Obedience - No Miracle Needed

"God will not do through a miracle

what He’s already told me to do through obedience."

I remember the day that I stopped praying for God to give me the power to do or stop doing certain things. Now I acknowledge that the power is always within me and I thank Him for it. Scripture teaches that when a person gives their heart to Jesus and yields to His Lordship that He gives them His Holy Spirit to guide and direct (John 14:26) them in their walk towards becoming like Christ. The Holy Spirit doesn’t come in portions. When we receive the Holy Spirit, upon salvation, we receive all of who He is: all of His power, all of His guidance, all of His protection and more. In other words we have all of the power already within us all of the time to flee any sin, accomplish any God given task and the ability to be all that He created us to be. The question is how much of us will He receive?

When we sin, we bypass God’s Spirit within us. If you are like me, there have been times when you’ve wanted the Spirit of God to actually physically come to me and give me victory. For example, if the struggle was over eating, I’d pray for Him to help me and I’d expect Him to take the 5th brownie out of my hand before it reached my mouth instead of realizing that as I submitted to Him and made a decision not to partake and walk in obedience that His Spirit’s power was there to help me overcome and give me victory. The Bible tells us in I Corinthians 10:13 that, "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." I remember being in a New Jersey diner once and I was full, but diners have those huge desserts. This piece of apple pie was calling me. I know I shouldn’t have it, but I just couldn’t resist. After the waitress served it to me, it fell on the ground. That was my way of escape. I should have seen that and thanked God, but instead, I ordered another slice!

What miracle are you praying for today? Has God already given you the key to victory, yet you are waiting for Him to move your hand? It’s exciting, yet humbling to know that when we pray for victory that it’s already ours. Because the One who gives us this power is always with us and as we walk in obedience there is nothing that He calls us to that cannot be accomplished.

So the next time you are faced with an obedience issue, just obey and you’ll see the Holy Spirit’s power released in your life. The miracle has already happened. Victory is yours and mine through obedience.

Pastor MJ

Freedom - Suffering Go Hand And Hand

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this

all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are

hard pressedon every side, but notcrushed; perplexed, ut not in

despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down,

but not destroyed." 2 Corinthians 4:7-9

The longer I live, the more I come to understand that freedom and suffering usually go hand in hand. Take for instance, the freedom that we will celebrate on Wednesday. Independence Day. The 4th of July! We celebrate our country’s freedoms, but one cannot truly appreciate the value of the freedoms we have without understanding that suffering was involved in gaining that freedom for us.

I’m coming to understand that suffering will always be a part of our earthly existence. Suffering comes from several sources: we may suffer as a result of our sin or of others sin, or, the most difficult to accept, our suffering may come from the hand of the Lord. Whatever the source, we are sure that Scripture teaches us that suffering is a part of God’s plan to mold us and shape us into all that He is creating us to be. It is a tool to cause us to hold loosely to the things of this earth and to help us yearn for Him and for "Home"!

When you boil it down, every great thing was born out of someone else’s suffering. How so? Well, for example, in order to perform the first heart transplant someone had to die! Braille was created and is a help to the blind today because someone lost their sight. We would never be able to receive eternal life were it not for the suffering of our Savior.

Consider this:

"Out of Great Tribulation – No words can express how
much the world owes to sorrow. Most of the Psalms
were born in a wilderness. Most of the Epistles were
written in a prison. The greatest thoughts of the
greatest thinkers have all passed through fire.
The greatest poets have "learned in suffering
What they have taught in song." In bonds Bunyan lived
The allegory that he afterwards indited, and we may thank
Bedford Jail for the Pilgrim’s Progress. Take comfort,
Afflicted Christian! When God is about to make

pre-eminent use of a man,
He puts him in the fire. (MacDonald)

Pastor MJ

Stop The World, I Want To Get Off!

Have you ever gotten up in the morning and by noon time wished that you had never risen from your bed? It seemed that every moment since you opened your eyes something went wrong?

Well, I’ve had a few of those days. There have been times when I experienced an awesome time of worship or an incredible time of prayer and praise or maybe just come through a major answer to a long awaited prayer. I think of times when we met and proclaimed the fact that God is able to do the impossible and that we need only to trust Him and watch Him do above all that we could ever ask or think. What an exciting thought! Ever have an experience like that and be up on the "mountaintop" and then the next day you realized that Satan listened in and wanted to challenge your new found excitement?

Why do we have days like that? Why do we have days when it just seems like everything, I mean everything, goes wrong and life just stinks? I sought God for an answer and here’s what He said,

"…This precious treasure – this light and power that now shines within you – is held in a Perishable container, that is, in your weak body. So that everyone can see that yourGlorious power is from God and is not your own. Mark, you are pressed on every sideBy troubles, but you are not crushed and broken. You are perplexed, but don’t you giveUp and quit. You are hunted down, but I will never abandon you. You get knockedDown, but get up again and keep going. Through suffering, your body constantly sharesIn the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in your body."(Personalization of 2 Cor. 47:10)

According to God’s Word, I should not be surprised by days like this. As a matter of fact, I should expect them. And when they come, I should remember to see it through His perspective and rejoice that He wants to use me to glorify His Name through my situation. It’s all about Him, and His glory, not me and my comfort! What a wake-up call.

"…That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are
Dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our
Present troubles are quite small and won’t last very long.
Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that
Will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see
Right now; rather, we look forward to what we have not yet
Seen. For the troubles we see will soon be over, but the joys
To come will last forever." (2 Cor. 4:16-18)

~Whew, I needed that today, I hope it encourages you!
Because He lives,
Pastor MJ

Praise The LORD, O My Soul

“Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits

- who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.”
Psalm 103:1-3

The rainfall over the past month has been incredible. Out of 31 days in May, 24 of them were blessed with rain. I say blessed, because I remember the many months of drought prior to May when we would be praying for God to open the flood gates. With that in mind, have you taken a moment as you ran to your car in a down pour or after you hurried outside to close your car window or as you were leaving the game mid-way due to a sudden storm, to stop and praise the Lord for the rain that He has graciously sent?

What else do you have to praise the Lord for and about today? David gets right to it and exhorts us to not just praise the Lord, but to do with everything that is within us. Our as I like to say, with our “everythingness”! Packed in the first three verses of Psalm 103 are four reasons why praise should flow out of the hearts of every believer!

1. Because the Lord is Holy – He is the only one who can claim this and we are blessed to be His children. (Vs. 1)
2. Because of all of God’s benefits toward us – Everything good in our lives, past present and future are from a gracious God who loves to bless His children with Good things! (Vs. 2)
3. Because of God’s forgiveness of our sins – Through Christ, your sins are cleansed and forgotten. God Himself paid a debt that He did not owe instead of us having to suffer a debt that we could not pay. (Vs. 3)
4. Because God heals all of our diseases – That’s right! Even if the most terrible disease is eating away at every fiber of your being today, if you know Jesus, one day, maybe in glory, you will be free; no more sickness, suffering or death. (Vs. 3)

Okay, are you doing a dance of praise yet? Take time today to give Him praise. Because, my friend, God is good – all the time and all the time – God is good! Amen!

Prepare For Worship

How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty!
My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD;

my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
Psalm 84:1-2 NIV

I thought it was strange as a child that every Saturday night my family had to be home early. Why? We had to get ready for church! My parents told us that we needed to be rested and have our minds and hearts prepared for the Lord’s Day. Over the years I have come to not only appreciate what they taught, but have taken that understanding to another level.

In our daily lives we see the importance of preparation. Have you ever seen someone give a presentation that was unprepared? They lose track of what they are saying, they seem nervous, their thoughts are not clear and they come across in a loud way that what they were asked to do along with the audience that they were to do it for were not that important to them.

On the other hand have you ever seen a young person getting ready for a really important date? If the date is on Friday, they often begin days before preparing for the event. Guys go to the gym to buff up and girls eat like birds to make sure they fit into the special outfit. They wouldn’t think about showing up on Friday night unprepared. Why? Because the person they are meeting, in their minds, “hung the moon”!

What do you do to prepare for our corporate worship gatherings? It’s not a small matter that God takes this subject of preparation very seriously. Throughout Scripture we see that when people entered into the presence of God there were very specific ways they had to prepare and to enter. God required preparation and if not followed serious consequences were received. That is because God is a Holy God and flippant unprepared acts of worship did not show proper acknowledgement of who He was.

In this age of Grace we are not required to do many of the same things as were prescribed in the Older Testament, however, we worship the same God and He is no less worthy of our giving our all in preparing to enter His presence in worship. God expects and requires our hearts to be prepared. That takes effort on our part. Yes, it takes work and it takes time. But as David said, “… I will not take for the LORD what is yours, or sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing." 1 Chr 21:24

This next week think about meeting with Him. Live in anticipation of meeting with the God of the universe! What can you do and how can you prepare to offer your best to Him. Let’s remember that He is worthy of our doing all we can do to bring Him our very best. And unlike getting ready for that special someone on a date, He actually did hang the moon!