JULY 11

OUR PERSONAL PROMISES:

NAMES GIVEN TO JESUS IN THE BIBLE:

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ROOT OUT OF DRY GROUND THAT WAS BORN OF A VIRGIN-Is 53:2

FRUITFUL BRANCH—Is 4:2

THAT ONE WITHOUT FORM OR COMLINESS,- -Is 53:2

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This month we will read the book, “Whatever Happens – How to Stand Firm in Your Faith When the World is Falling Apart.”  By a contemporary author of many best-selling Christian books, Robert J. Morgan.  He took care of his wife when she had MS, until she went home to her Savior.  “He knows of which he speaks.”  I pray that this book blesses you.

Philippians 1:9-11

“And this I pray, that your love may overflow still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment,  so that you may discover the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and blameless for the day of Christ;  having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, for the glory and praise of God”.

As we go to God in everything, it stands to reason we’ll develop inward purity:  “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”

“Pure” and “blameless” are words that point to personal holiness.

Cicero, a Roman thinker who died about a generation before Jesus was born, said, “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”

I’m fortunate to have a library with a door to my garden.  Whenever I’m writing for working on sermons, I’ll work for a while, then go into the garden and water things and pull weeds.  Sometimes I use a hoe, but there is something satisfying about grabbing a weed y the stem, pulling it out by the roots, shaking off the dirt, and tossing it away.  Then I’ll go back to my library and study a while.

I do the same thing in my interior life.  I continually go back and forth from my Bible to my behavior.  I’ll spend time in the 66 books of God’s library, and then I’ll work on watering the good habits in my life and weeding out the bad ones.  I’ve been working on it for a long time, and the garden of my life isn’t yet all I want it to be.  But as long as I live, I’m going to work at eradicating weeds from my life and watering the plants that belong to faith and obedience.

What does that lead to?  To serving God continually.

SERVE GOD CONTINUALLY

Look at our verses again:  “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, FILLED WITH THE FRUIT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

The word “fruit” is a metaphor, a symbol.  What is the fruit of righteousness?  Remember Paul was a student of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Greek Septuagint – our Old Testament.  This is an Old Testament phrase.  You can find it in Psalm 72:3;  Amos 6:22; and Proverbs 11:30.  It refers to the behavior of a righteous person.

This is the outward manifestation of our inward holiness.  This is what others see when they observe our lives.

EMBODY CHRIST DAILY

As the virtuous cycle continues, we find ourselves enjoying Christ more and more richly.  Read this prayer once more:

“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes THROUGH JESUS CHRIST – to the glory and praise of God.”

This is the greatest secret of the Christian experience.  Katrina and I both learned this through the teaching of Major Ian Thomas, the British Bible expositor.  He said:

“The Lord Jesus Christ claims the use of your body, your whole being, your complete personality, so that as you give yourself to Him through the eternal Spirit, He may give Himself to you through the eternal Spirit, that all your activity as a human being on earth may be His activity in and through you; that every step you take, every word you speak, everything you do, everything you are, may be an expression of the son of God living in you.

I often read the Major’s books because he constantly reminds me that only Christ can live  the Christian life, and He does it by the Holy Spirit, who makes us channels for Himself.  When we’re Spirit-filled, our thoughts, choices, reactions, responses, and decisions will reflect the mind of Christ.  This is the growing Christ-life within us.

GLORIFY GOD GREATLY

All of the above results in glory and praise to God.  This is the virtuous cycle.  It’s not something that happens once.  It cycles over and over in our lives until we circle all the way to heaven.  We experience the ‘Agape:” of God, and it works on our hearts.  That clarifies our thinking so we make better decisions.  We build inward purity and begin serving God continually.  We do that only when we embody Christ daily, and it leads to praise. 

Like the psalmist said, “Invigorate my soul so I can praise you well.”  Psalm 119:175.

Say Paul’s prayer to reinvigorate your life and use it to target someone else in prayer.  Imagine bombarding an unsuspecting prodigal child with a prayer like this.

As a pastor, I’m always searching for ways to visualize Christlikeness.  Here’s a story I recently came across, and perhaps you’ll relate to its ending.  Most of us have seen Mt. Rushmore in pictures if we haven’t visited it.  A man named Gutzon Borglu first envisioned turning that mountain into the faces of four famous Americans.  Borglum was fascinated with Lincoln, and he studied every hair on his head, every line on his face.  He’d created multiple impressions of Lincoln.  Just before launching his project on Mt. Rushmore, Borglu took a ten-ton block of marble and chipped, carved, and fashioned it into the head of Abraham Lincoln.  When Lincoln’s son Robert saw the work, he exclaimed, “I never expected to see my father again.”

The people of this world never again expect to see the likes of Jesus of Nazareth, but God is active and busy, chipping, carving and fashioning each one of us into the likeness of Jesus Christ.

As bestselling author Randy Alcorn put it: “People had only to look at Jesus to see what God is like.  People today should only have to look at us to see what Jesus is like.”

Use Paul’s prayer to let God the Father use the Holy Spirit to “Christify” your life.

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