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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.

Your Moment at the Well

The Lord’s insight. Believers do not need authority to live faithfully.

Mark 11:28: “And they said to Him, by what authority are You doing these things?”

Matthew 7:28-29: “And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”

With our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution includes what is referred to as the Bill of Rights.  It says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

What is this idea of unalienable rights? Well, the word means something that is inherent to the person.  It cannot be taken away or denied.  It cannot be transferred; it cannot be refuted with human facts. Unalienable means it’s just you.  Life, liberty and happiness are inherently ours.  No one can give them, and no one can take them away.

When God said to Moses tell them “I Am” sent you God was saying I am unalienable.  God spoke as God about God. Jesus revealed to the people His unalienable Being.  He spoke of himself more than He taught what He knew. Jesus revealed Himself; the scribes taught what they learned about the Law.

A chemistry teacher may teach you about chemistry, but a chemist would reveal himself to you and by that you would learn chemistry. The chemist has unalienable authority because he shares himself so that you learn about what he knows. The chemistry teacher has learned about chemistry.  So, this gives the teacher knowledge authority. 

The teacher could be a bar tender who shares what he has learned about chemistry as a teacher. We don’t know what the scribes were who shared what they had learned. Jesus was not bartender.

It is important to understand this difference. There is a spiritual battle that goes on between the things that are unalienable or inherent and the things that are learned and man promoted.  It has been this way since Jesus’s time here and it’s that way today.

Since there was no law to argue against the things Jesus said and did, the scribes and the pharisees wanted to know who gave Jesus the authority to do the things He was doing. They questioned Him so they could find reason to take away His authority. You see, authority and power and status always want to keep authority and power and status.

You must learn to recognize the thoughts and ways of the scribes and the pharisees around you today. They would have you give up what is inherently right for you so you can buy into what they promote. You are a child of God because of your belief and faith in Christ. That is now your inherent nature.

To prove obedience to the law, the pharisees made it unlawful to carry your bedding on the sabbath day. You do not need to prove your faith to man by buying into what man says would accurately show your faith and life of a believer. To do that would be contrary to what is unalienable to us. The authority to be a believer is inherent in who you are.

When you were born, the first words spoken to describe you were probably “look, you have a son or daughter, a boy or a girl.” Doctors knew this because they saw some unalienable things about boys and girls that are unchangeable.  You were given a name based on these unalienable characteristics that were clearly visible the moment you were born.

Man wants to promote the man-view on many things that are inherent to us. They do this, just as the scribes and pharisees did, because it gives them status over others. Believers want to be like Jesus, but we don’t know how to react to man’s ways when it comes to our inherent rights and character given to us by God.

We want to be like Jesus, but we learn to live like today’s scribes and pharisees. Instead of knowing who we are, we allow the worldview to define and describe how we as believers ought to act and to behave.

If you are a believer, you are a child of God.  You don’t need any other validation to make that true. A nonbeliever can walk like you; can talk like you; can sing like you; and many other things they can do like you. But being a believer should be the inherent and unalienable reason you walk the way you walk.

Learn to recognize the battle that is going on in and around you.  Fight the ways of today’s scribes and pharisees with the inherent unalienable things that make you a child of God.  Don’t be taught to believe what is not inherent by those who challenge what is inherent to you.

You don’t need to come to believe that we have progressed to the point where we can believe marriage can be between anything other than a man and a woman. There are many things that will change over time, but there are many inherent things that time solidifies. Even if you have friends who may think otherwise, you must fight within yourself to stand for what is unalienable and never for authority.

God has given you many unalienable characteristics that make you like Him.  Don’t throw these away for something that makes you more like man. We can be sensitive and caring about how others feel even if they are confused. But we must not be confused by what others say and feel thereby giving up our unalienable and inherent nature that God has given us.

We need no authority from man to be the children of God He wants us to be.

Live A Delivered Life.

Your Moment at the Well

The Lord’s insight. Focus on the Lord to see yourself as you really are.

Isaiah 55:8-9: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord.”

Isaiah 56:1-2: “Thus says the Lord, keep justice and do righteousness.  For My salvation is about to come, and My righteousness is about to be revealed.  Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who lays hold on it.”

During Noah’s time, scripture says the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thought of man’s heart was only to do evil continually.  The Lord was sorry He made man – well everyone but Noah.  Noah it is said “found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” (Genesis 6:8).

When we look around today, we should wonder about the things we do as people. We didn’t live in Noah’s time but part of me believes Noah would have pulled his hair out at some of the things we do.  We don’t just have wicked thoughts and ideas; we turn what is right into what we call evil.

 Now we wouldn’t say our own thoughts are wicked or evil.  But we would quickly say yours are.  We wouldn’t say we are wrong about much, but we would quickly point out how wrong you are.  We do this because we don’t look within to learn how to see out. We use what we see outwardly in others to make others reflect on how bad they must be within.

I don’t believe this is the Way of the Lord. If we really want to see others as they are, we must learn to focus on seeing ourselves the way the Lord sees us. The thoughts we have should be the thoughts He has but this is not so for many of us.  The ways we go about life are not the Way He goes about life.

The Lord’s perspective about Himself and about us is different from our perspectives about Him and ourselves.  Perspective is more than what we think; it is the way we think about the things we think about. Seeing clearly is different for the Lord and for us.

The Lord cleans our heart and our minds so we can see clearly what is before us. But we will spend all our time trying to clean what is before us using an unclean heart and mind.  His ways and thoughts are not ours.  Faith and belief in the Lord cause the faithful to look within themselves to find understanding for what they see outside of themselves.

With the unbeliever, it’s the opposite. They look at what you are doing to make you see how different and how better they believe themselves to be.  Such a view and perspective bring sorrow to the Lord because we cannot accurately see out until we clean what is within.

If you want to see yourself as you really are, learn to use the heart and eyes of the Lord as the lens for how you look at others. And if you want to see others as they really are, learn to use the heart and lens of the Lord to see what is inside of you.

The Lord knows we do not listen to Him. In fact, we will argue with Him about what He says to keep Him from looking on the things we do and say. This is a twisted way of seeing and believing. I believe one of the reasons we fall to a twisted sense of what is true and right today is because we believe it is more likely others are more wrong than they are right and that we are more right than we are wrong.

But we are not the standard for what is right and wrong. we must stand on what is just – not simply for man, but what the Lord says is Just. Then we must do that which is righteous, not before man, but before the Lord.

Change your perspective and you will be blessed because you will lay hold of the very thing the Lord found in Noah that caused Him to give Noah grace in a time where wrath was what everyone had earned.

Live A Delivered Life.

The Lord’s insight. Being thankful cures us of the disease of selfishness.

1 Thessalonians 5:18: “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

2 Timothy 3:1-5: “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come.  For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power.”

Thanksgiving is a time of the year where we take time to reflect on life and to show our gratitude for the things we have and even for the hardships kept from us.  It is our way to let God know that we see His hand in all things about and around us.

Being thankful is the one thing that cures all of us from being selfish and self-centered.  It is God’s way of reminding us that we cannot control anything but the things inside of us.  We cannot make it rain; we cannot make it cool; we cannot make our own work to prosper; nor can we cure ourselves from those things that would disease our lives.

However, thankfulness can do what we cannot do.  Being a thankful person can make you love the people Jesus loves; it can make you love giving to the people Jesus wants to give; it can make you boast in the people Jesus boasts about; it can make you obedient to your parents; it can make you become holy; it can make you forgiving; it can make you keep your mouth shut about things that are unwholesome; it can make you love good; it can make you listen and learn; it can make you humble; it can make you love your life no matter your circumstances; and it can make you Love the Lord.

So, this Thanksgiving and everyday hereafter, learn to be thankful in everything. If you do this, you will have started your day doing at least one thing that is in obedience to what God calls for us all to do.

Being unthankful is disrespectful towards God.  It shows a lack of appreciation for the things God does for us that we cannot do. And remember, being unthankful is a quick way to get to the last days; don’t be in a hurry to bring about the end of your time and ours.

Live a Delivered Life.