What do you need? What is it you are asking God for help to do? Oddly enough, you already have what you need, you just don’t realize it. Ephesians 1:3 says that God has ALREADY blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. L.L. Letgers, co-founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators said this about this verse: “If you run over in your mind and find one single blessing with which God might bless us today, with which He has not already blessed us, then what He told Paul was not true at all, because He said, ‘God hath.’ It is all done. ‘It is finished.’ God hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies! The great pity of it all is that we are saying, ‘O God bless us, bless us in this, bless us in that!’ and it is all done. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies.”

What needs to happen in our lives with Christ is that we need to believe and trust in God’s already provided provision. Be about the thanking instead of spending your time in the asking. It is this approach that acknowledges the sufficiency of Christ in our lives. He really is enough!

Thank you Lord for being our supply. You are the very source of every thing we ALREADY have!

There is a passage written by Miles J. Stanford that reminds me of what God gave me to preach yesterday: “Our Lord Jesus so often uses natural facts to teach us the deepest spiritual truths. He first teaches us about our natural, Adamic life before we can understand and appreciate our new spiritual, Christ-life. This involves the vital source principle - ‘after his kind.’ Every believer first learns that he is complete in Adam - he sprang from him: he is like him. ‘For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners’ (Rom.5:19a). ‘For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing’ (Rom. 7:18a).  When, through our FAILURES [Jim's EMPHASIS] and struggles, He has taught us about the natural, we will be ready to learn of our spiritual Source. ‘By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous’ (Rom.5:19).  ‘For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him’ (Col. 2:9, 10a).”

We freak out at the prospect of failure which often prevents us from even trying. But failure is necessary. We can’t succeed in Christ if we haven’t first failed in ourselves. It is the failure of ourselves that enables us to understand how to enable God in our circumstances. Don’t fear future failure. Move forward trusting God the best way you know how. Failure often prevents us from trying again when, in reality, it is a tool of God to more finely tune you into Him. Don’t miss your opportunity to grow. Don’t fear. Believe. Trust God. Continue to yield to the Lord in spite of your fears. He loves it when His children throw themselves at His feet in faith.

This really helps me.

Something God has been teaching me . . . Oswald Chambers says this from 2 Corinthians 5:9: “‘Wherefore we labour…’ It is arduous work to keep the master ambition in front. It means holding one’s self to the high ideal year in and year out, not being ambitious to win souls or to establish churches or to have revivals, but being ambitious only to be ‘accepted of Him.’ It is not lack of spiritual experience that leads to failure, but lack of labouring to keep the ideal right . . . I have to learn to relate everything to the master ambition, and to maintain it without any cessation. My worth to God in public is what I am in private. Is my master ambition to please Him and be acceptable to Him, or is it something less, no matter how noble?”

It is so easy to get caught up in the results of a thing. But it shouldn’t take us long to realize that no matter how hard we try, we cannot yield real results for God anyway. So we have a choice . . . We can either keep banging our heads against the wall, determined that we are going to yield results, OR we can simply yield to the Spirit of God and trust Him to have His way with us. Then and only then can we truly have any results anyway.

So what’s my focus??? Christ. . .

Ever wonder why everything seems to be going wrong in your life? Here’s a very real possibility . . .

James McConkey wrote: “Faith is dependence upon God. And this God-dependence only begins when SELF DEPENDENCE ENDS. And self-dependence only comes to its end, with some of us, when SORROW, SUFFERING, AFFLICTION, BROKEN PLANS and HOPES bring us to that place of self-helplessness and defeat. And ONLY THEN do we find that we have learned the lesson of faith; to find our tiny craft of life rushing onward to a blessed victory of life and power and service undreamt of in the days of our fleshly strength and self-reliance.”

That could be the reason why things aren’t going so great for us right now - because God sees self-reliance in us. And because He loves us so much and wants so much more for us, He is all about stripping us of the things (and in this case self) that prevent us from experiencing His awesome life of power.

Embrace Christ in your suffering.

I was reading something from Oswald Chambers this morning that got me thinking about how God fights against us having “heaven on earth.” Of course, heaven on earth is exactly what we want because we don’t want suffering or uncertainty. Our old nature would like nothing more than to be self-sufficient and declare itself god of all.

Chambers says this: “The certainty that I do not know - that is the secret of going with Jesus.” In other words, God wants to keep us in the place of “engaged faith.”  When we are not having to engage our faith, we are dead to God because we don’t need him, so we think.

One of things we are all guilty of at some level has to do with how we resort to formulas for a relationship with God.  We will think we do God service by keeping up our daily Bible reading quota or showing up to minister or whatever. Chambers states: “Many today are spending and being spent in work for Jesus Christ, but they do not walk with Him. The one thing God keeps us to steadily is that we may be one with Jesus Christ. After sanctification the discipline of our spiritual life is along this line. If God gives a clear and emphatic realization to your soul of what He wants, DO NOT TRY TO KEEP YOURSELF IN THAT RELATIONSHIP BY ANY PARTICULAR METHOD, but live a natural life of absolute dependence on Jesus Christ.”

Keep striving and don’t get too comfortable!

I was just spending some time in Exodus 3 and looking at the call of God to Moses . . . It occurred to me that God took a man in Moses who had power and prestige and stripped him of all of these and sent him to live as a shepherd. When God came to him in the burning bush it is interesting how Moses no longer put stock in any of these things.

He doubted his ability across the board. He seemingly had nothing left of himself. But this is where God had brought him - God had taken him through trials and time in order to set Moses free from his own power and strength. But when Moses returned to Egypt God endued him once again with power and prestige in the sight of all to do God’s bidding. In other words, God took away these things so that He could give them back to him in all of God’s anointing power.

I have found similar things in my own life, where natural abilities and gifts have been brought to nothing only so that my trust could return to the Lord. God wants to fill those natural abilities with supernatural power.

Are your natural abilities the place of your trust and strength OR have you surrendered them to the Lord? God wants to take you there.

I just wanted to put a special “thanks” out to everyone who participated in the “It Happened One Night” event. It was very well received and was a lot of fun. Great job everyone! We need to make this an annual event. I think it will only grow over time.

Yesterday morning I made the observation about the musicians who, in the middle of the sinking of the Titanic, played “Nearer, My God, To Thee.” The comment was made that these individuals made the main thing the main thing and focused on Christ, while everyone else was running around like chickens with their heads cut off looking at how they could save their lives.

Well, as it turns out, all of those musicians died in those icy waters. But it is also important to point out that this is the year 2007. And everyone else has since lost their lives as well. Those who fought but couldn’t get on a life boat died. But even those who survived that day have since lost their lives. EVERYONE ENDED UP LOSING THEIR LIVES.

As it turns out, WE ARE ALL ON THAT BOAT. And it will eventually go down. So let’s take what little time we have left and be like those musicians on the deck of the Titanic. Let’s worship our King and exalt His name in the midst of the craziness of life. Let’s make knowing Him the priority of this day. Let’s make sure that He has a house that He delights to dwell in.

Whoever tries to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for Christ’s sake and the gospel, the same individual ends up saving his life.

LOSE YOUR LIFE IN CHRIST TODAY. The Titanic is going down for everyone. Be set apart.