The Glory of God

[Sean]

What is heaven, and when and where does it begin for us?

As through Jesus we enter into rest, heaven begins here. We respond to His invitation, Come, learn of Me, and in thus coming we begin the life eternal. Heaven is a ceaseless approaching to God through Christ. The longer we are in the heaven of bliss, the more and still more of glory will be opened to us; and the more we know of God, the more intense will be our happiness. As we walk with Jesus in this life, we may be filled with His love, satisfied with His presence. All that human nature can bear, we may receive here. But what is this compared with the hereafter? There "are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple: and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." Revelation 7:15-17.

While we can look forward to the LOCATION of heaven in the future, we can already be enjoying the INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP with Jesus that causes us to experience heaven's attributes of all of the fruits of the Spirit without one missing in the soul as we affectionately serve and obey Him from new hearts given us by grace through faith! May you let the loveliness of Jesus ever be your focus and always be who you enjoy communing with moment-by-moment!

[Sean]

What is a very effective way to bless people and reach them for Christ? Let's look at what Christ did in sending out His disciples!

Calling the twelve about Him, Jesus bade them go out two and two through the towns and villages. None were sent forth alone, but brother was associated with brother, friend with friend. Thus they could help and encourage each other, counseling and praying together, each one's strength supplementing the other's weakness. In the same manner He afterward sent forth the seventy. It was the Saviour's purpose that the messengers of the gospel should be associated in this way. In our own time evangelistic work would be far more successful if this example were more closely followed. 

What a joy it is to labor with a fellow brother in the Lord for souls! May this be your experience, too! You can pray that God will send you a co-laborer to share in the joy of winning souls!

[Sean]

What a joy it is to simplify our wants and come into harmony with God's loving purpose to bless others with a saving knowledge of His character so that they can be in constant union and communion with Christ! Such a living experience of faith will be manifest with all of the fruits of the Spirit in the life without one missing as we are empowered to obey God's law from the heart!

If men today were simple in their habits, living in harmony with nature's laws, as did Adam and Eve in the beginning, there would be an abundant supply for the needs of the human family. There would be fewer imaginary wants, and more opportunities to work in God's ways. But selfishness and the indulgence of unnatural taste have brought sin and misery into the world, from excess on the one hand, and from want on the other.

As we let the Lord simplify our habits, remove imaginary wants, and weed all vanity from our lives, we find great joy in His service, for He Himself is the Provider of all of our needs! May you let the Holy Spirit, by the word of God, revitalize your life in the joy of divine communion accompanied by the blessedness of finding ways to share what God has given you with others!

[Sean]

To glory in tribulation means to trust that God is love and praise Him in all the circumstances that He allows to befall us. While we know He is good and kind, and as we trust His divine leading, we can rejoice in Him even amid the most trying circumstances, knowing that His grace is sufficient for us and that He has His way to keep us in a state of true conversion, or, if we have yet to experience it or neglected to maintain that connection with Christ by a living faith surrender of the whole heart, to bring us through the needed trials that will allow us choose to be connected or get re-connected so all of the fruits of the Spirit without one missing may be manifest in our lives as we affectionately obey God! When we go through trial in a thoroughly converted state, the glory goes to God as those seeing us in the trial and the onlooking universe realize that God is able to keep His finite people abiding in Him and glorifying Him, even as Jesus did, all the way to the cross!

When trouble comes upon us, how often we are like Peter! We look upon the waves, instead of keeping our eyes fixed upon the Saviour. Our footsteps slide, and the proud waters go over our souls. Jesus did not bid Peter come to Him that he should perish; He does not call us to follow Him, and then forsake us. "Fear not," He says; "for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art Mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour." Isaiah 43:1-3. 

Trials mean benefit in the sense that they develop and reveal character more clearly. Let's thank God today for all that He brings us through because He loves us and is preparing us for heaven! Before we enter there, He is giving us heaven in our hearts, sealing His people so that they are settled into the truth intellectually and spiritually so they will never be moved from His character and word!

[Sean James]

What a blessing that we can have a fresh start--with a new heart from Jesus! A full surrender to Him enables the Holy Spirit to have free access to all of us so we become partakers of the divine nature and overcome every defect of character by abiding in Christ, allowing all of the fruits of the Spirit to be manifest in our lives without one missing as we gladly obey God's law of love!

Are you a follower of Christ? Then all that is written concerning the spiritual life is written for you, and may be attained through uniting yourself to Jesus. Is your zeal languishing? has your first love grown cold? Accept again of the proffered love of Christ. Eat of His flesh, drink of His blood, and you will become one with the Father and with the Son.

Oneness with God is what Christ longs for us to have, as it was His experience. Such a joyful union and communion with Christ empowers us to day by day let God work out His will in us so others are blessed by seeing His kingdom revealed in our characters!

[Sean]

What a blessing it is to keep our focus on the power of the true gospel message, and to remember that the saving faith questions we need to ask are at this time in earth's history when the three angels' messages of Revelation 14:6-12 show us the context of the times in which we are living and the great necessity of living in harmony with God so we are in readiness for Christ to come. Only a complete heart surrender and a yielding of all of self to Christ by having our thoughts, words and character transformed by union and communion with Christ will enable us to overcome as we partake of the divine nature and let all of the fruits of the Spirit be manifest through us without one missing as we gladly obey God's law of love!

Whenever the message of truth comes home to souls with special power, Satan stirs up his agents to start a dispute over some minor question. Thus he seeks to attract attention from the real issue. Whenever a good work is begun, there are cavilers ready to enter into dispute over forms or technicalities, to draw minds away from the living realities. When it appears that God is about to work in a special manner for His people, let them not be enticed into a controversy that will work only ruin of souls. The questions that most concern us are, Do I believe with saving faith on the Son of God? Is my life in harmony with the divine law? "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life." "And hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments." John 3:36; 1 John 2:3. 

True obedience is from the new heart given in true conversion, and Christ empowers us to do His will gladly and faithfully even if no one around us is choosing that path! Let us keep our eyes on Jesus and remember that He will never fail the weakest soul who trusts fully in Him!

[Sean]

What is your choice?

In faith the woman of Phoenicia flung herself against the barriers that had been piled up between Jew and Gentile. Against discouragement, regardless of appearances that might have led her to doubt, she trusted the Saviour's love. It is thus that Christ desires us to trust in Him. The blessings of salvation are for every soul. Nothing but his own choice can prevent any man from becoming a partaker of the promise in Christ by the gospel.

Only YOU are the deciding factor in salvation. God loves you and is doing ALL He can to save you. Satan is against you and seeks to discourage you from trusting God's promises, but Jesus defeated Him at the cross and rose in triumph from the tomb and offers us His same victory over the world, the flesh and the devil as we abide in Him! All of the fruits of the Spirit without one missing abide in the truly converted soul that lives by faith on Christ, and we are empowered to overcome even as Christ did by humble, affectionate obedience to God's will revealed in His word! Will you choose Christ today, continually?

[Sean]

What is a great miracle? A consistent life in Christ that manifests all of the fruits of the Spirit in affectionate obedience to God's law of love in continual growth! Only Christ can produce this miracle in us by the Holy Spirit as we surrender the whole heart to Him, and only we can choose to resist or frustrate it from happening if we go our own way. May God keep us from sin by His grace!

When the message of truth is presented in our day, there are many who, like the Jews, cry, Show us a sign. Work us a miracle. Christ wrought no miracle at the demand of the Pharisees. He wrought no miracle in the wilderness in answer to Satan's insinuations. He does not impart to us power to vindicate ourselves or to satisfy the demands of unbelief and pride. But the gospel is not without a sign of its divine origin. Is it not a miracle that we can break from the bondage of Satan? Enmity against Satan is not natural to the human heart; it is implanted by the grace of God. When one who has been controlled by a stubborn, wayward will is set free, and yields himself wholeheartedly to the drawing of God's heavenly agencies, a miracle is wrought; so also when a man who has been under strong delusion comes to understand moral truth. Every time a soul is converted, and learns to love God and keep His commandments, the promise of God is fulfilled, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." Ezekiel 36:26. The change in human hearts, the transformation of human characters, is a miracle that reveals an ever-living Saviour, working to rescue souls. A consistent life in Christ is a great miracle. In the preaching of the word of God, the sign that should be manifest now and always is the presence of the Holy Spirit, to make the word a regenerating power to those that hear. This is God's witness before the world to the divine mission of His Son. 

Christ has come to set us free from sin, and He is still just as powerful in His love to set us free from selfishness and make us unselfish in heart and mind like Him. May we live to bless others today by His grace!

[Sean]

Let us receive the gift of bearing the cross with Jesus, and remember that His love constrains us to go forward in His will to bless others! As long as Christ is reigning in our hearts, all of the fruits of the Spirit without one missing will be seen in our lives as we gladly obey God from a new heart!

Love for souls for whom Christ died means crucifixion of self. He who is a child of God should henceforth look upon himself as a link in the chain let down to save the world, one with Christ in His plan of mercy, going forth with Him to seek and save the lost. The Christian is ever to realize that he has consecrated himself to God, and that in character he is to reveal Christ to the world. The self-sacrifice, the sympathy, the love, manifested in the life of Christ are to reappear in the life of the worker for God.

[Sean]

Only by love is love awakened, and Jesus in His tender, self-forgetful love longs to bless His disciples with a fresh revelation of His kingdom where all is purity and glory so that when He would die for them on the cross they would be able to endure it. It Jesus so loved them (and all of the human family) as to take upon Himself the very experience of sin and its penalty in the sight of a holy God and die on account of it, and so He seeks to prepare them for what is yet future (and cause us to value what He already did!). So Jesus seeks to prepare us, as He ministers now in the heavenly sanctuary, as He desires us to trust Him so well that when the seven last plagues are falling on the earth and all the powers of earth are arrayed against His faithful ones, we will remember that He has not changed, and that He loves us just as much in that severe trial as He did in the days of our sunniest prosperity, and that His grace is still powerful enough to cleanse the heart and keep the weakest soul who trusts in Him from sinning!

Through being overcome with sleep, the disciples heard little of what passed between Christ and the heavenly messengers. Failing to watch and pray, they had not received that which God desired to give them,--a knowledge of the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. They lost the blessing that might have been theirs through sharing His self-sacrifice. Slow of heart to believe were these disciples, little appreciative of the treasure with which Heaven sought to enrich them. 

May we value what Jesus is doing for us now, and learn from the experience of the disciples how prone we are to go to sleep (not just physically, but spiritually). Oh, let us keep our eyes on Jesus and be wide awake to His will and plan for us moment-by-moment in constant union and communion with Him! Then, in such sweet fellowship of true conversion all of the fruits of the Spirit will be manifest as we affectionately obey God from the new heart He gives us by His grace!

[Sean]

"If Thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us." How many a sin-burdened soul has echoed that prayer. And to all, the pitying Saviour's answer is, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." It is faith that connects us with heaven, and brings us strength for coping with the powers of darkness. In Christ, God has provided means for subduing every sinful trait, and resisting every temptation, however strong. But many feel that they lack faith, and therefore they remain away from Christ. Let these souls, in their helpless unworthiness, cast themselves upon the mercy of their compassionate Saviour. Look not to self, but to Christ. He who healed the sick and cast out demons when He walked among men is the same mighty Redeemer today. Faith comes by the word of God. Then grasp His promise, "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." John 6:37. Cast yourself at His feet with the cry, "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief." You can never perish while you do this--never. 

Let us let these words SINK IN DEEPLY!!

[Sean]

Let us allow Jesus to make us true disciples! When we live in total surrender to Christ, all of the fruits of the Spirit will be seen in our lives without one missing as we obey God up to the light He has revealed to us and eagerly receive all that He has to teach us! May we be all in because Jesus is all in for us!

Before honor is humility. To fill a high place before men, Heaven chooses the worker who, like John the Baptist, takes a lowly place before God. The most childlike disciple is the most efficient in labor for God. The heavenly intelligences can co-operate with him who is seeking, not to exalt self, but to save souls. He who feels most deeply his need of divine aid will plead for it; and the Holy Spirit will give unto him glimpses of Jesus that will strengthen and uplift the soul. From communion with Christ he will go forth to work for those who are perishing in their sins. He is anointed for his mission; and he succeeds where many of the learned and intellectually wise would fail.

When we let Jesus live out His life in us, there is joyful victory and growth in His grace and love! What a blessing to be efficient in labor for God as childlike, converted children of His!

[Sean]

We cannot improve on what Christ already offered us. Salvation--the true experience of being in harmony with God by being saved by grace through faith from sin--is the true desire and need of every soul. Whether we know it or not, we are all longing to experience Christ, the Desire of all nations, and it is only in complete surrender of all we have and are to Him that there can be true love, joy and peace (along with all of the other fruit of the Spirit without one missing) as we are empowered to eagerly obey God's law of love, revealed in the Ten Commandments as the transcript of His selfless character. May we learn continually to go to Christ, the Source of all blessing and healing for our souls! Don't let the devil, the world or your own self trick you to think that other things will ever satisfy like Jesus and what He graciously gives us in loving relationships with Him and others!

Jesus knew the wants of the soul. Pomp, riches, and honor cannot satisfy the heart. "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me." The rich, the poor, the high, the low, are alike welcome. He promises to relieve the burdened mind, to comfort the sorrowing, and to give hope to the despondent. Many of those who heard Jesus were mourners over disappointed hopes, many were nourishing a secret grief, many were seeking to satisfy their restless longing with the things of the world and the praise of men; but when all was gained, they found that they had toiled only to reach a broken cistern, from which they could not quench their thirst. Amid the glitter of the joyous scene they stood, dissatisfied and sad. That sudden cry, "If any man thirst," startled them from their sorrowful meditation, and as they listened to the words that followed, their minds kindled with a new hope. The Holy Spirit presented the symbol before them until they saw in it the offer of the priceless gift of salvation.

As the Holy Spirit works to change us from glory to glory, from character to character, we experience an ever-deepening realization of our continual need of Jesus to do any good thing, and in abiding in Him, we are enabled to bear much fruit to the glory of God!

[Sean]

What is love? Love is patient and love is kind, and it helps those who need it most. We need help so much, and God in infinite love offers us His help that we may be wholly transformed in His character.

To all who realized their need, Christ came with infinite help.

Let us accept in a full-heart surrender the help God offers us in Christ and receive all of the fruits of the Spirit in our lives without one missing even as we are empowered by His grace to obey God from a heart that is renewed in His image!

[Sean]

What is love? It is grace in action; it is seeing what we can be rather than what we are; it is pursuing the very ones who are in need of it, even if they have yet to fully believe it, reflecting selflessness until it becomes the principle of every heart and the outflowing experience of affection and intimate oneness with the God whose character will never change! "God is love" (1 John 4:16). And such a Shepherd pursues us so earnestly that we come to fully believe we are worth more than anything else to God in the entire universe to Him--WOW!!! AND IT IS TRUE!!

It is not the fear of punishment, or the hope of everlasting reward, that leads the disciples of Christ to follow Him. They behold the Saviour's matchless love, revealed throughout His pilgrimage on earth, from the manger of Bethlehem to Calvary's cross, and the sight of Him attracts, it softens and subdues the soul. Love awakens in the heart of the beholders. They hear His voice, and they follow Him.   

Listen to Him. Get to know Him who is love. The patient, wooing, winning love of Jesus changes hearts that were cold, heals lives that were terrorized by lies and confusion, and brings to fruition every good and perfect gift in God's appointed way! Oh, let us not resist this love but yield all we have and are to Him who upon entrance into the soul temple will ALWAYS bring ALL of the fruits of the Spirit without one missing--love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and temperance, in harmony with righteousness and truth! And the incredible attractiveness of Christ constraints us to an obedience that we yearn to offer from a heart that is made new by Him in love!