Following the Lamb wherever he goes… Revelation 14:4
I feel like Jesus is asking us right now, “Do you love Me?” the same way He asked Peter. (John 17: 23, 24)
What is your answer to Him? Do you really love Him?
If you hear Him asking you this, examine your heart and find out if you really love Him or exactly how you feel about Him.
What is the nature of your relationship with Him?
Are you serving Him out of obligation, tradition, religion, fear or love?
It matters.
David Wilkerson Today
TUESDAY, MAY 31, 2011
CHRIST REIGNS!
by David Wilkerson
Often people write to us saying, “I have no one to talk to, no one to share
my burden with. Nobody has time to hear my cry. I need someone I can pour my
heart out to.”
King David was surrounded by people. He was married, with a large family, and
had many companions at his side. Yet we hear the same cry even from David:
“To whom shall I go?” It is in our very nature to want another human being,
with a face, eyes and ears to listen to us and advise us.
When Job became overwhelmed by his trials, he cried out with grief: “Oh that
one would hear me!” (Job 31:35). He uttered this cry while sitting before his
so-called friends. Yet those friends had no sympathy for Job’s troubles.
Instead, they were messengers of despair.
In his sorrow, Job turned only to the Lord: “Behold, my witness is in heaven,
and my record is on high… Mine eye poureth tears unto God” (Job 16:19-20).
In the Psalms, David urged God’s people to do likewise: “Trust in him at
all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us”
(Psalm 62:8). David also wrote in Psalm 142:
“I cried unto the Lord with my voice; with my voice unto the Lord did I make
my supplication. I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my
trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, thou knewest my path. In the
way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me. I looked on my right
hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no
man cared for my soul. I cried unto thee, O Lord: I said, Thou art my refuge
and my portion in the land of the living” (142:1-5).
I believe in my heart this message is an invitation to you from the Holy Spirit
to find a private place where you can frequently pour out your soul to the Lord.
David “poured out his complaint,” and so can you. You can speak to Jesus
about everything – your problems, your present trial, your finances, your
health – and tell him how overwhelmed you are, even how discouraged you are.
He will hear you with love and sympathy, and he will not despise your cry.
God answered David. He answered Job. And for centuries he has answered the
heart-cry of everyone who has trusted his promises. Likewise, he has promised
to hear you and guide you. Indeed, he has pledged by oath to be your strength.
Go to him, and you will come out renewed.
Read this devotion online: http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/node/13456
May 31 – Live in Power
“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
(Romans 6:4)
As a believer, you actually have residing in you the same new life God gave Jesus when He raised Him from the dead. The old sinner you once were has died. You’ve become a new creation on the inside.
You are full of the resurrection life of God!
But sin, disobedience and living a selfish, carnal life will keep that resurrection life from flowing out. Sin will separate you from the power of God, even though you’re born again. Resurrection life will lay dormant in you if you walk in sin.
You can’t overcome sin by trying to stop sinning, however. You overcome it by walking after the new life God has put within you; by spending time in the Word and in prayer. As you do that, the Spirit of God will strengthen you and enable you to put that sin under your feet.
Remember, though, the Holy Spirit will not subdue those old fleshly habits of yours on His own. He’ll wait on you to take the initiative. Then He will strengthen you to follow through with your decision. He will teach you how to walk in the new life that is in you.
Take the first step today by asking for His help. Say, “Lord, I desire to experience the power to live by this new life every day. By a decision of my heart, I put down the dictates of sin. I declare myself dead to it. In Jesus’ Name, I will spend time in prayer and in the Word today. As I do, I believe I’ll receive a Holy Ghost refreshing in my life. I believe I’ll begin to live out the resurrection power that You’ve placed in me!”
Scripture Study: Romans 7:1-6
From Kenneth Copeland’s daily email devotional Faith to Faith
Step 2: Live by your spirit instead of by your soul.
There is a difference between your soul and your spirit. You are a spirit. You have a soul. You live in a body. The Bible speaks about dividing between soul and spirit. (Heb. 4:12)
Your soul is the part of you that interacts with this world. Your spirit is the part of you that interacts with God and the spiritual realm. God is a spirit and we are made in His image. And we are told that if we want to worship God, we must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
Your spirit can communicate with the Holy Spirit. He speaks to you through your spirit. Your spirit conveys to your soul what the Father is saying to you. That’s how you hear from Him. Your spirit is who you really are. Some people call it your conscience.
Your soul is made up of your mind, will and emotions. They can be controlled by your spirit, or not. If you don’t actively put them in subjection to your spirit, they are likely not being controlled by your spirit. Hence, they are not under the Holy Spirit’s control, either. You have the ability to lift up your spirit above your soul each day. You can choose to live by your soul or your spirit. If you live by your soul, you will make decisions and do things according to your physical senses and what your mind tells you is correct. If you live by your spirit, you will listen to the Holy Spirit and find out His will for each decision and every action. Your soul will do what your spirit says to do if you have put it in subjection to your spirit.
Most of us live by our souls. We were taught to live that way, because our families and churches didn’t know any better. We have lived by our own understanding, our minds and our emotions. When we get saved, our spirit comes awake. And at that point, we can start to live by our spirits. But, unfortunately, few of us are ever taught how to do that. We continue to live by our souls. Our souls are very strong and loud. Our spirits are young and not very strong yet. If we don’t exercise them, they stay that way.
You can exercise your spirit by putting your spirit above your soul each day. You tell the soul to get under the dominion of your spirit. You tune into what God is saying to you through your spirit. It takes getting alone with God and waiting to hear Him speak. (1 Pet. 1:22)
When Paul mentions the fruits of the Spirit, that’s just what they are. If we don’t have a strong connection with the Spirit of God through our spirits, we can’t have the fruits of the Spirit.
Isaiah spoke of the soul and the spirit separately in 26:9 and 57:16, and Job also separated them in Job 7:11.
In 1 Thess. 5:23 Paul gives us the correct order of importance of each part of our being. He says “your whole spirit, soul and body“, in that order. The spirit is to be above the soul and the soul over the body.
The Kingdom of God does not consist of speech, but of power. It is spiritual power – healing, miracles, signs and wonders; touching the glory and the presence of God; and casting out demons. Not just theology, philosophy or words that we speak. It’s the dunamis power of the Holy Spirit that we can tap into with our spirits, not our souls. (1 Cor. 2:4,5) The Kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom. And we live in it by our spirits.
So when we need to know God’s will for our lives about a specific issue, we need to make sure we’re listening to God with our spirits. We need to put our spirit in dominion, so that we know we’re really hearing from the Holy Spirit, not our own mind. We can pray a prayer like this:
“Father, I put my soul and my flesh in submission to my spirit. And I put my spirit in submission to You, Holy Spirit. I bind anything demonic that would keep me from hearing from You, in Jesus’ name. I will only hear the voice of my Good Shepherd. Lord, bypass my soul and speak to my spirit. Speak loud and clear, Holy Spirit.”
And then present your question to the Lord. Ask Him to give you the guidance you need. If you need to know whether you’re supposed to do a certain thing, ask Him if you’re supposed to do it. And then listen to what He says to you. You may have to wait quite a while. If you don’t hear anything, ask a different question. Ask the Lord to guide you through it. He’ll help you to find out the answer He wants you to have. He may speak a scripture reference to you. Look it up and find out what it says and seek Him about how it applies to your situation. If you have put the question in “yes or no” form, you may hear a “yes, yes, yes” or “no, no, no” inside yourself.
God’s purpose for everything is to draw us closer to Himself. The thing that is most important is not really the guidance itself, but the time you spent with the Lord, talking to Him and listening for His voice. Any time you spend concentrated time with Him, He is pleased, and you have drawn closer to Him.
Heb. 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
1 Pet. 1:22 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit…
1 Thess. 5:23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body…
1 Cor. 2:4,5 And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
Isa. 26:9 With my soul I have desired You in the night, Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early…
Isa. 57:16 For the spirit would fail before Me, And the souls which I have made.
Job 7:11 I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
I don’t do everything right. There, I admitted it. Ow, that was hard.
I fall short of the ideal in many ways. But I keep goals and ideals in front of me as a target to shoot for. I mess up every day, but I get up the next day and ask forgiveness and start over again with a clean slate.
I believe that Charlotte Mason’s method is one of the best ways to teach children. But I don’t follow her methods strictly. There are other methods that I have developed as the Spirit leads that I believe are more effective with my children. A lot of it depends on their temperament and personality.
And sometimes I don’t follow her methods because I forget them or don’t really understand them, or I’m not as diligent as I should be.
For the sake of my sanity and the peace of my home, I adapt the methods that I believe in and follow them loosely. If I try to be rigid about anything, the fun and enjoyment just disappears for the kids and for me. I get impatient and demanding. These are not fruits of the Spirit.
When it comes to using the Charlotte Mason approach, I don’t follow everything she says to do. (There, I admitted that, too. That didn’t hurt quite as much.)
Narration is one of those things.
Charlotte Mason says it should be done a certain way. From the Charlotte Mason Homeschool Series vol. 1 pg 232
“In every case the reading should be consecutive from a well-chosen book. Before the reading for the day begins, the teacher should talk a little (and get the children to talk) about the last lesson, with a few words about what is to be read, in order that the children may be animated by expectation; but she should beware of explanation and, especially, of forestalling the narrative. Then, she may read two or three pages, enough to include an episode; after that, let her call upon the children to narrate,––in turns, if there be several of them. They not only narrate with spirit and accuracy, but succeed in catching the style of their author. It is not wise to tease them with corrections; they may begin with an endless chain of ‘ands,’ but they soon leave this off, and their narrations become good enough in style and composition to be put in a ‘print book’!
I, personally, don’t require narration of every book I read to them or every book or lesson they read themselves. And I don’t do it the way CM prescribes. My method is less structured and more intuitive. Basically, I have them narrate when the Spirit moves me. It would drive my kids crazy if I stopped every two or three pages and made them narrate. It would spoil our enjoyment of the story.
I found this quote interesting:
From CM Homeschool Series vol. 3 pg 181
“The mind can know nothing but what it can produce in the form of an answer to a question put by the mind to itself.”
Even though I don’t follow her exact methods, I believe that my method is enabling my children to ask the questions themselves instead of forcing them to think about what I’m thinking about.
The narration that happens at my house is more spontaneous and flows from a need or desire that one of us has. For example, if one of my children reads something and then comes and tells me about it because they’re excited and want to share the story with me, I count that as narration.
If I have been reading a story aloud (which is always true) and the next day I want to know where I left off or I want them to get back into it and refresh their memory of what had just happened, I ask them to tell me the last thing we read the day before. And the kids can almost always tell me, in detail, what I read last. They usually tell it quickly, so I’ll hurry and start reading again!
At different times, I ask a child to tell me what he knows about a particular person or topic we’ve been studying. When they answer me, I consider that narration, too.
I use it to find out if they’ve been listening or understanding what we’ve been discussing. Things are found out in this way such as places where their understanding is weak or times that they have not really been paying attention.
I may not be following Charlotte Mason’s method perfectly, but I have seen good fruits in the lives of my children. And I think that’s what matters the most. I think it gives my children a chance to dream and see the images in their own imagination without interruption. I want them to be able to do this:
I read this post by Sally Clarkson where she admitted that she’s not perfect and thought that it fit pretty well with my previous confessions. I hope it encourages you as much as it encouraged me.
Perfect! Not a word high on my vocabulary as an expectation of life
Follow me on Instagram at www.instagram.com/penneymaried
"Oh that God would give every mother a vision of the glory and splendor of the work that is given to her when a babe is placed in her bosom to be nursed and trained! Could she have but one glimpse in to the future of that life as it reaches on into eternity; could she look into its soul to see its possibilities; could she be made to understand her own personal responsibility for the training of this child, for the development of its life, and for its destiny,--she would see that in all God's world there is no other work so noble and so worthy of her best powers, and she would commit to no other's hands the sacred and holy trust given to her." -JR Miller
https://www.angelpenn.com/i-still-do/
