Live Delivered

My message today is on Prodigal Living – Coming to Your Senses Again.  This is the second message in this series on the Prodigal Life.  My scripture reference is Luke 15:11-32.  Today’s message will focus on getting and keeping our lives on the right path.

Starting with Luke 15:16-21, scripture tells us: “And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.  But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!’”  So here is the situation.  The youngest son had squandered away his inheritance on wasteful prodigal living.  When he had nothing remaining from what he had, he found work feeding the pigs of one of the people of the land to which he had traveled.  And he was so hungry that he wanted to eat the pigs’ food.  Where does he go from here?

How is it that this young man found himself in such a dire condition of need?  Well, the short answer is sin.  I don’t mean the act of sin, though that happened.  I mean giving in to the thinking, desires, and leading of a sinful nature, the nature that is present in each of us.  The young man left a sound way of thinking and living with his father and followed the appeal of an indulging, self-gratifying way of thinking and living on his own.  He left good sense and followed nonsense.  With this, he found himself working in a pigpen, feeding the pigs, and he found himself hungry enough to want to eat the pigs’ food.  How is that for good thinking?

Now, some of you are probably saying that not all challenging things we experience are the fault of our poor thinking.  And that is true.  But the scripture is not talking about the exceptions here.  It is talking to us about those who trade sensible thinking for nonsense.  Our lives will follow hard after our thinking.  God did not create either of us to live, work and play with the pigs.  To even say we are better than that is to give more value to pigs than they deserve.  We leave what makes sense because we choose to follow what makes no sense.  We can only get back to our right minds when we recognize that we are in the wrong mind and place.  A pigpen is meant for the pigs, and pig food is meant for the pigs.  You are a child of God.  You have a place in the heart and home of the Lord.  He doesn’t ask you to share that with the swine.

This young man did two things that showed us he had come to his right mind.  First, he realized the gravity of his predicament; things were bad, and they were heading to a worse place for him.  Jesus tells the faithful believer that in His Father’s house there are many mansions, and that He goes to the Father to prepare a place for us.  This young man came to realize he could not find a mansion in the place the pigs lived.  He needed to return to a home meant for a son.  Often, we are unable to break free of the senseless way we live because we keep trying to make good sense of poor thinking.  We should be turning away from the thinking that changed the course of our lives.  The thinking that gets us into the grips of prodigal living will keep us there.  That thinking cannot be used to free us.

The young man also decided to get back to the place where he went off track.  Sometimes this can be a difficult thing for us.  Prodigal and sinful living often comes with consequences that cannot be easily changed.  If you have wasted all you had, you cannot get that back again.  What you had is gone; what you have now is what you have now.  But we can always return to the point of thinking that got us to where we are, stepping out from there again with sound thinking.  This is what the son did when he said, “I will arise and go to my father and say to him, ‘Father I have sinned against heaven and before you and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’”  As I look back on my own life, I realize that often I could not change my circumstances because I was unwilling to go back and change my thinking.  I realize that God is a wonderful and great God capable of anything.  But because I often refused to change my thinking about my situation, I made it more difficult for Him to step in and to change my life.  If things are not changing for you perhaps it could be that you are not willing to change your thinking about you and your relationship with the Lord.

This young man could not go back and change what had happened to him.  And his blessing was to come to his senses and to see clearly once again what he should do to change his course.  We often thank the Lord for blessings of life that we receive of Him.  And this is rightly so.  We are to always enter His courts with thanksgiving.  But we often miss something as valuable and life-changing to us as the blessing we receive.  That is the blessing of the blessing.  This young man did not miss laying hold of the blessing of his blessing.  The blessing changes your immediate circumstance, but the blessing of the blessing changes your future circumstances.  Prodigal living tries to take something from us and leave us with no hope of a future that is without the mark of a past.  But the blessing of the blessing is the way the Lord changes your past by helping you come to live a future that is beyond amazing.  Don’t miss the power of what I’m saying here.  When you come back to your senses with the Lord, He helps you learn how to live in the full favor of the blessing of your blessings.

Still, some of you may be saying, “But you don’t know what I’ve done.  You don’t know how bad I’ve been.  You don’t know how unforgiving the people are that I’ve hurt.  I can’t possibly change the things I’ve done by changing my thinking.”   I say to that you are partially correct.  You may not be able to change anything on your own, but with God’s help much can be changed.  Prodigal living is carnal living.  Carnal living makes you pay a lot more for what it gives you; and what is gives you has no real value in relation to the value of what you use to buy it.  You may not be able change the carnal circumstances you face, but you can change the Spiritual truth on which your circumstances stand.  So, to come to your senses you must be ready to lose the mind that is leading so that you can gain the mind of the Spirit of God.  He will teach you to live in the Spirit and to take your best shot at hitting the target that will change your life forever.  And even when you know your aim is just off and is sure to miss the bullseye, the Spirit asks you to trust Him and release your shot anyway.  You see, when you trust Him enough to shoot at something you know you are likely to miss on your own, He steps in.   And after you have done what He asks and let go of your best shot, and He moves the target into the line of fire of your best shot.  Instead of you hitting the target based solely on your aim, He moves the target into the path of your shot.  Only a great and mighty God can do this!

When we come to our senses, we come to a place of dependence on and guidance of the Spirit of God.  We stop relying on our carnal mind and senses to guide how we live, and we start living more under the leading of God’s Spirit.   Prodigal living says to us to life is short so we must enjoy it while we can.  And that is true; life is short.  Wasteful living will lead you to waste away your life in just a short while.  Prodigal living takes us off track from where we should be.  But hope is always with us when we are willing to come to our senses and let God lead us to where we are unwilling to go.  God wants to do this for us because it is in those places we are unwilling to go and to stay that we can live the abundant life God has promised to us.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

My message today is about being a Certain Person.  My scripture reference is Luke 15: 11-32.  Today’s message will be the first of what will be three messages from this passage of scripture that we typically know as the prodigal son or lost son or the prodigal father.

In Luke 15:11, Jesus says, “Then He said:  A certain man had two sons”.  Right away we should see something special about this man and this father.  Jesus referred to him as “a certain man”.  To be “certain” is to be particular, different, or better in some way from things around you that might appear the same.  To be certain is to demonstrate qualities of a higher standard than the norm.  Any one of us can be any old person, but the challenge for us is to want to be special—to be Certain—in the way this father was.  If you don’t think you have it in you to become greater than you are today, don’t worry.  Jesus has it in Him to do with you what you cannot do with yourself.  All that you need is to have the desire and the will to allow Him to work into you the things you need to work out of you the things that keep you from being a Certain Person.  Let me say that a different way.  Some troubling behaviors won’t leave us until we work into us the things that will chase our troubles away.  If you want to stop being unforgiving, you need to have forgiveness worked into you so it can send unforgiveness running out the door of your life.  If you want to be a Certain Person, you need some certain work done in your life.  This is the life of a Certain Person.

What can this mean about being a father or a mother?  Well, I believe they ought to be Certain Persons.  A real father is a particular person, chosen for a particular reason, and who lives in a particular way that is distinctive from every other father.   Our Heavenly Father is that example to believers.  Certain Persons create things that are distinctive and good.  As we will see again later in this scripture series, Certain Persons are amazingly different people who bring about amazingly different things in the lives of the people around them.  Certain Persons make the people around them certain.  You see, the value of your life is the value of Jesus’ life.  He bought you with His life so in many ways your life is as valuable as His life is.  So, what about you?  Are you a Certain Person looking to bring certain favors into the lives of others, or are you one of the others who is looking for a Certain Person to bring favor into your life?  If you want to change the lives of the people around you, develop certain things about you that are sure to change certain things about others.

Now remember there were two sons.  Luke 15:12-13 says, “And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’  So he divided to them his livelihood.”  What have we here between the father and this younger son?  Well, a Certain Person will live in such a way that he provides for his children; this father obviously did that.  But more than provision, a Certain Person will live in such a way to raise children who will themselves demonstrate Certain Person qualities.  The younger son’s request for his inheritance was the indication of the character of a worldly man.  But the father was a Certain Person who did things in a certain way so the younger son would eventually come to demonstrate better qualities.  

What specifically did the father do?  The father obliged his son and gave him the portion of his livelihood that would in time fall to the son.  Some of us would be quick to note that perhaps the father should not have given the son anything since he knew it would be wasted.  The word prodigal means wasteful.  To be sure, I believe the father recognized the son’s wasteful, self-centered, uncaring, entitlement and worldly nature.  But the father didn’t just give the son his treasures—things that could be wasted.  Giving his son what he wanted opened the door for the father to give him something he needed but didn’t see that he needed.  In addition to treasures, the father gave him something that could not be wasted.  The father gave his son something that would later help him want to live differently.  Those of us who see carnally would think that it cost the father his hard-earned worth.  But his worth did not and could not change his son.  No, the father worked into his actions love, selflessness, generosity, honor, humility, a sense of value and the love of God.  These would all be things the son would later need to root out of himself the things that were holding him back.

Sure, we ought to give others material help when we believe it will help them.  But when we are Certain People, we will give or withhold in ways that sow the seeds of the life changing qualities. Certain People do certain things in certain ways to produce certain results in the lives of those we want to become Certain People.

The younger son wanted what he thought was going to be rightfully his; he wanted his future, and he wanted it today.  Sometimes we live like this younger son.  We want to reach out into our tomorrows and waste away what we find today.  That only makes our tomorrows harder than they would have been.  But the father gave to his son something that is present today to make his tomorrow better.  He gave his son something that could never be consumed entirety.  He gave him something would be producing and reproducing.  He gave him freedom—freeing qualities that would help him find and live freely in his today and in his future.  He gave his son honor when dishonor was present; he gave his son selflessness when selfishness dominated; he gave his son forgiveness before the son knew forgiveness would be needed.

So, what about us?  Do we try to teach or our children (or others in our power) by withholding from them the things we have worked hard to attain?  Do we want them to learn to make it on their own?  Do we believe this is best for them?  Do we believe it is bad to give them all that they want from us?  Listen, it is not a bad thing to be prudent about what we give or to withhold from our kids (or others).  But it is more important that we learn not to withhold the things others need to break themselves free.  Our natural natures will offer the help of not helping.  But a Certain Person will use the request for help to sow the seeds of the character of a Certain Person.  A Certain Person will gladly help in one way so that he can help in the most important way: sowing the seeds of freedom into the lives of others so that they can learn to depend on something greater than themselves to make it in a world that tells them they can only make it by depending on themselves.

I am sure we all have some prodigal living in us.  I know that I do.  But each time we stumble across some of that prodigal nature, we should look more deeply within ourselves to see if we find the Certain Person quality that will root that prodigal nature right out of our lives.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

There was a man that used a camel to transport his straw. He would load as much straw as he could on the camel to get the most out of the animal.  One day, when he loaded the last piece of straw onto the camel’s back, the camel collapsed. His back had broken, and the man was unable to move any more straw.

This may just be a story, but it feels very real to many of us today. It seems we are stuck in a season of difficult times with one thing after another pilling up on our backs.  Last year we dealt with COVID, and we are still dealing with it this year. Then last week people all over had to live through some of the most extreme weather conditions we have ever seen.  Many of us, with everything else that goes on in life, may have believed we were at the point of our last straw, that we just cannot take another step.  

We must remember, we are not camels and we do not have a master or an owner. Instead, we have a God who loves us and will never allow the burdens we go through to break the backs of our wills to carry on with Him.  I know some of you might say, “But you don’t know what I’m going through”.  That is true; I do not know. But I know this: Jesus taught us that with Him we can always take another step.

In Matthew 26:39, we read the example of Jesus near the end of His strength. In this passage, Jesus says to God, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless not as I will but as You will”.  The cup He speaks of is the last straw that would challenge Him the most.  It is the night of His betrayal, the night before His crucifixion.  But Jesus knew that though what He faced was difficult, there was more and better to come.  He needed only to be willing to take just one more step with God.  Jesus did not want to get out of something; He wanted to go through something.  

We often time think problems come upon that make our lives hard, and I do not deny that to be true.  But could it be also that sometimes we come to our problems because we are unwilling to see that God is trying to remove some of the heaviness of our wills and replace it with the straw of His will?  Life and difficulties teach us to want to get out of the things that challenge us the most.  But the Lord wants us to know that life is not what is happening to us now. Life is what lies ahead, beyond these temporary roadblocks. We must understand that no matter our situation, it is in our darkest hour that makes the coming light shine brightest.  From our coldest nights come our warmest days.  From our most difficult losses come our most precious gains. Through  our most difficult sickness we find healing for our souls.  From the greatest disappointments in our relationships come our greatest joys with those same relationships.  From our greatest falls come our highest achievements.  And from our greatest challenges we can find the desire to have the lives God desires for us.  

The devil wants you to stake your claim to life based on how you keep from taking on that last straw.  Do not believe or live this way.  Jesus wants us to know that an abundant life is one where we depend not just on the work He did to save us, but more so on the work He does to carry us through the burdens we carry daily.  He is always willing to take just one more step for us; let’s be willing to take one more step on His shoulders.  You are never at your last straw when you are on His shoulders.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Do you know someone who always seems to find a way to see what is not possible with what they are facing? We all have some of this tendency in us.  We look at what is before us and then at what we want.  Then we decide that the difference between what is and what we want is not possible for us to have.  We don’t allow room for the possible because we see how impossible things are.  Moses did this when God called him to go back to Egypt to deliver the Israelites.  Moses had all kinds of reasons he didn’t see how he could be successful – even with God’s help.  He finally asked God to choose someone else, saying he was not an eloquent speaker.  Moses did not believe anything could change that, not even an encounter with God.  God was patient and responded to Moses by saying, “Who made man’s mouth?  Was it not I the Lord?”

In many ways today we are like Moses.  Sometimes we may say we believe God, but we have a hard time believing what can be or what is different with us.  We don’t see any change in who we are, not before or even after we come to know the Lord.  We continue to live knowing that God is real but unknowingly denying the power of that knowledge to work in our lives.  One of the first things that must change in us when we come to faith in God is to believe that He can and will and probably already has changed us in some significant ways that we may not see right away.  We see this in scripture in Genesis 18:14 when the Lord says to Abraham “Why did Sarah laugh, saying shall I surely bear a child, since I am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord.”  The Lord had just told Abraham and Sarah, who were in their late 80s, that they would have a child the next year.  Sarah couldn’t believe it because she believed what was impossible for her age.  Abraham may not have believed this could be true given his age, but he believed that age to God and to man were not the same things.  Abraham was able to believe by faith.  Sarah simply believed, as she always had, in what her previous experience told her was true. 

Consider this.  Noah did what was impossible for his time; he built an Ark.  Moses did what was impossible to do; he drew water from a rock in the desert.  Elizabeth, like Sarah, did what was impossible and conceived in her old age.  Mary did what was impossible and conceived while she was a virgin.  David did what was impossible and slew Goliath the giant when no one else could do it.  I could go on, but you should see my point.  In each of these cases, and in countless more, man believed what was impossible, but God made the improbable possible for them.  The only difference between these people and us today is in the change we allow to happen within us when we come to know God.  If we do not permit faith to change our belief system, we will likely go through life knowing God but not feeling any different inside than we did when we didn’t know Him at all.

Let’s not be like Moses and say with our actions, “Lord I don’t feel any different now than I did before I met you.”  The first miracle of your life in the Lord should be to stop believing the impossible and to learn to believe the improbable, because with God nothing is impossible—absolutely nothing, including what troubles you most.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Harriett Tubman is known for leading escaped slaves North to freedom.  In a way Ms. Tubman was the “Moses of the slaves.”   She was the Conductor of the Underground Railroad, a network of stops and operators that led many slaves to freedom.  One of the songs of the Underground Railroad was the traditional black American Spiritual “Wade in the Water”.  The words of this song are:

Wade in the water,
Wade in the water, children.
Wade in the water,
God’s gonna trouble the water.

We can imagine slave lives were lives of great tribulation and oppression.  So how then is Ms. Tubman and this song a message of faith?  Well, she used the foundation of faith and spiritual strength to help slaves who had already endured great trials to stay strong in faith and hope.  Scripture speaks to trials and how we should live with them in this way.  Romans 5:3 says, “And not only that, but we glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character produces hope”.  Now this reference–and not only that–is a reference to our faith.  Real faith will be tried over and over again until we are perfected in faith.  But faith alone is not sufficient to help us live abundant lives while here on earth.

Imagine that slaves woke up every day as slaves. They worked every day as slaves, and then they went to bed slaves. They may have spent their entire lives in chains as slaves.  Faith alone wasn’t going to help them live abundantly as slaves; they needed more.  And like them, we need more today.  “Wade In The Water” was Tubman’s way of inspiring slaves to always be ready and willing in faith, to know the part they had to play, and to never give up doing their part as they waited on the Lord to do His part.  Your faith must make you willing to wade deeper into the waters of your unknown, knowing that God will carry you through.  When God troubles the water, it is His way to provide for your freedom, your healing, your relationships, and even your salvation.  You cannot play it safe with faith. Faith must take you into the deep waters of your needs, beyond your ability to satisfy yourself on your own.

Tribulations are simply trying experiences. They will test us to see if we have the presence of the Spirit of perseverance.  Perseverance is the ability to endure without being overcome.  It is the ability to draw strength from a source other than yourself when you are emptied of all that you are.  Perseverance produces character.  Character is the presence and refinement of the moral, emotional, and mental traits that keep us true in our reflection of the image of God.  Character produces hope.  Hope is the confident expectation that something positive can and will happen for us as we wait faithfully for God to trouble the waters surrounding the things that give us trouble.  And even if that hope is delayed, we are not overcome but strengthened through our hope as we endure.

So then, no matter what you are facing today–no matter your circumstances–stand strong in faith where you are. Let your perseverance and character and hope be perfected enough so that you will wade into the waters while you await God’s presence and His promise to never leave nor forsake you.  When God brings trouble to the things that trouble you, He brings healing, He brings freedom, and He brings relief.  So go on! Wade into the waters of your tribulations and demonstrate the strength of your spiritual perseverance, character and hope as you faithfully wait for God to trouble your troubles.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Hi, my message for today is learning we have a special characteristic to transform our lives.

Recently I was up early in the morning.  I walked outside to get our newspaper.  I hurried as it was a cold morning, and I don’t like cold at all.  So I was quick and purposeful as I stepped outside and into an environment that I don’t like.  Then it came to me. God doesn’t want me or you to walk into any situation and to simply allow the effects of that situation to change us.  He made us to be life-changers so that we rule the circumstances of life that would want to rule us.  Now, we often speak of how the challenges of life, how difficult circumstances, and how the way we react and respond to tough things can all be used to make us better.  This is true, and this is all well and good.  But this is not enough for God.  He asks a little more of us.

This little experience with the cold weather helped me to see how selfish I might have been in some situations when I simply endured. I had it within me to make things better!  You see, I have a problem: I don’t like doing things I don’t like to do.  But now I see that often God has more. God desires better for us than what we desire for ourselves, especially when our desires are for what we do not want to do.  He wants us to realize what we can and should be doing is to make life better for others just because we are here and living today.  The scripture speaks to this special characteristic of who we are in the Matthew 5:13. It says, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses if flavor, how will it be salty again?”  Just like sunshine, rain, light, good, and love, salt is one of those things that has no purpose for itself; it is only here to make things better for you and me.  Everywhere we look, we can see the effect and impact left behind on people and in the earth by these things.  They are not limited by the circumstances they encounter; they bring change to their circumstances.  Every time the sun shines it leaves a bit of its warmth behind.  Every time it rains it leaves a bit of its life-giving nutrients behind.  And wherever love abounds, the Lord is there in all His glory.  And salt helps to bring out the best in things.  

So, it came to me that perhaps God would much rather that we impact our circumstances with our good rather than to simply work through our circumstances until we can get on to something else.  Being salt is part of the good needed to make things better for others.  Salt is a preservative for things of value we want to preserve; it is a healing remedy when there is a sickness about us; it helps to release the full flavor of something we love.  Salt is used to change the circumstances of many things that would otherwise die without it.  Salt is made better and shows its best when it is used right where it is to change the things it touches.  If salt is not used, it will be of no real value and it will die.

So, you are the salt of the earth; you are the thing that can be poured into the lives of others to make them better.  You can soften a hard life, you can heal a wounded spirit, you can lift a fallen soul, and you can bring joy to the most unloved person.  Being salt will teach you how to focus on others more than yourself; it will teach you how to treat others in a healthy way; it will teach you how to give even when you don’t believe you have much to give.  As much as we say, “Look at what the Lord has brought me through,” being salt will help us learn to say with gladness, “Look at the good I can do right here where the Lord brought me to be.”  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

My message today is on what it means to Understand.

I’m sure if you thought for just a moment, you could find a handful of things about life that you do not understand, things you cannot comprehend, or things you cannot make sense of.  This message is not about how much or how many things you know and understand; rather, it is about your ability to discover what is not clear without using what is clearly before you.  It is about your ability to make sense of what is not known without using what you do know.  The ability to understand is vital to having a strong relationship with God for there will be more times when we will have to understand more than what God says; we will have to understand Who God is.

In Daniel 10:12, scripture speaks to our ability to understand. It tells of an Angel who came to Daniel and spoke to him. “Then he said to me, ‘Do not fear Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words.'”  Now, we don’t know exactly what Daniel’s words were, but that is the nature of understanding.  I believe he was simply seeking understanding that could only come from God.  Whatever he said, his words obviously moved God to act by sending an Angel to Daniel with an answer.  Why?

Now, I don’t know about you, but I will acknowledge that I have struggled with a lack of understanding more than I would like to admit.  There are lots of practical things we just don’t get.  So I suppose that should explain why there are many more spiritual things about God that we do not understand but we should.  For me, I even know why I did not always understand as I should.  It is because I often waited until I had a problem then I went to God for understanding so I could decide what I wanted to do.  I’m sure there are many others like this, who foolishly live on their own understanding apart from Him until they have problems they cannot solve.  Then they run to Him with those problems seeking to understand what they should do.

But thank the Lord for examples like Daniel.  For he revealed to us the fallacy of our ways.  You see, Daniel did three things to become a person of understanding that we should all do.  First, he set his heart to understand His God and not just his problems.  Then he humbled himself with his need for understanding before his God such that he kept his fleshly understanding from controlling his behaviors.  And finally, Daniel did not seek God’s understanding just so he could learn how to get out of a tight situation – he sought to be a person of understanding so that in a tight situation the power and favor of God would be revealed to others.

So this is what it means to understand: set your heart to understand the nature of God and humble yourself in this need before Him so that you are not tempted to use your own strength or the devices of man to escape your tight spots.  To understand God is to Stand Under God for all that you are.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you. 

My message today is on finding delight in advice.

Throughout our lives, we will live and listen to a lot of things.  We listen to people–we listen to the media; we listen to teachers; we (or at least some of us, unfortunately) listen to the noise of social media–in a way you are listening to me right now.  But we need to be very careful about who we listen to.  The quality of our whole lives depends on the influence of the advice we hear and take.  My mom used to say to me, “Never take the advice or listen to anyone who themselves did not listen to the Lord.”  I also learned that I needed to love receiving the advice of those who loved and cared about me.

We cannot have or live the life possible to us when we live only on the advice we give ourselves.  We must allow for something or someone else to help us know what we do not know.  In Psalms 37:4 scripture gives us this advice: “Delight yourself in the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”  This scripture is telling us that our attitudes should be to find our relationship with the Lord the most delightful thing.  I have come to love loving Him; that is my attitude and simple delight toward Him.

But there is something more with this scripture than just advice.  The most well-meaning person giving us advice cannot bring that advice to its intended conclusion.  Only the advice we get from the Lord can do that.  With this scripture we are told to delight ourselves in Him and He shall give us the desires of our heart.  Consider what this means: advice with a delight as a reward.  When we learn to delight in our relationship with the Lord, He returns our delight back toward us in the form of His own delight with us and with the heart and attitude we have toward Him.  He does this by searching our hearts when we don’t know it and then giving us the desires that He finds there when we don’t expect it.  He loves to do this.  Our delight in Him comes back to us as His delight with us.

You may still be missing the significance of what this means.  Some of us may find delight in a quiet evening, or a favorite book, or a child, or in a favorite food.  Our attitude toward having those things is always joyful.  Spiritual delight is like dancing before Him when He may not be looking. It’s never accepting hurt because you Love Him or love others. It’s like signing of Him when only you can hear yourself. It is living like heaven is right here on earth. When He is our ultimate delight, our attitude and our heart are always toward having Him.  And when we set our hearts to face Him this way, He delights to give us the desires of our hearts, even those we have not offered to Him in prayer.  Yes, when we delight in Him, He gives us many of our desires before we ever ask.  You will have very few unanswered prayers when you learn to delight in Him. So learn to find delight in taking advice from the Lord.  Delight yourself in Him today, and He will give back to you His own delight in you.  

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.  “It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, pride, superiority, and ego.” He went on, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, goodness, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith – oh and did I say Love. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”  The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”  The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

One of the most troubling things for me has been the time I spent losing the battle for my life and I didn’t even know who or what I was fighting against.  I know now that battle was between sin and Spirit.  Scripture tells us about it this way in Mark 14:38 where it says “Watch and pray lest you fall into temptation.  The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak”.    Because I didn’t know enough about the power of sin and the overcoming power of the Spirit, I spent many years strengthening my sinful nature so I could live the life I thought was good for me, not understanding every time I won at something in my flesh I lost another battle for my life.  The flesh is never strong enough to overcome sin; indeed as strong as we may be in the flesh it will always be weak against sin.

Perhaps some of you understand what I am saying.  So like the grandson in this story, I wondered one day, “Lord, why is it that it seems like I am always fighting against myself for myself?”  It was then I learned that the Spirit wanted me to always choose what was good and right, but my flesh wanted to choose what was appeasing and gratifying.  I also came to fully understand the nature of sin and to know that sin would always give the flesh what it wanted, so my flesh was kept weak to the power of sin.

So how did I overcome this fight?  For me, I had to learn to starve my flesh and to feed my Spirit.  You see, I knew I couldn’t just defeat my flesh; I knew that I had to kill it or it would always find a way to make me mess up.  So starving it was the best way to rid myself of it.  But I also learned that I had to feed the Spirit so that It would be strong enough to help me live the life God wanted me to live–the the life that I actually wanted to live for Him.  I also learned that the fight against sin and the fight to do the will of God has to be left to the power of the Spirit.  So we must learn that instead of fighting in our flesh to stay away from sin that it is an easier fight to give our flesh over to the power of the Spirit.  So we strengthen the spirit to subdue the flesh because the Spirit is indeed the only thing strong enough to fight and win again sin.

If you try to fight the battle for your life on your own, you will lose; so learn to feed your Spirit the things of the Spirit and to starve the flesh of the things it desires.  The Spirit is the champion you have inside you Who is there to fight and win your battles for you.  So feed Him and leave no food for your flesh.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

In the movie The Color Purple they sing the song “God is trying to tell you something”.  It is a classic song that speaks to the lengths God will go to speak to us.  In a way He must go to great lengths to talk to us because we will often go to great lengths to miss what He tries to say to us.

In Haggai 1:5, scripture brings this to the hearing of the people when it says, “Now therefore, thus says the Lord of Hosts, Consider your ways!”  This is a simple Word, and for me it simply says the way I live can keep me from understanding the way God speaks and ultimately whether I can learn to hear Him speak.

Sometimes we intentionally live in ways that we do not want to hear from God; and then there are times when we unintentionally live in ways that keeps us from hearing God.  Either way, He speaks to us about this in the same way – Consider our Ways.

When we decide we need rest before we can go to church – He says, “Consider your ways!”

When we decide we need to fix our house before we invite Him into our home – He says, “Consider your ways!

When we fill our hearts with worldly stuff that leave no room for Him – He says, “Consider your ways!

When we believe we do all the right things but right things don’t happen for us – He says, “Consider your ways!”

When we sow much, but we bring home little; when we eat all that we love, but we are still hungry; when we drink, but we are not filled; when we are friendly, but we have few friends; when we earn much, but we owe much more – to all this He says, “Consider your Ways.”

Consider this.  You live on the same street that God lives.  In one case, He lives in the house directly across from your house; but you are too busy with your stuff to ever invite Him to your house, so you never learn to hear Him speak. His message to you is to consider your ways.  Then He may live in the house next door to you, and you share a driveway with Him; but you never ask if you can give Him a lift, so you never hear what His needs may be.  His message to you is the same: consider your ways.   Then there is the instance where you lose your job and are unable to pay your rent, so He invites you to come live with Him; then you learn how He lives and how He speaks and He learns the same things about you.  His message is the same: consider your ways.

God wants more than just to live in the same neighborhood as you do; He wants more than to share a common driveway with you; He doesn’t simply want your life and His life to cross paths; He wants to share His life with you, and He wants you to give Him your life.  When God speaks to us it comes with blessings; so if you will consider your ways, maybe you would hear what He is trying to tell you, and perhaps you will find the blessings of life He has for you.   Live A Delivered Life.  Love you.