'News from Legacy Ministries'

Check out our July Newsletter. Even if you are not local, this can serve as a prayer list for you! :) Read also about ordering your copy of Loving God With All Five Senses in e-book or paperback. Simply click on the title of this post, and you'll be right there!

Grace Teaches Us to Say NO!

Recently I had a discussion with some ladies about the increase of immorality all around us. I mentioned to them that if you want to walk in the Spirit, you're going to have to make an effort, because everywhere you turn you run right into something that is trying to draw you into living for the flesh. Example...I was sick when I saw a commercial while watching the local news that showed a new show that is coming out this fall that was full of sex scenes and deceptive actions in just a 60 second spot. blaaa!

One lady said, "Too many people think that because of God's grace they can go out and live however they want. They think He will just forgive them and then they can just go out an do it again." I responded, "They don't know what true Grace is, then. True Grace teaches us to say NO!" I mentioned this verse found in Titus 2:11-14 (NKJV),

For the Grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

That's what I'm talking about! There is no lasting satisfaction in living to gratify the five senses of the here and now. True satisfaction goes beyond the five senses. That's why I wrote my book, Loving God with All Five Senses. (Go to www.legacyministries.info to order your own copy.) Yes, we can and should enjoy pleasures with our five senses. That's why God created them. It points to His awesome creativity--for lack of a better term! But if we get out of control feeding the cravings of our flesh, we are then distracted from genuinely tasting the deeper things that bring true and lasting gratification that God has for us in the Spirit. Here's another great passage from Galatians 5:13-25 about this subject:

For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another! I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

I challenge you. Read that again! Would you rather have the works of the flesh that lead to death or the fruit of the Spirit that results in abundant life? I'm telling you that the peace and joy that comes with living for the Lord, with His GRACE that gives you the courage, strenth and desire to live a godly life, is available to everyone. Not only is it available, but it is offered to you right now! The price has already been paid!

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life! John 3:16

Surrender to Him today and you, too, will experience wholeness. Who wouldn't take that offer?!

Embrace the Summer!

The following is the July, 2010 artilcle I wrote for my column, "Sense"sational Musings for www.ithirstnw.net:

Oh yes, it’s summertime, and it’s HOT! It is so hot, sometimes I feel like I’m in a desert. Do you feel like that? How about spiritually speaking? Do you feel like you cannot sense the Lord’s presense? You know He’s there, but you cannot hear His voice, feel His embrace or see His hand.

May I suggest to you today to embrace the dry times? WHAT?! Yes, that is what I said, “Embrace the dry times!” Why? Because, when you do, that is what is going to help you to soak in more when God finally pours His rain on you and you sense His presence once again. That’s what David did when he was in the wilderness.

Psalm 63:1 - A Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah. O God, You [are] my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.

On the flip side of that, I also suggest to embrace the times of soaking. When you do, you will be more apt to remember those revelations God blessed you with when you go through the next drought. That is what will carry you through.

We need to remember that God created dryness as much as he created water. He appoints the times and seasons in our lives.

Genesis 1:9 - And God said, Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
Psalm 95:5 - The sea is His and He made it; and His hands formed dry land.

God will decide when the dry spell stops and when rain begins. He also decides when rain stops and dryness begins.

Psalm 107:33, 35 - He turns rivers into a wilderness, and the watersprings into dry ground. (35) He turns the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground into watersprings.

Embracing whatever season you are in will allow you to be ripe for discerning the plans and purposes He has in store for you. Many times when we experience God in incredible ways, times of spiritual drought seem to follow. However, what looks and feels like drought to us is something more. God is still working through that time whether we sense it or not. Remember, it was the Holy Spirit who led Jesus into the wilderness after His water baptism. The enemy came it at the end and tried to take advantage of Jesus’ time of hunger after 40 days of fasting. He tempted Jesus, but Jesus did not fall for it. Instead, He remained focused and reminded satan what the Word said. The devil then left Jesus and angels came to minister to Him. His ministry was then launched.

So, I guess that means that dry times in our lives are actually blessings! Let’s take a quick look at times in the Bible when dry times were answers to prayer.

1. Noah’s family and animals were finally able to depart the ark and walk on dry land.
2. The children of Israel escaped a life of slavery and passed through the Red Sea on dry land.
3. The children of Israel crossed over the Jordan River on dry land to enter the Promised Land.
4. Jonah was spit out of the belly of the fish onto dry land and given a second chance after disobeying God’s call to Ninevah.

As you go through your summer, embrace it! Know that this season will soon be over, and God will take you through the next season with even more revelation because of what you are going through now. Rest assured knowing that this, too, shall pass!

Isaiah 44:3 - I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour my spirit upon your seed, and my blessing upon your offspring.

He Loves Us!

I have often thought about how I have actually physically felt the presence of God so strong at times in worship. There is no way I can explain to you how that feels. Yes, there are times when I don't feel anything and yet I go on and worship anyway, because I know that I know God is real whether I feel Him or not. We need times like that to strengthen our faith, because faith is not what you experience with your five senses. It is so beyond that. As Hebrews 11 says, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Emphasis mine) However, I do thank God for the times that He so graciously has chosen to let me experience His manifest presence in my spirit, soul and body.

I saw a car recently that had bumper stickers that showed it was obviously owned by an atheist. Well, I say obviously, but on the other hand it also had stickers about being wickan, so I'm not sure how you can worship satan and still be an atheist. One of the stickers eluded to religions fighting over who has the best imaginary friend. When I read that I thought, "That person has no clue! There is no way God is imaginary. I have experienced Him! You can't tell me that anymore than you can tell me that the sun in the sky is imaginary!"

When I see this video I found on tangle.com, it stirs me to tears every time! Tears of JOY in my Lord, I must say! This young worship leader, Kim Walker (who recently married and is now Kim Smith) has a way of helping corporate bodies to enter into worship. I especially like what she says toward the end about experiencing the presence of God and how it changes you. Listen to this and see what I'm talking about. I pray you are as blessed as I am. (BTW, I tried to upload the video, but if it didn't work, just simply click on the title to this post and it will take you to the webpage with the video.)

'News from Legacy Ministries'

Click the title of this post to read the latest newsletter from Legacy Ministries and read about ordering my newly revised book.

Love as You Love Yourself

I actually wrote this in 1989. The only thing I added now that I am posting this in 2010 is the phrase "the older I get, the more I learn not to". It is encouraging to me as I read this I realize that those tendancies you are about to read about that I did so often are not much of an issue anymore. It must be true that with gray hair comes wisdom!

I must learn to love myself (not have a poor self image) before my relationships with other people reach their full potential. Of course I do not love the creation more than the creator (Rom. 1:25) Maybe I should say, I love Christ within me. There is only one God, but there are many Christians. Each one has a different personality through which Christ is revealed. The Bible says in Mark 12:33 to “love your neighbor as yourself.” How can we love our neighbor if we do not love ourselves?

This is different from pride. Pride means you think you are better than others. The truth is that deep down people with pride really do not love themselves.

I remember after I first got married; I wanted to change my whole personality. My self concept was suffering. You see, some might say that I’m very out-going. However, that is not always good! Even though my foot tastes awful, it seems I have chewed it down to the bone—the old “foot-in-the-mouth” syndrome! The older I get, the more I learn not to, but especially in times past I have told people what I think of something as if they asked for my opinion! I knew immediately that I should not have opened my mouth. I would come home, and Bill could tell right off; “What did you say this time?” Then there were those times that Bill was with me, and he knew I would say something I shouldn't’ so he gently nudged my knee with his hand to remind me to keep quiet. It saved me from a lot of turmoil. That started making me want to be like Bill instead of me. I was down on myself for weeks. Finally, Bill sat me down and talked to me. He said he married me for who I was, not so he could change me to be like him. He said that I had opened him up more than anyone else had ever done; never before had he been able to express his inner-most feelings. It was then that I realized the awesome miracle of our marriage. God knew what each of us needed, and He put us together to compliment each other and to be truly one in Christ! Oh yes, Bill still has to nudge my knee sometimes, and I have to ask him quite a bit what he is thinking, but we have a much more exciting marriage than if we were so much alike.

God made each of us uniquely perfect with our own personalities. Since we are born in sin (Rom 5:14, 17, and 3:23), we all have flaws in our personalities. The more time we spend with our Creator and other children of God, the more the flaws decrease. God takes out the tendency to gossip in the extravert and the evil thoughts that are not spoken in the introvert. It just takes spending time with Him in intimate communion and a sincere, repentant heart.

Time spent with other Christians is also very important. We compliment each other. Just as a man and wife are better together than apart—because one’s strengths are the other’s weaknesses and visa versa—so the church needs to bind together as one. Imagine how we would so encourage one another and bring out each other’s strengths if we all would gather together after following the first step of individual time with God. (Matt. 22:37-38) The best of every Christian's personalities combined would be so much more like Christ than just one person. Isn’t that our goal—to be like Christ? Let’s help each other—build each other up—never cut the other down. (Gal 6:2) Then the church will be “a glorious church without spot or wrinkle” at the time of Christ’s return. (Ep. 5:27) Glory be to God, the Creator of all!

The Trap of Comparison

How many times do we not live to our full potential because we compare ourselves to others? There are two ways comparison happens:

1. Comparing our "strengths" to someone else's "weaknesses"--That would be called being haughty. "Haughty" is an adjective describing one who behaves in a superior, condescending, or arrogant way.

2. Comparing our "weaknesses" to someone else's "strengths"--That would be called having an "Inferiority Complex." To me that's when someone has an overdeveloped sense of being inferior to others. In other words, that seems to be all they think about! Believe it or not, having and inferiority complex is just as much pride as being haughty, because the focus is all about self.

Let's take a look at some examples of these in the Bible. First we'll look at someone who was haughty. Luke 18:9-14 (NKJV), Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: [10] “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. [11] The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You, that I am not like other men--extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. [12] I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I possess. [13] And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner!’ [14] I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Notice the Pharisee compared himself to another man, but the tax collector (or "Publican" as the KJV says) compared himself to a Holy God. Go back and read the last verse again and see just which one ended up being lifted up.

Next, let's think about Moses, our example of one who had an Inferiority Complex. God showed up to him in a very powerful, supernatural way in a burning bush that was not consumed. God asked him to go lead the Israelites out Egypt where they were in captivity as slaves. Moses kept giving excuses why he shouldn't be the one to go. “Who am I that I should go?” “But I am not eloquent in speech.” “Can’t you send someone else?” All the while, God was proving He would be with him. Read it for yourself in Exodus 3 and 4. Thankfully, God still used Moses to lead the people out of Egypt and turn the tide of history setting the stage for people of God to be delivered for ages to come. It was certainly not because of Moses' abilities, or should we say lack or fears?

My prayer is that when God nudges me to do something, He will remind me to look to Him, and not compare myself to others or focus on my lack of abilities. I need to remember, as Paul said in Philippians 2:13 that it is God who works in me both to will and to do for His good pleasure. If He has put a desire in me, He will give me everything I need to accomplish it. He has promised to complete what He starts in me. Thank you, Lord!