God's Love is Boundless

In Christ the love of God is so vast. Ephesians speaks of the unfathomable or unsearchable riches of Christ and we are to apprehend the breath and length and height and depth of the love of Christ. Sin gives the impression that there is a boundary to God’s love. That is because we choose to live along the boundary of sin and God’s love. In comparison to God’s love, sin is a small plot that is encircled by His perfect Love. We have the vast ocean before us, yet we choose to get tangled up in sin. How foolish we are! In sin there is condemnation from the enemy. We are crushed because we act as slaves under the bondage of sin. Christ has broken the yoke. He has set us free. He has given us the ability to drink in the ocean of God’s love. There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Perfect love casts out fear. Oh swim out, and get lost in His beautiful love.

Walk in the Good of It!!

Consider all the promises of God as finished. God has provided through His precious Son, His finished work. There is nothing anyone can say or do that will add to the finished work of Jesus Christ. He is complete in the atonement of His blood poured out on the cross, poured out upon the alter in glory. The Son is now seated at the right hand of the majesty. We are to enter into His rest that He has already, as of now, this moment, today, provided through the precious blood of Jesus Christ. There is nothing we can do to satisfy God, because we cannot, are not able to do so. The Lord Jesus has done it for us. It is complete, finished, all inclusive. How can we even try to live ‘better’, rather it is for us to walk in the good of what God has accomplished in the new life that is in us, that is in Jesus Christ His Son. Realize it is His life that empowers us to live holy and true. It is His holiness and His righteousness that we walk in and not our own. That is how we are to overcome by the blood of the Lamb. It is never our good because our good is as filthy rags. It is the flesh and flesh can never bring satisfaction to God! It must be His good that we take up and live by.

Just think on that......no striving to be something for the Lord...no trying to live ‘good enough’ before God...no standard to try to measure up to, to be accepted...no nothing of ‘me’. Jesus has done it all! He died in our stead. He became sin, not sins, but sin. He became the serpent on the staff that Moses lifted up for the people to look and be healed. Jesus became the sin of Adam, of all man as He hung on the cross and He died. He was buried. Dead and gone. He then rose on the third day in resurrection life. Not as Lazarus came back life, but in the new resurrection body. A body that is able to dwell in the spiritual realm as well as the physical. He took His blood and poured it out as an offering to the Father. That blood has brought satisfaction. We cannot add or take away! Knowing this we must now praise God and walk in the good of what He has accomplished in His Son Jesus Christ. Now that is true life!!

We must also realize that the ‘good’ is Jesus Christ Himself. Not the attributes or the gifts, but Christ Himself. It is too easy to get caught up in everything about Christ and miss the Lord Himself. The enemy, if he cannot get us out of Christ, will attempt to get us busy with good things other than Christ. Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith. Amen

The Living Word

I was reading Frank Viola's blog, Beyond Evangelical, and found myself agreeing with all he had to share. He is able to open ones thoughts to see a freshness in biblical truth. I am not so foolish to say that all who read his writing will see it as biblical or even as truth. Frank would most likely jump in and say, "Don't put me on a pedestal! I am just sharing some fallible thoughts." He has some good stuff to chew and to gnaw on. For some it is brand new and for others (I believe it is a greater number than some would admit to) it is confirmation of truths the Lord has been working into their lives. I fall into the latter group. In fact, my lovely wife and I were talking in the morning about some of the things we later read in his blog. Years ago I came to a principle that the Lord will work (form) concepts in me as a result of life experience and then reveal others with the same concepts. Frank is one of these 'others'. For me he is not the teacher or presenter of the thought or truth, rather he is confirming the thought or truth. Now when there are new thoughts, I have found that, though I may agree and even grab ahold, I will not truly grasp (understand) all that the thought implies. There is sooooo much that I had taken hold of and could even teach and preach with gusto, yet I find after many years that I am just now really getting a handle on. I discover that the truth is now 'in me' and not just a thought. It is as though God has put me through the grinder of that truth and it is now me. Don't get me wrong, I am far from perfect, it is just that there are truths that are so real in me that are not questionable. I may not have all the facts straight in my head. I just know they are real. Maybe 'life' would be a better word to describe what I am saying. And even in that I know there are those who will question me on using that term. Put it this way, God works His truth in me to become life. It is His living word abiding within. How many have had the experience of reading a familiar passage in scripture and all of a sudden it jumps out at you with new meaning and understanding? It is so real. From experience this is just the beginning. It is a seed of truth that will over time grow into life. I have caught a truth, shared it and look out! God takes it and works in me. I can remember times of having a word of life from the Lord and being able to share it. We were part of a fellowship that had several brothers who did the preaching and teaching. I would preach and get some good reviews. I would then go along my merry way thinking I had it, but oh wow, things would happen that tested the word of life. I would fall down and flounder, crying out to the Lord the big 'why' and eventually get through it. Years later I came to realize what the Lord was doing. I tend to be a bit slow that way. I now know that if the Lord gives me something fresh and living, there needs to be a 'working' of that word into my life. It has to go from being a thought of truth to being a reality of truth. 2 Corinthians 3:17,18 come to heart, especially the being transformed into the same image from glory to glory. I believe that when one has a heart to go on with the Lord, the Lord will honour that heart, but it will be on His terms. I don't cry out the 'why' as much as I use to. I know that the Lord will 'work' His life in me to bring me to a maturity in Christ.

This post took a different direct than what I intended. I'll put my thoughts about lines and boxes on another posting.