I figured it might be a worthwhile blog to describe where I get my spiritual mojo. Enlighten all of you out there on just what gets me fired up for Jesus Christ and what I turn to in times of rejuvination. Aside from my daily devotionals these are a few of my favorite passages that remind me just what an awesome God we serve.
As a Christian I feel that I will never fully understand just how awesome and perfect God and his will is but passages like this remind me that it is our job to share the Gospel and let God's works speak for itself. We can have confidence that he will use us to express his qualities and bring others to his kingdom. Verses 7-12 really speak to me about how we may be thrown into the furnace of worldly pressures but his grace will give us enduring stregnth.
2 Corinthians 4
Present Weakness and Resurrection Life
Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. 2 Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”[a] made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
13 It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.”[b] Since we have that same spirit of[c] faith, we also believe and therefore speak, 14 because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. 15 All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
As I have strayed off the path God has called me to walk I often get disappointed in myself and at times even question my dedication to a Christian life. This passage reminds me that the Lord is not keeping a score of my mistakes or waiting to give up on me..He is relentlessly pursuing a relationship with me and doing so in spite of my bouts of living by the flesh. The Lord has always been good to me and if he isn't giving up on me then I have no reason to doubt his ability to bring the man of Christ out of me that I am destined to be.
Lamentations 3
I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
20 I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
21 Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”
25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
26 it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke
while he is young.
The more I hear that a life of the flesh is empty, unsatisfying, and unholy the more it sinks in and comes to the forefront of my mind in everyday life. My physical body represents Christ's spiritual home living inside of me and I strive to keep the Lord's house a worthy place.
John 6
61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you?62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit[e] and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.
There is no living on the fence for Jesus. The life of the flesh cannot please God therefor there is some crap I have to cut out. I have to admit I have considered the Race a bit of a detoxification from the presence of the World in order for God to tell me what a life focused on being in communication with him is about. I don't want to live a life of daily prayer or weekly services, I want a life that I go home and tell my wife and kids about what Jesus and I discussed that day.
Romans 8
Life Through the Spirit
8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you[a] free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,[b] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.[c] And so he condemned sin in the flesh,4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life[d] because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of[e]his Spirit who lives in you.
12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
Philippians 3
New International Version (NIV)
No Confidence in the Flesh
3 Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. 2 Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— 4 though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcisedon the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law,faultless.
7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
This past Sunday Pastor Tim Bowman of Calvary Church of the Quad Cities reminded me of something that got me fired up for the Lord. His sermon discussed how Jesus and God are on in the same in a sense. As the New Year is underway the congregation is tuning up some of the basics of Christianity. I have to admit the concept was one of the first that I knew I would never fully understand but didn't need to to appreciate Christ's sacrifice. Jesus Christ was not only the Son of God and the Son of man but as God is Jesus it was God who came to Earth as a man to take up the world's sins on the cross so that we could have eternal life with us. God did not order his only Son to die so that we may benefit from his sacrifice (an opportunity to be in relation with his creation). God in a sense sacrificed his self so that those who choose to take up their cross and believe in his awesome power may be in a relationship with him. Somehow this hit me lick a sack of bricks and really drove home just how unimaginable his mercy and love for us really is. I sit around my college campus fretting about the worldly temptations, and just how tough a Christian life is but the silver lining in all of my struggles is that God as Jesus came and conquered sin so that I can follow him. His WORD is what we have to remind us of what has been done on this Earth for our sake. Sin had its chance and it lost so when life gets me down I turn to these passages and remember that I am fighting for the winning side.
