Are we listening?

I think about the children of Israel wandering around in the desert, it seems so clear that we; as a whole, are no different today. There are always exceptions to the rule. What is really sad is most of us think we are that exception. Let's take a quick look back at some problems of the Israelites.

They had been delivered out of bondage/slavery miraculously. They were led clearly by God, not man. ex; cloud by day and fire by night. God fed them daily. He was taking them to the promised land. Doesn't really sound like a lot of problems. Actually, seems like their lives were wonderful. But, let's examine closer and pay attention to how they responded. They grumbled and complained. It was uncomfortable out in the desert; understandably. Even though they were free, they wanted to go back. they were fed daily, yet complained about their provisions. God wanted to be in their presence, yet they were scared and had Moses go meet with God. Many rebelled against Moses, God's appointed leader. Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. It would seem; so are we.

The people of God today are the body of Christ. While we are on this planet; He is the head and we are His body. His work on the cross has miraculously set us free from the bondage of sin and we are no longer slaves to its power. We are led by His Holy Spirit. God's word, written and spoken, is our daily bread. He has "rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son". Co1:13 Sound familiar? What else is familiar? We grumble and complain. Being free means that we are now responsible for our actions. This does not mean we are going to be condemned, but we will be held accountable. Matthew 22:37-40 tells us that loving the Lord is the greatest commandment and loving your neighbor as yourself is the 2nd. We're really good at loving ourselves, but fall short loving our neighbor. Let's take a look at these seemingly simple tasks.

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all with all your soul, and with all your mind." Vs 37. How do we love our Lord? What does Jesus say? In John 14:15 He tells us, "if you love Me, you will keep my commandments". There are a lot of way to show love to our Lord. How do we show love to our spouse or children. We spend time with them. We find out what is important in their lives and participate in these things with them. We actually want to do the things that are important to them. How sad if I didn't know what my wife and children enjoy. How much worse if I didn't enjoy with them. A one sided relationship is not a relationship. How often are we asking God to do our bidding or give us what we want? We expect Him to do everything for us and we really don't do anything for Him. We act as though God's existence is to serve us. We feel good about the token good deed we did, out of our convenience. Sometimes we even "sacrifice" our want to make someone else feel good. How many of us take the time to ask our Lord, what is on Your mind? What are You wanting to do? How can I bless You?

"The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself." vs 39. Who is our neighbor? Luke 10 Jesus tells the parable of the good Samaritan. Our neighbor is the one in front of us. The Samaritan showed mercy. We are to be a people of mercy. Freely we have received, freely we are to give. Mercy looks past faults. Mercy forgives. Mercy encourages wholeness and releases healing. Mercy closes our mouths and opens our ears. Mercy is the fuel for love. If we focus on mercy, loving comes easy. Remember that we are talking about love as a verb, a choice, not a feeling. We choose to love especially when we don't feel like it.

As the body of Christ, let's line up with what the Head is doing. Let's choose to love and show mercy. Let's choose an attitude of thanksgiving. Let's choose to walk in humility and gentleness. Let's choose to walk in the freedom Jesus worked so hard to give us. Let's invite the conviction of God's mercy and walk in repentance. Repent from complaining. Repent from loving what the world has to offer. Let's love our Lord and one another. God has given us the Holy Spirit to guide us and teach us. Let's walk into the promise land that God has for us.

The "Busyness of Life"?

Busyness of life =
This is a statement used by many to excuse ourselves from things we "should" do. I am the worst. Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. Don't let the excuse, I don't have enough time, to rule you. Just to clarify, I'm writing this to myself. I have realized; no, wait. I am willing to admit that I don't always utilize my time very well. This has caused me to turn into the person I thought I would never be. It is so easy to "wind down" in front of the tv. Then I'm tired and choose not to go to bed at a decent hour and I wake up exhausted. I could come up with all sorts of excues and reasons but, I'm tired of that. It's time to start looking at my habits and taking control of them. Not letting them control me. I know in my head what a productive day should be. Not a day filled with crap that just takes up time either. But a day that starts me out focused.

I refer to the Matrix. This movie is quite profound. The spirit world that is all around us that does not sleep, It's always moving. We can either ignore it, take the blue pill, or take the red pill and face reality. There is a battle for our souls and it never stops. If we are true followers of Jesus then our souls are safe. That being said, we can still live hell on earth. Don't give the devil way to much credit. He only gets us on the things that we actually want. The reason we want the things that can harm us is due to our sin nature. So what does this have to do with the business of life? Everything! If we are so busy that we don't take the time for what is important, we lose. We lose focus! We are then uneffective as the light of the world. There are many destructive habits that used to rule me that are now dead. These temptations creep up on me once in a while but they have no hold on me. Jesus has healed me of a lot. But it is easy to be caught up in self. What I mean is, we can get so self focused that we don't even realize what is happening. I'm talking about the things we do to make ourselves "happy". Self medication. eg: sports, tv, facebook, movies, games and a whole list of things we do. Of course none of these activities are wrong of themselves. But it's the subltety of the distraction. Most of us don't have the courage to thoroughly examine our hearts and let the Holy Spirit convict us of our true motives. That is a strong statement, yet I've found this to be quite true. We're so busy trying to hide and run from our pain, we have to keep busy to avoid it. Most people who call themselves Christians, and probably are, live a life of denial. This doesn't have to be!!!!

It's quite simple. Stop walking in your pride!!! If you think you don't walk in pride, ask anyone who cares about you. Pride is a lot like body odor. Everyone around you can smell it before you do. You can't hide it. This has been a huge journey for me. (Not the body odor, or it could be and I just don't know it yet). God has been tearing down my pride for the last couple of years. I didn't realize how I always had to be right all the time. It turns out that I can be wrong and my value as a person does not change. What does all this have to do with business and distraction? Everything! It's our pride that stops the Holy Spirit from healing us. So we keep ourselves busy doing crap so we never have to think about anything, really, outside of ourselves. Everything we do is rooted in self fulfillment. This is not what Jesus has for us. Matthew 16:25 Jesus tells us, For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my My sake will find it. Part of losing our life is letting go of the things we want. Again I say, not all the things we do are bad. It's all about our motivation. Our motivation is key. It's the driving force in what we do.

If we walk in true humility then we walk in awareness. Aware of who and what we really are. If we really believed the things we say we do, then we would change the world like Jesus did. After all, He did say that we would do the things He did and more (John 14:12). Think about it for a moment. Do you believe that the car will start when you turn the key? Of course. How would you feel if the car didn't start? You don't wonder if the light will come on when you flip the switch. You expect it to. You "believe" it will. You don't even give it a second thought. Think about the things we actually believe in. We believe the chair will hold us up when we sit on it. We believe the water will come out of the faucet when we turn it on. We believe the door will open when we unlock it. These simple actions don't even require thought, we just do them. This is belief. So when we say we believe in Jesus, do we really? Faith does come in measures and this is comforting. The point is simple. Our pride holds us back. It keeps us busy and not self aware. To walk in humility is to believe the words of Jesus and act on them. To be aware of who we are because of the work of Jesus. We can't even take ownership of our healed hearts and transformed minds. We have nothing to boast about. Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Walk in humility and ask the Holy Spirit for more belief. Mark 9:24 Immediately the boy's father cried out and said, "I do believe; help me with my unbelief."