Author: Allen Forte

Your Moment at the Well

The Lord’s insight. Your faith and your belief will bring you understanding that cannot be understood.

Daniel 3:18: “But if not, let be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”

Hebrews 11:3: “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of the things which are visible.”

Three Jewish men had defied an order of the king to worship the king’s god.  The penalty was death by being thrown into a hot furnace. When the king mocked them by asking who would deliver them from his hands, they did not respond to him.

They said God, Whom they served was able to deliver them, but even if He did not, they would not worship any other god. I wonder if we would choose to remain faithful even if the Lord does not answer our prayers the way we want?  We need faithful understanding even if we do not understand our circumstances.

Would you still choose to serve the Lord if He chooses not to heal you or someone you love, if He chooses not to move your mountain, if He does not restore you when you have been accused or condemned, if He seems silent and you don’t hear His voice in your life? Will you still choose to serve Him?

It is by faithful understanding that we can come to understand the impossible. Hebrews is telling us we may not understand the thing we face but our faith brings to us the understanding we need to stay strong in our belief and in our trust.

Sometimes we don’t get the things we want because the Lord wants us to understand the power of faithful understanding. Your faith doesn’t need to see what you ask for, it needs to trust and keep praying a prayer of faith so that the miracle of faith is made visible through the presence of what seems impossible.

So, stand on Lord and on His Word.  Even if your circumstances do not change, remember He promises never to leave you or to forsake you.  Do you have faith like those young men in Daniel? Will you choose to believe what He can do even if He does nothing?

After they were thrown into the furnace, the king went to see what happened to them.  He looked into the furnace and saw four figures – one of them he said – was like the Son of God. The king couldn’t understand what he saw. How could he know what the Son of God looked like?

When it is hard to see or to understand how to get through what we face, our response should be to wait for the miracle of faithful understanding. When it seems like things will overtake you, pray and keep moving ahead knowing that things may not change but that which does not change for you will not change your faith.

Trust the Lord no matter what.  Trust Him when you cannot see.  Trust Him when you are accused. Trust Him when you are weaker than the things that come at you.

Learn to stand strong in your faith.  Scripture tells us to pray always and to ask the Lord for the things we want.  Let’s make sure we do that.  But when it seems like we cannot see a way out of what we face or we won’t get the miracle we need, stand strong and wait. When the impossible seems impossible, the Lord will give you the unimaginable understanding to keep moving you on.

Lord I may not understand what is happening, but I still trust You. You are still working. You are still mightier than anything.  You are still there in my darkest moments so I will send this prayer of faith into the dark because You still see what I cannot see.  You are the second Man in the circumstances where I feel I’m all alone.

Live a Delivered Life.

Your Moment at the Well

The Lord’s insight. Knowing about the Lord is not the same as being known by the Lord.

Acts 19:2: “He said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? So, they said to him, we have not so much has heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.”

John 14:23: “Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My Word; and My Father will love him and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”

There was a time as a believer I lived just like I did before I believed. I believed what I knew about the Lord but I didn’t know how to stop living an unbelieving life. I was ignorant. I knew better, but I didn’t know how to be better. How could I become someone I didn’t know when I couldn’t stop being who I was?

The believers in the book of Acts tell Paul, how can we know if we have the Holy Spirit when we don’t know anything about the Holy Spirit?  I was like that.  I didn’t know how to not be the person I was because I didn’t know how to be someone that I wasn’t.

I imagine there are many more people like me. We have difficulty living by anything but our flesh because that is all we will allow ourselves to know. When our relationship with the Lord is built more on our knowledge of Him than on submission to Him, we are slow to understand the Power we can have to live by Him and by His Spirit.

Paul explained to the people in Acts how their belief got them into the arena to watch the game, but their obedience got them into the game so that the Holy Spirit could help them win. Many of us are like this; we can get to a place of belief, but our place of belief doesn’t take us to a place of obedience.  But now you know. We live powerless lives even with the Power of God within us.

A mature believer knows that it is better for the Lord to come into our hearts and for us to come to live out our lives in Him. That is God’s design for us.  To be one in Him rather than to be ourselves with knowledge of Him. It is in Him that we can receive understanding around the presence and the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

When we wake up each day and find our lives in the life of Christ, the Holy Spirit will help us to put to death more of the person we were yesterday so that more of the person we should be in Him can live today.  Now you know. Jesus is amazing! Before He was betrayed, He prayed that His disciples and all believers would become one in Christ and God. He wanted us to be unified as one just as He and God are one.

The Lord does not want us to be like the believers in Acts who knew nothing of the Holy Spirit. If you don’t feel like you are living a new life in Christ each day, you probably are not.  If you can remember more of your old life than a new life, more of your old life is probably living than it is dead.  Now you know.

Don’t allow believing to be nothing more than an intellectual understanding that Jesus is our Savior. Life with knowledge of Christ is not the same as Life where Christ has knowledge of you. Believing also means we die to an old life in ourselves as we accept a new life in Christ. To many of us we want to have a life of knowing Him; but when our belief in Him makes us give in to Him, we can have a life where He knows us.

Now you have heard; now you know; now you can let go; now you can have all that the Holy Spirit can help you to have. If you never stop living like you did, you make it difficult to live the way you can with Christ. Now you know; let your life be home to God the Father and to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Your life; Their home.

Live a Delivered Life.

Your Moment at the Well

The Lord’s insight. Never give to a man that thing which you should only give to the Lord.

Proverbs 29:25: “The fear of man brings a snare.  But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.”

Psalm 27:1: “The Lord is my light and my Salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

I have always known but recently I came to understand even more clearly that the Lord never threatens us with harm or to do harm to us. He never says if you don’t do this for Me, I will not do this for you?  The Lord always works to make sure we find Him to be someone whom we can Trust, Believe and Love.

Man is not this way towards us. Man is often the opposite.  He uses his power and position and anything else to make sure that we fear him. Man wants our fear because it is how he controls our actions and behaviors. Sometimes our fear of man teaches us to be overly concerned with what others think about us.

This fear of man and lack of confidence and value in ourselves can trap us and lead us to become anxious, to make poor decisions, or to compromise the values the Lord wants us to live each day. Yes, this is how fearing man can become a snare to us.

The Lord wants us to know that we cannot trust what we fear. So, if we fear man, we certainly should never trust man. Man wants us to fear him not to keep us safe but to keep us fearful. Fear of man keeps man safe from those of us who live by the overwhelming strength of the Lord.

So, Proverbs 29:25 warns us about fearing man. It tells us that we should trust the Lord Who will keep us safe.  Trusting the Lord is how we overcome the fear we may have of man. When we place our trust in God instead of seeking constant approval from people, we find true safety, and freedom, and peace.

You should never give your fear to the man who wants you to be fearful of him. Man may do a lot of things that are unfair and unwarranted. Those things you will have to deal with. But the man who wants you to fear him more than to fear anything else is like the devil. You should never give to a man that type fear.  It is only to be given to the Lord.

You can never trust a man who wants your fear. Such a man only wants your fear.  Trust means you know that you can rely on someone. The man who wants your fear does not want you to rely on him; he wants you to fear relying on anyone or anything else, even yourself.

You can never be saved by the man you fear. The man you fear wants you to always feel unsafe so that you will walk the way he wants you to walk. When you fear man, he keeps you from living free from being fearful and afraid of what man can do to you.

The man who wants your fear may threaten to do many things to you; to harm you; to take your job away from you; to break up your family; to take what you value most. But hold out and do not fear him. He may harm you, but the Lord can heal you; he may take your job, but the Lord has work for you; He may break up your family, but the Lord can restore your family.

Learn to give your fear only to the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of the knowledge and wisdom you need to live a saved life with the Lord. The fear of the Lord brings you to a place where you can believe in the Lord; it brings you to a place where you can have faith in the Lord; it brings you to a place where you can trust the Lord and; it brings you to a place where you can be saved by the Lord.

Live a Delivered Life.

Your Moment at the Well

The Lord’s insight. The Lord is Fair and Just but man wants equal.

Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Proverbs 22:2: “The rich and the poor have this in common; The Lord is the maker of them all.”

No, God did not make a mistake when He made man – you and me. No matter who we are; no matter our race; no matter our sex.  We are all made in the image of God Himself. God took the same things from Himself to make each of us.  He did not make any one person with anything better than any other person.

We are already equal. Genesis 1:17 reminds us of this. There is nothing about one person that makes him or her inherently better or greater than any other person. We are inherently equal. We need to learn to accept that about ourselves and about others.

But we don’t accept it. We get it wrong because in our sinful nature we look for fairness and justice and equality from one another as the basis for believing what God has done. Well, God did not make a mistake. We make the mistake because we look at what you have that we do not have to decide if things are fair and just and equal for us.

We struggle with those who have and those who have not. We call it the “haves and the have nots.” Proverbs 22 tells us we will have some who are rich and we will have some who are poor. Still, we look at the status of others and wonder why we don’t have the same things that they have.

We wonder why some people are filthy rich and some people are filthy poor. We consider this to be an indication of what is unfair and unjust and unequal. We fail to see that even with this, God is still Fair and Just and Equal in how He treats us. He wants us to be fair and just in how we treat others.

Fair and Just and Equal are Truth statements about our God and they can be Truth statements about us. We ought to remember not to throw away these Truths about ourselves because of what we see in others or because of how we are treated by others.

When we see a difference in what some people have and what others do not have, we believe there is something inherently wrong that we must correct. Then man tries to make man treat man in ways that allow for equal outcomes in life because man sees this as fair and just for everyone. But equal outcomes do not define Fair and Just.

It would be easier for us to help the poor and the needy and the less fortunate if we viewed Fair and Just and Equal the way God does more than the way we do. God sees Fair and Just and Equal as the Ways we must be because they are inherently how He made us. To the Lord, Fair and Just and Equal are not outcomes to be had as much as they are conditions of our hearts that are to be given.

We cannot rightly define Fair and Just and Equal by what we see and believe to be unfair and unjust and unequal.  That is like defining something warm by saying it lacks something cold. Warm is warm and cold is cold.

If we then are made in the image of the things that inherently make our God Who He is, lets understand this.  There is nothing unfair or unjust or unequal about God so let’s not allow ourselves to believe there is anything unfair about who we are.

Instead, lets focus on our attitudes and make sure we live with hearts that are Fair and Just towards others. This way we will be equally the same towards everyone because God is that way with each of us. Just as there was enough manna to be had each day for each person to have all they needed, there is enough of God’s good in the earth for each of us to have enough good for our lives and to still leave some for others.

You don’t have to have so much more that you keep others from having just enough for themselves. There is nothing inherently better in you or nothing inherently less in others that can justify treating anyone without fairness and justness.

Let’s learn not to be greedy to have. But if we are going to be greedy, lets make sure it is to be greedy to give and to share and to help others. Man works really hard today make men equal to one another by legislating equal outcomes for each other. There can never be equal outcomes for men, only fair and just outcomes.

What we must do is to learn to be Fair and Just towards one another just as God is Fair and Just towards each of us. And remember, equal often is not Just and not Fair to some of us. But just as God is Fair and Just to each of us, when we are Fair and Just, it is always equally right for everyone.

Live a Delivered Life.

Your Moment at the Well

The Lord’s insight. People typically act according to what they see in you.

Genesis 20:10-11: “Then Abimelech said to Abraham, what did you see in me, that you have done this thing?”

Micah 7:2: “The faithful man has perished from the earth and there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood.”

The night Jesus was betrayed by Judas, He sat at dinner with His disciples.  He told them that one of them would betray Him.  Scripture says that each of them asked “is it I?”  Am I the one who will betray You? They wanted to know what Jesus saw in them that would make Him say that.

Abimelech was a king.  Abraham had settled in Abimelech’s land.  He told Abimelech that Sarah was his sister rather than telling him she was his wife.  He did this because he feared that Abimelech would take Sarah for himself, but if he did so, he would spare Abraham’s life because he was just her brother.

Abimelech did indeed take Sarah but before he did anything wrong with her, God intervened and told him that Sarah was Abraham’s wife. So, Abimelech asked Abraham, “what did you see in me that would cause you to hide the fact that Sarah was your wife?”

Abraham saw something in Abimelech that Abimelech did not see himself.  Abraham did not see a man who feared God. That was enough for Abraham to act with great caution around this man. Abraham said he did what he did because he thought that surely the fear of God was not in the land and that the people would kill him for his wife.

Abimelech was unaware of how he was perceived.  But he also cared about how he was perceived so he asked Abraham to tell him what he saw. Many of us are like Abimelech in one way.  We are unaware about how we are perceived by others. But today, many of us do not care about what others think about us because we like ourselves just as we are more than we care about how others see us.

So, I wondered about myself. What do people see in me or what is missing in me that would cause them to act the way they do when I am around? Do they see a healthy fear of God, or do they see a prideful confidence that I have in myself?

The people in the prophet Micah’s time had this problem too. He speaks in a time when things are difficult. The time between harvesting and planting.  The time between dry land and plentiful rain. These times are the reason many of us veer off on our own to make a way for ourselves.  We do what is right and best in our own eyes.

Micah 7:2 says “the faithful man has perished from the earth and there is no one upright among men. This is what Micah saw in people and so this is how people reacted and responded to one another.

When God is removed from our lives, we no longer have the ability and awareness to know who we are and what we are capable of being and doing.  We have no mirror in which to look into our own lives and see ourselves.  And worse, we have nothing inside us to make us care about the things that might be missing in our lives.

So, I asked myself, do I look for ways to condemn and or bring my justice to my brother?  Am I ready to do evil and harm to those who I believe are against me? Do I look for others to give me more than I give them?  Am I easily persuaded to do something for personal gain?  Am I ready to get revenge against those who cross me? Do I dishonor my parents? Are my worst enemies those who are in my family?

I could go on but I can clearly see that I must be the type of person who does not just make room for the Lord to live in my life; that would be just saying what I don’t mean.  I must make sure the Lord has my life.  If I do that, then I will be aware of how I am perceived and what others see and don’t see in me.

And when I see that, then I know I have within me the ability to change my ways and my behaviors so that others are not fearful that the fear of God is not in me.

So, what about you?  Is the fear of the Lord alive and well in your life?  Look at how others respond to you.  You may see the answer there.

Live a Delivered Life.

Your Moment at the Well

The Lord’s insight. When we talk but we don’t know what we are talking about, we darken the things around us.

Isiah 55:3: “Incline your ear and come to Me. Hear and your soul shall live.”

In the book of Job, 42::3, God confronts Job because Job had spoken with conviction about things he did not understand. Job was smart enough to realize he didn’t really know what he was talking about.

Knowing this, the Lord said to Job, now prepare yourself like a man and I will question you and you shall answer Me. Job 38:3. What do you think it would be like if God said to you, prepare yourself.  I will see how much you really know and how much you really understand.

Let’s incline our ears to hear the Lord just for a moment.

Of all the people in the world at the time, God called Abraham to leave his family and his homeland and to go to the Promised Land. Abraham obeyed God and left without hesitation. Abraham didn’t understand but he obeyed and left his home with only his wife and his Lot and their servants.

In time, Abraham’s servants and Lots servants fought over the availability of sufficient feed grounds for their flocks. Abraham suggested they separate. Abraham allowed Lot to be first to choose the land he wanted.  Lot chose the lush green land around Sodom. Abraham went the other way. Why did Abraham give Lot first choice? I don’t know.

Sodom was green but full of evil. So, God destroyed Sodom. But before doing so, He allowed Lot to escape with his wife and their daughters. But only Lot and his two daughters escaped safely from Sodom. Why? I don’t know.

Lot settled on a mountain just a little way from Sodom.  His daughters tricked Lot to get them pregnant fearing they would have no children. Lot’s oldest daughter had a son.  His name was Moab.  He became father of the Moabites. They were relatives of Abraham’s Israelites.

Years later, an Israelite lady named Naomi, and her family left their homeland because of a famine. They went to the land of Moab. While in the land of Moab, Naomi’s husband and sons died.  But she had two daughters-in-law while there.  One of them was named Ruth. Ruth was a Moabite.

In time, Naomi returned to her homeland. She encouraged her daughters to stay in their homeland of Moab.  But Ruth decided she would leave her homeland and go with Naomi.  She said where Naomi went, she would go.  She would serve the God Naomi served. How come? I don’t know.

Back in Israel, Ruth met a man named Boaz. Boaz was a wealthy and righteous man. The two loved one another so they married. Boaz an Israelite and Ruth a former Moabite. They had a son whose name was Jesse. Jesse was from Bethlehem.

Jesse would go on to have seven sons.  His youngest son was named David. David became the first King of God’s choosing for His people. David was also a key ancestor of a man named Joseph who was born in Bethlehem.

Joseph lived in Nazareth and was espoused to be married to a young girl named Mary.  Mary and Joseph had to return to Bethlehem where they were born to comply with a census. While there Mary delivered a Son whose name was Jesus. Jesus was the Son of God and the Spiritual son of David.

Jesus left heaven to come to earth. He was the only Spiritual ancestor of King David. Jesus stripped Himself of all that He was so that He could become all that we needed. After He finished His work here on earth, He returned to heaven to sit at God’s right hand and to be an intercessor for you and for me.

All this was set in motion by the obedience of Abraham and by the decision Abraham and Lot made to separate from one another. Lot never returned to his homeland.  God knew that would happen.

You and I, by nature, are separated or have been separated from the home the Lord has prepared for us. We need a Spiritual place of birth like Bethlehem. We need a call to return home like Naomi.  We need a call to serve the One True God like Ruth.

We need an earthly but Spiritual ancestor like Abraham.  We need an earthly Spiritual father who loves the Lord, like David. And we still need a Savior who can make a way for us to get back home when our sinful eyes take us away like it happened with Lot.

Jesus made a way for us to return to our home with Him. He did this way long before we would ever think we needed a way back to anyplace. His knowledge of us is greater than our knowledge of ourselves.

If you think yourself to be knowledgeable, you should think again. We cannot know how things will end for us when we can’t even know how things began for us.

Thank the Lord, because with Him there is no beginning or ending only the here and the now and eternity. Quiet your talk and incline your ear – that means physically take your ear – and bend it towards the Word of God.

Hear all that He says and understand all that He means. You will be able to return to the home you didn’t know you had left for a life you didn’t know you could have. You don’t need to know very much when the Person who knows everything knows you.  Quiet yourself and learn to listen loudly to Him.

His ways are not our ways nor are our thoughts His thoughts.  Thanks be to God for that.

Live a Delivered Life.

Your Moment at the Well

The Lord’s insight. Belief and Trust. Belief confirms you; Trust transforms you.

Hebrews 11:6: “For without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is.”

Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.”

Many of you may remember what the letters “WWJD” stand for – (What Would Jesus Do).  This little phrase became popular in faith circles some years ago back in the 1990’s.  Many of us may even have trinkets emboldened with WWJD letters. I am not personally a fan of such things, but we can use this one to help us see that as believers we must both believe in the Lord, and we must Trust in the Lord.

Belief and Trust are not the same.  To be saved we must first believe that the Lord is exactly Who He says He is. Any relationship with the Lord God starts with our belief in Him. This must be a convicting sense of knowledge deep down in our souls. This conviction says to us that we believe that He is, not because of anything He has done.

We must have a believing relationship because that is how we come to a saving relationship. We believe He is because He says He is. That is sufficient. But to enjoy a saving relationship with the Lord, we must come to a trusting relationship with Him.

Trust in the Lord is something we learn because we believe in the Lord. While believing says we know who He is and we believe that; trust says we place all our confidence in knowing that He can and He will do all that He says He will do.

Hebrews 11:6 reminds us that we must believe that He is God; Proverbs 3:5-6 encourages us to put our confidence in Him and not in anything else, especially ourselves.  While you can use WWJD as a reminder to try to make faith-based decisions about your life, it takes belief and trust to transform your life to a faith-based life where the things you do are simply a byproduct of who you are in Christ and Who He is in you.

So, learn not to be wise and knowledgeable in your own eyes and for your own life.  Do not use faith in the Lord to glorify your carnality. Even the devil knows about the Lord, but this doesn’t change who the devil is. Be careful not to lean to your own understanding and still remain unchanged by what you understand.

Fear the Lord and leave all the things that would make it difficult for you to believe in Him because you still believe more in yourself. Never allow yourself to confess a belief in the Lord because you believe it is fashionable to say you believe. When your belief is sure, your profession of belief will come from a new you.  It will be seen in you before it is professed by you.

It is a good thing to ask yourself WWJD in your circumstances.  This will help you learn how to think about what you face.  But perhaps more importantly, reflect on Who Would Jesus Be (WWJB) in any circumstance.  Then ask Him to help you to have the belief and the trust to be transformed from who you are to be more of who He wants you to be.

Belief gets you the relationship with the Lord that will save you.  Trust gets you the confidence in the Lord that will enrich you.  Who Would Jesus Be (WWJB) gets you the life of the Lord that can transform you.

Life a Delivered Life.

Your Moment at the Well

The Lord’s insight. He gave what we never asked for but we always needed.

Isaiah 9:6: “For unto us a Child is born.  Unto us a Son is given.  And the government will be upon His shoulder.  And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Luke 2:11: “for there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

Romans 6:6: “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.”

I have met many people who believe their lives are complete and they do not need anything. You may have a parent or spouse or even a friend who says they do not need anything because their lives are complete. But life is not complete by what you have as much as it is completed by what you give. For instance, if you don’t believe you need love it will be difficult for you to give love.

Christmas and what it means is God’s way of saying to us He would show His love towards us even if we say we do not need to be loved. God knows that we all need a savior even if we don’t all recognize that we do. The birth of Christ is God’s way of saying He gave each of us what we needed even when we may not believe we need anything at all.

There are many reasons God is this way towards us, but the primary reason is sin, and the impact sin will have on our eternal lives. But we have a problem with sin. We cannot understand what it means to be free from sin until we understand how we are naturally bound to sin.

To fully understand what Christmas means to us, we must understand sin, and life and the role Christ play in all that. Part of this understanding is found in His names by which Christ is called.

He is called Wonderful because He brings to us the purest sense of Knowledge and of Wisdom. We cannot know what is bad until we can know what Wonderful is. Man typically uses only worldly knowledge by which to live but this can mislead us more than it can help us.

Christ brings to us Divine Knowledge and Wisdom which is needed for us to understand how we ought to live our lives. This Christmas understand that Christ comes to you as all things Wonderful. This way you will be able to recognize the things that are not.

He is called Counselor because He alone can have conversations with us that reveal the deepest insights and can edify us so that our souls are touched and set afire to live better. He counsels us with Truth so that we are not easily misled by lies. This Christmas unwrap your Counselor and let Him talk with you.

He is called the Everlasting Father because He was before us, He lives with us during our humanity and He will be with us in our transition to eternity. And though our earthly fathers will all die, Christ will always be. He is an Everlasting Father who will love us in an everlasting way. He is the Father who never dies. This Christmas go live with your Everlasting Father.

He is called the Prince of Peace because He gives us the ability to fight and win the battle to save us from being slaves to sin. While this does not mean we will never sin again, He gives us the ability to always be at peace with what things we have and with what things we lack so that we cannot be made slave to sin when it comes and offers to us what things it believes we want.

So, this Christmas Day, remember that Christ means you have a life manual to help you learn how to live. You no longer need to live as if you do not understand why you are here.

A Child was born and a Son was given to us long ago. The very Son of God. He was crucified and raised from death. On a day like today long ago, He came to us.  Because of that we were all given privilege through Him to be crucified in our flesh and to be raised to life in Him.

So, let this Christmas be the start of your journey to understand why Christ came, why you are here and why its important for you to accept, not just the gift of Christ, but to also accept what the gift means to your life today and to your eternal life to come.

You need the gift that Christmas represents.  Don’t think that you don’t.

Halleluiah Christmas to you.

Life a Delivered Life.

Your Moment at the Well

The Lord’s insight. It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you that matter most.

Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.  Before you were born, I sanctified you.”

Exodus 6:7: “I will take you as My people, and I will be your God.”

Exodus 33:17: “So the Lord said to Moses, I will do this thing that you have spoken for you have found grace in My sight and I know you by name.”

Many of us build our relationship with the Lord on the idea that we know Him. That is good but have you ever asked yourself does God know me?” There is a time in scripture where Jesus says to some who called themselves His followers, “I never knew you, depart from Me you who practice lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:23).

Lawlessness is not just a breach of the law. Lawlessness is a condition where we turn from the ways of God toward the ways of man. It is a state where our love for the Lord grows cold and our desires for ourselves grow hot. Lawlessness starts more easily when we see our relationship with the Lord as one where we proclaim that we know Him.

But it is better that our relationship with the Lord centers on the fact that He knows us.  Moses knew that God knew him. This gave Moses the confidence to reject the lawless ways of the world and to live as best he could for the things of God.

It should give us great comfort to know that God knows each of us.  It is an amazing thing to know that before we were even in the womb that God knew us.  This means that before our parents came together and before the sperm met the egg, God knew everything about us.

When our relationship with the Lord is based on the fact that we know Him, we can only speak of who we know Him to be.  But when our relationship with Him is based on the fact the He knows us, we can speak of His knowledge of us and of our knowledge of Him.

When we know Him, we speak of what we know about Him.  But when God knows us, He speaks to others about us.  We see this when God speaks to the devil about Job.  He says to satan, have you considered My servant Job?  God was saying to satan, I know Job inside and out.

When we speak of knowing the Lord we speak of His characteristics.  He is Love.  He is merciful.  He is longsuffering.  He is patient.  He is full of grace.  But this says little about who we are.  And even satan would know the things that we know about the Lord.

But when God speaks about knowing you and I, He speaks about who we are.  You are faithful; you are blameless.  You are honorable.  You are upright.  You are fearful and you run from evil.  We can say these things about ourselves, and hope others see and believe them or the Lord can say these things about us and we will know that others will accept them.

So, stop building your spiritual resume just about the things you know about the Lord.  It is important to know Him, but it is more important that He knows you. When you build your relationship with Him on what you know, you must rely on your own character and knowledge to be as accurate as you portray. You must speak for yourself.

Live instead in such a way that the Lord Himself would testify to knowing who you are and how you live. Because what God says about you will carry with it the value of His character and of Who He is. He speaks about you so that you don’t have to speak for yourself.

Search me O God and know my heart. Try me and know my anxieties.  And see if there is any wicked way in me.  And lead me in the way everlasting. People will understand more accurately who you are when God tells them of who He knows you to be.

Life a Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. Carnality is in the old you; godliness can only live where carnality has died.

Colossians 3:9-10: “You have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.”

1 Timothy 3:16: “And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.”

I’m ashamed to say that there have been times when I have looked at my life with Christ, and I see no difference in the life I lived without Him. I guess the old me just won’t go away. When we see more of who we are than who we should be perhaps its because we have not shed our old persons so the new person can come forth.

I am reminded of how things unfolded on the old TV program Superman. When Superman the human saw a crime being committed, he would step aside into a quiet place and change into his superman life, cape and all. In a way, he shed his old life for his Super-human life. People always remembered Superman; they never knew the human he was.

Who he was and where he came from was a mystery to the people.  He stopped crime.  That is what people saw and remembered.  None of this would have happened had he not shed his old life for his life with superpowers. Often, we find it difficult to know the new life because we want to do new things with the old life.

But it doesn’t work that way. We are reminded of this in Colossians 3:9-10. We cannot be renewed while we hold onto the old. The Lord doesn’t put polish on our old lives to make us look like we are something different.  He makes us something different, so we don’t look like we used to look.

But this is a hard thing for us to understand.  In some ways, it is a great mystery to even the most faithful of us because we cannot know where we can change or where we might find the cape that would show we are new. Well, you don’ need an empty room to change from your old to your new.

Godliness and a Godly life do not come from your human life.  It comes to the new life the Lord redeemed for you; the life waiting for you to claim.  You need only to understand you must shed the old so that the new can come forth.

If you are fighting the crime around you; if you are fighting the sin within you; if you don’t even recognize the crime and sin in and around you, perhaps its because you have not shed your old life. When Superman stepped out into the world in his cape there was no crime or no person who could defeat him.  He lived a superhuman life.

If you want to stop living life as a fleshly neighbor to the stronger things around, you then you must learn the mystery of shedding the old and putting on the new.  Pray and ask the Lord to reveal these things to you:

• Jesus came and was manifested in the flesh.  He must be manifested in your life. He makes you new.
• He was justified by the Spirit.  The Spirit told people around Him that He was God.  Pray that the Spirit would justify before others your transformation from an old life of flesh to a life in the Spirit.
• Jesus was seen by angels who announced it to the world. Pray that the Spirit would have people see that you are a new person.  They will announce it to their world.
• Jesus was preached to the world.  When you shed your old life, you will be able to shut your mouth because the world will preach your transformation more than you have to announce your transformation.

And if right now your old self is telling you that you don’t really need to die to the person you are, you should tell that person to shut up.  You will never know the person God wants you to be when you know the person you are better.  Shedding your old life is one of the single most profound acts of belief you can have in the Lord.

It means you trust that He knows the person He wants you to be is better than the person you know yourself to be. Agree with Him about that.  Go into your private place and shed that old person.  Step out into the same old world but as a new creation, dressed in the Spirit of the Lord and walking as a light in the darkness all around you.

Life a Delivered Life.