"Jesus Christ, All in All. By Brother Andy Giebler October 30th,
2016
Amen. Thank you.
You may be seated. I’ll tell you
what, it’s kind of a scary thing to be up here, and we hear that a lot from
people who stand behind this podium, but, it’s even a fearful thing, because I
know why I’m here. And, I didn’t put
myself here. I don’t boast in that; I
don’t do anything to lift myself up, but I know that there’s a
responsibility. And, it’s a wonderful
thing to see people learn and grow. And,
to work with Parrish—and he shared his kind words—and as we’ve grown together.
We’re taking, on our theme this month, Jesus Christ, our all in all, and I want
to sub-topic this, “Loving God with All.”
And, I see people with a zeal for God, and it’s an awesome thing. And, this isn’t just a, “Say something about
Parrish because he said something about me,” but, I know he’s got a—something
that I saw since he’s been gone, sharing with his family. He left to go perform a wedding for his
nephew, but, yet, he went for much more than that. And, I see people with a zeal and a fire for
God, that they’re putting that first.
That there is something that says, “I’m going to go share the Gospel, no
matter what.” And I know Parrish’s
background; I know Parrish, as a Muslim, was one that was not always preaching
the Gospel of Christ, but, his zeal for the Gospel is much more… He had a physical thing, an ideological
thing, to take and to tear down Christians.
I don’t boast on that, and neither does Parrish. But, when I see people that have a zeal
that’s so far beyond any religious ideology, more than just a religious zeal,
but a zeal that says, “Hey, I’ve got something.
I’ve got something that’s worth sharing, I’ve got something that’s worth
studying, I’ve got something that’s worth keeping my life pure and unspotted
from fore the world. That’s Jesus
Christ, all in all. That’s something
that—I never wanted to sit in a church where it’s just church. But, it’s a blessing to see people, people
that call me, text me, “Hey, I want to share with you this…” “I just shared
with somebody,” “I just ministered to somebody,” and that’s not religion;
that’s ministry. That’s godliness;
that’s putting God first. That’s putting
God first when someone would rather go have a cheeseburger, and sit down and
stare a wall for a while, and, just enjoy their food, and nothing else. Sit in front of a TV, or just enjoy some
sleep. When God awakes—I’ve heard
stories of people, God awakened them in the middle of the night, “Go share with
somebody,” and somebody as there that needed ministering to, at that crazy hour
of the morning. Talking about Jesus Christ, all in
all, and putting God first in everything.
We look at Paul, and Paul taught—he taught a lot of things, but, one of
the simple things was, the Gospel.
What’s this Gospel all about? That Jesus died, that He rose again, that He
was a perfect sacrifice, and He’s coming back for us, and that we can be born
again. Yeah, he taught a lot of
different things, but, that, in a nutshell, “Keep the Gospel pure. Keep the Gospel pure.” And, that may seem like a simple thing, but, when
we look at the world today, we look at where we’re at, there’s a whole lot of
things going on. People get up, thy go
to church, they have a form of godliness—and I want to be careful to say that
could be any of us, even me, sitting here in this room. I’m not talking about people in other
churches, I’m just talking about people in general. It’s just something that we have to be
careful for, because this Gospel is too precious, and eternity is something
well worth fighting for. And, it’s a possibility,
we could have this religion, but, you know, we could do the right things, and,
say, “God forgive me,” and do this right, and do that right, but, yet, never be
truly born again, but never truly resting in the Grace of God. Because, to be resting in the Grace of God,
that means we’re changed, that means we have repented, that means we have
turned around and gone a different direction.
And that’ where Paul preached—it was just so simple—the death, burial, and
resurrection, but, there’s so much more than that: The fact that we have a God to rely on. One of the things that Jesus said, before He ascended,
he said, “I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you.” We have—when we come to the guy, when we’re
born again, that circumcision made without hands, we take on Christ. We don’t just take on a church name. We don’t get baptized in the name of a
church. We don’t get baptized for a
membership to a church. That’s
your—mine—conviction. Your commitment to
God. That’s your birth; you’re being
born into Christ. That’s the beginning
of Jesus Christ, your all in all. But,
it goes so much more than that. You
know, we look at Jesus Christ, how do I make Him my all in all, every day? You know, we look at what’s going on in the
world. The biggest thing going on right
now, outside of the World Series, we’ve got elections coming up, we’ve got wars
and rumors of wars, we’ve got holidays: we’ve got Halloween, we’ve got Thanksgiving, we’ve
got Christmas. How do I put God first in
all of that? I want to take a side-note in our
election. People say, “How do we put God
first, there?” I want to go there,
because I hear a lot of people, and I included—I can get involved in a
political conversation, but, am I putting God first in that political conversation? There’s nothing wrong with sharing your
views, sharing your values, sharing your understanding of what’s going on, but,
putting God first—this is still a side-note; I haven’t gotten into my notes,
yet, here. This is just something I’m
really sensitive on, because what if we’re so—I say candidate ‘B’ is the one I
can’t stand, and candidate ‘A’ I the one I want to vote for, and I want to talk
this one down, and this one up, and I offend someone, just because I want to
prove I’m right about a political candidate.
There’s a time to be right about things.
There’s a time to say, “This is the way things are.” But, if I’m putting God first, I’m tempering
that conversation in a way that respects that individual. The fact is that my first and foremost thing
is not to worry about who’s elected; it’s to worry about who’s the God of my
life, and share the Gospel with somebody, and, if I’m so into this political
conversation that I can’t see I’m offending them, then they’re going to walk
away from me, and maybe never want to have a word with me again, because I’ve
offended them over politics. There are
some people who are way more into politics than I am, and get way more personal
with it than I do, so, if I show up, and throw out one flippant comment—and
that could go beyond politics, but that seems to be the hot topic. And, while we’re on the topic, there’s two
things we can do, which I think are really important. One is to put your ballot in the box, and the
other one is much more important, that’s our prayers. That’s putting this before the throne of
God. So, enough with the election and
politics. You know, we’ve got all these
other things going on, our holidays, things that we do, putting God first in
all of those things. Hallowe’en’s a big
one. How do I put God first when it’s
Hallowe’en? But, there’s a way of doing
things. You can still celebrate
something your kids like, and do it godly.
Nott celebrating their
holiday, I mean, mostly what the kids want is to dress up as something cool and
have some candy. And I’m not going to
stand up here and tell you exactly how to do that, but, I know if you ray about
it, and put God first, there’s a Scripture that says, “If you celebrate a day,
celebrate it unto the Lord. If you
celebrate a day not, celebrate it not unto the Lord.” (Romans 14:5-6) If you’re going to celebrate something,
celebrate it unto God. Let there be a
conviction that, “This is how I’m going to do this, and I’m going to lift up
God in this.” I’m going to read a Scripture that
Chris Ulrich used last Sunday; I want to highlight a couple of things in it. Acts 17:22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill,
and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too
superstitious. And, here, ‘superstitious,’ he’s
talking about religious. Acts 17:23-29 For as I passed
by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To THE
UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God
that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven
and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as
though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all
things; And hath made of one blood all
nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined
the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they
might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of
us: For in him we live, and move, and
have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also
his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are
the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold,
or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. First of all, I want to highlight,
“…in Him we dwell…” and he’s there, if haply we would seek after Him. Ad he set bounds for nations. And we talk about, “What about all these
nations where Jesus has never been preached?”
He said, ‘haply,’ he said He’s there, if they seek after Him. God’s not bound by nations, by borders, by
languages. If I’m seeking God in a
country that doesn’t teach it, and I’m seeking Him, God’s going to show
Himself. God’s going to show His truth
in some way, shape or form; He’s not bound by that. And that’s the beauty of knowing that
wherever you’re at, God will show Himself. He will show His Truth to you. But, I want to go back to the
first part in this. It says, “In all
things, you are too superstitious.” They
had an inscription, “To the unknown god.”
It was their religion; they had to worship something. They didn’t even know what they were
worshipping. They figured, “Well, we’ve
got this god, and this god; let’s put this to the unknown god, just in
case. We might miss out on something,
here.” And, sometimes, in a religious
state, we can be that way. I know, for
me, sometimes I’ll get in the middle of a task, or something, maybe you can
relate, “I can’t figure this out. God
help me, God help me out.” I’m sitting
here writing this bit of computer code for something at work, and I make my
changes, and hit the button, “Ah, it didn’t work.” Make my changes, “God, make this work,” hit
the button; it didn’t work. Make some
more changes, “God, make this work.” The
boss is over my shoulder, and it’s quitting time, and they want to do
something; hit the button—it still doesn’t work. Do it again.
Finally it works. So, do we think
God didn’t hear me the first ten times I asked?
Or, is it, maybe, just the tenth time is just when I got it right? I’m not one to deny that God’s power is
there, or to take any glory from God, never.
But, I know God created us, these amazing creatures. He gave us minds to do things, and, if I can
write a piece of computer code to control this big piece of equipment, I’m not
taking any glory in that. God gave me
the brain to do it; God gave me the ability to do it. God gave me an ability to learn it; he gave
me the opportunity. But, sometimes, we
get in this, where it’s, you know, a superstition. “Step on a crack; break your mother’s
back.” Little things like that we
learned as kids, and, now, all of the sudden, kids are walking around cracks on
the sidewalk because they’re worried about it.
And, sometimes, our prayers can be just as superstitious: “To the unknown god. I better throw this out there, just in
case.” But, God’s the God of my life
when I woke up this morning, and when I lay my head down, when I take time to
seek Him. We’re talking Jesus Christ,
our all in all. We’re talking about the
in-dwelling of the Holy Ghost, in a relationship. It’s one thing, “Oh, God, I’m in a spot; I
need some help, here,” and, it’s another to have a relationship with Him, to
have the confidence that God is going to bless you, no matter what. I don’t want to muddy the waters with the
superstition, but, I want to make sure that, even for me, that’s it’s not just
religion, it’s not just something that I do, but, it’s a relationship with my
Jesus, that He is my all in all. I know Parrish talked a few months
ago about the Ark of the Covenant. You
look at Israel, King Saul; you look at the account of the last battle they went
into before they lost the Ark of the Covenant to the Philistines. They had a small battle, and the Philistines
came in and wiped about a thousand of them out. It doesn’t say anything in that passage, in
Samuel, that says they went and sought God. No, they said, “Go get the Ark. Go get my big shiny box that has power that’s
going to win my battle for me.” They
didn’t seek God, and they lost it.
There’s still power of God, but they didn’t have it. They weren’t seeking God; they weren’t living
after it. They didn’t have the power in
their life, and they went into battle, and I believe the number was thirty-thousand
that were lost. And then, the Philistines took
that Ark, and they put it in their camp.
It wasn’t good for them. They had
something; they had this power in their camp as well. They weren’t serving God; they just had the
big shiny box. They put it before their
god. Come back the next morning, and
that god’s face down in front of the Ark.
They put it back up. Come back
the next morning, and it’s on its face again, only, this time, its arms and
legs are broken off. They didn’t have
the power of that God. The power was
there, but they weren’t tapping into it.
The God of Israel wasn’t their all in all. And they sent it back. And, it was twenty years before King David
brought that Ark out again. And, even at
that, King David had to come to the point where, when he first said, “Go with
the Ark,” he said, “We need to enquire of the Ark,” but then he enquired of
God. And God showed him, “This is how
you’re going to win this battle. You
just stand and watch, and I’m going to take care of this.” But it wasn’t until he sought God. It wasn’t seeking the Ark; it was seeking
God. And I want to kind of make it a
point that, seeking God, here, make this personal in lives today: Seeking God.
We seek our Bible, we seek our religious leaders, our pastors, our
elders, our teachers, and, even that can be religious. Because, if I go seek my pastor’s advice, if
I go seek an elder’s advice, and I haven’t sought God, I may get something,
something that’s right, he’s going to give me something that’s good for me,
but, if I haven’t sought God, what good is that? I may not even understand. And, shame on me if my pastor looks at me,
“Have you sought God on this?” If he
just stops me in my tracks, and says—and you know what? There’s been times when it’s been that way; I
haven’t sought God, and I’ll go ask my pastor about something, and, he’ll say
“You need to pray about this.” And
that’s kind of got to be a red flag, right there. I didn’t do my due diligence first. Some people say, “Let me go consult my
Bible.” And you should, but you need to
seek God first. You need to ask God to
show you something in His Word. There
are men and women who have read that Book cover to cover, throughout the ages,
who don’t know who God is. “That they
should seek the Lord, that haply they might feel after Him and find Him, though
He not be far from every one of us.”
He’s there; Jesus Christ, my all in all. I’ve been looking at the scripture
in Deuteronomy: Deuteronomy 6:4-6 Hear, O
Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy might. And
these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: Not just on a piece of paper, on a
tablet of stone, or a piece of parchment, in your heart. So, what does it mean to love God with all of
these things? First of all, love. Love isn’t a feeling; love is more of an
action. Love is something—I love my
wife, and my daughter, and my grandchildren in a way that I don’t love other
people. That’s a special kind of love
for my family, and that love says I’ll do anything for them. We’ll just take it to the level of my wife. You can take it to the level of your husband,
your wife, your spouse; that’s a love that’s there that’s different from any
other. That’s a love that says, “I’m
willing to do anything. I’m willing to
put myself aside. I’m willing to give up
things. I’m willing to do things that I
wouldn’t normally do. I’m willing to
stop doing things that I want to do, because I want to put them first. I want to, because I have that love, that
desire.” And that goes beyond a feeling. I have to admit, husbands, wives, there are
time that you spouse may ask you to do something or not do something, and the
whole—every fiber of your being says, “I don’t want to do that. I want to do this.” But, because of your love for them, you do it
anyway. And it’s not a feeling. And that’s the mistake that a lot of people
make in our society, today: they get
into a relationship, and they don’t have the love. You know, that puppy love wears off. But, the love we’re talking about for God,
here, is just that. It’s not an
emotional love for God—there’s going to be times when we get emotional, shout, sing
hallelujah, you know. The Scripture, we
read earlier, said, you know, God’s praise is not in our hand. God doesn’t do that, but, you know, you go to
a ball game… I bet some of the people,
last night, at Wrigley Stadium were jumping up and down, screaming, and
whooping and hollering, and yelling, and raising their hands, and jumping up
and down. But they weren’t doing that
for a show. They weren’t saying, “Hey,
I’m going to raise my hands, and shout and scream and look all crazy for a
baseball team.” They were doing that
because they had joy in their heart because their team won. Because something, in their eyes, something
awesome had just happened; that body was just kind of along for the ride. And that’s our worship to God,
sometimes. We can get in the altar and
raise our hands and, sometimes, we’ve just got to do that to put our flesh in
subjection to God. But, when you get to
where it’s between you and God, when you break through, when you’ve got that
spiritual one-on-one with God, when your hands are up in the air, you don’t
care. You’re not worried about it. You’re not raising your hands to show off to
anybody else. Your hands are just along
for the ride. If you jump up and down,
your body’s just along for the ride, because David danced and twirled before
God; that’s us before God. It’s not
about our body, our flesh. It’s about
making Him our all in all. And that’s
the point: Sometimes we look and say, “What’s
going on over there?” And, when
someone’s worshipping, and I realize, “You know what? I’m not where I need to be. I haven’t got that. I want what that is. You know what? When you see that, you know
it. It’s not a matter of, “what are you
doing, cartwheels over there? What’s
going on?” No, you feel that Spirit; you
know that, hey, you’re missing out. I
know, I’ve been there, and missed out on it.
But that’s Jesus Christ, my all in all.
So, it says to love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. So, what is our heart? The Bible talks about how God saw the heart
of man, you know, it was wicked, it was evil (Genesis 6:5). And, that was the place they were in, their
heart, their affections. The things that
they had set their very being upon. They
were set to do wicked. And, I’m talking
about the part before God destroyed the Earth in a flood. He looked and saw that there was wickedness
on the face of the Earth. He saw that
their heart was evil, continually; they sought after evil, continually. And, he destroyed every bit of it except for
eight people. But the point is, that’s
the heart; our emotions, our feelings.
And some of us say, “Well, I can’t control those things.” Sure you can.
But, it’s when you put your heart and affection on God. This is much more of a spiritual thing. And it’s bringing yourself under subjection
to God to be able to control he matters of the heart. Let’s look at Matthew: Matthew 6:19-21 Lay not up
for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and
where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in
heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not
break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be
also. You control where your heart goes. A lot of it is where you put your value, your
treasure, that’s what you value. Do I
treasure my car, my house? Yeah, we’ve
got to take care of those things. It’s good
to have a car. Winter’s coming, and it’s
good to have a house. It’s good to have
a job, family. It’s good to have things. It’s good to have money; money answereth all
things (Ecclesiastes 10:19), but, the love of money, that’s the root of all
evil (1 Timothy 6:10). And, it says,
where your treasure is. Where do you
place your value? I’ve got to place some
value on my house and my family and all those things, but, is God first? Am I putting my value on the spiritual walk
with God? The things that you can’t put
a monetary value to, even. You can never
put a dollar amount on God, put a price-tag on hat God’s worth, what God’s
Spirit’s worth. That’s where your
value’s got to be. Lay up for yourselves
treasures in Heaven… How do we do that?
How do I put treasure in heaven?
I haven’t found the slot for that one, yet, you know? The heavenly
piggy-bank. You know, the more we seek
Him, you know, just in a relationship.
The more—with a husband-wife relationship, or even with your children,
the more you put into that relationship, there’s a value there. The more you put into spending time with your
husband or wife, in meaningful conversation, or with your children, teaching
and listening to them, you build something there. And, the more time we spend with God, that’s
a relationship that words can’t even—the mind can’t even fathom. There are things that are hidden,
that are mysteries. Chris played a song
last week in Japanese. Was there anyone
who knew what that was when he played it?
Okay, we’ve got one, one or two.
Most of us didn’t. Now, there’s
mysteries in God. There’s things that
seem to defy understanding, but, for me to sit here and listen to this song in
Japanese, that would defy understanding.
Why? because I don’t know Japanese.
And, even more than that, I didn’t even know that that’s what language
it was. And, I grew up in churches that
talk about mysteries, and, if something wasn’t explainable? “Oh, great is the
mystery of Godliness (1 Timothy 3:16).
We just can’t understand; we’ve got to wait ‘til Heaven.” Well, that’s like saying, “I can’t understand
that song, because I don’t know what it is.”
It takes a little effort to find out.
If you seek after someone who knows languages, you could find out what
that language is. And, when you find out
what that language is, you can seek out Japanese, and you can learn it. It is highly possible for the human mind to
learn another language. But, until you
take the opportunity to learn what you’re hearing in the first place, and then
take the initiative to learn it, of course it’s a mystery. There may be things that God never reveals to
us, but, there are things that we have given up on, because, “Well, that’s just
a mystery.” But, yet, we haven’t, first
of all, said, “God, what is that? I hear
this, I don’t understand it. God, what
is this?” And then, taking the time to
seek Him, and to seek God’s Word, and to say, “Okay, I’m going to understand
this. That’ a scripture that I’ve never
understood, and I’ve asked people, and I just don’t get it.” But, there’s no sense in giving up on it,
because God will either show you, “Okay, this isn’t for you,” or, He’s going to
give you an answer. I mean, God speaks
to us on those terms. Paul had a thorn
in the flesh, and he sought Him three times to remove it, but God said, My
Grace is sufficient.” At that point, he
didn’t need to understand it any more; God said, “This is the way it is.” But, a lot of us get to that point and give
up on it. “I don’t know; it’s just a
thorn in the flesh.” Have you sought God
over it? Or, have I just given up and
said, “Oh, this is my thorn in the flesh,” and moved on. Because sometimes those thorns in the flesh
can be removed. Or, what we call a thorn
in the flesh, sometimes God wants to take it away from us. Sometimes it’s something we’ve put in our own
lives, and we need to ask God to show us what it is. All right, I’m getting off-topic
here. I’m starting to meddle. To love God with all, all your
heart. Parrish and I both had something
God had dealt with us about, a while back, and that was, “You’re not asking for
enough.” He woke me up at about two in
the morning, and He said, “You need to get out of bed.” I don’t get out of bed at two in the morning
very easily. And, so, it’s seven
o’clock, and the sun’s coming up, and I’m having a hard time getting out of
that bed. But, I woke up, and God said,
“You need to get out of bed; you’re going to miss something.” And, it was just something simple: “You’re not asking for enough.” And, on of the Scripture we talked about on
this was: James 4:1-7 From whence come wars and fightings among
you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to
have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your
lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the
world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is
the enemy of God. Do ye think that the
scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith,
God resisteth the proud; but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist
the devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye
sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Purify your hearts. And that’s the key. Purify your heart, and God’s going to show
you things God’s going to do things.
Keep yourself unspotted from the world.
Matters of the heart. So, all
this, it’s about the heart. For all these
things that you have, you want, you lust after, you need this, you want that,
but, where’s your heart at? Where’s my
heart at when I ask for something? Moving on: It said love God with all you soul. Soul, that’s our very utmost being, because, beyond
this life, this soul is going to live on.
Matthew 16:25-27 For
whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life
for my sake shall find it. For what is a
man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what
shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his
angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Our soul. If you lose your own soul, what’s that reward
worth? I’m—what goes into eternity,
whether it be Heaven or Hell, that’s paying the price for what I let this flesh
do. That’s eternity, that’s to be jealous of, to
be guarded. Because, what I do in this
life determines where I land for eternity.
I’m going to love God with all my heart, because there’s one place I
want to be, and I don’t want to take a chance of winding up somewhere
else. I don’t want to take the chance of
hearing the words, “Depart.” And, love God with all your might. Your might, your strength, your diligence. It’s the power that we have. How do I use that for God? I have the power to do a lot of things; I have
the strength and the might to do a lot of things. I have strength to get up in the morning and
go to work, I have strength in the morning to get up and take care of my
physical needs. And, these physical
things that I’m doing, am I glorifying God in those? Am I using my strength to glorify God? If I open my mouth, and portray my strength with
my words, am I glorifying God with it? Is
the profession that I choose glorifying God?
Are the things that I do glorifying God?
Am I doing it in a way that glorifies God? Am I going higher in my job to glorify
God? Sometimes we’re in jobs where we’ve
got to stay where we’re at. Sometimes
God allows us to come up higher in our jobs to be able to be used in different
ways. But, am I just being comfortable
in the things that I do, the talents? We’ve
heard the parable of the talents, and one was given one talent, and he went and
hid it in the ground, and, because he didn’t do anything with it, it was taken
from him. What am I doing with my
strength, with my power? And, sometimes,
we think about strength, I look at: 2 Corinthians 12:10 Therefore I
take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions,
in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong. It’s a balance. Where is my strength? Sometimes, it’s just for me, for my own pride,
my own strength. But, sometimes, that
strength doesn’t come from hands. It
comes from being strengthened in God. When
I take down my pride, when I take down the “Me, me, me,” attitude, and say, “Look
what I did,” and God takes me down, and says, “Okay, I’m going to show you something
else.” When I am weak, when I let those
things be my weakness, as opposed to letting God be strong, because, we have
the strength, and, as long as God gives it to us, we should use it for His
glory. But, there’s a strength that, if I
puff myself up, then I’m making myself strong, and not listening to the Spirit
of God. Simply, loving God is a spiritual
thing. There’s a lot of fleshly,
tangible components to it, but, we could both do the same thing in the flesh,
and, if I’m not putting God first, and you are, God’s going to bless what you
did, and God’s not going to bless me, because I’m not putting Him first. We could do the exact same thing in the flesh,
but where’s my heart at? Is my heart
towards God? Isaiah talks about how God will
direct our mind, and keep us in perfect peace (Isaiah 2:3). It talks about He will direct our paths. Romans 8:8-10 So then they that
are in the flesh cannot please God. But
ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God
dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of
his. And if Christ be in you, the body
is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. It’s spiritual. And, I want to read just a couple more
Scriptures, and then I’ll be closing. In
Galatians 5:21, it talks about the fruits, the things that we see out of the
spirit. We talk about being born again,
meaning, taking on the Spirit of God.
And, we talk about putting God first.
Sometimes the flesh just has to lag behind the spirit, but the spirit’s
got to be first. Galatians 5:21-23 Envyings,
murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you
before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things
shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance:
against such there is no law. And, though we are in the flesh,
we have an advocate with the Father; Jesus said, “I
will not leave you comfortless: I will come unto you.” (John 14:18) He’s made a way. And, going back to the simple Gospel that
Paul taught: The death of a perfect
sacrifice, the resurrection, the ascension, those things. The perfect sacrifice, because all that came
together. Because, without that, I have
nothing. Without that perfect sacrifice,
I’d be out there with the blood of goats and bulls and rams, which could never
fully atone my sins. And that’s the
sacrifice we live in. That’s the life
that we walk in; raised to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). Our closing and final Scripture: Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot
be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted
like as we are, yet without sin. Let us
therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and
find grace to help in time of need: Amen. Give God a praise.
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