Christian eCommunity

a Nositeunseen Development Project

freedom

The Freedom In Jesus Christ Our Lord

by

“Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?”
– Isaiah 58:5

Guest Post by James Hill:
For most of my life as a professing Christian I had always thought fasting was a humbling of ourselves before God … until I read Isaiah 58 completely, and prayerfully sought to understand. 

It was forty days ago that I woke one morning and realized I was on a fast.  I had tried a few times earlier in the year but only went a day each attempt, but this time I knew God had decided to lead me in it.  The previous year I had embarked on a fast that lasted forty days – drinking only liquids, water, coffee, diet soda, and the occasional French Vanilla.  I didn’t really understand what I was seeking at that time, but God met me and opened my eyes to insights that helped me grow as a man – as His man.  This year I knew what I wanted.

Freedom.

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter– when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?”
– Isaiah 58:6-7

It occurred to me that God was not just speaking of loosing chains and yokes that bind others – He was also speaking of the chains and yokes that bind me.  As my fast began God shone light on this passage within the first day or two.  It was obvious to me that God had drawn me to the fast because I was successfully and enthusiastically moving forward, but it was also quickly obvious that freedom is what He wanted me to seek.

As the days passed I began to wonder what deep aspects of myself God would reveal that have kept me bound, unawares over the years.  What mysteries deeply hidden within would God bring to the surface?  I’m afraid I still often regard my Creator as some grande mysterious Sudoku that I can unravel if I just concentrate hard enough.  Or that He is some omniscient psychologist Who will take me back to the hidden secrets of my past.  Much of the world can and has influenced my thinking and perspectives in this respect.  What He did eventually first reveal to me was, at first realization, more profound than I could have imagined because it had nothing to do with me … not really.  Instead of probing the roots of my beginnings He shared with me the roots of His creation.

I realized two truths in His revelation:

  1. God created us perfectly.
  2. God’s original plan for us was perfectly designed.

At first this baffled me because I have always had difficulty resolving that the creation was perfect, yet we are advised that the world and the flesh are wicked.

God created us perfectly.

There was no flaw in His design of mankind.  The human body is an amazing system of functions that interact with such complexity on an ongoing basis.  And it is perfectly designed to be selfish.  Yes, I said selfish – but not with the negative connotation we would automatically assume.  When our bodies are injured they proceed to heal.  If they are hungry we are compelled to feed them.  When they tire we rest.  The body is designed to be self-sustaining, to look after itself.  Perfectly selfish, but without the taints of greed or lust or ambitions that our own hearts can add.  Our body can hunger, but we can then decide we need more than it needs and seek to amass to ourselves more than enough.  We can pervert that hunger into greed.  Our bodies were never flawed, and never the problem.  Our souls, tainted by perversion, are.

God’s original plan for us was perfectly designed.

Before God opened my ears and eyes to better understand, I thought our gaining the knowledge of good and evil was our ruin, but it was always God’s intention that we have that knowledge.  It was a must for our perfectly designed ability to reason and choose.  So did God intend for us to fall?  I pondered this question with a friend one morning.  He also wondered if God designed us to fail.  Yet if our design was perfect and His plan was perfect, and this is the way it went – disobey, eat the fruit, cast out of the garden, death – then that must be His design?  No.  Emphatically, no!  Man ate the fruit, disobeyed God and experienced that disobedience in order to become aware of good and evil.  Yet if man refused to eat and obeyed God, man would have experienced obedience and again become aware of good and evil.  God wanted us to have that knowledge through obedience.  Our tainted souls chose otherwise.

This was a huge release for me to finally understand the perfection of our Creator and all that He does.  That our fall is not a consequence of either His secret motives or fallibility.  Our God is awesomely perfect!

This gave me much to consider going forward.  And it was in the latter weeks and days of my fast that two thoughts were impressed upon me that I verified through God’s Word in Scripture.

  1. There is enough time … for everything.
  2. The last shall be first.

The first idea was impressed upon me early morning at the gym.  Yes, God kept me strong and active during my fast 🙂  The second was impressed upon me in the last couple days, during the evening while listing to a radio ministry program.

There is enough time … for everything.

When this thought first rose up in my mind I was deeply impressed at how thoughts of immediacy and urgency faded before it.  There is no reason to be anxious or concerned about anything, because there is enough time … for everything.  I was, however, concerned because I could not recall any Scripture that said that same thing.  I was worried I just made something up for myself, so I set to prayer and searching to understand.

“Moses said to God, ‘Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.””
– Exodus 3:13,14

“‘You are not yet fifty years old,’ they said to him, ‘and you have seen Abraham!’ ‘Very truly I tell you,’ Jesus answered, ‘before Abraham was born, I AM!'”
– John 8:57,58

I AM is the very present moment.  And our God is omnipresent – everywhere at once, both in space and in time because He is not contained by either.  If time were a straight line drawn on paper, then God is the paper it is drawn on.  A thousand years ago God is present I AM, and a thousand years from now He is present I AM.

“I AM the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
– Revelation 22:13

With such an awesome God Who is unlimited by space or time, and perfect in all His ways, how could anxiousness or fear stand before His way?  Trust in Him means there is enough time … for everything.

The last shall be first.

I sat quietly in my van, listening to the radio.  It was evening and I was considering how my fast was coming to an end.  The inspirational program included a song about the first being last and the last being first.  I could recall reading those words many times that our Lord spoke, and they were never so profound as they suddenly were in that moment.  The last shall be first.  I realized with such startling clarity that our Lord Jesus, for all intents and purposes, was always last.  He never sought His own.  He never argued to gain His own way.  He never asserted Himself so that others would not take advantage.  He put Himself last.  If I argue with another over a parking spot, or a table at a cafe, or their noise at the library … I’m seeking my own.  Trying to be first and only setting myself to the back instead.  It’s turning my cheek, and taking the loss, conceding the parking spot or table; that is to put myself last and give the enemy nothing to work with.  And God will honour me whenever I step out for His purpose.  Jesus gave His life – any dreams or hopes or aspirations dying with Him.  And now He has everything!  God has my good in mind, so I should easily trust Him and stop trying to establish my own good.  I do not have to fear, or to be anxious, or to entertain doubts.  The awesome, perfect God Who is unlimited by space or time, seeks to honour and raise me up!  Why worry?

The awesome, perfect God Who is unlimited by space or time, seeks to honour and raise me up!

And in this freedom God is preparing me to be of real use in His commitment to the well being of others.  To help in their freedom from chains and yokes and to never be a cause of them.

  This fast has been awesome 🙂 

James Hill, President and CEO of UserTutor Corporation, is a guest author sharing his experience in walking with Jesus Christ.  This article is printed with James’ permission and our appreciation.

The Nature Of Sin In The Flesh

by

“Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.”
– Romans 7:13

Sin is a natural part of our life in the flesh – the same as hunger and exhaustion – inherited from our fall in Eden. There are no moral implications about sin in the flesh because it just is. Now that may cause a bit of a stir or give rise to objections, but what we would like to share is a better understanding of sin as it affects every one of us so that we can better realize who we are in Christ.  Many of us struggle in bondage to our guilt and never seem to fulfill our purposes in Christ.  Our heart too often gets defeated within us because we believe so strongly in our sinfulness and how terrible we are.

So again we say, there are no moral implications about sin in the flesh because it just is.  Where the moral implications come into play is in our responses and subsequent choices to the urges and demands it places on us.

“It is out of the heart that evil thoughts come, as well as murder, adultery, sexual immorality, stealing, false testimony, and slander.”
– Matthew 15:19

When Adam disbelieved and disobeyed God and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he from that moment was separated from God.  His thoughts were his alone without the influence of God within as one Spirit.  His thoughts were those of a flesh and blood human being.  If he hurt himself his response would be, “ow”.  If he became tired his response would be to nap.  If he was confronted and accused his response would be to lie.  We have that fallen nature, and before Christ came into our lives we responded in the same manner.  We would act contrary to God’s ways as easily as we would sneeze from dust.  Without God we lived in accordance to our flesh.

So why did God have a problem with sin if it was just what it was?  For the same reason that darkness cannot continue to exist when the light is turned on, our sinful nature could not exist in the presence of God.  We would cease to be, and He didn’t want us to not exist.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
– John 3:16

What we’re saying so far is that our sinful nature is not something we can take to ourselves, to enlarge it or reduce it.  It just is, and it is why we are separated from God and why we would have no hope without Him.  None of us is more sinful than another, and none of us is less sinful, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” – Romans 3:23.  Many of us berate ourselves and put ourselves down because we moan over our sinful nature like it was something we had a say in.  We don’t.  It is a condition, a terminal condition with no cure and we are destined for death and destruction because of it.

there are no moral implications about sin in the flesh because it just is

Kind of makes moaning about our sinfulness seem useless, don’t you think?  And it’s good that it does because as long as we waste time considering that we have a say in our sinful nature, we can never fully understand or realize the gift of grace from our Father and our Lord Jesus.  What we should realize instead is our need for rescue.  We need to be rescued from this body of sin because there are no other options that we can implement.  We need the grace and salvation of God.

“remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
– Ephesians 2:12-13

Once this is realized we can then better and more fully understand the love and mercy of our Father in Jesus Christ the Lord.  We are not just the recipients of forgiveness for all the contrary and wayward things we have done – we are the recipients of a life giving cure for our terminal disease of sinful flesh – in spite of all the contrary and wayward things we have done!  

“…whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” – Luke 7:47b.

Being forgiven all our acts of sin and wickedness has a quantity assigned to it.  We measure how bad we are by the things we’ve done, and the level of our love for our Lord demonstrates that, but being saved from our terminal, sinful nature covers everything!  There is now no limit to the love God can stir within our hearts through His Gift in Jesus!  God Himself is our cure by dwelling in us through His Spirit and Son, thinking His thoughts within our minds and inspiring His will within our hearts.  The sins we have committed in our ignorance before we knew Him are forgiven, and the sins we may have committed since we knew Him are forgiven, and the sins we may commit in the future are forgiven.  His Grace covers it all!  What love and gratitude and willingness that must stir up within the heart that sees this!  What an amazing God we serve Who chose to cure us of our fatal disease rather than let us die – even though we were so contrary to all He created and ungrateful for all He intended!

There is now no limit to the love God can stir within our hearts through His Gift in Jesus!

Now this may be mistaken as a license to sin doctrine but it certainly is not, so let’s look at where the moral implications do come to bear.  What is our responsibility in the nature of sin?  We are responsible in what we choose.

When our flesh demands we leer at a pretty woman or a handsome man, we are inclined to do so, except now we also know it is contrary to the will of our Father.  We can choose to not look with lust, or we can hate it if we do and wish we never did, or we can not look but struggle afterwards with recurring flesh-minded imaginations.  We want God’s way regardless of what our flesh tries to force upon us, but the flesh is still flesh and subject to the sinful nature.  Although it no longer has the power to kill us it still reacts and interacts in our flesh.  It still just is, and it will trip us up at times, but we choose God because He dwells in us and inspires us always to choose Him.  If we fail, we regret because our minds are for Him.  If we overcome we rejoice because our minds are for Him.  In every way it’s always Him.

IMPORTANT! The moral implications of sin come into play when we choose to follow the demands of the flesh, and continue in them, to practice them and make excuses for why they’re okay.  We have Christ dwelling in us so we have no excuse if we were to continue a life of practiced sin.  May it never happen to any of us!  If we turn from this wonderful, saving Grace and give preference to the demands of our flesh – if we do so willfully and without any remorse, we have rejected His Gift and have chosen death and separation instead.

“It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life.”
– 2 Peter 2:21

Again, may it never happen to any of us!  And it will not because we have God the Father and Lord Jesus the Son dwelling inside us through their Spirit, ever reminding us of His will and ways.  And we have one another to encourage each other and exhort each other to keep our minds on Jesus.  We strive daily to keep our minds focused on our Lord and to hear His thoughts and respond to His inspirations.  And sin, though it may cause trouble at times, will not rule over us and it cannot kill us.

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”
– Isaiah 26:3

Settle it in the truth that you are cured from your very nature of sinfulness – all of it – and there is no more counting and measuring the extent of it.  We are all forgiven – and we are all forgiven much!  Let us begin to love much to the glory of Jesus.

we have God the Father and Lord Jesus the Son dwelling inside us through their Spirit, ever reminding us of His will and ways.  And we have one another to encourage us and exhort us to keep our minds on Jesus.

Jesus Did Not Come To Condemn

by

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
– John 3:17

This post may draw controversy but our hope is that it will shed light on an issue facing Christians continually.  Every day believers in Christ are surrounded by the practices of sin and many feel compelled to stand up and say something.  They feel drawn to announce that sins are against God’s will and must be stopped, and that sinners must forsake their practices and turn to God in order to be freed from their sins.  They parade, and protest, and shout out, and point fingers, and wave bibles.

The difficulty with that response is that unbelievers have no desire to approach God because He – in their eyes – is too condemning. He is not shared as Someone they could easily turn to for salvation. And that begs the real question, how did Jesus approach the issues of sin when He waked this earth as a man?

“When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ On hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'”
– Mark 2:16-17

Jesus was in no way permissive because He many times admonished others to “go and sin no more“, but He chose to reach out to people with the truth about sin – not about sins.  His concern was showing the love of the Father, and the prison of sin, and the freedom of new life.  He sat with sinners and spoke to them about the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and they were drawn to listen and to reconsider their lives.  He did not sit with them and berate them for being gay, or adulterers, or thieves, or liars.  Actually, the only ones He did chastise were those who were supposed to know better.  The “good” religious leaders.

So what was Jesus showing us?  That He came to save – not to condemn.  And how does that translate to us?  Quite simply, attending rallies and protests against any specific sin is really a waste of time and not something we can claim to be doing in the Spirit of God.  The ruler of this world is judged, so trying to just fix the ways of this world is contrary to God’s will.  And that is all we’re doing when we protest the actions of others in the manner of this world.  We are only trying to make our existence better instead of showing others the Way to freedom.

“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world–the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life–comes not from the Father but from the world.”
– 1 John 2:15-16

Consider these two statements:

  • You are wrong!  You must change!
  • You are trapped.  I can help.

Which is more likely to draw a person to God?  Jesus came to show us that we were trapped in sin, and to tell us He can help – and then He helped.  He did not leave a struggling sinner feeling alienated or alone but instead drew them – not pushed them – drew them to the truth.  And the truth is, we cannot change our ways without Him.  It is by His Spirit only that we can find the desire, will, and strength to walk in accordance to His ways.

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
– John 6:44

So we, as believers, can work with God in drawing people to Christ, or we can be contrary and make Him unpleasant in their eyes.

the only ones He did chastise were those who were supposed to know better.  The “good” religious leaders.

Do we just ignore sin then?  No, sin does harm.  It steals, kills and destroys.  And it is way of the devil who is a fallen angel and much more intelligent and clever than any of us.  To argue against his ways in the manner of men is to invite ridicule and shame.  Only in Christ can we address the harm – by doing good.  Seek the healing of the gay man dying of aids.  Pray for the woman who stole $20 from you and see if she might need $20 more.  Listen to the husband who pours out his anguish for cheating on his wife and believing his marriage is hopeless.

Care.

Then people will begin to see Christ through our actions, and will be drawn to Him, and will be changed by Him.  Without Him none of us could escape from the hold and practices of sin, and it is good for us to always remember that.  We cannot change the mind of sinners, but Jesus can.

Are we then permitting sin?  No, we are certainly not permitting any sins because they are contrary to the ways of our Lord.  We no longer practice them and we do not encourage others in their practice.  Instead we are living and exampling the way to truth and freedom and inviting others in.  Each of us came to Christ first, and then the sin that held us was released and the practices we held began to be changed.  We did not have to stop our practices before we came – we only had to want Him and His way instead of our own.

We cannot change the mind of sinners, but Jesus can.

Just as I am.  That is the grace we have received, and the grace we are called to extend to those who do not yet understand His kindness.  

“…it is God’s kindness that is trying to lead you to him and change the way you think and act”
– Romans 2:4b

Settle this in the truth then, that we are still here in this world solely to do good and show others the kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Jesus stood up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.’”
– John 8:10-11

For Freedom Christ Set Us Free

by

What is Settled in the Truth all about?  Freedom.

Each one of us has been a slave in this world.  We have been subject to our whims and our desires – our passions and wants.  And as we seek to fulfill ourselves with our desires we become slaves to both the object and the mechanics that surround it. 

It’s a sad irony that what we pursue in our passions and desires is to be free.  We dream of a life of no need; a life of complete sufficiency.  And in our zeal to attain we make ourselves slaves to possessions, and creditors, and employers, and business.  We can imagine a new car would be just the thing we need so we can go places and do things reliably, but that car requires financing and maintenance and re-budgeting, and so our “freedom” comes at the price of our freedom.

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; To preach the acceptable year of the LORD.”
– Luke 4:18-19

Jesus came into this world to set us free from the trappings that we have come to learn as normal.  We accept them because “that’s just how the world is”.  But Christ came preaching and proclaiming truth, that we can be free from our slavery to worldly ways and all their limitations and demands.  And He obtained that freedom for us through the cross.

” The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.  So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
– John 8:35-36

We no longer have to pursue the things we believe can make us free, and instead lay hold of Him who gives us freedom – freely and completely.  And that is what we’re about.  We seek to convey the truth so that our brothers and sisters in the Lord can realize their true value and experience their hard won freedom.  It’s a difficult thing to encounter children of God who have received His Spirit, yet still tend to think with the old mind of the world – that familiar manner of logic that does not realize they are no longer bound and limited.  Until the light of the Truth settles in their hearts they continue to live the lives they have always led – maybe the sins that defined them are no longer practiced, but they do not walk in the fullness of Christ.  Sickness and the fear of death still overwhelms their minds, and debt is a weight they carry each day as they struggle to meet their obligations.  They never seem to be able to find time for Jesus … and that is exactly what the adversary wants.

What kind of world would this be?  And what kind of day could it be if Jesus walked the earth today?  All our concerns and worries would diminish in the presence of our King!  They’d even begin to seem silly in the face of His complete sufficiency.  Well, the truth is that Jesus does walk the earth today in everyone who has been set free by the truth.  His Spirit dwells in them – inspiring, directing, and empowering them to do the same as Him.

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; To preach the acceptable year of the LORD.”
– Luke 4:18-19

We intend to continue sharing insights and applications of the Truth and our hope is that God will use them to open eyes and and transform minds.  We invite you to return – many times 🙂 – and see if you might realize a deeper level of freedom in our Lord.  Please feel free to leave a comment or share our posts with your friends.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”
– Galatians 5:1

A Double Minded Man

by

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it shall be given to him. But let him ask in faith, doubting nothing, for he that doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he shall receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”
– James 1:5-8

“Maybe God will!  … But maybe He won’t!”  Is this what a double-minded person sounds like?

That’s certainly how many of us came to understand it, but the truth is, that is not the inner conversation of a double-minded person.  Why?  Because it is really just the confused debating of a single mind.  It is the mind of one, single individual who is arguing both sides.

Our natural mind experiences questioning doubts and concerns daily, and not just concerning the things of Jesus.  We will concern about a job interview, or work project, supper that evening, and any number of things we can be anxious over.  It’s the natural state of the natural mind separated from God – anxious for everything, but still only one mind.

A double-minded person requires two minds: their own … and Christ’s.

“As the scripture says, ‘Who knows the mind of the Lord? Who is able to give him advice?’ We, however, have the mind of Christ.”
– 1Corinthians 2:16

We were all born with our own mind – all the heights, lows, and confusions that come with it.  This is the mind we have learned from our experiences in this world, and the one we tend to hold to because it’s familiar.  Then when we received Jesus we also received His mind.  Two minds.  But that doesn’t make us double-minded.  When we are led by Jesus’ Spirit we are one with Him.  We see things His way and we think like Him.  It’s when we are in conflict with Him that we are double-minded.

At this point it would prove useful to clarify what being in conflict means.  We have all held our doubts whether Jesus told us to do something or not, or we ask for something and wonder if He’s really okay with it.  Those are just guesses on our part, not conflict – the musings of our old experiences with a worldly mind.  We are not penalized by God for those!  He works within us to help us resolve those anxious ways of thinking.  Conflict, however, is not a guess.  It’s a choice – most often motivated by our emotions – and it is contrary to what we know our Lord has said.  But again, praise God, we are not penalized for those, either!  Read on …

“Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new.”
– 2 Corinthians 5:17

Jesus knew what He accomplished on the cross – our righteousness through faith, and peace with God.

“And the scripture came true that said, ‘Abraham believed God, and because of his faith God accepted him as righteous.’ And so Abraham was called God’s friend.”
– James 2:23

So Christ’s thoughts about our righteousness and peace are part of our minds – we know them because they are part of us – but many of us have other thoughts, too:  “I’m terrible, I’m a sinner, I’m so awful!”  And when we believe ourselves over Jesus we become double-minded.  We are no longer thinking like Jesus, so there is no way we can be at the times and places He has prepared for us to receive because those times and places are also in accordance to His thoughts.  It could not occur to us to be anywhere He has in mind because we are following our own opinion.  We can’t receive from Him!  He doesn’t penalize us – we penalize ourselves.

For let not that man suppose that he shall receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Consider a time when any of us may have asked Jesus for something, and we have decided His answer is yes.  So where would Jesus place His answer so that we can receive?  It would be some place a righteous person at peace with God would consider.  But it would never occur to anyone who judges themselves guilty and disapproved of by God.  It’s not that God didn’t answer – it’s that the double-minded person is not thinking like Jesus.

Without His mind we are limited to our worldly reasoning, and too often we are limited by our worldly reasoning even knowing His mind.  When Jesus fed the multitude the worldly reasoning was focused on how little fish and bread there was.  The worldly mind would not have considered catching a fish and looking in its mouth for the tax money.  Crossing the waters required a boat – walking across was never an option. 

Now in all fairness, would those thoughts actually occur to any of us?  Probably not, but what they illustrate is that our Lord is not limited in meeting a need.  When we see an empty wallet, it doesn’t mean the answer is no or not yet.  It just means the answer isn’t there.  The undisputed truth is that Jesus can!  And if you are persuaded of your righteousness and peace with God you can believe that Jesus will.

And you will find yourself at the point of place and time that He has prepared for your answer.  Instead of debating and analyzing and worrying, you choose to settle in the truth:  Jesus can, and He will.  And you go on about your days confident in that.  You stop worrying about the answer and instead just find yourself at the place and time He has prepared.

The undisputed truth is that Jesus can!  And if you are persuaded of your righteousness and peace with God you can believe that Jesus will.

That is what a righteous person at peace with God thinks: “Jesus can, and He will.”

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists (He can) and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him (He will).”
– Hebrews 11:6 (brackets ours)

If you think something you need might not happen, how do you behave?  You worry, argue, isolate, fixate and spend much time on yourself and your need.  Not the behaviours of a righteous person and certainly not at peace with God.  But if you are persuaded something you need will happen, how do you behave?  Certainly what you WON’T be doing is wasting time focusing on yourself 🙂 … and if you’re not focusing on yourself then you are likely putting your energies into others.

Settle this in the truth then: you are righteous because Christ obtained that for you, and God delights in you because you are His child.

Jesus can, and He will.

Your Identity in Christ

by

“However, as it is written: ‘What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived’ — the things God has prepared for those who love him–
these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.1“

Welcome to Settled in the Truth.  Here we share our belief – our full persuasion – of who we are in Christ.

We have come to realize that accepting our place in Christ is not something we must anxiously strive to attain “for it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom.2” It is our hope that you will also find full assurance and complete freedom by knowing who you are in Jesus.

We will be adding more thoughts and insights and invite you to return often, but while you’re here already please take the next 30 minutes to hear.  Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/MjY-92MFvH0

 Courtesy: Todd White, LifestyleChristianity.com

1 1 Corinthians 2:9-10
2 Luke 12:32b