Month: January 2015

The Fork in the Road

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“God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” 1 Corinthians 10:13

We have a promise in this verse that God will not allow us to face temptation without providing a way of escape. Christ tells us that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). Christ is the Way. I know that this also refers to Christ as being the only way to heaven and salvation but right now I want to talk about being guided away from sin. Every time we are being tempted we often think of it as a decision between sinning and not sinning. This is because the enemy likes to appeal to our desires and that which is pleasurable to us; making it hard for us to resist. We think that its up to our ability to recognize the temptation and to resist it with our own strength. When we think this way we are pitting our strength against demons; and as much as I hate to admit it demons are very slick. They are tricky and will wear you out. They’ll get you to focus so much on one sin that you become blind to all the other areas that they are attacking you in.

The truth is that it is not a decision between sinning and not sinning. Its a decision between following a way that leads to sin or following a way that leads to Christ. Each time we are tempted by the enemy, God counters it by providing us with an opportunity to be blessed by Him. The alternative to sin is being in the Presence. Its showing our obedience to Jesus instead of following the enemy. Its as if the enemy recognizes when the Lord is wanting to draw us close and he comes in and plants his destructive alternative. So really instead of choosing between the sin and its pleasure and no pleasure, the choice is really between the pleasure of Gods blessing and the satisfying of the flesh.

Have you ever wondered why the enemy tries so often to tempt us? Obviously the enemy wants to cause us to fall away from God and go to hell along with him. But when we are saved and we don’t fall away, why does the enemy try so often? Could it be to rob us of as many blessings as possible? Or to try to make our faith and depth of relationship with Christ to be as shallow as possible? What if there was so much more that we could receive from the Lord but our failure to recognize the temptation and more importantly, the Way that is Christ, causes us to miss out. How sad it is that we miss so many chances to walk with God because the enemy masks the moments with his filth!

We move through life so fast that these moments pass us by. We don’t realize what happened until the sin has been done and we are asking ourselves “How did I get into this place?”. We’ve got to slow ourselves down and I’ve never found a better way to do that then to spend time alone with God. Not more time reading or saying more prayers, just abiding in His Presence. Resting in His Spirit and lifting up praise to Him, contemplating on His greatness and listening for Him to speak. I find that the more time I spend with Him the more life seems to slowdown, allowing me to recognize the fork in the road moments where I can clearly see the right Way to go.

The Nature of God

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“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those who by their nature are not gods.” Galatians 4:8

If we want to walk with God and avoid the constant tricks and lies of the enemy then it is imperative that we learn to understand the nature of God. So many Christians today are confused about who God is. Some believe that our God and gods of other faiths are one and the same because they fail to understand the difference. Calling something god, whether a spirit or the idols they hide behind, does not automatically make it equal to the one true God. Our God is unique, He is One and their is no other.

So what is Gods nature exactly? When I say nature what I mean are characteristics or attributes that are an innate part of something’s being. For example we have a human nature which means we have characteristics that are specific to a human being and we cannot be a dog or a bird, even though we often act like animals. They have their own nature and we have ours. So the nature of God, because He is the only true God, is unique to Him. These characteristics are things that are true about the way God acts or speaks and they are unchanging. They are automatically expressed when He moves. Scripture tells us that God is love which means that when God acts or speaks He does so out of love. He never reacts to us in hatred. God is good so He never makes or does anything that is bad. God is perfect and when He acts or speaks it is always perfect, making mistakes is something God never does. These are just a few examples of Gods character.

God made us in His image yet we have been corrupted because of sin. Some of Gods characteristics we can also express, while others we cannot. But when we do we only express them on a smaller scale and often imperfectly because we are changing while God is unchanging. And because we do not have certain attributes of His nature, namely His perfection and immutability(unchanging), we must make the choice to express love, mercy, etc. while God does so naturally.

Discernment

“Folly is joy to him that lacks sense, but a man of understanding walks straight.” Proverbs 15:21

Scripture tells us to discern between the spirits as well as to test everything, even the teachings from leaders that we trust (1 John 4:1). In order for us to do this we need to be able to recognize what is God and what is not. The devil does his best to mimic God yet because he does not have Gods nature he always speaks or acts in a way that is in line with his own nature. John 8:44 points out that the devil was a murderer from the beginning and the father of lies; his nature is opposed to God and he needs to disguise himself to trick us into believing him. We know that he wants our enslavement and destruction so even if he speaks something that seems to be true it will always be to lead us into sin and destruction.

He quoted scripture to Jesus in the wilderness yet Christ made it clear that he was wrong, not because he spoke the scriptures incorrectly but because he spoke them with the intention of leading Christ into sin. God hates sin and will never tempt us. When God speaks or acts we can recognize that it is Him by seeing if it is rooted in His character or the enemies. If something is said and we recognize that it is meant to inspire fear, doubt, selfishness or some other sinful behavior then we can assume that it is not of God. Sadly, many in the church, instead of engaging in discernment, would rather throw out everything that is said and claim that God doesn’t speak to us anymore because they fear getting it wrong. When we accept the belief that God no longer has anything to say to us anymore than the enemy has already scored a victory in our lives. I would also like to point out that the enemy used scripture against Jesus. Even our reading and understanding of scripture can be hijacked by the enemy. Just look at how many divisions we have in the church resulting from disagreements on interpreting scripture or someone developing heretical doctrines. Scripture points us to Christ and so even our reading of it must be done with Gods nature in mind.

Godliness

We also need to know His nature so that we know how to act. In the beginning God made man in His image. After the fall He sent His Son to show us the Way and to give us access to the Truth, while the Holy Spirit works within us to purify us. As Romans 8:28 points out we are to be conformed into the image of Christ. This is godliness, to be like God. Understanding Gods nature is necessary for us to recognize whether we are walking as Christ did or being misled. Many in the church suffer from self-righteousness and judgmentalism because they think themselves godly when they are in fact acting in a manner that is opposed to God. This is because they accept there own ideas of what is right as truth instead of what God has said is truth. Christ is the Truth, therefore He is the standard by which our ideas, words, and actions are to be measured. By knowing Gods character we can then have a better idea of how to act in our everyday life.

How can we walk with God if we cant recognize whether it is Him we are walking with? His nature should be the foundation of our entire understanding. There is no better role model for ourselves then Christ.

Enoch’s Walk (Purpose of this Blog)

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“By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.” Hebrews 11:5

There’s not a whole lot that is said concerning Enoch in the scriptures. Yet what little is said I’ve always found interesting. A man seems to have accomplished the impossible, he has pleased God to such a degree that God takes him without him ever seeing death. Genesis 5:24 says “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.”. What exactly does it mean that he  “walked with God”? How does one go about it? Enoch lived in a time predating the Bible and even the Law. There was no Israel at this point in history either so clearly its not devoting more time to study, attending more church services, or performing works. To walk with God is to live your entire life with Him, to walk in a constant relationship with Christ. Its what Christ and the apostles refer to when they say “abide in Christ”. Its learning to live your life moment by moment in the Presence of God, lead by the Holy Spirit. Walking with God means that your ultimate goal in life is to get as close to your Lord and Savior as you possibly can. It means you’ve counted the cost and have determined that sacrificing everything is a small price to pay to obtain the riches found in God and the understanding of His nature and ways. It means you’ve made God your first love and the ultimate desire of your heart. Its behaving in a way that is in accord with Gods character and making decisions that will keep you close to Him and avoiding the wrong choices that you know are presented by the enemy in an attempt to draw you away. All because of your love for the Lord.

There is no shortage of blogs out there that talk about scripture and our Christian religion. My vision for this blog though is to get to the bottom of what it means and looks like to walk with God, to understand the walk of Enoch. To go deeper into the knowledge of our great God, to learn how to approach Him and to develop an ever deepening relationship with Him. My hope is that through this blog we might establish a firm foundation in our understanding of Gods nature and how to live a life in the Presence of God. Through His death Christ tore the veil so that we could draw close. We owe it to Him and to ourselves to do so. There is no greater blessing from God then to know Him.