In the spiritual life, we can look a little more closely and see that every decision we make is our responsibility. Every word we say is our reality. Our independence in the natural has placed us as guilty before a holy God because we have learned to operate in a filthy world, and so spiritual maturity requires one more spurt of growth. We must learn to be dependent once again. We must learn to lean on God as Adam and He leaned on each other. We must learn we cannot make one decision without asking the Lord what He wants, and lovingly, admiringly, wait for our best-friend-forever’s counsel. When I first encountered the Lord in my life (He’d been there all the time, I just looked right through Him), and He told me I must say with my mouth that He was my Lord, my answer was this: “No one is going to be my Lord but me!” I did not realize at the time that there is no deeper section of hell than that. The essence of sin manifests itself by declaring it is god and not God Himself. We don’t have the right to be our own gods, or anyone else’s for that matter. We cannot spend our lives lavishing our attention on ourselves or any other icons we make. The only thing the Christian has the right to spend is time. What we do with our time makes all the difference to our destinies, and to our relationship with the true God, our Father. No one can steal time from us, but we can certainly let people and projects eat up our time. The only materials the Christian has the right to build with are his words. Words are the building blocks of our lives. What we say is what we receive in life. The only “right” a Christian has is the right to give up our rights. Since we gave our lives to Jesus at the point of our New Birth, He owns our rights.
God watches His sons and daughters, looking for the characteristics of a son of sacrifice. God must wade past the heart of adventure, recklessness and impulsivity, to find His true disciple. He will unite with His surrendered soul-mate in the act of worship; He will dance over us and sing over us. We will become one spirit with Him as we dance and sing over Him. Life becomes an adventure only when we let Him lead. The master we call recklessness is overcome by the introduction of “self-control.” Impulsivity is a spirit that loves to inhabit a Christian’s life, trampling the flower beds, displacing the lives of vegetables and fruit. Jesus says, “Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.” Meek does not mean weak. Meek means “humble, gentle, mild.” To be meek is not a description of a person’s outward behavior. Meekness is expressed through the soul as Grace flowing from one’s mind, emotions, and will. Such a one does not fight with God. How do we become the gentle, Grace-distributing person the Scriptures admonish us to be? By spending our time with the One who calls Himself meek and lowly in heart. We mimic our pals, those we hang around with. If we want to be like Jesus, we will spend time with Him and watch what He does and says. Just like Jesus did when He went off to be with His Father. Then He could say He said what He heard His Father saying, and He did what He saw His Father doing. I am single, but that does not keep me from going out to dinner just because I am alone. I solve that problem by asking Jesus to go out to dinner with me. I take a notebook and pen, write in it what I’d like to say, then I slide it across the table to Jesus who sits in the other chair. I listen, then I pull the notebook back and write down what He said. We go back and forth like this all through dinner. After all, if I spoke out loud to someone no one else can see, I’d be ushered out of the restaurant. I have learned more about the Lord in this manner than in any other way. I do my best to interact with Jesus wherever I am and in whatever I am doing. He calls me His friend, and I call Him my friend. We are never apart. And neither are you!
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Marty
Delmon
Writer
Evangelist Teacher Writing has been in my blood, so to speak, but when I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ and He told me to write, all my trepidations rolled away and I began in earnest! After all, if God Almighty says it was His idea that I be a writer, who am I to stand in His way? My hope is that you not only like what I write, but that your life is moved by it, and that your party to Jesus and with Jesus turns your life into days of Heaven on Earth.
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