ABIDING IN HIS LOVE

“But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  This is a most stunning claim! If God loved us this much while we were still sinners, He surely loves us now, and has loved us every moment of our sin soaked life. Repentance, confession, our foreordained good works, ministry, literally everything we do as Kingdom people cannot and will never merit the Father’s love – worthiness is simply impossible with inestimable love. The love of God is the foundation of who and what we are in Christ... all we are and do, irrespective of our not quite transformed nature. We can get caught up in doing things for God, including waging the good fight of faith against our fleshly nature, and fail to do the most important thing of all... receive and remain in our Father’s love – abide in His love. Some will say God does not look upon us when our garments are stained and spotted with sin, that God does not love what He sees – that our sin grieves Him. But we must remember, we are not our sin. And, just as surely as God in His justice hates our sin, He loves us – we are not our sin! Our loving Daddy sees in us the righteousness of His Beloved Son which we wear like a cloak, and His heart overflows with love. Submission to the Lordship of Christ and death to our fleshly nature are inevitable to those who will to continue God’s walk of faith, for this is God’s Eternal Purpose... our transformation into perfect beings for His perfect re-creation, the new heaven and new earth. The pathway home will be difficult – dying hurts – and Self will not go quietly. But we must never forget our lofty, beautiful heavenly calling in Christ Jesus: “Be imitators of God, as beloved children.” We don’t imitate God to become His children... We imitate God because we are His children, dearly-loved... sin nature and all.

(Rom. 5:8; Eph. 5:1)

WE ARE NOT OUR SIN

KINGDOM LIFE

Kingdom is the King’s domain, His dominion, realm of rule. Life in the Kingdom of God/Heaven is a radically different lifestyle that is centered in an intimate interactive relationship with God and Jesus.  Kingdom children are “born again”, gennao anothen, literally begotten from above by the Holy Spirit of God: The Holy Spirit is the midwife who birth’s believers into the Kingdom - submerging them into the body of Christ. In a way the phrase “Kingdom of God” is a pregnant metaphor, birthing a way of life Jesus demonstrated for us.  This life will be extraordinary and full to overflowing in many ways: “I alone came in order that they (i.e., read “we”) might be possessing life, and that they (we) might be possessing it in superabundance”. And this is Eternal Life: It means to know You, to experience You in intimate relationship, the only true and real God, and to likewise know and experience Jesus Christ whom you have sent (Jn. 17:3).  So “Eternal Life” is having an intimate interactive relationship with God and His son Jesus, and a kingdom is an interactive relationship between a king and his subjects. Eternal life is Kingdom life.

Kingdom life is supernatural life, a new kind of life that fully physical and fully spiritual: The “Living Water” of God’s Kingdom is water that’s alive, not stagnant, but life-giving: “If you knew, (intuitively), the gift of God (Christ) ..., you would ask Him (Christ) and He would give you living water - water that is alive” (John 4:10). Here “living water” is the Holy Spirit which flows out of the heart of believers “like rivers of living water” (Jn. 7:37-39).  In the Old Testament God is called a “fountain of living water” (Jer. 2:13, 17:13, SOS 4:15), and this same fountain of living water will flow in Heaven (Rev. 7:17, Zech. 14:8). The Greek tense in these passages denotes continuous action: This living water is continuous, unfailing and eternal, “gushing” up into everlasting life, eternal life (i.e., John 17:3), into an extraordinary life lived to the full - a superabundant life. 

Life in the Kingdom of God is life in the here and now where the Holy Spirit gushes forth from within manifesting Christ and His Kingdom in every aspect of the saint’s life. Saints should “leak” the Holy Spirit everywhere they go. When the Kingdom of God invades our circumstances the word “impossible” deconstructs, it melts and evaporates, and its tyranny over us ends. Kingdom life gives meaning and purpose to an otherwise meaningless, self-centered existence. Our life should be an intimate interactive relationship with God, our Father - reconciled to God and reconciled to one another - so that our entire life is a beautiful symphony, the music of God’s Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God is all about how we live our daily lives - our way of life. When Christianity sees itself as a belief system, a formula or set of rules and rituals, instead of a way of life, it loses the “Kingdom Magic” and becomes just another religion. This simple concept defines the tension between the words “religious” and “spiritual”, in their common usage today.  “Religious” speaks of people who believe in God but not the Kingdom of God.  “Spiritual” speaks of living in a dynamic interactive relationship with God as a 24/7 way of life: This lifestyle births God’s agape love within which reciprocates love back to God and to others.  “Spiritual” is relational, “religious” isn’t. Spiritual people are Kingdom people.

SUPERABUNDANT LIFE

EMPTY VESSELS

There are only two choices, two masters, two domains from which we live life, the Law and Grace; there is no third way called Self... Self is simply a pretender to the throne of our heart. We all begin life under the Law, born enslaved, indentured to the powers of darkness through the fall. The power of the Law is two-fold: The Law defines sin as sin, without the Law there is no sin, and the law demands perfection, complete and total compliance, which only God can satisfy. The Law sets an impossible standard then condemns man for being unable to attain to it, enslaving us to failure. Unrighteousness, sin, reigns and controls our life focusing on appeasing Self which sits on the throne of our heart. Co-crucification releases us from the Law and sin’s dominion, allowing us to choose our master, and co-resurrection seats us (spiritually) in the heavenlies with our Lord awaiting The Gathering when we will receive our new glorified bodies and fly home. Continual yielding to either domain brings bondage and enslavement. We are either slaves of sin or slaves of God, but slaves none the less. Said another way we are empty vessels that can only release that which is put into us. God wants to fill us with His Spirit as Kingdom children destined to dwell with Him forever... just how long is forever? Satan wants to fill us with his spirit... the spirit of this world, to enslave us to the passions and lusts of Self, our fleshly nature, condemning us to eternal damnation with him. Some people will choose, and some will choose by not choosing, but there is no escaping... everyone will make a choice.

“CHOOSE FOR YOURSELVES THIS DAY WHOM YOU WILL SERVE”

DON’T TOUCH MY CRAYONS

Sin, as defined by the Bible is simply “missing the mark, God’s mark. We can think of sins as colors, every sin a crayon, red, blue, green and so on. The Bible teaches we all have colored, we all do color and we all will color, because we like to color. This is not a license to grab a large box of crayons and go play, but rather a consequence of the Self appeasing nature we were born with, the very thing that needs to die so Christ’s divine nature can come forth. Our Christian life is all about transformation, being changed into the very nature of Christ, a replacement process where we reckon bits of our self nature dead and Christ replaces those pieces with bits of His nature. For example, unforgiveness is a condition of one’s heart, a sin, unjustifiable regardless of the circumstances (yes, this is a tough one), a purple crayon. Unforgiveness is often directed at one’s Self... we can’t forgive our Self for something we did. When the Holy Spirit reveals through God’s word that unforgiveness is present and is a sin, the only option is to consider it dead by placing it on the cross of Christ and refusing to yield to it again – quit grabbing the purple crayon. Now this will involve a struggle for Self loves to be in control and we can become enslaved to sin, especially habitual sin that has festered like an infection in our heart. God has promised we will prevail if we persevere, so we can only lose by giving up. Everyone stumbles in a spiritual battle, it’s ok as long as we get back up, the victory is in the “getting back up.” During this struggle God is replacing every little bit of our unforgiving nature that dies with his forgiving nature until one day the old unforgiveness has passed away and His forgiving nature is alive thriving in us. The reason death to sin is the only option is simple: God’s standards for our conduct are nonnegotiable – He’s God! And perseverance, determined steadfast resolute endurance, is the “Big Wrench” in God’s transformation toolbox.

Transformation is a process and processes involve time, so along the way we still color, some more than others, but hopefully less and less. And when we slip and miss the mark, Jesus, who already paid the penalty for our sin on the cross, seeks forgiveness from the Father on our behalf – this is grace. What gets us in trouble is not that we color, but that we keep grabbing the same crayon, say orange or pink, creating strongholds of habitual sin gratifying our Self nature. God’s children simply cannot habitually sin, continually grab the same crayon, and expect God’s transformation process to continue. Habitual sin will, over time, suffocate Christ’s nature within, killing the only thing that can give us true life, eternal life with Him.

Is one color worse than another, is my gray worse than your yellow, is murder worse than hatred, adultery worse than lust, homosexuality worse than failing to love one’s enemies, or suicide worse than unforgiveness. Are any of these worse than lying, idolatry, pride, divorce without cause, worse than failing to love God? Are they not all crayons? When it comes to sin, God is colorblind, seeing only neutral: Whatever the sin, big or small, subtle or blatant, socially acceptable or repulsive in man’s eyes, all are neutral to God. Man makes distinctions between sins looking at the effect; God ignores the effect and looks at the root cause, the condition of our heart. Murder, oh that’s hatred. Adultery, oh that’s lust. Lying, oh that’s protecting Self, and so on. God’s transformation process is heart surgery, and as our heart changes we will quit coloring altogether, we will become like Him. We all need heart surgery, we all still color, but my coloring is no better or worse than your coloring, to Daddy. He wants to break all the crayons of this life by giving us something better, His life, where we won’t need or want to color.                                                                                                  

NO PLACE TO HIDE

What if we had a secret place where we could think anything and be outside the purview of God, where God would never know. Remember what we say and do are just manifestations of what we think, so everything starts with our thoughts. If we wish to fulfill the command to examine ourselves to see whether we are demonstrating our faith by an ever increasing manifestation of Christ within, this would be the ultimate test. Would we continue to manifest Christ in our secret place, or would we release the buried lusts of our old flesh-life and fully indulge. Would Christ reign or would Self reign? Be honest... Honesty is death to performance!

For many saints their mind is their “secret place”, the place where their real Self hides from the world while influencing their every thought, word and action. But there is no secret place safe from the all knowing, all powerful, everywhere God we serve. The command for Self examination reads like this in the Amplified Bible:”Examine and test and evaluate your own selves to see whether you are holding to your faith and showing the proper fruits of it. Test and prove yourselves -- not Christ. Do you not yourselves realize and know, thoroughly by an ever-increasing experience, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless you are counterfeits, disapproved on trial and rejected”? Christ is not on trial, we are. And the fruit-proof that bears witness we are ‘holding to our faith” is “an ever-increasing experience that Jesus Christ is in us.” Saints, we all realize and know whether we are passing or failing this test. We can hide in our secret place and pretend God doesn’t know... but, deep inside we know He knows. He wants to restore us to that place of an ever-increasing experience of the indwelling Christ-Life. He wants us to hang our secret place on the Cross. He wants us to be honest: An honest life is transparent, and does not try to control the reaction of others to itself, or give others the façade they expect. Most of all, an honest life does not try to fool God... Honesty is death to performance.

The battle for control of our heart is won or lost on the battlefield of our mind. And make no mistake, it is a battle. Our thoughts, inside the bastion of our mind, are treated as sacrosanct, outside the purview of man and God. Thoughts do matter, for from our thoughts precede our words, our choices, and our actions, establishing the course of our life. Thoughts determine who will control us, Self or the Holy Spirit: We cannot experience the progressive reality of Christ within without right thinking, which is critical to accessing the overcoming life Christ died to provide. Jesus said “thinking sin” was just as bad as “doing sin.” Paul admonished that we bring every thought into obedience to Christ, even giving us a list of things to think on – to help us “set” our mind -- for “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” The right setting of the mind is critical to living in right standing with God and being led by His Spirit. “Seek those things which are above... For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit ... Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” God wants to renew our mind: He wants to give us the mind of Christ. Remember saints, we are what we think: Jesus knows what is in our heart... knows what we think... knows what we are... and we know too!

HONESTY IS DEATH TO PERFORMANCE...

(Mk. 7:20-23; Matt. 5:27-28; 2 Cor. 10:4-5, 13:5; Phil. 4:8, 2:5; Prov. 23:7; Rom. 8:5; Col. 3:1-3)

AND THOSE WHO ARE ALIVE AND REMAIN

 (THE INEXPRESSIBLE JOY OF DYING IN CHRIST)

Death is merely stepping through the door between earth-life and God-Life, a change of clothes from flesh to glory, a change of time zones from the finite of three score and ten to timeless forever! When a saint dies, those who are alive and remain may be tempted to “lose hope”, but this is the very time for our hope to be renewed. The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy our hope -- he has no real power – because he knows faith is the substance of our hope. We cannot have faith without hope, so our hope must always be in the eternally God and His eternal promises, producing strong faith the enemy can’t touch. Nothing can separate us from God’s love... death just takes us home to our Daddy. To be absent from the body is to be in the presence of our Lord: Inexpressible, glorious joy unknowable in earth-life awaits every saint as we step through deaths door into forever with our Lord . Earth-life is but an obstacle course we run, ever pressing toward the high calling of God-Life – spiritual transformation – while homeward bound from birth. Life is only a nanosecond long if that, it only seems longer because we live in time, but step into eternity and it appears as a heartbeat... just one heartbeat long. And we who are alive and remain... well, we will be together again with our loved ones who have stepped through the door... soon and very soon! So be of good courage and rejoice when a saint goes home, no matter the circumstances... Rejoice! Herein our hope remains strong and our faith is increased.

“PRECIOUS IN THE SIGHT OF THE LORD

IS THE DEATH OF HIS SAINTS”

Post Script: “A CHANGE OF CLOTHES: “For we who are in this tent (of flesh) groan, being burdened ... earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven ... a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens ... that mortality may be swallowed up by life (eternal life).” Saints, if you aren’t groaning for heaven... you should be...

(2 Cor. 5:1-8)

KNOWING GOD’S WILL IS EASY... LIVING IT IS HARD...

Sanctification, holiness, and transformation are, in effect, synonymous terms for the process whereby saints submit to the Lordship of Jesus and commit to the death of their old Self-nature, enabling the release of the Christ-Life within and obedience to God’s word. This life changing process is the primary will of God for His children, the number one thing on His heart for us. Following are the details: 

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification”: “Sanctification” and “holiness” are translated from the same Greek word hagiasmo, which denotes not only a resultant state – separated unto God, but also the holy nature and holy behavior befitting those so consecrated. God has called us into holiness. He has given us His moral commands and wants to release in our hearts the virtues and character of His beloved Son, which will enable our obedience. How we live our life matters... matters a lot! Whoever rejects God’s holiness, His nature and His lifestyle, rejects God.  God’s will is, simply put, our transformation into the nature of His Beloved Son, and behavior befitting that nature – obedience to His word... His commandments. And, we cannot live God’s will apart from God’s will: Transformation is not in our own strength for it is God who is continually effectually at work in us, energizing and creating in us the desire and the power  both to will and to work for His good pleasure... His satisfaction and delight. So... we will never live holy until we are holy – transformation enables and paces obedience.

To live in the will of God is to submit to the Lordship of Jesus in all matters of life, and crucify Self, man’s old unregenerated nature, daily until he is totally dead and gone. The seeds of a new resurrected life are planted within each saint, awaiting release. Only in the transforming power of Lordship coupled with death to Self can the Christ-Life emerge within. “Be Holy for I am holy” is a command birthed in transformation, impossible without it. Saints, we are to “Pursue ... holiness, without which no one will see the Lord ... perfecting holiness in the fear of the God”, bringing holiness to its predestined end whereby we are found “blameless in Holiness ... at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.” Without holiness... without transformation... without living in God’s will, no one will see God!!! And know this: “The world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

“THEREFORE YOU SHALL BE PERFECT...”

(1 Thess. 4:3, 7, 8; 1 Peter 1:16; Heb. 12:14; 2 Cor. 7:1; Phil. 2:13; 1 Thess. 3:13, 1 John 2:17; Matt. 5:48)

LITTLE CHRISTS

Hear the words of C.S. Lewis: “Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God. We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has — by what I call "good infection." Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.”

God became man for no other purpose then to draw men into Christ... into Himself, to make them little Christs; the whole universe was created for this very purpose. Jesus commanded: “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” It is our conformance into the likeness of Christ... our transformation, which is at issue in this command, our spiritual maturation. The “Consuming Fire”, the Love that made the worlds, will never rest... or let us rest, until we are literally perfect, the perfect reflection of our perfect Savior. God’s purpose is not to torment our natural Self but to kill it. No half measures will do, the whole of Self must die to make way for the spiritual nature of Christ to manifest and flourish in us. This is the whole enchilada, the whole essence of Christianity, the foundation on which Kingdom life is built – Christlikeness!

Of the purpose of the Church, Lewis said that it “exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.” “As our heavenly Father has in Christ freely come to our aid, we also ought freely to help our neighbor through our body and its works, and each one should become as it were a Christ to the other that we may be Christs to one another and Christ may be the same in all, that is, that we may be truly Christians” (Martin Luther)

THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF BECOMING A CHRISTIAN

IS SIMPLY NOTHING ELSE

FOR MY DETERMINED PURPOSE IS TO KNOW HIM

FORGETTING WHAT LIES BEHIND...

STRAINING FORWARD TO WHAT LIES AHEAD...

I PRESS ON TOWARD THE GOAL...

But whatever former things I had that might have been gain to me, I have come to consider as one combined loss for Christ’s sake. Yes, furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege, the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him -- of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish, refuse, dregs, in order that I may gain Christ... the Anointed One. And that I may actually be found and known as in Him, not having any self-achieved righteousness that can be called my own based on my obedience to the Law’s demands -- ritualistic uprightness and supposed right standing with God thus acquired. But possessing that genuine righteousness which comes through faith in Christ the Anointed One, the true right standing with God which comes from God by saving faith.

For my determined purpose is that I may know Him, that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly, and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection which it exerts over believers. And that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed in spirit into His likeness, even to His death, in the hope that if possible I may attain to the spiritual and moral resurrection that lifts me out from among the dead -- even while in this body.

Not that I have now attained this ideal, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of -- grasp and make my own -- that for which Christ Jesus the Messiah has laid hold of me and made me His own. I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own yet; but one thing I do -- it is my one aspiration: Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the supreme and heavenly prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward.

(Phil. 3:7-14 Amp.)

I PRESS ON TO LAY HOLD OF

GRASP AND MAKE MY OWN

THAT FOR WHICH CHRIST JESUS THE MESSIAH

HAS LAID HOLD OF ME

AND MADE ME HIS OWN

AND MY HEART SINGS

Merciful Father, there is none that compares to You. Who can take my bitterness, and make something sweet... Only You. You are so beautiful; there is none that compares to You. Who can take my brokenness, and make something new... Only You. You're beautiful to me; You will be my song for all eternity. You're overtaking every part of me; You're beautiful to me...  And I am left in awe of You...

You are God alone, from before time began, You were on Your throne, You are God alone. And right now, in the good times and bad, You are on Your throne, You are God alone. Unchangeable... Unshakable... Unstoppable... That's what You are...

The more I seek You, the more I find You. The more I find You, the more I love You. I want to sit at Your feet, drink from the cup in Your hand. Lay back against You and breath, feel Your heart beat. This love is so deep; it's more than I can stand. I melt in Your peace, it's overwhelming...

I hear the voice, it’s the voice of the One I love, He’s calling my name... I hear You calling me Jesus. He's saying… Come up higher and hear the angels sing, come up higher my beloved. Come up higher and leave this world behind, you are so beautiful to me...

So I am running, running after You, You've become my soul’s delight. I am running, running after You... here with You I find my life. I am running, running after You... here with You I find my life...

So may the eyes of God be on me here, Lord, revive me by Your grace. Holy Spirit be forever near... saturate this place. Let Your glory and honor fall on my face. Holy Father... rest in this place. Let the fire fall... Let the wind blow... Let the glory come down. My heart is overflowing to pour my love out on You... Daddy, You’re beautiful to me...

I AM RUNNING, RUNNING AFTER YOU

IS HEAVEN A PHYSICAL PLACE

We have often heard the only physical things in heaven are the scars on our Lord’s body, but this is actually wrong. In addition to our Lord’s scars we have Christ’s physical resurrected body, which could be seen, felt, and required food. Note also, Enoch and Elijah were both translated to heaven in their physical bodies. And then there is Moses who, with Elijah, appeared physically with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. So where did Moses get his physical, after death, body? Good question! This physical visitation by Moses demonstrates that God, at least sometimes, creates intermediate bodies for dead saints in heaven to inhabit prior to the bodily resurrection of the dead. This opens the more likely possibility that all the saints in heaven have intermediate physical bodies.

When Jesus said, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise”, He was using “Paradise” as a synonym for heaven. Paradise is from the Greek paradeisos meaning a “walled park” or “enclosed garden”, and is used in the Septuagint to refer to the Garden of Eden. Paradise does not refer to wild nature, but rather nature under cultivation. God said, “To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.” The same physical Tree of Life which was in the Garden of Eden and will one day be in the New Jerusalem – the New Heaven -- on the New Earth, is currently in the present (intermediate) heaven. And... We will one day eat its fruit! The “Third Heaven”, the abode of God, which lies beyond the Hemisphere (first heaven) and Firmament (second heaven), is called “The Paradise of God” by the Apostle Paul.

Jesus ascribed physical properties to Heaven and Hell in His account of the rich man and Lazarus – where He refers to heaven as “Abraham’s Bosom” -- including their physical form. To interpret this passage strictly literal suggests thing that are not taught anywhere else, and to interpret it strictly figurative makes it difficult to understand the message... the value of all its details. I do not believe every detail of this passage is literal; rather that Jesus was painting a picture for us. I believe Jesus intended for us to picture people in the afterlife as real humans with physical form, thoughts, and capacities – with identity, memories, and awareness – and to envision Heaven and Hell as real places, all of which is substantiated in other scripture.

We should not assume the numerous scriptural references to physical objects in heaven are figurative language.  That our resurrected Lord now dwells in Heaven is an indisputable fundamental article of the Christian faith. And, He dwells there in the same physical body that He had on earth -- a body that ate and drank, and could be touched and felt – the same body that will one day return to earth: “This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.” So we know there is physical substance in heaven – Christ is there in physical form – and can assume the numerous other references to physical forms and objects in heaven are literal rather than figurative. The present heaven, though intermediate in the sense it is not the “New Heavens” associated with the “New Earth”, is, none the less, a physical place. When Stephen seen the heavens open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, our Lord was standing on something!

AS REAL AS RAIN

(Lk. 23:43; Rev. 2:7; 2 Cor. 12:2, 4; Lk. 16:19-31; Acts 7:54)

NO OTHER GODS

“You shall have no other gods before Me ... For I the Lord your God, am a jealous God”: The word “before” as used here means in precedence of, the condition of being considered more important, superior, preeminent, a priority in order or rank. This passage is addressing a condition of the heart. You shall “have”...  possess, own, or hold, no other gods... small g, in greater love, esteem or importance than Me. Our greatest love, admiration, and respect must be for our Lord, and only our Lord. So... what kind of things can become “other gods” to a saint? Things like spouses, parents, children, grandkids, friends, hobbies, possessions, social position, physical appearance, education, accomplishments, pets, career, etc., and... of course, our Self – the pretender to the throne of our heart. Truth is... we have an endless supply of “gods” to choose from. Anything we esteem, respect, admire, value, regard, Anything we esteem, respect, admire, value, regard, acclaim, appreciate, like, love, prize, recognize, honor,  treasure, favor, or revere in any sense as more or greater than God is an “other god” to us.

There are three attitudes of the heart which must be preeminently fixed on God, our Love... our Fear... and our Reverence. God must have the prominence in our Love: We must love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. The “all” here is emphatic, expressing the thought forcibly and clearly, intended to point out the quality of our love. All does not mean some... it means ALL. God must have the prominence in our Fear: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Misplaced fear can turn the speed-bumps of life into idols we fear more than God. Fear of God is essential to faith – residing in true faith -- eliciting total trust in God. Remember, over thirty times scripture commands, “Fear not, For I AM with you.” When we fear God and only God... we “fear not”, recognizing His loving presence overwhelms and puts to flight all other fears. And, God must have the prominence in our Reverence: We must stand in awe and wonder of God, expressing deep abiding respect... and wholehearted adoration. Reverence is the essence of worship, prompting a lifestyle of 24/7 worship. If we possess and express these attitudes of the heart God will be preeminent, for there will be no room for “other gods.”

FOR I AM A JEALOUS GOD