When God put it on my heart to write a book about worship, I questioned my friends, my family and others how and when they worshiped. "Do you worship the Lord on a daily basis, or just on Sundays?"
In my opinion the "key" to the Christian walk is knowing how, moment by moment, to give things over to God-how to acknowledge and confess our sin and self; how to repent of it; and then, how to give it over to Him.
There's a huge difference between simply knowing that we possess God's Life in our hearts and actually experiencing it in our lives. The key to being able to do this, moment by moment, is understanding how to surrender ourselves to the Lord. This process is what we have been exploring over these last several months in Personal UPDATE.
How do we give things over to the Lord and leave them there? This has been our topic of discussion for the last two months. We briefly talked about the four essential steps to doing this:
In the last article, we began an exploration of the four essential steps that God has laid out for us in Scripture in order to deal with our sin, be reconciled with Him and allow His Life to once again flow through us. This is our "readiness to revenge all disobedience" as 2 Corinthians 10:6 exhorts us.
How does one go about giving things to God? It's so easy to say with our words, "Oh, just give it to God." Well, how exactly does one do that in action?
Over the last two months we have been exploring the four attitudes or predispositions that we must have "on" each day in order to be willing to do God's will on a moment-by-moment basis.
Several months ago, we began a new series entitled The Key, which explores how we give ourselves or surrender ourselves to the Lord on a moment-by-moment basis. Understanding this principle is an essential foundation block for a blessed walk with the Lord. Maturity in Christ is simply recognizing our self-life and knowing how to give it over to the Lord.
Recently, we began a new series entitled The Key, which explores what I believe is the most important principle in our Christian walk - how we surrender ourselves to the Lord on a moment-by-moment basis. Over the last several months, I shared my own story of how this basic principle has impacted my life more than anything else. As I mentioned, it has become the "bread and butter" of my Christianity.
Two months ago, we began a new series, entitled The Key- how we surrender ourselves to God on a practical and moment-by-moment basis. In the first two articles, I shared portions of my own story in order to show how this principle has radically changed my life.
All of us at K-House want to wish you and yours a most blessed and joyous holiday season. Christmas is often a very emotional and sensitive time of year (and this Christmas will be no exception), especially for those of us who have lost loved ones, those who are struggling with financial burdens and those who are facing difficult horizons ahead.
The fact is, no matter how righteous we may be, and no matter how strong our faith is, all these frightful uncertainties coming to pass cannot help but affect our human emotions. It's all very scary. But, for the overcoming Christian whose sins are covered by the blood of Jesus, there is very good news. We have access to the Father and we can draw near to Him.
After over two years of sharing the series, Faith in the Night Seasons, this will be my final article on this critical subject. I have been so blessed by your wonderful letters saying how much the articles have helped you weather your own night seasons. And for that, I praise God!
In our next two articles, we will be wrapping up our series on Faith in the Night Seasons. I pray this series has been a blessing and has helped you understand a little more clearly some of God's ways. Even though an intimate relationship with the Lord often comes through trials and brokenness, nothing in all the earth compares to it.
In our series called Faith in the Night Seasons, we've been talking about intimacy with Godwhat intimacy is, how we get it and what we must do to maintain it.
Over the last several months, we have been talking about faith-faith in the "night seasons." Faith, we said, is accepting a situation that we cannot fully understand, and no longer being troubled by it. This kind of "naked" faith is developed through night seasons-times where God teaches us by depriving us of the natural light we have always been used to (our seeing, feeling and understanding), so that we will learn to walk by faith.
Last month we began a series of articles on the dark night of the spirit - what it is, how it differs from the dark night of the soul and what we must do to get through it.
When we suffer unjustly at the hands of others, it's hard to forgive. God's Love (Agape) is the only thing that will enable you to unconditionally forgive and forget what was done to you. You can't do this naturally. Your negative thoughts and emotions won't go away on their own.
Over the last several months we have been exploring the dark night of the soul, and how God wants us to surrender everything in our lives that is unholy or unrighteous - anything that we put first other than Christ.
God tells us in the Bible that we are to glorify Him, not only outwardly in our bodies, but also inwardly in our spirits. (1 Corinthians 6:20) It's impossible to do this, however, if we don't really understand what our spirit is. So, last month we tried to define our spirit, how it differs from our soul and the critical importance of separating the two.
A very Merry Christmas to you and to all your family. My prayer is that God will bless you with His presence this Christmas more than you've ever experienced before.
Knowing God loves us is the heartbeat of His way of Agape. Unless we know He loves us, we won't be able to lay down our lives to Him. (How can we trust or believe in someone if we don't think they love us?)
The dark night of the soul often comes upon us suddenly and without advance warning. This night can end in one of two ways. If we understand what God's basic will is and we relinquish ourselves to Him, we can experience the glorious presence of the Lord even in the midst of our trial.
How do you react when your dreams, your plans and your hopes blow up in your face? What is your response when you were so sure you had heard from God and you thought He had encouraged you to move ahead, and then all of a sudden everything crumbled?
Over the last several months we have been exploring the topic of faith - faith in the night seasons. For some this is a difficult subject, but for others it's of the utmost importance. The latter group sees the trials and tribulations that Christians are now facing becoming more intense than ever before, and they are longing for understanding.
No matter what is occurring in our lives, keeping our eyes and our focus upon Jesus Christ is essential. He is not only our Savior, our Lord, and our King, He is also our role model and our example. He showed us how to live the Christian life perfectly.