It Becomes Mutual

"I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." (2 Corinthians 6:16)

Here is a mutual interest. Each belongs to each. God is the portion of His people, and the chosen people are the portion of their God. The saints find in God their chief possession, and He reckons them to be His peculiar treasure. What a mine of comfort lies in this fact for each believer!

This happy condition of mutual interest leads to mutual consideration. God will always think of His own people, and they will always think of Him. This day my God will perform all things for me; what can I do for Him? My thoughts ought to run toward Him, for He thinketh upon me. Let me make sure that it is so and not be content with merely admitting that so it ought to be.

This, again, leads to mutual fellowship. God dwells in us, and we dwell in Him; He walks with us, and we walk with God.

Oh, for grace to treat the Lord as my God: to trust Him and to serve Him, as His Godhead deserves! Oh, that I could love, worship, adore, and obey Jehovah in spirit and in truth! This is my heart's desire. When I shall attain to it, I shall have found my heaven. Lord, help me! Be my God in helping me to know Thee as my God, for Jesus' sake.

--Faith's Checkbook, April 28

Fruit

Praise God for being good and faithful. God's new mercies amaze me every time. I battled with some things this past week, and the reality of the struggle between the flesh and the spirit was made even more evident. I asked God to purify me and set me free from those things that weigh me down and the things that conflict with the Spirit. Deserving of punishment and guilt, I approached the throne of grace and asked God for forgiveness. How precious is the promise that we're forgiven by the blood of Jesus. How precious is the blood of the Lamb! It sets us free from sin and destruction.

I arrived at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa at 9:30 and listened to the teaching of Chuck Smith. Today's message was titled, "Works Versus Fruit." It was based on Galatians 5:19-23.

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery (greek: pharmakeia, possible translation: "drugs used for self-gratifying purposes") , enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies (revellings or excessive immoral partying), and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love (agape), joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:19-23 ESV)

Pastor Chuck defined each work of the flesh and reminded us that those we practice those things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. How we all need to consider each work of the flesh carefully and examine ourselves to see if we're deceived into thinking we're in communion with God. Contrast the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit, again, examine ourselves to see if we're in a growing relationship with God. The fruit of the Spirit comes by a natural relationship with Christ. Jesus says, "I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5 ESV) Some would like to believe that we can work to obtain the fruit. We hear people saying, "I'll try by best to love," or "With enough peaceful thoughts, I'll be sure to find peace." However, the only lasting way to produce the fruit of the Spirit is by abiding in Christ. We cannot obtain and then give others agape, joy, and peace by our own strength. It's only by staying connected to the Vine.

The works of the flesh is what you would find at a factory, things produced by the labor of man. We can never say that God helped us in the production of our passion for sex, intellect, power, uncleanness, selfish ambitions, and all the other works of the flesh. We were the ones that labored, sometimes to great lengths, for those things. What do you think? Does God desire to meet us at the factory, even if there's something notable to boast about? Do we impress God by the work of our hands? Many will boast in their prophesying and doing great things for the Kingdom of God, but in that Day, Jesus will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness." (Matthew 7:23 ESV). Oh wake up Church! Wake up those of you who boast in anything save the cross of Christ! Repent and be saved from the judgment to come!

God waits and waits and suffers long for lost sinners, and the saints, filled with Spirit, also wait long with Him. God awaits us at the garden, where the works of the flesh and the boasting of man in himself are not present. It is the Fruit that Jesus wants us to taste and enjoy, and we receive it freely by living in Him daily.

I wanted to share the rest of the day with you, because God was with me every minute, and His presence, His glory, His grace, His way is just incredible, literally indescribable with words, although we do our best to communicate these wonders through words, but it's getting late, and I best be mentally and physically ready to teach the little ones a thing or two about reading and math. However much I may want to describe my entire day's experience with you, I desire even more for you to know God intimately and walk humbly with Him. Give all the glory to Him who gave us His life, freeing us from sin, and giving us a new life marked by love, joy, peace that surpasses all understanding. Abide in Christ and live!

Don't follow fickle feelings; follow God.

Webster's Dictionary defines "fickle" as "Not fixed or firm; liable to change; unstable." Your emotions and how you feel are unstable and liable to change. So, if you follow your feelings, then your life, your choices, and your actions will sway like a tree in strong wind.

Because your feelings can be unstable, it is important not to follow them exclusively. For example, there will probably be some days when you don't feel like being nice to your spouse. If you follow your feelings and act impulsively, then your marriage will have problems. Because feelings are unstable and unpredictable, someone who lives based on their feelings will also be unstable and unpredictable.

Indeed, James 1:8 says that someone who follows his feelings "is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does."

Instead of following our feelings, we need to follow God, for He is the only source of true stability. We need to take the same attitude as an old hymn, which says, "On Christ the solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand."

In Matthew 7:24-27, Jesus says, "Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

That "rock" is God's Word. If we want to live solid, stable lives, they must be built on the rock—God, himself. Therefore, don't follow fickle feelings; follow God.

[Weekly Wisdom - ChristNotes.org]

All Men Are Born Evil

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5 ESV)

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. (Isaiah 64:6 KJV)

An Angry God

BEEN THINKING ABOUT: A SURVEY

A 2006 Baylor Religion Survey found that Americans have very different opinions about whether God is inclined to be angry.

According to the Baylor study:

• 23 percent believe in a God of goodwill who shows up in our lives and is not inclined to be angry.

• 31.4 percent believe in an authoritarian God who is very involved in our lives and s us to do.

• 24.4 percent believe in a critical God who, although not so involved with us, will show His displeasure by punishment in the hereafter.

• 16 percent believe in a distant God who is neither involved with us nor inclined to be angry.

• 5.2 percent say they are atheists.

The results of this survey cause me to wonder how much the people in these categories have been affected by a misunderstanding of the Bible.

The Bible describes a God whose anger is an important part of His story. From Genesis to Revelation, God expresses not only love but also anger. Moses writes about a time when God was so angry with the children of Israel that He threatened to destroy all of them and start over (Deuteronomy 9:8-20). David, the songwriter king of Israel, later wrote that “God is angry with the wicked every day” (Psalm 7:11), and the last book in the Bible pictures a resurrected Lord bringing the wrath of God against a world in rebellion (Revelation 19:11-16).

The God of both testaments, however, is slow to get angry. He is the opposite of irritable parents whose flash points of anger say more about their own frustration than about their child’s need for correction. The Father in heaven never loses His temper because He has had a bad day or because, in exasperation, He doesn’t know what else to do. Over and over the Bible describes Him as being “ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in kindness” (Nehemiah 9:17; see also Psalm 103:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Nahum 1:3).

The God of the Bible is so patient that He risks being misunderstood. His reluctance to enforce quick justice allows many to conclude that He isn’t watching, or that He doesn’t care (2 Peter 3:3-4). Yet by the time the last pages of the Bible are written, they reveal a God who waits as long as He does to give us time for a change of heart (Romans 2:4).

God takes no pleasure in the death of those who reject Him. Many centuries before Jesus’ birth, a Jewish prophet declared that God takes no pleasure in the death of His enemies. Specifically, the prophet Ezekiel declared, “‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’” (33:11).

Now, as then, God’s heart grieves over the end of those who refuse His offer of pardon and sanctuary.

When Jesus expressed “woes” on His enemies, He was more sad than angry. The “woes” He expressed to those who hated Him were not expressions of angry self-defense. They were expressions of lament, regret, and distress (Luke 11:42-52).

By “woes” of grief and alarm, Jesus put the Pharisees on notice that they were in danger of being accused and condemned by the very laws in which they took so much pride. So He said to them, “Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust” (John 5:45).

God is too loving not to be angry. His anger, slow as it is, remains as evidence that He cares about the harmful things we do to ourselves and to one another.

The opposite of anger is not love. The opposite of anger is to be uninvolved and indifferent. It is because God loves so much that He feels such a mixture of grief and anger toward those who refuse to come to Him—at the expense of themselves and others.

This slow-forming, brokenhearted anger is what finally resulted in the terrible flood of Noah’s day (Genesis 6:1-6). Later, God’s judgment fell on Sodom and Gomorrah after the sins of the twin cities created conditions of oppression and hard-hearted violence (Genesis 18:20-21; Ezekiel 16:49-50). Still later, God’s reluctant anger fell on Jerusalem, who, according to the prophet Ezekiel, fell into such spiritual disgrace that she made Samaria and Sodom look good by comparison (16:51-52).

Nowhere, however, is the heart behind God’s anger better understood than when:

Jesus turned the wrath of the law against Himself. Because of the love that would not allow Him to be uninvolved or indifferent to us, the Son of God took the punishment we deserved (2 Corinthians 5:21). When Jesus said from His cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46), that was our hour of judgment. In that moment, our guilt was being punished. God’s anger against all that is evil and harmful in the world was falling on Himself instead of us.

Most amazing is that according to the New Testament, the One who will sit in judgment of the world in the last days is none other than the same Jesus who suffered in our place (Matthew 25:31-34; John 5:22-27; Acts 10:42-43; 17:31; 2 Timothy 4:1).

If this is true, if the anger of God will flash in the eyes of the same One who cried and died for us, then how would we answer a survey that asks how inclined God is to be angry?

Does this sound like a God who is uninvolved or uncaring—or in any way unworthy of our fear, trust, and love?

Father in heaven, thank You for helping us to see that if we are condemned, it is because of our refusal to be rescued. If we end up experiencing justice instead of mercy, it will be because we have rejected You, who so loved the world that You gave us Your only begotten Son, so that “whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). — Mart De Haan

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