God in our entire life, or not in our life at all, not really.

Riches and pleasures of this life, are these good things?  I don't think so.  Let's study this for a moment. I've grown up in the shadow of materialism, as have most of us in the Western world. We've grown up with society all around us at every turn pushing at us to attain material goods of one sort or another.  On a moments deeper reflection, maybe from the get go out of the Garden of Eden materialism reared its ugly head. Having to work to obtain their very sustenance, when prior to that all the sustenance they needed was at their fingertips without any hard labor at all, didn't this institute a desire for things, a desire to sow and reap a good harvest as opposed to an adequate harvest?  And then when more than one family began to sow and reap- comparison began. The family with the better harvest envied by the family with the lesser harvest.  Sin birthed envy for the materialistic and when we take stock of where we are right now, isn't it truthful to say that the sin of materialism is rampant in most lives?  Satan has allowed us to taste the lives of the materialistic and in tasting we desire more, we desire better. Our senses have switched from the desire for the barest necessity towards the desire for accumulation, and the best we can afford.  We love being able to show off the things we can afford because we believe success is measured in our possessions. We are filled with regrets of past actions which caused our lives to turn down such paths that we feel we were robbed of fortunes that might have been.  Riches and pleasures of this life. 

You don't have to be rich to be consumed with the desire of pleasure.  Pleasures of this life. Anything that makes our flesh nature happy at the expense of our spiritual nature is a pleasure of this life that steals the pleasure of eternal life from us. This is truth!

Whenever our spiritual nature is put unrepentantly second to our flesh nature we are sacrificing eternal life.  Even a seemingly very Christian pastime can become a pleasure to our flesh if we are sacrificing our spiritual nature. We can't pat ourselves on the back and say we spent hours helping others and gained much pleasure from that, if we neglected to have God first in that activity. Many so called Christ followers are going to be shocked to hear that their wonderful Christian works were in fact void altogether of Christ.  The truth of the matter is, their works however good were done in selfishness, a selfish pleasure was derived from their sacrifice.  Self-serving pleasure is contrary to being spiritually minded. Pleasure is not altogether wrong. We can derive pleasure from spiritually centered activities. In fact a lot of our pleasures can be spiritual, but God needs to come first and that pleasure from Him, not a self-induced, self-absorbed, self-obsessed, self-generated pleasure. 

God first, or God truly will be last in your life and you won't even know it. Satan loves to deceive us and we stop short of examining our pleasures too closely because we don't want to be numbered among those whose pleasures of this life rob us of absorbing the truth through God's word. We'd rather simply believe all of our pleasures are all on the up and up and God approved and not able to keep us from truth. As if not examining them will keep the truth from God- which is a LIE.

Luk 8:14  And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.

Choked with cares, we can understand this easily enough- not trusting God to get us through the hard times, but instead we worry about them and let them consume us.

Choked with riches, this is a bit harder to comprehend, maybe because most of the people in the world don't have riches to be choked with.  Truthfully you can be choked with the riches of this life by not having them as well as having them.

Choked with pleasures, this is hardest of all to comprehend because we are taught and almost innately through our flesh nature-believe that  it's important that we find pleasures as often as we can, because life is hard and pleasure very important.

What good are any pleasures, any riches, any cares if God is NOT in them, truly in them, if God's pleasure is not thought about at all? God's pleasure, God's will, God first in all we do.

We keep God in His place and all too often that place is completely separate from the majority of our lives. We give God His time slot and then go about our days, not fully comprehending there is no time slot for God- He is either in our entire life or He is not in our life at all, not really.

Please Father we would have you in our life, truly in our life, in ALL of our life!

By the grace and mercy, the incomprehensible love of our Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord!

Amen!

We are only strong when we are in the presence of God

2Co_12:10  Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

Is this truth?

YES, it is truth.

Paul said- HE takes pleasure in INFIRMITIES- do we?

HE takes pleasure in reproaches.

HE takes pleasure in persecutions.

HE takes pleasure in distresses.

ONLY when they are for CHRIST'S SAKE.

He lives for CHRIST. And when a person truly LIVES for CHRIST, they KNOW that all their seeming bad luck and misfortune is an opportunity to suffer FOR Christ. There is NO blaming God for the torture in any of its forms. There is a comprehension that whatever befalls us will work towards the ultimate will of God. We TRULY believe this--

Rom_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.

ALL THINGS - the GOOD and the WORST THAT CAN EVER HAPPEN- will somehow, someway that we may not ever be able to imagine- things will work together for good.  When we are under spiritual attack - attacks that take on many forms of very real evil - it isn't easy to see how things will work out. When our pain and suffering is more that we fear we'll ever be able to bear, when the worst of the worst happens and we can't imagine anything worse taking place, it is extremely HARD for us to hold onto the faith we need to hold onto.

Unfortunately we often would rather give into the evil than face the pain in any of its forms. Satan counts on this weakness in us. Satan exploits our every single weakness.

I've been doing my most recent studies on the following writings-  Practice the Presence of God -  by Brother Lawerence

And He truly lived practicing the presence of God.

He lived his life daily in the presence of God, he PRACTICED the presence of God. He made it a constant exercise to bring his mind back to God all the time. He wasn't perfect, he failed constantly and constantly he drew himself back to God. He didn't let his constant failures derail Him from living in the presence of God.

Now more than ever we need to do the same.  We need to practice the presence of God when we feel LEAST incline to practice the presence of God.  We need to turn our thoughts to God always. 

2Co_12:10  Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

Can we say this? We need to say this. When we are WEAK then we are STRONG and the only way we can be STRONG when we are weakest is when we are in the presence of God.

Please Lord, please help us be in Your presence, help us!

In the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord now and forever!

AMEN.

GOD needs to come first now, or He sure will NOT come first in eternity.

' Let us live and die with God. Sufferings will be sweet and pleasant while we are with Him. Without Him, the greatest pleasures will be a cruel punishment to us. May He be blessed by all.

Let us often consider that our only business in this life is to please God, that perhaps all besides is but folly and vanity'

The above quotes are from -  Practice the Presence of God - Brother Lawerence

*******

Let us LIVE with God.

Let us DIE with God.

Suffering sweet?

Suffering pleasant?

Without God-  are our greatest pleasures- cruel punishments?

Is our only business right now in this life to PLEASE God?

Is ALL besides pleasing God- folly and vanity?

Seriously, let's ASK ourselves these questions. We should have NO trouble asking ourselves, no trouble examining ourselves as deeply as possible in order to determine where we in our relationship with God.

Do you believe that without God the greatest pleasures will be cruel punishment?

We love our pleasures, we often live for our pleasures whatever they may be. When something interferes with our pleasures we tend to get irked don't we? You're going to sit down and relax but something comes up, don't you groan a bit? You've waited all day to watch your favorite television show and something else calls you away from it, again, don't you groan, even inwardly? You've spent weeks setting up a special date night and again there is interference even a natural- no fault interference like illness, aren't you filled with disappointment?  I'm not saying we shouldn't be disappointed, but honestly we do not like our PLEASURES interfered with. Yet, WITHOUT God those pleasures are NOT good, they are in fact, Satan disguised trickery that hide completely that those very pleasures are cruel punishments.  Pleasures that weigh us down heavily and we don't even recognize it.  Asked to give up our pleasures we shrink from that and start making up excuses as to why they are good and God would understand.  If we EVER have to ask ourselves or rather try to convince ourselves that God will understand our special circumstances we better take several very good long hard looks at ourselves and figure out why we are trying to believe God will understand. Are we really saying God will excuse us, that we have special circumstances, that our case is different.  If we have to do these things then we REALLY need to ask ourselves if our pleasures mean more to us than God does. 

GOD needs to come first now, or He sure will NOT come first in eternity.

In ALL we do God needs to be there!

In every job, every pleasure, in everything. If you need to keep God separated from any part of your life then you are NOT living for GOD at all, but Satan in disguise. You are worshipping the god of self if you have to keep GOD the Father out of any part of your life.

God DOES understand all our circumstances and HE LOVES US and will make it possible for us to LOVE and WORSHIP HIM in all things when this is our desire, to submit to His will, to have faith in Him.

It's no wonder so few will be alive when Christ returns, because so few want God in their life completely. So few believe worshipping and loving God, living for Him is the greatest pleasure.

More on this tomorrow by the GRACE of our LORD and SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST!

Now and forever, amen!

Yes, we must live in this world, but we must live FOR another world.

'That the end we ought to propose to ourselves is to become, in this life, the most perfect worshippers of GOD we can possibly be, as we hope to be through all eternity.

That the greater perfection a soul aspires after, the more dependent it is upon Divine grace.'

The above quotes are from -  Practice the Presence of God - Brother Lawerence

*******

Yesterday we studied the truth that we need to truly live for our Heaven Home and we need to live for it RIGHT NOW. We can't wait until we are dying to give up all our cherished vices. We can't wait until we truly believe that Christ's second coming is imminent, to stop living for this world.  No, we can't take ourselves out of this world and our God can't take us out of this world.

Jesus prayed to our Heavenly Father-

Joh 17:15  I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world…

We are NOT going to be taken out of this world, we have to live in this world filled with evil, filled with sin, filled with temptation, filled with lusts, filled with all that would keep us separated from our Father God, our Creator, from love.  And I'm not going to bother with the WHYS, we know why. We know that mankind chose sin over love and we, like it or not, understand it or not, inherited this world through them. We also inherited a chance for REDEMPTION.  One was not without the other- EVER, NOT EVER!  When sin separated God and man- a way for redemption was created, in fact it was IMPLEMENTED because it had been created before mankind existed.  REDEMPTION.

Yes, we must live in this world, but we must live FOR another world.

We have to take stock of our lives and continuously ask ourselves if we are seeking to become the most perfect worshippers of God that we can be, because this is our END GAME. Being PERFECT WORSHIPPERS of GOD is our END, our ETERNITY!  If you do NOT want to be a perfect worshipper of God, then you are NOT seeking heaven as your home.  If you WANT to be this perfect worshipper of God BUT find yourself failing over and over, find that Satan is trying to convince you that you don't want this at all, it's because he seeks to have you rely on your feelings of desire as the want and not the knowledge beyond the feeling as the want.  Our failing is our flesh nature, our succeeding is our submission to God.  When we fail, we FALL before the THRONE and seek forgiveness.

'That the greater perfection a soul aspires after, the more dependent it is upon Divine grace.'

If you are dependent upon someone for something that means you are counting of them in some way. If you grow MORE dependent upon someone, you are counting on them even more. If you are completely dependent upon someone, you are counting on them for EVERYTHING. 

When we strive against sin, truly aspiring after the perfection of our Savior to have Christ in us, to be perfect worshippers of God, then we have to realize that we are going to grow more and more dependent upon DIVINE GRACE!

Please Father, please teach us to be Yours now in this world, for Your world to come! Please!

More tomorrow by Your grace and love.

All through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!

AMEN!

Eternity starts here...now

'That the end we ought to propose to ourselves is to become, in this life, the most perfect worshippers of GOD we can possibly be, as we hope to be through all eternity.'

The above is a quote from -  Practice the Presence of God - Brother Lawerence

My thoughts--

In truth do WE truly hope to be perfect worshippers of God through all eternity? Do we?

Eternity in Heaven…

Heaven is the HOME of God.

Heaven is the HOME of Jesus Christ.

Heaven is the HOME of the Holy Spirit.

Heaven is the HOME of God's Angels.

Heaven is the HOME of the Saints of God who have been taken to heaven ahead of the majority of people who will be raised from the graves when Christ returns for them.

Heaven is the HOME we are PROMISED in the Gospel of Salvation that our Savior came to preach to us.

Heaven is the HOME where our treasures are, treasures that belong to us because we are going to go to heaven.

Mat 6:20  But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

Mat 6:21  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Mat 5:12  Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven…

Rev 22:12  And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

Luk 14:14 … for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.

Heb 9:15  And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

1Pe 1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

1Pe_1:4  To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you

Are we LIVING for eternity with God in our Heavenly home?  Right NOW are we living with that blessed HOPE? Are we truly hoping to be the most perfect worshippers of God we can be here and now? Are we?! And if we AREN'T we need to ask ourselves WHY NOT?!   Why aren't we striving to be perfect worshippers of God?  God told us that we living in these last days would be LUKEWARM. Isn't it lukewarmness that keeps us from striving to be perfect worshippers of God here and now?

'That the end we ought to propose to ourselves is to become, in this life, the most perfect worshippers of GOD we can possibly be, as we hope to be through all eternity'

What we should be hoping to become as Christ followers in this life truly is to be the MOST PERFECT worshippers of GOD we can possibly be- AS WE HOPE TO BE through all eternity!

This is why we are CHRIST followers in the first place, isn't it?! To become one with our God, our Creator, our Redeemer and live with Him forever, isn't this our HOPE?   And if this is truly our real hope then we need to be living HERE and NOW towards that end, don't we? We need to be living for ETERNITY- NOW, not waiting to live for eternity in eternity, by then it will be too late.

More on this tomorrow by the grace and mercy of our LORD and SAVIOR, Jesus Christ now and forever!!!!!!!

Amen!

God in ALL we do

'That we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of GOD, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed. That we should not wonder if, in the beginning, we often failed in our endeavours, but that at last we should gain a habit, which will naturally produce its acts in us, without our care, and to our exceeding great delight.'  (Brother Lawrence-Practice the Presence of God)

Not weary in doing little things.

God doesn't regard the greatness of the work, BUT THE LOVE with which it is PERFORMED.

In the beginning we often FAIL in our endeavors- but at LAST we should GAIN HABIT.

Words of wisdom? Do they follow God's Holy Word?

1Co 10:31  Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

Col 3:17  And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

Col 3:23  And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men

The word of the Lord.

WHATEVER we do-  tell me, what does that 'whatever' include? Are we to take it to mean truly 'whatever' as in all things, everything we do? I think it does. Because when we do ANYTHING that we can't do in the name of our Lord Jesus, and we can't give thanks to God and the Father by him, are we doing God's will? Isn't God supposed to be in all we do? Isn't God supposed to be our END goal? Isn't God, communion with God, being a part of God's life, God's world, God's existence our LONGING? When we are instructed to do whatever we do as unto the Lord and NOT men, that means all the LOVE we have for God, the LOVE God gives to us we are to give to ALL others as if we were giving that LOVE to God!

Too often we want to hate, to dislike, to annoy, to give pain, to retaliate to harm as we are driven to do by many worldly influences around us. There is spiritual wickedness in high places and it will attack us spiritually at every opportunity.

We take on small seemingly thankless tasks and often that spiritual wickedness will make us seem put upon, degraded, used by others in having to do a myriad of small tasks. But there is GREATNESS, spiritual GREATNESS in the most seemingly degrading, low level, disgusting even, task if it is done for the LOVE of God!  We are NOT doing menial tasks for others, not really, but for God. In ALL we do we are doing for GOD.  We haven't be taught to believe this truth. Satan will go to great lengths to keep us from this comprehension, and especially from making it a reality so that we begin to recognize it in all we do.

When we have ingrained in our lifestyle certain ways of thinking it's hard to retrain ourselves.  God will help us! The Holy Spirit will help us! We must practice this in our actions. Whenever we find ourselves feeling those awful feelings and thinking those awful thoughts and recognize them for what they are we need to pray and seek to change our thoughts to God, knowing what we are doing for others or even ourselves is truly for GOD.

Please LORD, please, we need to live for YOU in ALL we do!

Please!

Help us!

By Your mercy, Your grace, Your LOVE!

Always!

Amen.

There is no part time God, only full time.

Gal 1:10  For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.

Eph 6:5  Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;

Eph 6:6  Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;

Eph 6:7  With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men

*******

First and foremost we must seek to PLEASE GOD.

For what are our fellow men but creatures of God?  None of mankind will ever usurp God's place as our Heavenly Father, our Creator. None will ever be as pleased by our obedience, our service, our actions towards them as God is by our submission, our service to Him. God gives us the necessary compassion, the necessary components whatever they may be in order for us to do any good towards others. It is by the power of God we can please our fellow man and if we do so in accordance to the will of God, we are pleasing God first in our service to others. If our pleasing our fellow man is done in ways God would not approve of, if our pleasing our fellow man is done to further our own bloated egos, to pin another feather in our caps, then it will NOT PLEASE GOD.

We are to please God if we are to be servants of Christ.  All Christ did was pleasing to the Father.

We are to live onto Christ knowing that in whatever situation we find ourselves- working for others or working for ourselves- we are accountable to Christ, accountable to live for Him first and foremost.  While you work for another your service is NOT just to them, but answerable to God. As you bend over backwards to please a boss, are you doing it to receive ego stroking brownie points? Are you doing it so you can pat yourself on the back, stroking your own ego when your boss won't? Or are you doing the job to the best of your ability going above and beyond what might be expected of you because you wish to please God, knowing doing your best is pleasing to God?

The jobs we do - all of them - the ones we are paid for, the ones we aren't paid for, the ones we do because no one else is doing them, the thankless tasks we take on day after day, are we doing them to the BEST of our ability knowing that would please God? Is God is so REAL to us that we comprehend that He is there as we scrub the floor, as we clean a toilet, as we pick up laundry and dog droppings, and clean cat boxes.  God in us- is an all the time happening not something we can choose to stop while we go about the mundane tasks of life. God can't just be in us when we sit down and choose to think of Him. God can't be with us only when we enter a church, or kneel in our own homes to pray, or simply bow our heads. God CANNOT be a part time God in our lives! God is a FULL TIME, twenty-four hours, seven days a week God in our lives and that means He is with us in ALL our actions, every single one of them.   If you find yourself needing to shield God's eyes from something you're prone to do, you need to ask yourself if you truly love God.  Seriously!  Loving God is a REAL living, breathing, very active thing we do. If you need to put God in a corner, or tell God to cover His eyes and ears, you need to rethink your relationship with God. 

Whenever any of our actions are such we know they are displeasing to God, we have to ask for forgiveness and ask for Him to take away our desire, our inclinations to do things not pleasing to Him.  We can't ignore our failings hoping they'll be overlooked, or assuming they'll be overlooked, we have to actively seek pardon for them. Constantly we will be shown how utterly impossible it is for us to save ourselves and we need this constant reminder, but not by our excusing our willful sins, accepting them and even encouraging them because we've convinced ourselves we need that reminder.  We are ever to seek repentance, ever to seek to rid ourselves of our sins- those that so EASILY beset us.

Do we live to please God?

Eph 6:6…    doing the will of God from the heart;

Eph 6:7  With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men

Doing the will of God from the heart… ALWAYS as a way of LIFE!

With good will doing service … AS TO THE LORD… not to men.

We live for GOD not for others and as stated at the beginning of this writing, any living we do for others must be for God as well, for it is by God we exist at all.

May He bless us all and keep us in Him ever drawing us closer to Him in His LOVE, His MERCY, His GRACE and FORGIVENESS always!

Amen!