Challenge for 2008

Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He

will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you doubleminded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to

gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. (James 4:7-10).

Looking to Jesus, seeing Him in His Word and praying for the eyes of our hearts to be flooded

with light to see Him is the answer to our bent toward sin. Jesus not only died to forgive us all

our sins but to become our very life, out from which we live to please God. He saved us by His

death and keeps us by His life. We live by faith in His righteousness evidenced by doing what

is morally right in His eyes. God calls us out of darkness into His marvelous light and by a living

faith, we are immersed in Jesus Christ by the Spirit of God and draw from Him as the source of

our living and strength. He is the pure one and in Him is no darkness or sin. As we abide in

Him, living in the power of His Spirit and yielding in obedience to His Word, allowing it to richly

dwell in our hearts, we are freed from the law of sin that lives in our flesh and become servants

of His law of love. Then we will do what is right in His eyes. Everything about our life as

Christians has to be centered in Jesus Christ, who is our wisdom, our sanctification, our

redemption, our very life!

We are prone to make ourselves the center of our universe and following our own appetites and desires as the motive behind our planning and actions. This is fundamentally wrong! Christ must be the center of our living. He must be the meditation of our hearts, the lover of our souls, the Master of our plans and the source of our life! When He is the center then we are NOT. When He is our center then everything revolves around His good pleasure. We seek to do His will, we pray to know His will and we immerse ourselves in His Word, knowing that the entrance of His Word into our hearts brings light, life and power over sin.

We must break away from old habits that corrupt our minds from being devoted to Christ as a virgin espoused to her husband! We must shake ourselves from every area in our life that is a haven for fleshly activity and awake from spiritual sleep, lest we fall short of obtaining the promise of full inheritance. If we are not careful we can let the steadfastness of earnest pursuit after God slip away from us as a ship that misses the mooring . When this occurs we come under God's chastening.

Remember Esau forfeited his birthright because of choosing his fleshly desires over God's promise. We too are in danger of doing the same thing. For this reason the scripture say, "Be not deceived God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows he shall reap. If he sows to the flesh he shall from the flesh reap corruption. If he sows to the Spirit, he will reap by the Spirit everlasting life." Serious decisions must be made. Changes must take place in 2008. Old habits must be turned from.

Cold, calloused hearts must be turned to God in hopes of finding in Him healing and rekindled love for Christ. Men must arise and shake off the spiritually lazy lifestyles that are being embraced. Families must rebuild the altar of prayer and cover it with tears of repentance and gratitude after having seen the Lord in His glory and purity. Husbands must arise in the homes as leaders with God's Word burning in their hearts, setting the example to all in prayer, passion for eternal things and an example in love, purity and selfless living for the interests of Christ.

Wives and children will become for the most part exactly what fathers and husbands are in spiritual stature. Exceptions to this rule are generally few and far-between! God's church is no more spiritual than the families that make it up. God's church is prayerless because its families are. We cannot hope to gather once a week and pray down the glory of God when our homes are void of such praying! Nor can we hope to pray together in church and enter into His travail for the lost as well as His travail for the perfecting of the saints when in our homes this rarely if ever occurs.

Leading men in the church cannot lead any more than the measure they lead in the home. If they lead by human wisdom then they will carry that over into the church. If they lead by passive attitudes they will lead the church in the same way. If they are pontificates at home then they will be in church too. If on the other hand, they lead in home by prayer, fasting and seeking God's heart in His Word--never making any decisions unless they have heard from God--then they will be eligible candidates to lead in the church.

Guidance by human wisdom is rejected by God. Guidance by doing what is right in our own eyes based on what we think we need is also rejected by God. When this kind of leadership is practiced in the home, Christ is not the Head of that home. When men who guide like this in their homes try to guide like this in the church, they are not leading as God ordained. To such we are not commanded to submit. We are only called to submit to those who are leading by properly representing Christ's interests, embracing all God's Word and faithfully teaching the whole revelation of God, omitting nothing!

They will do nothing except, by prayer, fasting and seeking guidance from the Head become persuaded in knowing His leading. Only as we walk in deep humility and cry out to God in deep repentance, as James commands us to, can we hope to see clearly. Indeed, the night if far spent and the day of Christ is at hand. Before God brings judgment to the nations and Israel, He will begin in his church. This day of visitation is reserved for the last hour before He comes in the air to take His bride away.

It is a day of inspection when everything in the church and its families will be evaluated by Christ. His own character will be the measuring rod and standard. His grace, spotless blood and indwelling Spirit are the means by which His very character is etched into our lives. Only what corresponds to His likeness will remain and the rest will be consumed. Remaining will be, as Paul said, "A church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing." Dark days are ahead, beloved. We must put on the armor of light and take no forethought as to how we might fulfill the desires of the flesh.

Instead, we must by the Spirit of God put to death the passions of selfish ambitions and impulses and follow only after God's Word and the Spirit's desires. Jesus prayed that we would be one with Him as He is one with His Father! Such unity is only possible by a union with His life and a complete sharing of His moral likeness. Being one with Him in His purposes, His plans, His passions and His desire to bring glory to His Father alone! With man this is indeed impossible, but with God all things are possible!

God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ever think or ask. He can fill us with all His fullness in His Son. He can make us His body, truly bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. He can reveal His glory and moral majesty as the Bright and Morning star, arising in our hearts in this last hour. He has promised to pour out His Spirit so that we can see His glory and glorify Him by revealing His moral excellence in a dark and dying world! This cannot happen by the power of man or the machinery of well-run religious institutions.

"Not by man's power or might but by my Spirit, says the Lord." This is God's Word, dear one. Only by His Spirit working and through His living body can He reveal the beauty of His Son to the world as a testimony of God's love for Him. Even as Jesus prayed that so God will do! He prayed that we may be one with Him so that the world would know that He was sent by His Father and that the Father loved the Son! This is the testimony to all the nations that God will bring about prior to His second coming!

He will do this through His blood-bought church that comes to adulthood in Christ, according to the revelation God gave Paul. This gospel must be preached in all the nations as a testimony, to gather together all those who are called by grace. At the same time, God is bringing His church to maturity in Christ, preparing her to be clothed in His radiant glory at His appearing. All this because of the wonderful atonement of Christ on Calvary's hill! "Not by works of righteousness that we have done but according to His mercy..."

Oh, wonderful and bountiful grace and mercy of God, all at the expense of the Lamb. He alone is the worthy one in heaven and to Him alone belongs all glory, honor, praise majesty, honor and worship! How can we mention His name without weeping with tears of sorrow and joy! Sorrow because He was rejected on account of our sins and joy because we are accepted before His holy Father on account of His death, shed blood and resurrection. Oh God, soften our hard hearts today by giving to them a fresh vision of the spotless Lamb who died on Calvary on account of our sins and was raised from the dead for our justification to life eternal!

Let us align ourselves more and more with God's heart as revealed in His Word. Let us cast off all works of darkness and turn from all forms of greed, love of money and the snares of wanting many unnecessary things while neglecting what is truly important to God. God is moving on, dear ones and He is looking for all those whose hearts are broken before Him so He can fill them with the moral beauty of His Son! He is seeking a people who acknowledge Him alone as Lord, Master and resident boss!

Like Paul, we must say, "Lord what do you want me to do?" We cannot tell God what we will do or will not do. That will not be acceptable to Him. Paul's entire life was governed by his attitude toward Christ. He always saw Christ as His Lord and never gave orders, but followed them! Many today like to give God orders but do not follow them very well at all! It is evident by the way they govern their lives and the way they take correction. Nevertheless, God is preparing His bride who will have bridal affections deep in her heart for her Lord and Master.

She will not live for herself in pleasure, gluttony and surfeiting, but will be a pure bride, emanating the moral majesty of her risen Lord in all she does and says! She will be waiting expectantly and will be ready to meet her lover in the air. She lives in the world but is not of the world. Her heart's affections are not on earth but in heaven. Her thoughts are toward her beloved. She knows the pain of sleepless nights as her love sick heart longs to see the face of her beloved.

Knowing she is not perfect in herself, she is bowed low in His presence so she can constantly draw from His perfections available to those who walk in broken humility before Him and man. Her boasting is in Him alone because she knows all too well of her often failures and faltering. Her cleansing comes from His Word and precious blood alone. She seeks not what He has nor does she want what He has but longs only for Him! Her love for Him is not rooted in what she gets from Him but in her deep love for Him because of His deep love for her.

She knows her destiny is not to become loved in this world but to share in His heart for all eternity and for that she longs day and night. The church, as Christ's bride will keep herself in the love of God and guard herself from being corrupted by the deceitfulness of sin by immersing her heart and mind with the pure Word of God. All scripture is God breathed and useful in keeping us washed by its pure water. By it, God corrects, rebukes, instructs and guides us so that we can be fully equipped to every good work and kept from error and moral failure.

We are commanded to give close attention to our hearts and our doctrine and be sure they are in accord with the pure teaching of the scriptures. In doing so we shall save both ourselves and those we are influencing! Multitudes are heading down the wide road that leads to destruction because of failure to heed this warning from God's Word. Many may say they do not have the time to seek the Lord as they ought to. Imagine standing before the Lord as He asks us why we neglected such a great salvation and saying, "Well Lord I just did not make the time."

That excuse will not pass on the day of inspection. We will miss out on what God is doing if we make excuses and fail to respond to His call. This is exactly what happened to the nation of Israel. Their long anticipated Messiah stood in their midst, cried in their streets, wept in their houses of worship, visited their homes, healed their sick and raised their dead and still they rejected His call. He longed to gather them as a hen does her baby chicks but they refused. Even though they read God's Word they rejected the One its many pages speak of! What will we do in 2008? He is moving on and bidding us to follow Him. Will we or not?