I should not put my faith in people unless my faith is first in God. I should not place people on pedestals because not only will they be elevated to fall, but also I would worship them as a god: a false idol. That is not the one and only living God. I do not put God in a box. I do not worship a person who speaks the word of God. I do have faith in the word of God, and my faith is in God.
The preposition word in means to be inside or within a place or thing.
Keep my eyes on Jesus and have rest in His yoke. This is the place where intimacy was born and where I now live as a new creation. I am no longer my own, yet the one inside of me is greater. Put on the character of Jesus. I know who I am and whose I am.
“I understand. I ask a lot of those who follow me, but I ask little of those that do not,” Jesus said in “The Chosen” S2E1.
Lamentations 3:23
They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
“In God We Trust” sermon by John MacArthur
…What He promised, He will do; that when He said, “If you put your trust in Me, embrace Christ as Savior and Lord, I will forgive your sins, I will bring you to heavenly glory, and give you an inheritance of everlasting wealth.” That’s the promise.
The question is, Does God keep His promise? We’re used to people breaking promises. But that’s not true of God, so that throughout Scripture we read, “God is faithful. The Lord is faithful.” Jesus Christ is called “the Faithful and True” because everything for us depends on that.
We have made the ultimate sacrifice. We’ve sacrificed ourselves. We literally have died to self, taken up a cross to follow Christ. We’ve committed ourselves to Him as Lord, and we are His slaves, and we are obeying Him. We have set aside the pleasures and treasures of the world with the promise that there’s something far greater than that awaiting us in eternal glory. We don’t see it yet. We wait for it. It has been promised to us repeatedly in Scripture in detail, and so we live by faith… (sermon link)
Before wearing the armor of god, take off your flesh and put on the character of Jesus with love as your undergarment.
Ephesians 4:22-24 (NIV) 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Romans 13:14 (NIV)
Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.
Colossians 3:12-17 (NKJV) 12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Ephesians 6:13 (NIV)
Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
We, the Sheep
As Jesus calls us to reflect His love, we must ask: are we living as His sheep, obedient to His voice and showing love to others as He has shown to us? Serving others, especially those in need, is a way to follow Jesus and honor Him. Our actions toward the least of these are ultimately acts of service to Jesus Himself (Matthew 25:40).
John 10:7-17 (paraphrased) I am the gate for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life.
Rock of Faith
God is love. Love begins with the faith and the rock. Jesus says, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35, Matthew 6:3, Luke 6:38). But what we have to do is both give and receive. When the anointing is poured out upon us, we shall pour the anointing out on others. When we receive the love of the Father, we shall pour that love out for others, and pour out love unto all nations. His light shines bright for all in the house (Matthew 5:15) (1 John 1:5).
Jesus simply commands “seek god first, and to love one another as I have loved you,” (John 13:34) he is referring to loving our God with all of our heart, strength, soul and mind (Matthew 22:37-39).
How do we do this? Love one another as I have loved you? Paul says, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” (Gal 5:14).
We have to remember that Jesus is love as the love of the Father because the Father so loved the world, that he gave his only Son (John 3:16). Until we can seek in heaven, that intimacy with God and love God, above all else (Matthew 6:33), we will have trouble loving one another as Christ loved us. As God loves us, and as Jesus has loved us, these are our models for how we must love one another, and even before that we must love ourselves.
So love God first, love yourself, then we have the ability to pour out love onto others. Without the love of the Father and without loving our self as Christ has loved us, we are unable to truly pour out for our brothers and sisters in Christ, especially the least of these.
Prayer poem: Pour out love as the one we adore. Loving in one accord. Sing a new song to the Lord. This is the day the Lord has made.
1 John 4:19 (NIV)
We love because he first loved us.
Mark 12:30 (NKJV) ‘And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.
John 13:34 (NKJV) A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
John 16:27 (NKJV) for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God.
Steven Furtick:
The overriding character trait of Jesus is LOVE, and the entire Gospel story is woven with love. Sometimes it’s not easy, and oftentimes it requires sacrifice, but it’s when we love that we are the most like Jesus.
Benny Hinn:
The moment we have this revelation of His love we are overwhelmed by the dimension of such love that everything we are and have becomes His. Do you remember what Paul said? He said, “For the love of Christ constraineth us.” (2 Cor. 5:14 KJV). In other words, “I am so moved, touched, and overwhelmed by it.”
Charles Spurgeon:
Love to God produces a desire to be with him; a desire to be like him, a longing to be with him eternally in heaven, and this breaks us away from worldliness; this keeps us from idolatry, and thus has a most blessedly sanctifying effect upon us, producing that elevated character which is now so rare, but which wherever it exists is powerful for the good of the church and for the glory of God.
What the Lord is showing us in Zechariah 4 is a heavenly blueprint or pattern for the Church. He tells us to die to ourselves, to come out of our own perceived strength and perceived power, and live in His ability (Eph 6:10).
Zechariah 4:1-4 (NKJV)Seven Spirits 1 Now the angel who talked with me came back and wakened me, as a man who is wakened out of his sleep. 2 And he said to me, “What do you see?”
So I said, “I am looking, and there is a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it, and on the stand seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps. 3 Two olive trees are by it, one at the right of the bowl and the other at its left.” 4 Then I said, “My lord, what are these?” So the angel who talked with me said to me, “I will show you what they are.”
Wisdom is asking the Lord, “What does this mean?” (Zec 4:4).
Fruits and Gifts of the Spirit Manifest
Lampstand
The lampstand had seven pipes similar to the ones Zerubbabel saw that symbolized the seven Spirits of God. In addition, this lampstand also had nine different ornaments on the pipes: the three flowers, the three knobs, and the three almond blossom-shaped bowls. Each one of those nine items represent the nine fruits described in Galatians 5:22-23, and the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit examined in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10.
The center shaft of the lampstand is Jesus. He is the Mediator, the One from whom flows oil to give light (1Tim 2:5). The branches are connected (John 15). This signifies the divine union with Christ that brings the flow of oil to the six branches. (Keith Miller)
Exodus 25:31-39 (NKJV)Manifest 31 “You shall also make a lampstand of pure gold; the lampstand shall be of hammered work. Its shaft, its branches, its bowls, its ornamental knobs, and flowers shall be of one piece.
Revelation 4:5 (NKJV)Throne
And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.
Revelation 3:1 (NKJV)Jesus
“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, ‘These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.
Revelation 1:4-6 (NKJV)Faith 4 John, to the seven churches which are in Asia:
Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth.
To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 6 and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Isaiah 11:2 (NKJV)Seven Spirits
The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and might,
The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
The prophecy is that the Messiah would be empowered not by seven individual spirits but by the One Spirit (the same Spirit), described seven ways:
1) The Spirit of the LORD
2) The Spirit of wisdom
3) The Spirit of understanding
4) The Spirit of counsel
5) The Spirit of power
6) The Spirit of knowledge
7) The Spirit of the fear of the Lord
Colossians 1:9 (NKJV)Wisdom
For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
Ephesians 3:16 (NKJV)Activation
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,
1 Peter 4:10-11 (NKJV)Disciple and Minister 10 As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 11 If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
As we seek to take God’s varied grace with gifting that God has given and steward it so that when we speak, it is God’s words that we speak, and when we serve, it is God strength that we serve. In so that everything God will be glorified. To minister grace through gifts to one another because all Glory and all Dominion belong to God; that’s why we make it our aim to glorify God in the way we love each other.
We should always be thinking how can I serve others with the grace of God that has been given to me?
What is a spiritual gift and what does it mean to serve with them?
Think about it, God has shown grace to me. I want to bless other people. I want to steward this grace. You want God to take aspects of his absolutely varied grace and make you the means of other people’s blessing. (John Piper)
Hebrews 1:3-4 (NKJV)Glory and Grace 3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
Revelation
I took a deep dive into reading Revelation after the Seven Spirits of God School to look for the symbolism of Seven and the Spirits of God. There are sevens throughout Revelation. It’s odd that what stuck out to me was six. So, I have this revelation from Revelation, so that I should not be ignorant of this mystery (Rom 11:25).
Keith Miller said that six represents Man, seven represents completion, and one represents our unity with Jesus, “Christ in me, source” as the branches and vines (John 15:1-8).
Later, when I was reading Isaiah, I came upon this partial verse that made me think Jesus is not only the One, but also a six. He’s the One who stands, according to John the Baptizer (John 1:26), and the One to come forth according to Micah 5:2. Yes, he was a man that walked the earth, but like, only truly a six through intercession.
Isaiah 53:12 NKJV
…And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.
I knew all these numbers. “Six hundred threescore and six” is the number of the beast (Rev 13:18). (Reference of numbers.) What I learned is, a man that worships Man, himself and Man’s ways (666) is wicked and is a servant of the dragon (Rev 12). “Depart from me” will be the judgement and the second death (Rev 21:8) will follow. A man that worships God, the Son and the Holy Spirit (111) shall have the keys to heaven (1Cor2:10-12).
Miller went on to describe the center pipe of the lampstand (Exo 25, Zec 4) represents Christ, and the six other pipes represent Man. I see my contemplation of six this as: either Christ is my center, and the Spirits of God are poured out upon me with life is my reward; or the dragon is my center, and I’m surrounded by six empty pipes of ornaments of Man with death is my reward. Without the one, I am the center and have six pipes (of my own strength, 1Cor 1:25, and false idols, Isa 31:7). With the one, Jesus is the center and God gives me all seven pipes (as His will is done by His strength, Isa 40:29).
Either I “have been set free from sin and have become a slave to righteousness,” or I am a slave to sin and “ever-increasing wickedness.” “You are slaves of the one you obey.” (Rom 6:15-23)
One last note about my Revelation dive: the two Witnesses, these are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing… (Rev 11:4). Miller says the two olive trees (Zec 4:3) symbolize Oil and Word.
He rode into town on a young donkey.
In the joy and worship for all to see,
Hosanna and palms waved by the people.
He brought disorder to cleanse the temple.
Fig tree shall wither and a curse was laid.
Teaching was given and opinions made.
Woe to the leaders and scribes of the day,
Leaving His mark and making straight the way.
He spoke to His disciples with care.
In Bethany, Lazarus was there,
A woman anointed His feet with perfume,
Burial rights, it was their custom.
Olivet Discourse, His return, and the end.
Jesus washed the feet of His disciples, and
Broke bread in an upper room.
To the Garden at Gethsemane…
Good Friday…
Remnants of clay vessels that had broken.
Listen to the true words He has spoken.
We wear His sandals and step in His walk.
Touching our hearts in Kingdom talk.
“These things I have spoken to you
while being present with you.
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in My name,
He will teach you all things,
and bring to your remembrance
all things that I said to you.”
(John 14:25-26 NKJV)
In Psalm 73, we have the story of wicked men oppressing the weak and boasting about it.
We should not boast, try to draw attention to ourselves, or otherwise seek to manipulate people to give us honor. Jesus had a few things to say about the hypocrites who stood on the street corner and let everybody know about their great spirituality (Matthew 6:1-16).
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9). None of us did a single work that made us deserving of being saved. Not a single one of us is righteous. We were saved through faith, only by His grace. For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead (James 2:26). Therefore in Christ Jesus I have found reason for boasting in things pertaining to God (Romans 15:17).
False teachers, liars, false prophets, false apostles all attempt to destroy the truth; and in order to destroy the truth, you have to discredit the truth teachers. And so they came into Corinth and then attempted to destroy Paul’s credibility. As a result, Paul has to defend himself. In fact, he has to defend himself against their specific accusations. He has to take them on.
What God Loves That Makes Him Hate Pride
What’s the beautiful thing that is replaced or ruined by pride? What does God love so much that he must hate pride with all his might? The answer is plain from all these texts.
He loves the heart that boasts in the Lord.
He loves the heart that gives him credit for what he alone can do.
He loves the heart that relies on his power.
He loves the heart that wants him to get the glory in all things and that wants the power of his Son to shine in our weakness.
And if you have caught on to the essence of Christian Hedonism, you will know that when God delights in this, he delights in the deepest, most satisfying human experience possible. Because:
We were made to boast in God.
We were made to give him credit for all good.
We were made to rely on his power.
We were made to magnify his glory and his all sufficiency in our weakness.
This is the source of all ultimate joy and satisfaction. Pride diverts our capacity for exultation from the galaxies of God’s glory to the gutters of our puny achievements. It is a decorated dead end street.
What Is Pride?
It is boasting in self and not the Lord.
It is taking credit ourselves for what God alone can do.
It is relying on self and not God.
It is feeling sufficiency in our own strength and not in God’s.
It is the disinclination to admit that we are mere earthen vessels.
Therefore, God hates pride. And we should hate in ourselves what God hates in us, and wield the sword of the Spirit as best we can to slay this dragon in our souls.
1 Corinthians 1:31 (NIV)
Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 5:6-8 (NIV) 6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
2 Corinthians 12:6 (NIV)
Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth.
2 Corinthians 10:17 (ESV)
Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.
2 Corinthians 10:17-18 (NKJV) 17 But “he who glories, let him glory in the Lord.” 18 For not he who commends himself is approved, but whom the Lord commends.
Jeremiah 9:23-24 (NLT) 23 This is what the Lord says:
“Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom,
or the powerful boast in their power,
or the rich boast in their riches. 24 But those who wish to boast
should boast in this alone:
that they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord
who demonstrates unfailing love
and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth,
and that I delight in these things.
I, the Lord, have spoken!
Prayer: As His spirit pours out on me, and the light of His glory becomes apparent, I will walk in the path He sets before me. It’s not the abundance of grace that He pours out for me, but it’s the abundance of grace that He pours upon all. I shall not steal another’s grace. I shall not take the grace, but give the grace freely as it has been given. As God dwells within me, I have hope and I am transformed into the living faith. Glory to glory, in His mighty name. Amen
2 Corinthians 9:8 (NABRE)
Moreover, God is able to make every grace abundant for you, so that in all things, always having all you need, you may have an abundance for every good work.
Isaiah 26:12 (NKJV)
Lord, You will establish peace for us,
For You have also done all our works in us.
