2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Ones,
There are many ways that God works through us when we empty our spiritual vessels and allow the Holy Spirit to take control. The questions arise: How do we empty our vessel, and how do we and others become more aware of Jehovah Shammah’s constant presence in our lives? To look at answers to these questions, Jehovah Shammah, the Lord is there, leads me to today’s citations. Both Paul and James inspired by the Lord wrote about what must be eliminated from our lives to empty our spiritual vessels and make room for the Spirit of God to operate freely. PHIL 3: 7-8, “At one time you yourselves used to live according to such [worldly] desires, when your life was dominated by them. But now you must get rid of all these things: anger, passion, and hateful feeling. No insults or obscene talk must ever come from your lips.” JAS 3: 9-10, “We use it [the tongue] to give thanks to our Lord and Father and also to curse our fellow-man, who is created in the likeness of God. Words of thanksgiving and cursing pour out from the same moth. My brothers, this should not happen!”
Passages such as these are God’s way of asking us to examine our own lives for the presence of thoughts or behaviors which block Him from doing His work through us. They also block any forward motion in the process of our own sanctification. We have all personally seen the misery that comes from things like destructively channeled anger, ungodly sexuality, prejudice, obscene language, gossip, grudges held and acted upon, and the like. On a global level, these things lead to wars and unrighteous alliances, like the one going on now between Russia and Iran. On a national level, they lead to economic problems, scandals, and lack of respect for institutions. On a community level, they lead to school shootings, political wrangling, and loss of community pride. At the congregational level, they lead to segmenting within denominations and political upset resulting in split congregations. In the home, they can lead to the breakdown of marriages, destruction of friendships, and abandonment of children. Jehovah Shammah knows this and instructed Paul to write about working for the unity and the edification of the Body of Christ.
EPH 4: 3, 13, 15-16, “Do your best to preserve the unity which the Spirit gives by means of the peace that binds you together…and so we shall all come together to that oneness in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God; we shall become mature people, reaching to the very height to Christ’s full stature…Instead, by speaking the truth in a spirit of love, we must grow up in every way to Christ, Who is the Head. Under His control all the different parts of the Body fit together, and the whole Body is held together by every joint with which it is provided. So when each separate part works as it should, the whole body grows and builds itself up through love.” Imagine if we approached every level of our lives governing our thoughts and actions this way, how very different our lives would be! Jehovah Shammah challenges us to look at our lives today and find ways to do this in them. When we have trouble doing that, He lends His always-wise advice through prayer and the Scriptures.
Our efforts to expunge sin from our lives are not only for our own benefit. Others observe them and see us finding the “peace that goes beyond human understanding” [PHIL 4: 7] and want that for themselves. Paul’s first epistle to the Thessalonians gives us a wonderful example of how this works. 1 THESS 1: 2-10, “We always thank God for you all and always mention you in our prayers. For we remember before our God and Father how you put your faith into practice, how your love made you work so hard, and how your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ is firm. Our brothers, we know that God loves you and has chosen you to be His own. For we brought the Good News to you, not with words only, but also with power and the Holy Spirit, and with complete conviction of its truth. You know how we lived when we were with you; it was for your own good. You imitated us and the Lord; and even though you suffered much, you received the message with the joy that comes from the Holy Spirit. So you became an example to all believers in Macedonia and Achaia. For not only did the message about the Lord go out from you throughout Macedonia and Achaia, but the news about your faith in God has gone everywhere. There is nothing, then, that we need to say. All those people speak about how you received us when we visited you and how you turned away from idols to God, to serve the true and living God and to wait for His Son to come from heaven-His Son Jesus Whom He raised from death and Who rescues us from God’s wrath that is coming.” That is how it works when God is heading up the team which is the Body of Christ and how our lives will be if we take active part as full-fledged members undergirded by strong and obedient faith.
Jehovah Shammah asks us to examine our lives from the point of view of all these levels and ask ourselves what the impact of our thoughts and actions are on each of them. When we accept that fact that how we live our lives are like pebbles dropped in a quite pool, causing concentric circles of impact to radiate out from us, we will be motivated to respond to His sovereignty in a way which pleases Him. No matter how unimportant we may think we are, our lives do matter a lot to ourselves and those around us. Most of all, they matter to Jehovah Shammah Who loves us more than we can imagine.
PRAYER: O Lord, You ask us to repeatedly study Scriptures like those in this message, each time giving us deeper appreciation of how important they are by the Holy Spirit. It is so easy for the behavior You want us to eliminate from our lives to creep back into them. Satan is the great deceiver, and that is how he works to allow sin to subtly work its way back into our lives. We must always be alert to that. The discernment that You give us through what the Holy Spirit teaches us is our greatest defense. It is He Who shows us the importance of honestly opening our hearts to You and of confessing sin when we find it in our lives. The adversary likes nothing more than to tempt us to engage in thoughts and behaviors that will block the Holy Spirit from doing His work. We dedicate ourselves to being diligent and alert to prevent that from happening. Part of that dedication is to spend time with You daily in prayer and in study of Your word. Another part of it is interacting with others around us with love, patience, compassion, and caring, just as Your Son models for us. We acknowledge Your presence in our lives and Lordship over them. To that end, we humbly offer You our adoration, worship, trust, obedience, loyalty, honor, glory, praise, and thanks. In Christ’s name, amen.
Jehovah Shammah commands us to stretch toward His perspective on any suffering we do in the act of living “in Christ.” That will be subject of tomorrow’s message. In the meanwhile we have been led to dealing with some tough questions by our Abba, Who knows that we must deal with them for our own good. As difficult as this assignment may be, we must understand that it has been given to us out of His profound love for each of us. We can find real comfort in knowing that our eventual glorification is a very high priority with our Lord who is there for us. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn