“We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it.” ~ Numbers 13:30
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials. ~ James 1:2
Ah my brothers…the James 1:2 punch, eh? For the sake of Jesus, we will be tested, we will suffer, we may even die. Moses had everything. Born the son of Pharaoh, a prince with every “privilege and pleasure of the palace” as Maxwell shares in his daily leadership devotional this past Friday, “Give Up”. Not so different from the modern-day privilege and pleasure castles we have been groomed and conditioned into today. Truth-be-told, Pharaoh would envy what we have attained. Amen? But Moses, called by God, gave it all up for forty years of exile in the desert. Maxwell goes on, “By then, Moses had undergone the breaking and remaking process required for him to be used by God.”
The righteous is a guide to his neighbor, But the way of the wicked leads them astray. ~ Proverb 12:26
God compelled me in an iron sharpens iron moment this past week to challenge the leader of my men’s Bible study group and the men themselves. He had asked us to come back the following week with examples of how God was working in our lives, and I turned the tables by posing the question, “How are we working in God’s life?”
But when I saw they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews?” ~ Galatians 2:14
THINK…what must it have taken for freshman Paul to challenge the well-seasoned senior Peter right there in front of all the troops! Who did he think he was? Who do we think we are…in this season where Lieutenant Colonels are challenging their Generals who’ve violated their oaths, as the sheep are challenging their shepherds for violating theirs? By the way, I am in no way comparing Peter, who went to the cross for Christ, to generals and pastors who have led and are leading their troops and flocks to slaughter.
“Slack…in the day of distress.” Hello! Those six words are the very reason Eric Metaxas wrote his Letter to the American Church! This week God gave me this insightful juxtaposition that goes to the very heart of the problem in the majority of American churches today:
Laurie shared this beautiful expression of grandmother love (Chesed) on the virtue of quietly waiting…
Doc shared this equally beautiful expression of cowboy love (Gevurah) on the necessity of taking of the blinders and getting in the fight (cowboy/sailor language alert)…
And my exchange with Laurie: Lovely Laurie…I was taught long ago the powerful spiritual tool of “holding opposites.” It made David a great King. Because he had both the heart expressed in your video, as well as the love expressed in a slightly different way by this rancher…French Alert! ~ Chip
Chip, awesome opposites. We should be the farmer on the outside – forward the world and the grandma on the inside secure in the faith that Jesus will take us home at exactly the right moment. ~ Laurie
The enemy, as is it’s vampiric nature to do, has drained by the very infiltration Jude warned us of, the Gevurah blood energy…the masculine strength out of the church. It’s the hyper grace problem Pastor Earl speaks of when calling out the half gospel, hyper grace church. It’s the same problem that prompted Doc in this same week to ask, “Where are the men?” Answer: They are quietly waiting…
God loves Proverb 16:11 balance and scales in men…its why David was the man after His own heart. On the other hand, we know that He despises imbalance and the cowardly. Metaxas wrote about the “where are the men” church in Germany 84 years ago, inviting the death of millions by quietly waiting.
God’s third message to me this week is that we, remnant though we may be, are called to be the guides in this hour…through the valley…
A Psalm (Heart) & Proverb (Wisdom) a Day Drives the Tyrant Away! PS 23:3 He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
PR 13:8 The ransom of a man’s life is his wealth,
But the poor hears no rebuke.
God made us as men to be balanced in love and strength. It gives us both courage and confidence in battle. The hyper-grace imbalance gives us fear. Out of fear we tell ourselves many lies while we wait quietly for that “something big that’s about to happen.” Fear is the greatest killer of all. And the great irony, as God sees everything, fear decays the inner man!
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. ~ 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:1
Give it up while you are able brothers. The time to break the old and remake the new is at hand.
Standupnsing 