Monthly Archives: July 2020

We Are Saved by HIS Life

by Michael

Twin Fawns

Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by [the] faith of Jesus Christ to all and on all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: (Rom 3:20-24, AKJV – emphasis added)

I have often thought what a frail bunch of people we must be in the eyes of God, but there is hope for we read that, “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” Yes, we are saved by the “faith OF Jesus Christ” and when our Father sees each of us, He sees His own Son alive and well in us. The older I get the less faith I have in and of myself. I know that I am a sinner saved by His life being lived out within me. If it was up to me to please God, I would be toast. Paul’s letter to the Romans addresses this issue so well.

For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. (Rom 5:10, AKJV)

Many of us who know we are sinners have wrestled with the question, “What did God ever see in me that He has chosen me for salvation?” What did and does He see? He sees the life of His very own Son. It is HIS life working in us that saves us and that has happened by His grace alone and never by our own works or us being good enough. Each one of us is a walking miracle. Paul wrote,

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? (Rom 8:29-31, AKJV)

God fore-knew us as sinners, but by His mighty power and outstretched arm He saved us by the death and the life of His own Son working in each of us, individually. He has done this not because of any goodness in us, but by the goodness and grace of His own Son who loves each of us and abides in us.

I would like to finish with this quote from Austin-Sparks who understood all this so well.

With God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment. (Luke 1:37 AMP)

It seems that when the Lord Jesus chose His twelve disciples there was, at the back of the choice and back of the purpose of having a company of men always with Him – the intention of showing and expressing what the character of the Firstborn is so far as relationship to other members of the Family is concerned. To put that in another way: if we study the characteristics of the Lord Jesus in relation to His own when He was here on the earth, we have a good example of what family characteristics are in the thought of the Father. For instance, take the imperfections, the shortcomings, the weaknesses of the twelve and see what the attitude of the Lord Jesus was toward them. The Holy Spirit takes no pains to cover up those faults and those flaws. There is no attempt made whatever to present those menas an ideal group. Their picture is painted true to life and all the difficult lines are there – the bad and the good – and nothing unpleasant is hidden from view. None of the lines are taken out of their faces. They are all clearly seen. The Lord Jesus was not dealing with an easy company, but a company which might often have provoked despair. But one thing was characteristic of Him in relation to a difficult handful, and that was His faith for them.

What faith the Lord Jesus had for those men! It was not that He had faith in them, neither was it that He had faith for them because of what He saw in them; but He had infinite faith in the Father for them. His attitude was: “Well, nothing is impossible with God. Here are these men; they are difficult and they could easily be My despair; they never seem to understand what I say! They always seem to get the wrong interpretation; they always seem to miss the point. When I say a thing they get it from an altogether wrong angle; they are utterly materialistic in their outlook, in their expectation and in their desires. They never see far beyond this world and their own personal interests. They seem totally incapable of getting a spiritual conception. And yet the Father can do wonders with a handful of men like that; nothing is impossible.” http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/002866.html

Our Father in heaven has faith in His Son working in each of us by the miracle of salvation. We are saved by Jesus Christ’s life in us. What a joy it is for me to be getting to know Him through His working in each of you.

Love in Christ,

Michael

Do Not Be Anxious…

by Michael

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matt 6:26, ESV)

Recently I read an article on Allan Halton’s blog, A Mending Feast, “Disciples of the Lily” [1] and wrote the following comment,

Thank you, Allan, for this enlightening post. As of late it seems that all or my senses have been assaulted on every front with things that seek to trouble me and take away the peace that is ours IN Christ. Your blog article was what I needed to read. As I read and contemplated Jesus’ words I looked out our front window and watched a pair of tiny birds pausing on our front porch hand rail as they took turns flying up into the eaves of our house and feeding their little brood in the humble nest they built. They fly away empty and return with a bug in their beaks without a care in the world, knowing that our Heavenly Father will provide for them and their family. They have no thoughts whatever about the rioting and shootings going on in our cities and live in the world that God has given them. As I joined them in my thoughts and Jesus’ words, I felt the peace of the Lord come into me once again. All His creation is there to teach us what a wonderful God we have and how we can trust in Him. Thanks so much for this timely reminder, my brother.

While teaching the disciples in what is called “The Sermon on the Mount” Jesus said,

“Do not be anxious…” The Lord knows how I needed to hear that message in my heart!

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Looting in Argentina

saying ‘What shall we eat…”

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Or, ‘What shall we drink…”

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or ‘What shall we wear.’

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For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. (Matt 6:31-32, ESV)

The lead picture in this article is of women in Argentina reacting to the rioting and looting in their own country. God knows that there has been a lot of anxiety all over this world with the Covid-19 virus pandemic, all the rioting, businesses burned to the ground, shootings, the loss of jobs as a result of these things, and the upheaval and widespread ethnic violence. Jesus called these events, “the beginning of birth-pains.” It seems that all these things are a precursor to His imminent return for His bride. The more we are attached to the things of the world, the more anxiety we are going to suffer, but as Christians we have a great hope because of what He went on to say.

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matt 6:26-30, ESV)

Jesus didn’t preach this Sermon on the Mount with a walk-in closet full of Armani suits and a 21 cubic foot freezer full of food. He actually lived from day to day like the birds of the air, totally relying on His Father to meet His needs as He obeyed His voice moment by moment!

In times like these, with the birth pains coming ever closer together and increasing in intensity, our faith in God is surly being tested and proven, but even that has God’s purpose behind it. Peter wrote:

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1Pet 1:6-7, ESV)

Dear saints, as I was contemplating Jesus’ words in Matthew chapter six, I looked out our picture window and watched a pair of sparrows taking turns fetching bugs for their babies in a nest up under our front porch eaves. God used that to drive the point home and dispatch all my anxieties. Here is a picture I took of one of their babies in his nest patiently waiting for his next morsel of food:

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Photo by Michael Clark

Jesus went on to teach me about entering into His rest and casting all my cares upon Him. I went out on the front porch to check on the birds, only to discover one of our neighborhood deer lying on the grass less than twenty feet away and not bothered a bit by my announced presence.

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Photo by Michael Clark

One word seemed to sum up the lesson that our Father was trying teach me, PEACE.

Peace that comes from believing that,

“…for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:28-32, ESV)

[1] https://amendingfeast.org/2018/01/27/disciples-of-the-lily/

Today, If You Will Hear His Voice…

by Michael

Photo by David Straight on Unsplash

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, (Heb 3:7-8, NKJV)

Recently I was speaking with a dear saint about our Lord and how He wants to communicate with us on a daily, moment by moment basis, even about the minutest things we engage in or are concerned with. It was a sweet time of fellowship in which we felt the presence of the Lord. Then the above passage came to light which is in reference to the following passage in the book of Deuteronomy:

“Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God: (Deut 28:1-2, NKJV – emphasis added)

The first thing that we noticed was that it says, TODAY, if we will hear His voice and carefully observe all that He commands. It doesn’t say “yesterday” as if we can extrude verses from the Bible where His words are recorded from long ago and use our religious intellects to apply them to each situation. Satan tried that with Jesus during His temptation in the wilderness.

Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” (Matt 4:5-6, ESV- emphasis added)

Yes, Satan knows how to use the Bible to lead us into error and sin. If Satan tried that with the Son of God, don’t you know that he can and will try that with you? The Bible is only useful for today as Jesus brings the scriptures to life and speaks to us about our lives in and through the Spirit, and we obey Him moment by moment. I always thought what Jesus said to the disciples is a contrast to merely reading the Bible out of curiosity or a daily religious regimen.

“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (John 14:25-26, ESV)

The key thing here is the need for the Holy Spirit to teach us! Without the Spirit guiding us with His still small voice, all our religious practices and Bible memorization are for naught. He went on to tell them:

“…When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John 16:12-15, ESV – emphasis added)

Wow! He said ALL! All that the Spirit of God has is ours as we listen and obey HIS voice as our only Guide.

The Holy Spirit was given to the ecclesia of God, the Church, on the day of Pentecost so that we would not have to wait until the sixteenth century to finally get our own personal Bibles so we could read what God wanted (For all those centuries the Church had no Bibles to read. If there were any that had been hand copied, they were written in a dead language that only scholars could discipher, then locked away in monasteries or chained to a pulpit). No, the Spirit, through whom the very Word of God was still speaking, did not leave them alone, just as Jesus promised. “He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” What a wonderful communion we miss with God when we do not take the time to stop what we are doing and listen to HIS voice. What wonderful revelations and guidance we miss and what troubles we bring upon ourselves when we don’t obey that voice.

In Revelation we read the same phrase seven times, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” It seems that by the end of the first century when this book was written, the church had become spiritually deaf, because these seven churches were falling to all manner of spiritual delusions and lying teachers. They had left their First Love and stopped listening to HIS voice. Even today we have no shortage of Bible teachers, but how many of them point us to the Holy Spirit and our need to listen to HIM? All too many of them garner our devotion and attention to themselves. Instead of seeking to suckle on the breast of men, we are told we should be…

 “Like newborn infants, [and] long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him…” (1Pet 2:2-4, ESV- emphasis added)

Dear saints, without pure spiritual milk we will never grow up so that we can handle His spiritual meat, doing the will of God at every turn in our lives just as Jesus did (see John 4:34, KJV).

Father, please impress upon our hearts just how greatly we need spiritual ears to hear and glad hearts that obey your Spirit.

But He answered and said, “It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”‘ (Matt 4:4, NKJV- emphasis added)

Yes, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says [is saying] to the churches.”