point...justification by faith is what should fire us up, and we cannot hear it enough, it is good news indeed!
Can Jesus Christ take this great truth and burn it into our souls so hot that we have to shout it out to all our world...YES HE CAN!
Just finished listening to Tozer's "God's Pursuit of Man" again - and his last few chapters on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit - I thought about it when I was reading your post. I wonder if change is always in fits and starts - sometimes radically transforming at a moments notice and sometimes painfully slow like the waves slowly dissolving rock - of it it is all because we are just unwilling to grant total access.
That is why we must continue to abide, because it is an overall slow process, with intermittent spurts of rapid growth...we don't want to miss the high tide, as it were, and to do that we must endure the low ebb as well, relying on Him in it all..if we just wait to try and ride the high surf we will certainly not do as well...
right now I'm just trying to ride out this virus that's had me under its control all week - I still feel like all the energy every to do anything but breath has been sapped away - yuck!
good to see you're still posting on this topic - I read teh above post - and a heartly am - "NO, I CAN'T" that's for sure
Well said, Even So.
There's such a big difference God wants to make in us, and then through us, in Jesus.
I like your words here. Thanks, brother.
I agree, thanks Ted...
I linked this post on a posting today.
I just seemed to lack peace over my posting so removed it. It absolutely had nothing at all to do with this good posting, Even So. And I'm not one to give in quickly to feelings of whatever. Often prayer is needed if there's a question, and spiritual warfare can be involved in all of this.
But can't put my finger on it, really, God knows. But deleted it. I just had a continued lack of peace I accepted as a check from the Spirit.
But again, I know it had nothing to do with this posting, brother.
Its all good, Ted, may God grace you with an understanding of your next move...
3-13-08
Remember you can get a pdf of this entire series at voiceofvision.org, or if you go to sermonaudio.com, you can listen to this whole series in sermon form, and we have the pdf located there also (look at the top of the Riverside sermon page for "docs")
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Gal 6:14
When this is true, people "see" a change in you and won't need to "hear" about it.
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