What about Judas before the betrayal?

We often look back at Judas only as the one who betrayed our Lord Jesus Christ.
If we only consider Judas as the betrayer we can easily fall into the trap of placing his sin as totally different and worse than our sin. The devil is still at work, let's consider the deception of our enemy and how he operates;
The devil is a slanderer, a false accuser, he masquerades as an angel of light. He has operated in the same manner and used the same tactics since his successful deception in the garden that lead to the fall of man, to sin and to death.
The devil also deceived Judas who did not appear on the scene as a mass murderer or the wicked one who would obviously betray the Lord. As we consider the disciples, Judas was probably one of the least expected to be the enemy. He was the one they trusted with the money, he probably was very zealous, he was bold, they thought he had it all together. Judas followed Christ, he experienced the miracles; blind were given sight, the lame restored, even the dead were raised from the grave. He was given the place of honor at the last supper, Judas was a key part of the disciples.
Jesus looks at the heart, He knew all along that Judas would betray Him, He understood the deception of the devil and how to overcome his attacks.
We must understand our enemy, he is still the deceiver, the accuser, he still masquerades as an angel of light. Satan will attack with deception, his plan is not really to try and get us to doubt ourselves, but to trust in ourselves. Judas decided to trust himself, his plans, his timing, his ways rather than to surrender and trust Christ.
Instead of struggling with predestination and the sovereignty of God at this time, consider our enemy and his tactics; unlike Judas, we as believers have the Holy Spirit in us. Jesus is not deceived by the devil, and as we rely on the Spirit the ways of the enemy will become clear and we will experience victory in Christ.
Judas and our Spiritual Battle

Go All In-He Did! We can trust God

We are trained not to trust. Our world teaches us to diversify our investments because we can't trust any single investment. We learn from our world that we cannot trust our government, our employers, our employees, even our spouses. We are trained to diversify our trust, put a little bit of trust in a lot of different places so we won't lose everything when the object of our trust lets us down.
As we come to our relationship with God, we tend to want to add God to our portfolio of things to trust. Often without even realizing the fact, we have been trained to hold back on trusting God, to be careful about going all in with the Lord . We are afraid to place the Lord first in our lives because we often fear God will take away the other things in our portfolio. If we put all of our trust in God and we are let down, where do we go?
We can trust God!! Our Lord will never leave us or forsake us. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed... My Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from Me; yet not My will, but Your will be done. Matthew 26:39
This cup, the Scriptures often refer to this as a symbol for God's divine wrath, God's wrath against sin was going to be poured out on Jesus Christ. He knew it, He choose it! I believe Jesus was not praying to avoid physical death, He came to die. He was not praying to avoid the cross, not to avoid becoming sin, not even to avoid separation from God which would be the given result. I believe Christ was praying not to avoid dying, but to overcome death itself; so that after He died He would be victorious over death's hold on Him. Let this cup (of divine wrath) pass from Me, but not My will but Your will be done, Father. Even as He prepared to face God's divine wrath for my sin and yours, the punishment we deserved, He was willing to go all in for us and take the cup, whatever the result.
There is One we can trust over all, Jesus Christ! He paid for our trust, surrender to Him this day. As we place our portfolio of people and stuff at His feet, He will meet every need, He died to prove it.
Go All In...He Did

Enjoy God-Enjoy Life

So how does the Christian really enjoy this life? If one Google's this question you can find 9 steps, 30 steps, 100 steps to finding real enjoyment in life. They run from get rich, think positive to get a horse and feed the ducks. There are many interesting ideas, but they put focus on me, myself and I. Rather than focusing on myself,I can choose to focus my mind on God. The psalmist gave us the simple answer as to how to enjoy life, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart."
Psalm 37:4.
I often find myself pursuing the desires of my heart and expecting God to give them to me for my enjoyment. I often find that I desire to enjoy myself, to know myself, to glorify myself, rather than delighting in God my creator. At those times it seems life is not too enjoyable or delightful. My challenge for today is to focus on enjoying God, knowing God, glorifying God, really delighting myself in God. Amazingly when I focus on Him, He supplies the desires of my heart and my life is a joy.
Care to join me today enjoying God, knowing God, glorifying God, we'll never regret the focus on Him.

Peace in the midst of Pain

We all have tribulation or trials which often lead to suffering and pain. Jesus taught in John 16:33:
"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."
His offer is for us to have peace, it is a given that there will be tribulation. Do we have peace in the midst of these storms of life?
The word peace has lost much of it's power in our day. The Greek word, Eirene and the Hebrew word Shalom speak of well-being, order, wholeness, completeness, blessing, peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. God living His Life through us to provide for us what we really need. We think we need to get rid of the tribulations when what our hearts need is peace.
The tribulations and trials of this world cause all kinds of pain. This pain may be the result of our sin, another person's sin, or simply because we live in a fallen world.
The way to experience shalom is through prayer;(Philippians 4:6-7) taking our trial and giving it to God to be used for Christ's sake, for His glory, according to His will.
This is not easy, I often pray for my sake, or my family's sake, for my friend's sake. You see I determine what I believe is best and then I want God to give the answers I think I need. Actually, to give our pain into the hands of our good, gracious and Loving God; to really trust Him, is to find this peace/shalom. His peace passes understanding, His peace is really what we all need and finding that peace that lives within us is reaching to His Spirit.
Today in the midst of the struggles of life...try prayer and may you experience His peace.

Do you want a Fruitful 2012?

As we wrap up 2011 and embark on 2012, we typically pause and evaluate our production. What has gone well and/or what needs improvement? There is plenty to consider when we evaluate the varied lives we live. It is easy to look at the externals in our lives and decide what we want to change, where we want to go, how we think our lives should look this next year naturally focusing on external production. It is another matter to consider changing our internal focus, to focus on our being rather than our doing. Could we consider living our lives bearing the fruit rather than producing the spiritual fruit? Would we benefit if we focused on abiding in Christ rather than producing for Christ?

On this earth the focus is on production, output, externals and performance. As believers in Jesus Christ we do want to produce, we do desire fruitful lives. And yes,we are designed to bear fruit. The temptation is to take on this world's methods of production; oh yes, we are trained to produce! God's fruit is difficult to define and for good reason. We are not to try and produce His fruit, we are simply to bear spiritual fruit.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.(Galatians 5:22-23). This fruit is simply an outward expression of the nature we received when we received the nature/spirit of Christ.

Christ lives in His children, our purpose is to allow Christ to live through us. We are simply branches(John 15:1-5), fruit-hangers. The branches do not determine what fruit they bear, they are not the producers of fruit. Branches do not determine when the fruit is produced, the seasons of fruit production. Branches do not decide who picks the fruit, how it's used, why it is produced or even who is impacted by the fruit. Thus branches are not burnt out, not working hard, they are not even concentrating on themselves or the fruit. Branches Simply Abide in the Vine.

To Abide; to sink into, to depend on,to dwell with, to remain in Christ. The idea is to be filled with the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, to surrender to Christ. Abiding is active, not passive. We must to choose to exchange our life, our agenda, for His. God can and will do things we cannot even imagine! What an adventure life can be, walking with the King of Kings, Lord of Lords on this earth.
How about evaluating if we can simply abide in Christ for the next 15 minutes?
May it lead to 15 more and 15 more..........
May you abide in Christ this day and begin a fruit-filled 2012.

God is not disappointed in you

Have you ever disappointed anyone? I mean really let them down, maybe it was your parents, kids, friends, spouse, boss, employees or your pastor. They were expecting you to come through and you failed, you fell short of their expectations. You were a disappointment.
We have all been in those situations, often what really hurts is the disappointment we feel toward ourselves. We know we let someone down; we can feel embarrassed, worthless, like a loser, shamed. We can wallow in our shame for years, feeling judged by every observation anyone makes about us or our lives. It is easy to take these same beliefs into our relationship with God. We sin, we fail, thus we believe God is disappointed in us. We know we have let Him down. At these times, we become convinced whatever happens, God must be punishing me. He must be judging me, paying me back for my failures.
Today I bring you good news of great joy, God is not disappointed in you!!
To be disappointed by definition means to be sad or displeased because someone or something failed to fulfill one's expectations.
But God knows!!! He is infinite, all-knowing, the Great I AM! God is not bound by time, He is eternal, no beginning, no end, He is I AM.
For God to be disappointed you would have to fail to meet His expectations, but God knows, He expects you to be here now. Take your situation and turn to Almighty God. He knows everything about you and loves you anyway!
Discipline not Disappointment

Changing Seasons

The seasons are changing, summer has given way to fall. The once green, healthy leaves on the trees now are a brownish yellow and they cover the yard(I probably should be raking). The trees stand uncovered ready for the cold blasts of winter that are certainly on the way. Baseball has given way to football, for Viking's fans we endure and begin to already look to next year.
I believe there is a spiritual picture in the changing seasons that is so obvious we often miss it, God works in our lives in seasons. Every season is important and necessary for to us to bear spiritual fruit.

We have seasons of rest, re-staging in our lives, maybe some pruning, like winter. Our role in the winter is to abide.
We have seasons of new spiritual growth, vibrant life appears, like in the spring, our role is to abide.
We have seasons of spiritual maturity, they often involve discipline, pain and heat like the summer. We trust, our role is to abide.
We have seasons of bearing fruit, we experience the harvest, fall...our role is to abide.
As the seasons change around us, we for some reason do not expect our spiritual seasons to change. We expect a continual harvest,it ends. In the midst of pruning and discipline we think it will never end, yet the seasons change. Each season in our lives is designed by our loving God to bring us to maturity in Christ, our role is to abide. To abide; to dwell, to tarry, to live, to rest, to be at home in Christ. Our role is to surrender, to walk in the Spirit....simply to abide.
Whatever season you are in today, decide to look to God and rest in His grace, trust Him, His plan is for our good and His glory.
For all the Vikings fans we can celebrate yesterday's victory and look forward to this week's game(wait a bye week)...next week's game, enjoying the football season as it unfolds with the ups, downs, highs and lows...rather than looking to next year,we can just enjoy the moments of this season.