Today’s Quote: “Whoever finds his [lower] life will lose it [the higher life], and whoever loses his [lower] life on My account will find it [the higher life].” -Matthew 10:39
I hope
that so far you have been able to leave behind some of your old baggage and
belief systems. The ones that just don’t suit you. And I also hope that you’ve
been allowing God to work in your life. But today I want to take a break from
all of the self-analyzing we’ve been doing and just rest our gaze on the one
who saves us.
Let’s sit back and get to know Him a little better today.
The very first
reference to God in the whole Bible is “Elohim”.
“In the beginning God (Elohim in Hebrew)
created the heavens and the earth.” –Genesis 1:1
God the Father,
God the Son, and
God the Holy Spirit.
A good way to understand this is to think of an apple.
An apple has
a core,
the flesh, and
it’s skin-
three parts that make up one whole.
Today I want to give a quick overview of each of the parts that make up our Elohim, in hopes that we can better understand Him as a whole.
God The Father
The one who has been here since the
beginning of time. The one who always has been.
“He is the creator, law-giver, and
protector.”
“The Father is uncreated, and by
definition this gives Him the very essence of what we call ‘God’.”
“Therefore, "in respect to order and degree, the beginning [principium
or origo] of divinity is in the Father" It is the Father, in love and for our
salvation, who exalted Jesus Christ "far above all rule and authority and
power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age
but also in the one to come". It is the Father who subjects all things to
His Son, and "gave him as head over all things to the church". It
is in this sense that the Father is sometimes referred to as the "first
person" of the Holy Trinity — but this terminology of "first"
(and "second", and "third") is for convenience only. It is
not meant to imply that there ever has been any God except the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit. Neither does it imply that the Son or the Spirit, considered as it
were in themselves, are subtractable in any way or in any sense at all.”
Jesus Christ
‘Jesus is the only Son of God and prophesied Messiah who, at the appointed time, was sent by His Father and became a man to be the payment for the
penalty of sin that separated us from God and to reveal to us the loving nature
of God through his human person (1 John 4:10; 2 Corinthians 5:19). Although He
was sinless, he bore the penalty for sin upon Himself for us.’
I love Jesus! I could say His name all day long.
He is the one who has made it possible for me to live in freedom. Not just because
I read on paper that He “took away the
sins of the world.” (John 1:29). But because I can feel it in my spirit and
see it in my life that He took my
sins off of my shoulders.
I am no longer weighed down by something that I
couldn’t put my finger on before, but now I realize was my own sin. Jesus my
Jesus:)
I also love reading about Him because He was the only
sinless, truly perfect human. I’ll
never come close to being perfect, but I am so happy that Jesus gives me a standard
for perfection. I don’t have to rely on my own incomplete knowledge, feelings,
or comparisons to other people to know what is truly good and wholesome and healthy, because the Bible shows me
human perfection. And it is Jesus.
I think about Jesus the same way. I’ll never come
close to being as perfect as Jesus, but I am so happy that He gives me a standard for perfection. I don’t have to
rely on my own incomplete knowledge, feelings, or comparrisions to other people
to know what is truly good and wholesome and healthy, because the Bible shows
me human perfection. And it is Jesus.
The Holy Spirit
I think the part
of the triune most of us know the least about is the Holy Spirit.
I didn’t really
understand who The Holy Spirit was until a good way into my Christian walk. But
learning about some of what He does helped me to understand the fullness of God
so much better. This is so cool…..
When Jesus walked on the earth with his disciples, they were constantly asking him questions for their everyday situations, like:
“Jesus, how should I respond to this false prophet?”
or maybe
“Jesus, what should I do about this girl I like?”
They had on-the-spot council from God himself, even for their most petty situations! How cool is that?
Imagine God in the flesh walking right along side of you wherever you went- just ready to give you perfect advice for any situation. Like:
“Yo Jesus, you know that this person is gettin' on my last nerve right now, what should I do?” Or how about
“Lord, #9 is on the phone saying ALL the right things, how do I handle this?”
Wouldn’t it be so nice to have Jesus sitting right next to you in those times just ready to listen and help you out?
Well my dear sister, that is what the Holy Spirit is all about!
On the spot council and direction. God knew that we would need this.
When Jesus was getting ready to
leave the earth, He knew the people who had been closest to Him were going to
feel lost without Him. After all, they had had that on-the-spot, perfect
council from Jesus himself for a while now. So read very carefully what He says
to them as He’s talking about His departure from earth:
“And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever- the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”- John 14:16-18
I love how He says He won’t leave us
orphans. He won’t leave us just wandering around down here alone while He sits
back watching from a distance. His spirit is here with us.
In his book Living Water, Chuck Smith writes….
The Holy Spirit is called the Paraklete, “one called alongside to help.” He has come alongside to help us in every situation. He is here to be our strength. He is here to be our provider. He is here to take care of the emergencies that arise in life. Anytime that we need help in any kind of situation, we can know that the Holy Spirit is here to be our helper. He is the One who has been called to come alongside to help us…
I pray that you will come to depend upon Him for guidance, for health, for strength, for comfort, for wisdom, and for power. And I pray that He will become closer to you than any person you have ever known- that you will be bathed in His glory and thus fashioned into the image of Christ…
You can yield yourself to the Holy Spirit even now, giving yourself over to His control and to His filling. I urge you to make up your mind even now to yield and surrender your life to Him. Then you can begin, even at this moment, to enjoy a glorious walk in the Spirit, delighting in the fullness that God desires for each of us.
We don’t have to just thirst for
that more intimate, immediate relationship
with God- we just have to ask!
If you have given your heart to Jesus, and you pray for His Holy Spirit to fill you, He will grant that request. (Matthew 7:7-11)
And when you have your daily prayer
time, after you have done all of your “pouring out,” and you are having your
“fill up” time, I urge you to pray that
God would fill you afresh with His Holy Spirit, and watch the changes that
start to take root.
He gives
us access to everything if we seek Him first! I have no idea why our
big, huge, amazing God is so crazy about little old me and you, but He is and
He offers us more than we need to do life on this earth well and inside of His
perfect peace.
I know that today was just a small
simple lesson, but I hope that it helped you to understand just a little more
about our big, complicated and amazing God.
And I have to just tell you that I
do not get so excited and use words like amazing
and wonderful all the time just
because I’m corny. I promise you, I am not that corny. I just find myself
having trouble expressing with words my love for God and the extent of how He
changed my life. Calling his love and care for me breathtaking, or indescribable
are just such stark understatements. That is why I just keep trying and trying
to encourage you to get to know Him for yourself.
And I hope that you are!
Today’s Dare: Today I dare you to open your Bible and pray for a fresh excitement toward it.
Read Galatians 5:16-26. This
describes the differences you will begin to see taking root in yourself, as you walk
by the Holy Spirit. We will be delving into this scripture more toward the end,
but for now just familiarize yourself with the truth of the difference in us when
we are walking with God, versus trying to do life out of our own strength.
I pray that a new fire of passion
would be set in your heart today. That you would really start to see God’s word
as a love letter, and a complex, mystical key to real healing, wisdom and
fulfillment in life. And that you would be hungry to walk with this beautiful
God.
