Weekly EnCOURAGEment - 5/21/23
Romans 12
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
If life is no more than existence, truth no more than an obstacle, kindness no more than an unfamiliar relic, and love no more than a feeling or its absence credited to the lack of feeling, then we are living off the spoiled portions, and drawing from tainted wells.
Right living, love for others and positive influence are outgrowths among those who follow Christ, whose lives have been redeemed by grace and whose hearts and minds are being transformed by God’s sweet Holy Spirit.
When righteous moral awareness, personal accountability, compassion, concern, and respect for others fade from social conscience, lost or discarded in the pursuits for that which attempts to gain emancipation from scriptural authority and God’s design in favor of hedonism, moral ambivalence or indifference, re-definition, and detachment, we have lost our way and are estranged from our Divine Creator.
This life is a sacred gift from God and what we do with it can be either a grateful re-investment that will outlive our days or perhaps a twisted wreckage spewing social and moral toxins about. If our souls are well with God, we will have peace within and will live with regard for our neighbors as Christ did for those for whom He gave His life to save.
As followers of Christ, we are the products of a spiritual resurrection and transformation of heart and mind. We become the neighbors and friends whose hearts and lives are open to those who need a listening ear, a prayer partner, a strong hand up or just a smile of acknowledgement. We cannot be more like Christ than when the Holy Spirit is given our lives as temples for His dwelling and vessels through which His life flows into the lives of those broken but can be made whole.
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Weekly EnCOURAGEment - 5/14/23
MOTHERS ARE A GIFT FROM THE LORD
2 Timothy 1:5
When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also.
Throughout the history of the church, women have played a very significant role. They are never secondary in what God is doing. Even when the evidence of their involvement and influence is borne out in the lives of others, which is reflective of an incredible role in the advancement of what God has purposed to do.
In the context of the scripture above, it is noted that a young man’s faith, life, and instrumentality in the church could be directly linked to the influence of two women who were very much a part of his early life development. Their influence was foundational to who Timothy would become as a man of God.
Women are beautifully and distinctly made according to the design of the Heavenly Father. They have been endowed with certain sensibilities and feminine traits that are not the mark of weakness but divine design. Believing women are foundational in the nurturing and mentoring of the young. It is both the early and ongoing influence of women in God’s design that make for the strength of the following generations.
God in His eternal record of scripture noted the influence of a Godly mother and grandmother in the life of a servant of God. If it be important enough for God to note, it is important that we, as the church, never dismiss or obscure the role of Godly women in the designs of the Father in Heaven.
We celebrate and should do so daily the gift of Godly women who are second to none in their vital influence upon the young and those of all ages.
Thank you, Lord, for Mothers and for all women. You have given the human race a wonderful gift!
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Weekly EnCOURAGEment - 5/7/23
IT APPEARS THAT JESUS IS.....
....not religion. Jesus is not philosophy. Jesus is not the product of academia. Jesus is not skillful rhetoric. Jesus is not entertainment. Jesus is not clever marketing. Jesus is not appeasement. Jesus is not a steeple. Jesus is not stained glass. Jesus is not trendy, contemporary or hold the fort traditional. Jesus is not a building. Jesus is not a method. Jesus is not a good idea. Jesus is not charming. Jesus is not the way we do it here nor the way we did it then. Jesus is not jeans, a tuckless shirt or a button-down suit on Sunday. Jesus is not tomorrow's state of the art today. Jesus is not 20 minutes or an hour or two followed by a benediction. Jesus is not religious protocol. Jesus is not false humility. He is not spiritual condescension. Jesus is not a spiritual gift. Jesus is not a contribution. Jesus is not our idea. Jesus is not.....
Jesus is always and forever exalted above and beyond our natural, finite, and small minds or grand ideas. Jesus is only known as revealed by The Spirit, The Word, and The Incarnation. Jesus is known when He is living within. Jesus is Love beyond degree. Jesus is perfect Grace and Truth, and in fact, Jesus is The Way and The Truth and The Life. Jesus is John 8:58. Jesus is The Lamb of God. Jesus is The King of Kings. Jesus is The Lord of Lords. Jesus is The Alpha and Omega. Jesus is The First and The Last. Jesus is The Beginning and The End. Jesus is He who Was, Is and Always Will Be. Jesus is The Redeemer. Jesus is our Redemption. Jesus is our Justification. Jesus is our Righteousness. Jesus is our Resurrection. Jesus is our Life. Jesus is our Peace. Jesus is our Transformation. Jesus is The Healer. Jesus is The One Whose Name is Above All. He is The One Before Whom every knee shall bow. JESUS IS.......
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Weekly EnCOURAGEment - 4/23/23
Is the following statement true or detatable?
What is much more certain than the exact percentages of what we can control and cannot control in life, is the one thing that sets many other things into motion and that would be our reactions to the things that come our way in life, or the things that we go out of our way to get involved with.
“You really have no control over 10% of what happens in your life. The other 90 percent is determined by your reaction. Here are some ways to apply the 90/10 principle. If someone says something negative about you, do not be a sponge.” [STEPHEN COVEY]
Often, the difference between a good day and a bad day is determined by the conditioning of our hearts, minds, and the spiritual development of personal restraint and temperance in reaction to the things happening in our world. This is certainly not a minimization of personal tragedies, loss, and great adversity. Those are those things which are profoundly painful and trying on every level.
The things that we cannot control, need not take control of us. I realize that this statement can be a challenge and is one that we do not always succeed in facing. Prayerfully we yield our lives to Holy Spirit influence as followers of Christ and allow Him to transform our hearts with the Scriptural principles that He inspired to be written.
How many of us want to live free from the tyranny of personal enslavement to every challenge, every insult or slight from another, or even perceived life inequities. We determine how we react to or process life, each day. We can be the product of deeper maturation, growing forward with greater patience, perseverance, promise, and satisfaction in a life that is both pleasing to the Lord and a blessing to others.
The scriptures tell us that Iron sharpens iron and that the fires of adversity refine, the hammer shapes, and most importantly that with each challenge there is Holy Spirit revelation and personal conditioning in Christ.
What we become, and what we do in the life as followers of Christ is to come out of the intimate relationship that we have with the Lord. The joy of serving the Lord has been greater to saints persecuted and martyred throughout history when flames consumed their bodies, deprivation was inflicted upon them, and fiercest personal trials came their way. No, we do not always shine gloriously, but Christ does and if He lives in us, He is our Lord and because of Him, we will not be mastered by anything, or anyone, who means personal harm. Christ is greater than all else and He is with us and not against us.
Acts 5:41
So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.
Acts 16:25
But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of April 9, 2023
The STONE IS ROLLED AWAY
John 20:1
Now the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
It had been a horrific couple of days for the disciples and other followers of Christ. A woman named Mary from Magdala, a passionate follower of Christ, out of whom he had cast seven evil spirits was the first to get to the tomb while it was still dark on the Sunday following the Friday crucifixion. To her surprise the stone was rolled to the side and the tomb was empty.
It was apparent that she did not understand or could not believe that Jesus would be resurrected as he said that he would. She ran back to Peter and the other disciples who were with him to convey that the body of Jesus had been removed or stolen.
As Peter and John ran to the tomb, John outran Peter but did not go in, and as was consistent with Peter’s disposition when he arrived at the tomb, he went directly in. Finding only the graveclothes both assumed as well that Jesus had been removed by someone. We are told from the divine record that they did not yet know the scriptures, that Christ must be raised. Jesus told them but in the traumatic events of the previous days, the thought on Sunday morning that He had been resurrected did not occur to them. They each returned to their own homes confused and in fear.
We know that Jesus, resurrected, would appear to them and he would show them his hands and his feet, where the nails had been driven.
The Christian faith and its credibility hinge upon the actual resurrection of Christ. If he died and was not resurrected then, in that regard he would be as all others. The scriptures say, that “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable." 1 Corinthians 15:19.
1 Corinthians 15:14-19
14 And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. 15 Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up - if in fact the dead do not rise. 16 For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen.
But God be praised! Jesus is alive, proven by many convincing proofs. There are at least 8 resurrection appearances over the 40 days between His resurrection and ascension, beginning with the first person who came to the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene.
THE RESURRECTION APPEARANCES OF CHRIST INCLUDE:
First, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene at the tomb (Mark 16:9.)
Second, Jesus appeared to other women as they were leaving the tomb (Matthew 28:9-10.)
Third, Jesus met up with two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-32.)
Fourth, Jesus appeared to 10 disciples who were hiding together (Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-25.)
Fifth, Jesus appeared to all eleven remaining disciples (Mark 16:14; John 20:26-31.) Thomas, who had doubted Jesus’ resurrection, was with them this time.
Sixth, Jesus appeared to seven disciples, including Peter, who had denied Jesus three times (John 21.)
Seventh, Jesus appeared to the 11 disciples at a pre-arranged location on a mountain in Galilee (Matthew 28:16-20.) There Jesus told them He had been given all power and authority.
Eighth, Jesus finally appeared to as many as 500 of His followers at one time. He confirmed the completion of His mission and the promise of the Holy Spirit (Luke 22:44-49; Acts 1:3-8.)
JESUS CHRIST IS ALIVE!!!!!!!!!
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of April 2, 2023
Jesus was exalted as he arrived triumphantly in Jerusalem upon the foal of a donkey on the Sunday before His Friday crucifixion. He was hailed as God’s Anointed, the one prophetically called, “Son of David,” lauded with highest praise.
Matthew 21:9
Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: “Hosanna to the Son of David! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Hosanna in the highest!”
On Friday of that week, he was condemned to death per the wishes of those who cried out for his crucifixion to the delight of those who had conspired against Him.
Unfortunately, the heart of man apart from God is often fickle and there is no clearer or more painful example of such, as that sounded off from the same characters who cried, “Hosanna, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” on Sunday and then demanding His crucifixion at week’s end.
Mark 11
11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd, so that he should rather release Barabbas to them. 12 Pilate answered and said to them again, “What then do you want me to do with Him whom you call the King of the Jews?”
13 So they cried out again, “Crucify Him!”
Jesus knew the praises of those, among whom, many did not truly know who He was. Jesus experienced the pain of their rejection when they chose a jailed criminal for freedom while calling for His crucifixion.
Although the Lord experienced the worst of fallen humanity’s duplicitous nature he surrendered to and followed through with the Father’s plan for Him to die as the sacrificial Lamb to secure redemption for those turning from darkness to saving truth and light in Him.
Jesus loved those who hated Him. Jesus extended mercy to those who delighted in judgement without mercy. He offered salvation to all whom would come, even among those whose religious arrogance blocked the path to God for others.
God knew what man would do and yet He commended His love for the sinful, giving His only Son to die for their redemption.
We all are the beneficiaries of such wondrous Love. God loves all, as evidenced in the compassion He has demonstrated for all mankind.
Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When God became man, Immanuel, “God with Us” (Matthew 1:23), in the person of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the world bore witness of and experienced the compassion of the creator. His presence was established among those He created in His image, the single most sublime act of compassion of all.
It was the ultimate act of compassion. The presence of God walking the paths that others walked.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of March 19, 2023
THE HABITS OF CHRIST - LIFE OF COMPASSION
Isaiah 53
He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripe we are healed.
God’s presence though Jesus Christ in the world was the ultimate act of compassion. GOD SHOWED UP! The Church’s presence in the world is a conduit through which the Holy Spirit releases compassion. GOD SHOWS UP!
John 3:16-17
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
> Jesus was fully aware that those to whom He ministered were sinful, spiritually weak and broken, easily crushed by the weight of the Law. He knew the anointing was rested upon Him.
> There is no such thing as an impersonal and indifferent Christ. It was a meek and gracious and powerful Christ, who felt deeply for those who were overwhelmed and broken.
Matthew 12:20
A bruised reed He will not break,
And smoking flax He will not quench,
Till He sends forth justice to victory;
THE COMPASSION OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD
> Jesus showed compassion abroad, but He really went to great lengths to show compassion to those who were cast-off, vulnerable, the poor and the afflicted.
> Those included:
Jesus was anointed with compassion for children even as others were annoyed by their restless presence. His arms were a safe place for them, and His blessings were full of prophetic promise and providential blessings.
Matthew 18
At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, 3 and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
2. Women
Israel was a patriarchal society in which women occupied a subordinate position and in many ways were treated as social and spiritual inferiors to men.
- A woman had no property rights.
- She could not serve as a witness.
- She could not share equally in worship.
- Singing and chanting were done by men exclusively while women listened in their own synagogue compartments.
- Ten men had to be present for a service to be held. Nine men plus one woman would not do!
Jesus, however, was sensitive to the needs of all people whether male or female.
> Woman with an issue of blood. In order to heal her, Jesus allowed a woman, who had been bleeding for twelve years, to touch him. (Luke 8:42–48).
> Another woman, a prostitute, approached Jesus while he was eating in a Pharisee’s house. She poured precious ointment on Jesus’s feet and washed them with her tears. Compassionately, Jesus, who knew her penitence and faith, defended that bold, extravagant action and sent her away with a benediction of peace (Luke 7:36–50).
> Widows especially elicited Jesus’s compassionate help.
> A typical example of Jesus’s attitude toward widows was his encounter with a funeral procession outside the city of Nain. A young man had died. He was the only child of his grief-stricken mother who faced loneliness and in all probability destitution. When Jesus saw the funeral procession and heard the mother sobbing, he was moved with compassion. “His heart went out to her” (Luke 7:13). He didn’t wait for any appeal. He acted. He touched the coffin, risking ritual contamination, and commanded the corpse to rise. Miraculously, the son obeyed as life returned to his body. Imagine the mother’s gratitude as uncontrollable joy replaced inconsolable sorrow! (vv. 11–17).
Christ was motivated by one thing - compassion.
JESUS LOVED PEOPLE: males and females, Jews and Gentiles, aliens and citizens, adults and children. Jesus saw people as individuals made in God’s image, each a member of God’s human family and a potential member of his spiritual family. He didn’t hesitate to touch lepers who were to avoid all human contact (Matthew 8:1–4; Mark 1:40–44). He intervened in the lives of people supernaturally without prejudice.
Jesus Healed Abroad:
a. He healed the son of a centurion, an officer in Rome’s oppressive army (Matthew 8:5–13.)
b. He healed the daughter of a pagan, a Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21–24.)
c. He talked with a Samaritan woman and shared with her the liberating truth about God and the worship that was pleasing to God (John 4.)
d. He chose a Samaritan as a model of God’s own compassion - a Samaritan who had compassion on a victim of theft and violence (Luke 10.)
e. Jesus welcomed the common people who gladly listened to him (Mark 12:37.)
f. The Jewish religious leaders looked down on the people with contempt because they were religiously illiterate (John 7:49), but Jesus who was moved with compassion taught the crowd, fed them repeatedly, healed their sick, and freed those who were possessed by demons (Mark 5:1–17; 8:1–10.)
g. Jesus’s pity toward the poor in their sickness, in their hunger, and in their suffering emerges in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31.)
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of March 12, 2023
DREAM AGAIN
I am revealed, not by what I say that I am, but through the evidence that is brought forth in how I live among and love others. Using Jesus talk does not make me a Jesus person. In fact, telling people what I am is not nearly as important as allowing the Spirit of God to work in and through my life to compassionately demonstrate to others who Jesus is.
Religious arrogance is not to be confused with the anointing that God places upon the lives of His children. Spiritual authority is not a license to look down on others and Christian fervor is not manifest in contempt held toward or expressed about others. Spiritual authority is established in the Word of God and is demonstrated in brokenness, humility, and love, not with continued declarations of one’s position or authority in the Kingdom of God. Jesus owns this thing called the church. We are only significant when we disappear in Christ.
1 John 3:15 -18
Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death.
1 John 4:7-11
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of March 5, 2023
WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE WE?
Acts 4:18-20
18 So they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. 20 For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.”
Perhaps the church has not encountered a greater challenge to its modern profession of faith in Christ and scripture, than it has from the verbose threats and dismissive taunts leveled against it by proponents of "another" or no gospel at all.
The idea that the Word of God will be applauded and provided genuine accommodation by the spirit of a fallen world is at a minimum, ignorant naivety or its worse a willful abandonment of scripture in a poisonous exchange of Truth for lies. Either way, the results are utter loss and spiritual death.
At times even the pulpit is pressured to compromise by the fear of what has made its way into the desires of "power people" in the seats or pews, clamoring for Grace while believing Truth to be far less relevant or even unnecessary. We may be tempted to seek the world's advocacy and influence in exchange for the silence of uncomfortable truths that are deemed socially unnecessary, and evil.
The voice of anointing and inspired Truth is sought as an exchange for a gospel light which renounces scriptural authority and teases the "feel good" appetite with indulgent and decadent counsel, that determines what the "sheep" hear or don't hear.
Ironically it is the dumbing silence that is the greatest peril and deception, covering the noise of encroaching wolves in sheep's clothing.
Hell's population will be influenced by what each "follower" of Christ becomes and does, in response to the scriptural and spiritual counsel of the Spirit of Truth. We either retain the salt of the Spirit and we transparently show forth the Light of Christ, or we become a by-word, a relic, or a group of imposters receiving the disdain directed at fools from those who, though living in darkness, recognize the difference between gold and fool’s gold.
Truth and Grace are inseparable in Christ and indispensable in this hour when it seems easier to our natural instincts to run rather than to stand, to chase after wind rather than to be filled with Holy Spirit breath, to remain silent when the Spirit of Truth pleads for His anointing to be released through the church, to reinvent rather than to be renewed, to accommodate the pleasures of the vanity of humanity rather than to host the Glory of our God's Divinity, and to preach cheap Grace, to teach the wisdom of fools and to embrace form without real life.
In Christ we can. We Can be. We can do. We can go. We can grow. We can love graciously, truthfully, and fearlessly. In Christ we can do all things, and above all, in Christ we can love as He loves.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of February 19, 2023
GOD’S PERFECT LOVE
Love is one of those things which is better shown than told. In life we will have natural affections for which the capacity is given by God. The love that Christ demonstrated for all people is a perfect love and a love that is unconditional and indestructible. It is a love that is equipped by God to think better of others and thrives in selflessness. Jesus loved his enemies and prayed for those who crucified Him even as He hung upon the cross.
The ability to love as Christ loves can only be possible through His Lordship and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in one’s heart. God makes it possible for His Love to triumph in our hearts and behaviors, where we would otherwise fall miserably short.
Feelings are not in themselves, love. Emotions can run away with one and lead to rogue behaviors. Feelings can rule over what is right and can be responses to moments of euphoria or hurt. Feelings calibrated by scripture and grounded in godly love are wonderful expressions.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. (Christ-less spirituality is for show and as such its empty reward is appropriate.) And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. (No spiritual gifting is a substitute for the absence of Christian love.) And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. (No sacrifice, no matter how extreme is a substitute for genuine love for others.)
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (Whereas rogue feelings may usurp what is right, just, merciful, gracious and thoughtful …Love triumphs righteously.)
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. (Love is Supreme to every other attribute and gifting.)
And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of February 12, 2023
BROKENNESS IS THE ROAD THAT TRAVELS DEEPER INTO EMPATHY
2 Corinthians 4:8-12 8 We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed -
The scriptures above, are ones that inspire a person of faith to persevere when afflicted in life by the adversity of one or many types. Paul’s statement is a bold declaration that faith in Christ is indestructible as it serves as the foundation of life and not the tail end of a journey on which we are driven by our circumstances and our emotional responses.
Paul was not exempt from affliction and suffering because of his faith but rather he suffered because of his faith in and ministry for Christ. The sun does not always shine in the life of a believer, but the Son always does and that is the strength of our hearts.
Those who have been broken in life, by personal loss, failure, rare afflictions, mistreatment and a host of other types of suffering that are common or uncommon, are often the things for which only scripture can provide the stabilizing perspective. “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!” 2 Corinthians 4:17 NLT
It is when we have been broken, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually and have been made whole in God’s gracious provision that we receive heaven’s degree on earth for having gone through the fire and come out of it fully alive and whole. It is then that our ability to empathize with others goes through the ceiling.
Life is a journey littered with broken souls who have not yet found the way up or forward. There are those who are prisoners to the brokenness of days or years past. There are those lying on the roads of broken and then forsaken by those things which they believed would always be there to assist them in their day of desperate personal need. Like the priest and the Levite who passed by on the other side to avoid the one who had fallen among thieves, many choose to bypass the broken because they are inconvenient reminders of the vulnerabilities of life. Sadly, even religion abandons people in their darkest hours of need. But God be praised as He is not religion, and He is not its clanging gong or cymbal. He is a rescuer. He is a searcher and a finder. He is a friend to the friendless and a healer to the broken.
He is voice of hope to those who cannot see beyond the blinding darkness of hopelessness. He is the arm that reaches out and the hands to lift up. He is the provision shared to make the broken whole. He was broken and He knows the anguish of suffering and yet He defeated it for all of us who have ever been broken. He is not merely sympathetic but His benevolent empathy pours oil into the wounds and the wealth that he forsook to become a dying servant for all upon the cross now shares it freely to make people well. He knows us and He knows our afflictions and because He is personally and fully qualified He stands for all of us as He lifts us in His arms. He speaks hope into all of our lives. He who was broken for us makes us whole in His Present and Future Glory.
Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected - a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.
As Christians let our neighbors see that because of Christ, “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed -“ Because of Christ we are overcomers and in Christ they can be too
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of February 5, 2023
HERE AND THERE
Life is a gift from the Lord, which is a vehicle for sharing the experiences of a purposeful existence with others to whom God has entrusted the same beautiful gift.
This present life is described as a mist or a vapor that appear briefly and then vanishes away.
During this momentary journey there are so many sweet opportunities to invest into that which exceeds the limited scope of our five senses in the time between birth and passing into the glorious presence of the One who has entrusted us with this precious gift.
Friendship for eternity, laughter, endless seasons of joy and unbroken peace and contentment in the presence of the One with whom we shall all live, together in His Glorious Light.
Everyone who will be there, will be there by grace and through the witness of Christ that leads to eternal life. No one will be there because of earthly perfection or riding the coattails of another.
In Christ we live in abundance and share a quality of relationship with others that, though restrained in this life within the context of our seen beginnings and endings, will provide the seeds for an eternity wondrously provided for us together in the unblemished perfection and endless design of God, together with Him and those with whom we have shared the joy of life with here and faith in the One who authors the unseen but real eternity there.
2 Corinthians 4
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of January 29, 2023
TRAVEL WELL
Life is a journey and it has a destination as revealed in scripture. All of us must make the journey and it is to our benefit to travel it well. Our feet are designed by God to walk forward. Most of the time, the direction that we choose will largely determine where we end up and what condition we are in when we get there. Sometimes, or even more often, the path will choose us and we will find ourselves traveling a route that is unfamiliar and perhaps difficult. We will experience challenges on the way and will perhaps, at times, react out of frustration or in fear, but because of Christ with us we will not stay there and we will rise above them. Fear is a human response to things that appear unknown and are potentially harmful, to things outside of our places of comfort. Potential distractions at times will litter the route of our journey.
The scriptures make it clear that God will keep those who train their focus upon Him. His peace will guard, and His Word will guide their thoughts (Isaiah 26:3)
The apostle Paul referenced His life as a fight fought well, a race completed, and a faith kept (2 Timothy 4:7.) Life is a progression. It challenges us to be, to become, to do, and to keep it as a sacred trust. Along the journey, as the Holy Spirit guides those who trust in Christ, we discover many things that provide the necessary fuel to complete it. They include the following:
1. Who is for us. God is for us.
2. Who we are. We are God’s children.
3. Why we are here. We are here because we are God’s creation.
4. Where we are going. We are in route to Heaven.
5. Why it matters. Because you matter to the One who made you with love.
To travel well and to reach the destination one must:
Hebrews 11
13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off [e]were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 14 For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. 15 And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of January 22, 2033
SILENCING THE VOICE THAT ONCE SPOKE FOR US
GALATIANS 5
16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
ROMANS 13
14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
If one knows Christ as Savior and Lord, he or she realizes that His life, death, resurrection, ascension, and promise of return have thoroughly covered that which is required for personal forgiveness, redemption, deliverance, wholeness, freedom, transformation, abundant life, and confidence in the resurrection.
Christ’s death and resurrection, followed by the sending of the Holy Spirit have made it possible to put down the old nature which once ruled over the heart and mind, while driving the search, in the quest of finding one’s self, in countless directions expecting personal fulfillment but always coming up short. There is a god-shaped vacuum within the heart without Christ, for which the mad search for its satisfaction has led to the bitter realization that what was promised was, in reality, an illusion or a mirage or had a short shelf life.
Because of Christ, the old tyrant that once ruled over the past, present and future, has lost his hold. In Christ, the redeemed are granted authority to put down and to silence the old nature which daily seeks to encroach upon the ground for which it has no credible claim. The heart, soul, and spirit are now sacred ground secured by the blood and resurrection of Christ.
There have been champions of personal freedom and recognition for all people regardless of their ethnicity or culture. Certainly one such example at the forefront of such pursuit has been Martin Luther King who gave his life in advocacy for all regardless of skin color.
Jesus Christ laid down his life that each one might be free from the tyranny that has ruled in complicity with the old sinful nature and has stolen hope, destroyed dreams, and has cursed the future while enslaving one to the past.
In prayerful meditation upon the Word of God and by residing in His perfect love, believers are lifted up and transformed, being renewed daily in Christ and in His Truth. The Holy Spirit speaks into those hearts, minds, and spirits to silence the seducing lies and the inflammatory accusations which seek to reinstate enslavement to false beliefs in empty promises and renewed condemnation.
God, grant believers the grace to grow and the discernment to the Know Truth and to see and to forsake the lies that once usurped the void which exists, as a dwelling only for God. May the Truth and Love of God be center stage in each heart, given voice through the lips of the redeemed. May the voice that was once given to the fallen nature speak no more
Ephesians 4:20-24
20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self,[a] which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
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EnCOURAGEment for the week of January 15, 2023
FAITH is…….
11 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
…..the view into the unseen. It is the confidence that one has in the Promises of God’s Word. It is the step forward and across the span of nothingness that halts the natural advancement limited by its absence but excites the soul and spirit of the one who walks in revelation truth and is led by the Spirit. It is the voice within that summons the spirit to arise to the higher standard of life and obedience, baptized in the joy of the Lord’s transcendence regardless of life’s surroundings and circumstances.
…... confidence in the One who promises and supplies the gift of abundant life, thriving in the wisdom of God quickens the soul to prudence and faithful stewardship. The storehouses are full from the gracious hand of God to those who walk in accordance of the counsel of His truth. The cup of the redeemed overflows from the goodness the Lord – Psalm 23:5.
…..that which does not place a greater focus on the need than upon the One who is faithful in all things. Faith is the fuel that propels the believing heart higher and deeper into the Promises of God and personal obedience to the Word of God.
God is a rewarder of faith in His Person, Promises, and Purposes.
Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Romans 10:17
…..rewarded by God.
Hebrews 11:6
But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
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EnCOURAGEment for the week of January 8, 2023
FAITH VS FEELINGS OR IS IT?
God created the whole person, body, soul, and spirit. Jesus Christ came to redeem the whole person and to introduce soundness into humanity’s soul and spirit. The soul is composed of three parts - the mind, the will, and the emotion. The mind, the will, and the emotions are essential parts of every person’s being. As followers of Christ, we are completely redeemed.
The transaction that took place upon the cross secured our freedom from the control of the sinful nature, as we are justified not in ourselves, but through the shed blood of Christ.
The ongoing work of the Holy Spirit within, beginning with the spiritual re-birth, brings renewal of soul and spirit. The Spirit is made alive by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and moves in alignment with the Holy Spirit’s leading. The spirit of the believer is alive in Christ and quickened in the Word of God. The Word of God sets forth the work of transformation and provides direction for a child of God through faith in Christ. The Spiritual nature of man is borne witness by the Holy Spirit in alignment with the Word of God. Therefore, the nourishment and fuel for the mind and the emotions is released into them by the union between the Spirit of the person with the Holy Spirit of God through Jesus Christ.
Emotions, feelings, and practices are to be placed under the authority of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. We are able to experience thoughts, emotions and feelings, as wonderful capabilities given to each one by God. They are capable of beautiful expressions of our humanity. In Christ, they are sanctified through the Word of God as they are yielded to the control of the Holy Spirit. They become centered and healthy, receiving the life of God, wholly through spiritual intimacy with God through Christ.
The soul and the Spirit function together harmoniously, with the mind under spiritual direction through the Lordship of Christ.
The soul emits those traits which come from the person, but the Spirit of the man focuses on the Lord. The soulish individual focuses on self and his or her sense of wellbeing and personal gratification seeks to lay hold of the natural or sensual. The Spiritual individual is spiritually alive, and is focused on the spiritual, which transcends the natural and is led by the Holy Spirit. It is focused on God through Jesus Christ.
Emotions and thoughts are essential parts of our human experience and personal development. For believers, wholeness comes through personal submission to the Word of God and through continued renewal and growth brought about through spiritual intimacy with Christ, and personal surrender to the Holy Spirit. Emotions and thoughts do not trump faith and the revelation of God. Thoughts and feelings can talk a believer out of faith and convince him or her that one’s faith and position in Christ is inconsequential in certain circumstances. When we allow our feelings/emotions to rule we will be prone to recklessness and regret. Spiritual things are discerned though the spirit.
The following scriptures give us a view of the relationship.
Romans 8:15
For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”
2 Timothy 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
2 Corinthians 5:7
For we walk by faith, not by sight.
Romans 8:14
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
Romans 12:2
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
1 Corinthians 2:8-10
8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But as it is written:
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
Colossians 3
If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
Ephesians 1:16-19
16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your [a]understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power
1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Corinthians 3:1-3
3 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; 3 for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and [a]behaving like mere men?
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of Dec. 18
GOD WILL USE YOU
God leads. God establishes. God opens. God closes. God Seeds. God Grows. God increases. God begins and God ends. There is nothing to worry about.
No matter what it looks like.
No matter what others say or do, or whatever comes your way. The Author brings to fruition. Seasons are given. Seasons are blessed. Seasons change.
You can be who God says you are, wherever He takes you, to accomplish whatever He assigns and equips you to do in His season. God smiles upon you.
Remember David in the Valley of Elah.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of Dec. 11
The Longer I Live….
I am less impressed by that which is advanced as “the show.” Granted, I’m sure that no one lives life to impress me, nor should anyone. May pretentiousness in my own heart be defeated by the work of Holy Spirit transformation.
Matthew 6:1
“Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
I am more drawn into the awe of God’s love and His kindness, grace, and patience that He extends to me each day that I may grow beyond my many shortcomings, inconsistencies, and contradictions.
Luke 7:47
Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”
I become more aware of how that the distorted value of things, titles, and indulgences that aren’t going with us when we leave this life, is based upon the misinformation campaign propagated through the massive network of illusions and false narratives as to what life is about.
Matthew 23:6-8
6 They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, 7 greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi.’ 8 But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren.
I value the discernment of the Spirit that exposes the distinctions between image and reality, perception and truth. Unfortunately, we are often plagued by the overindulgence focused on building image and a favorable or at least noteworthy perception among others at the expense of that which genuine and transparently honest.
Matthew 23:27
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.
I am more aware of the scriptural truth that I cannot live a life that pleases God and is intimately connected with Him in relationship, if I am seeking to live a life of compromise between my will, the Word of God, and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
James 4:8
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
It is clearer that I cannot earn the love of God and that He does not owe me anything. Every breath of air that I breath is a gift from God and my life, in the much broader view, is but a wispy momentary vapor. My home is not here, nor should my heart be totally rooted in this temporal world and yielded to its seductions.
Acts 17:28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’
There is a yearning for the resurrection and ultimate restoration and renewal that Christ promised in the scripture and to be together with those whom I love in His glorious presence.
Acts 3:21
whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.
I identify more with the Kingdom of the living God and Christ as its King. This is not about my church and your church, yours and mine, theirs and ours. In Christ there is One Church. There is one body redeemed by His blood, transformed by His Holy Spirit, and baptized as one. There is one Church destined to be adorned in the Holy character of God, one church without spot of wrinkle.
Isaiah 9:7
Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
I see more clearly that the first will truly be last and that the last will truly be first. There are always a multitude of interpretations which are aimed at offsetting the obvious points of Truth. There will be a day when we will realize some things that we could not or would not see in this life. The passage of 1 Corinthians 1:26-27 will be realized in greater detail. There will be no big shots or little shots, no pecking order as has been established in this corrupt world system and propagated in many forms and, unfortunately, at times within the church. God’s order will be Holy and Righteous without the corruption of human pride and exploitation of others.
1 Corinthians 1:26-27
26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many [b]noble, are called. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;
There will be many revelations forthcoming that we weren’t able to see through the glass in this present world’s dim light. Often traditions and man created religious icons and standards that violate the scriptural and spiritual incarnation of Grace and Truth in Christ have kept people blinded in worldly and religious idolatry.
Matthew 15:9
And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
There is no moral failure that is greater than the blood of Christ and there is no baggage too heavy for the arm of grace to lift from upon our lives. Often people are labeled by “their sin” and even when made new in Christ, they are often identified in terms of what they were instead of what they are becoming in Christ. I have been dreadfully guilty of such.
1 Corinthians 6:11 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Truth is not always convenient, whether historical, cultural, social, religious, or secular and we cannot erase it because we do not like it. We can learn from our history. We can grow in or beyond them as needful, and we can be transformed by God’s grace that enables all of us to becomes stronger regardless of what may otherwise be an inconvenient truth or a painful history which we dismiss because it is not our truth.’
John 8:32
And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Every day matters and one day will ultimately be our last in this life. When young, a day seems like a lifetime and as we age a lifetime seems like a day.
James 4:14
whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
I have no problem acknowledging that I am a no one, who speaks of things that others have seen or spoken of countless times before. In Christ I do have a glorious identity because of, and solely because of, God’s work of redemption and transformation in my life. As to position and pride I am nothing, but I can celebrate and acknowledge the accomplishments and growth of others, without patronization and free of condescension. I can be an encourager. I can be a voice among those cheering runners through to the finish. It is a joy to see others run well and to finish strong.
Romans 12:15
Rejoice with those who rejoice,
No legislation frees me to worship God, and none restricts me from doing so. The Bible and history prove that over and over again. Oppression is the misguided stomping that only scatters the embers of flame.
Acts 5:40-42
40 And they agreed with him, and when they had called for the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41 So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name. 42 And daily in the temple, and in every house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.
I see many streams of purported “Christianity” and my prayer for my family, those whom I serve, and for myself, is that the stream that we are drinking from, truly has its origin and flow, Christ alone.
John 15:5
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
It is through loving people when they’re alive and honoring them in day-to-day life that we can have greater joy in their remembrance when they have gone from this life. Flowery words that do not reflect our dispositions or expressions toward those in our lives when they were with us, are often expressions born of regret and a grief intensified by personal guilt.
1 Corinthians 13
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
There will never be another day exactly like today. In fact, today may be the last today that we have in this present life. Live Christ fully and without restraint. What is held back from God, holds me back from God as well.
Psalm 90:12
Teach us to realize the brevity of life,
so that we may grow in wisdom.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of December 4
T - TODAY IS A GIFT FROM GOD.
James 1:17
Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.
H - HOPE IN GOD DOES NOT DISAPPOINT.
Romans 5:5
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
A - AWESOME IS OUR GOD.
Psalm 47:2
For the Lord Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth.
N – NO TURNING BACK.
Acts 7:38-40
38 “This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, 39 whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt,
K - KNOWLEDGE IS GOOD LOVE IS BETTER.
1 Corinthians 8:1
Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.
S - SALVATION IN CHRIST LIFECHANGING.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of November 20
THE ROAD WE ARE ON
The route that each one is traveling upon today started somewhere. We can continue or change course, depending on our choice of destinations. The scriptures simplify the choice by narrowing our options to either of two destinations. Our thought process when coming to the Y in the road may not be the most significant one that we will entertain. But the Words, and thoughts of the Holy Spirit that we receive into our lives, in scriptural and spiritual contemplation in the proceeding seasons of meditation, reflection, application and personal growth will always be the truest guides as to the road that we should choose.
Living for Christ will take one to places that require ongoing prayerful conditioning and surrender of soul and spirit, to walk the narrow and winding path of life. This route is not a road of self-obsession, but rather a life of self-denial, choosing to identify with that which is far less chosen, and to travel with the one whose incomparable humility among man preceded His enthronement in sinless perfection at the right hand of God The Father. It is the path, the difficult non-accommodating one, the road of selfless inconvenience, and the road that, but for the integrity of Divine Truth and Promise, would be avoided as too costly to travel by all.
In Christ, we never travel alone, and though the steep climbs may be higher than our strength, we travel with the One who commands mountains to bow before their creator. He walks with us into the places of steep descent, as its shadows of abject darkness are cut down in the brilliant life of His presence. It is the singular route to life, often disregarded, as travelers are seduced by the lies that lead one to believe that it is a road upon one which one cannot find himself or herself, a course where too little is about us and certainly too much is about a “god,” imposing religion upon ones’ dreams, ambitions, pursuit of self-discovery, and all other things pertaining to self.’
The highway that is easiest to travel is the one that is most accommodating, at least in the beginning, convincingly promising of many things that require the compromise of principle and restraint. Indulgence to the point of sublime satisfaction is the “guaranteed” offer, teasing the insatiably thirsty impulses of wanton desire. It is a route that promises licensed recklessness without conscience or consequence. This road involves much fewer considerations and personal accountability is exchanged for the illusion of free gratification.
Jesus made it clear that the wide entry point to the broad road is very appealing and is most often chosen to be the default choice for those who are in search of that which will never be found on or along this wide interstate of one life. It invites all to jump onto this major travel route, where the only thing that matters is how the experiences gained there make one feel and how much one can feel of that which is most gratifying. Faith, character, fore-thought, and love for others are often left abandoned in pursuit of the promises made to those who yearn for life in the fast, self-indulgent, and dangerous lanes of life. Those who live solely for the moments that scratch an itch or provide a moment of euphoric high are not thinking beyond but how each experience makes one feel. Feeling mocks discretion on the wide road as it seeks life’s richest moments. Discretion is deemed never to be the better part of anything, but rather an unnecessary weight that only slows the pursuit.
Jesus chose the narrow and most difficult road that led to the place of His death, and which set the stage for His resurrected emergence out of the tomb on that first day of the week. His Words were prophetic and divinely inspired when He said, “I am the way, the Truth and The Life, and no man comes to the Father but through me.” He is the singular Way, the Way to the Father in Heaven according to His Words. He is not about feelings as much as He is about the truly abundant life that everyone can experience in Him. Upon the journey of life’s end, the realization will be given to those who found in Christ, that nothing else in this life was worth the selling of one’s soul to attain. The wide gate and the broad road of life offers the “promises” of a more lucrative and fulfilling life to the fallen nature but at the end there is spiritual death. The narrow gate and difficult path indeed call for a singular Christ centered focus and a willingness to die to self for a much greater eternal gain.
Matthew 7:13-14
13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and [b]difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of November 5, 2022
The idea that the church is defeated by the challenges of our time is as false as the notion that the cross was the place of Christ's defeat. Resurrection power was revealed in Christ early on the first day of the week following His crucifixion so that the church would be alive in Him. In Christ we live, move, and exist.
Governments, societal rhetoric, behaviors, and leanings do not determine the health, mission, and fruitfulness of the church. The church's connection with and transformation in Christ determines such. By remaining intimately connected with its life source (Christ), the church advances in the purposes and Spirit into which it is baptized.
Christ is the Vine and the redeemed are His branches. The church's advancement and its fruitfulness are the results of His Life, sourcing throughout. -John 15
The church is created by God, for God and is equipped and sustained as His vessel, through which His life flows into the world.
Life is one huge opportunity for the church every day.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of October 30, 2022
The scriptures speak to personal weariness.
Sometimes life can become burdensome and when it does how can we be refreshed and renewed?
Life can become monotonous and wearisome, and Jesus is not the author of heavy religious lifting in addition to all of the other concerns and responsibilities we have in life. He has done that for us.
Matthew 11:28-30
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
1 Peter 5:7
Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.
John 15:5
“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.
Acts 17:28
For in him we live and move and exist.
Philippians 4:13
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Psalm 103:4-6
He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies. He fills my life with good things. My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
Isaiah 40:31
But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of October 23
1 Thessalonians 2:8
So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.
Life is not diminished by the temporal nature of those material things that we fail to gain or cannot keep forever. The value of things dwell in the sentimental reminders they contain of those who have given them to us or those who made them for us. Their hands and their love were involved in their making or delivery. The practicality of “things” for life’s usage, personal or shared enjoyment and their usefulness in blessing others is where the real value of material things lie.
People are different from things and much more valuable on every level. Painfully, we cannot keep those whom we wish to have with us forever in this life, bypassing separation upon death. It seems that we are young but for a moment, while during that season of life, time drags, and the anticipation of future life experiences and advancement painfully tease the desires of youthful ambition. The hands of time are driven by the winds of successive seasons, just as fresh snow driven by the howling forces of nature. Like wind and sand, wind symbolizes the relentless force of time and we as grains of sand are carried to places yet unseen and undiscovered. The grain of sand is carried forth and its existence to others is scarcely certain, but for the place upon which it faintly lands. Our lives here, unlike other things that come and go with the winds of time and change, are of a higher order in God’s design, as each one is a creation of the Divine, a handiwork of our Creator, created to be unique and wonderful. As life ends, we take flight from this life, called away by the One from whom we came. In Christ, we are called home, to our Heavenly Father’s house, each to a unique, mysterious and unimaginably beautiful place prepared for those who embrace Christ’s promise with faith in this life. (John 14:1-3.)
As the years pass, age brings distinctions that belong to its passing seasons. We are gifted with experience as the “knowledge about” becomes the “wisdom to.” Gray hair is to correspond to the glory of maturation spiritually, physically, emotionally, and intellectually.
May we not take the beauty of life for granted, but may we savor the choicest parts of the journey, lay hold of the value of now, the hugs and kisses, the kind words and love in action, to live in the rich liberty that we are blessed to share and to receive. May we not romance the props of life instead of the precious ones that God has given to us.
May we stop today and thank God for each day, given from His hand, the easy and the difficult, the sunny and the stormy, and those times remembered and the many that we may have forgotten. May we thank God for family and friends given to us regardless of the length of their stay. May we grow more eager to forgive, ready to comfort, encourage, and to tarry a little longer.
Through the hastening seasons of life, may we learn that God does not change, that His love endures forever, and that in His nature He is love. He loves to forgive and to save.
May each moment be precious, savored, and their memories be framed with thanks. May thankfulness and grace be integral parts of the remembrances by others of our disposition when we are here.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of October 16
Jesus taught that this life is an opportunity to live for something beyond our days here and beyond that which can be processed by our five senses, in His grace and love. We are spirit. We are made alive in Christ. Grace and Truth brought us forth out of darkness into the most brilliant of life-giving light in Christ. Our lives are chosen by God to reflect the Light of the Word, the light of Christ even in the darkest of places. A light is the casting of energy and illumination, and that requires a source. Jesus Christ is that source. This world is dark, and it is spiraling downward without the saving knowledge of Christ. But in that abject darkness there are lights chosen by God which cast His reflection to the hopeless, the fearful, and those who believe that they are without purpose and love. Those in Christ are the lights that represent the reality of God and His grace and love in every place amidst every challenge.
Most in this world know how to celebrate, but many fewer have been inspired in grief, made hopeful in loss, and trusting when life makes no sense. It is those of faith who will share the light of Christ in their grief, hope despite loss, and trust when life makes no sense. And none of this will happen because we are always up to the challenge, always strong enough, or that our trust is never shaken. It is Christ within that makes us overcomers. He is our shelter in the storms of life.
Every day is a gift. God did not owe us one. But He gave us a gift, this life, that we might know Him and love Him in such a manner that these days here, would author a life to be celebrated, a life that lives beyond its days, laughter that can still be heard, smiles that still sweetly cause us to look up, throughout the joys, sorrows, the health and pains of life, strangely victorious as the worst of life is deprived of the effect that hell would hope for.
Paul describes these things, “as light and momentary” and they seemed in the natural to be nothing light or momentary. But the Holy Spirit shared insight into how even suffering and loss bring forth “a far more exceeding weight of glory.” Let me read this in full,
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
“16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing,
yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.
17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is
working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,
18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.
For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of October 9
AN AMBASSADORSHIP OF LIGHT
As believers we will be appointed by God to a unique and profound ambassadorship. We may enjoy the placement of that ambassadorship, or we may not. But central in God’s placement of His children is the advancement of His saving and Kingdom advancing message, Jesus Christ Crucified for all.
The apostle Paul referred to himself as ambassador in chains for Christ, Ephesians 6:20. Perhaps our ambassadorship will touch the lives of others in the midst of great adversity. Faith that is focused on Christ triumphs over the cruelest of adversaries. In Christ strength we can fight a good fight to the end, run through the finish, and keep the faith. In everything we can be a light in this dark world as Christ shines through us in our assignments.
Matthew 5:14
14 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.
There are many things in this life, upon this earth, which are beyond our control and our understanding. And for believers, though we are given tremendous insights from God’s Word and the counsel of the Holy Spirit, we also at times, only with God’s love, can control our reactions to and the courses that we choose in response to the painful and unexplained things in life. We choose to trust or to drown in bitterness. We choose to honor or constantly try to forget. We are thankful or we assign blame. We grieve as those without hope, or we grieve sustained in God’s Hope. Broken does not mean ruined. Tears do not mean depletion but the opening of the streams that cast reflections on shared joys and the yearning for the fulfillment of God’s promises in Christ.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of September 25
While we as believers are given abundant life in Christ (John 10:10), if this present is heaven, it certainly does not fit the description provided in scripture on many fronts.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” – (Matthew 6:10)
The Bible teaches that this present world is fallen and is largely deceived and corrupted by the “god of this age” otherwise known as the devil.
2 Corinthians 4:3-5
3 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. 5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake.
Galatians 1:3-5
3 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Ephesians 5:8-10
as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.
While this present world is not consistent with the description of the new heaven and earth that are to come, believers do not live by the spirit of lawlessness and sin, but grow in grace and truth, longing for the eternal promises of God, which centrally includes a Heavenly dwelling on the new earth with God Himself.
Heaven and its principles are seeded in our hearts through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and because of Christ’ s life, teaching, death, resurrection, ascension, the sending of the Holy Spirit, and His Promise to return as the King of Kings and The Lord of Lords. We live in Christ, as Kingdom principles advance in our hearts, minds, speech, and conduct. But heaven is with God and in this flesh in which we live Christ is exalted in our hearts, but He will physically, and tangibility establish a righteous kingdom with the redeemed and He shall reign forever,
Heaven is with God and as His spirit dwells within the redeemed the longing is as Paul expresses, “Abba Father.”
Romans 8:14-16
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of September 18, 2022
May we be like the old pair of shoes, the ones that we prefer because they are worn and comfortable. They are the ones that we look for at times, past the others that are newer, and the fit is not as welcoming as the ones that we’ve seemingly worn a million times and are familiar to us. They are the go-to shoes.
In life there is much to be said about being a go-to person who, like the old worn shoe that just feels right, when someone needs a trusted friend, someone to talk to or a prayer partner.
Believers are to be the salt of grace (when salt is needed) to prevent the spoilage of that which will certainly be ruined without a thorough application of salt. The church is to be light when the darkness needs to be illuminated by the Holy Spirit’s counsel into the darkest of storms. Sorrow calls for the hands of Christ’s caregivers, sanctified for service unto others and those anointed to restore things broken. Peacemakers are not those who interject themselves into situations with unproven theory, but those whose discernment and discretion yield to wisdom’s lead rather than impulse when dealing with the delicate matters of relational sensitivities. They are wisdom’s mouthpieces to bring the perplexing and the unknown into the light of revelation knowledge and to rescue gain from forfeiture at the hands of recklessness. Tears are welcomed upon the shoulders of empathy and compassion, as they fall not far from the heart of one who has been injured but not slain by that over which faith in Christ prevails.
Those old worn shoes have walked many miles on the feet of the soul who came looking for them when a hill was there to climb, a distance to walk, a race to run, another chore required completion and whatever use required this choice, it was because they were always there, they were worn and tested. Because they were the go-to over and over again, they were the ones that wore the mud, were soaked in the creek, bleached by the sun, and whose tread is worn.
Jesus is the ultimate go-to for every thirsty soul, broken heart, and those searching for meaning and purpose beyond what five senses can discern. He is the Alpha and the Omega, The Beginning and The End. He will always be the First and The Last.
Revelation 22:13
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.”
Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
The Lord has ordained His church to represent His character on this earth. His followers are anointed to be those sought out old worn shoes because they have been conditioned on the trails, hills, and rocky paths of life. They are the shoes meant for the journey of life; the kind that people look for.
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EnCOURAGEment fot the Week of September 11, 2022
The foundation for receiving Holy Spirit counsel in day-to-day life or speaking as one claiming to do so as prompted by the Holy Spirit, is provided in the Love of God, in the substance and in the light of scripture. It is not by feeling or personal agenda that we are guided at the expense of scriptural foundation or the manifest presence character of Christ.
Many things are spoken on behalf of God and claim divine authority for doing so. The Scriptures do make it clear that the Holy Spirit’s outpouring (according to Joel’s Prophecy as restated in Acts 2:17) is accompanied with the release of visions, dreams, and a prophetical anointing upon both the young and old and men and women. So, we know that the Lord does continue to speak into and through believers to reveal and to advance His specific and principled purposes.
Everything that is spoken for and/or done on behalf of God is to be evaluated. Man is not authorized to add to or to alter scripture. The Holy Spirit Himself, the author of scripture, exhorts believers to test every spirit as to whether they be of God.
1 John 4
Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world. 2 This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God: If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God. 3 But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard is coming into the world and indeed is already here.
While we are delighted to fellowship with the Lord and to walk in intimate relationship with the Lord through the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, we are to prayerfully and scripturally discern all things released for consumption claiming to come from the Lord.
How Do We Discern what is of Christ and what is not?
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of September 4, 2022
ACCORDING TO SCRIPTURES WHERE DOES THE ANSWER OF HOPE COME FROM?
The fallen world cannot heal itself.
The fallen world is broken, and it cannot heal shattered hearts
The fallen world cannot generate brotherly love.
The fallen world cannot restore humanity to wholeness as it does not possess the resources to do it.
The fallen world cannot restore moral and relational brokenness to health.
Depravity cannot restore the image of God in man.
Religion cannot restore the image of God in man.
Good works cannot restore the image of God in man.
People cannot restore the image of God in themselves or others.
* Only Christ can!
Isaiah 43:10-11
10 “You are My witnesses,” says the Lord,
“And My servant whom I have chosen,
That you may know and believe Me,
And understand that I am He.
Before Me there was no God formed,
Nor shall there be after Me.
11 I, even I, am the Lord,
And besides Me there is no savior.
Acts 4:10-12
10 let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. 11 This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ 12 Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of August 28
INFLUENCE
Influence is a gift and a sacred trust. So many desire to possess and wield it.
Christ is the greatest of influencers. As the saving influencer for anyone who would follow, He influenced by example. He came in humility. He honored the One who sent Him. He became a servant to others. He was a healer, a reconciler, the personification of Grace and Truth, a gracious teacher, a friend to those estranged from family and discarded by society. He laid His life down for friend and enemy.
1 Corinthians 11:1
Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.
John 13:14-16
14 And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. 15 I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. 16 I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of August 21
Rev. Richard Ritenour
FIVE THINGS THAT WE WILL NEVER FORGET
1. We will never regret releasing kindness into the lives of others. The return on kindness is not always and perhaps seldom, a reciprocation for such, but rather the things that are gained are often realized in terms of meaningful connections, relationships, and eternal significance. The greatest joy in showing kindness to others is knowing that Christ within our hearts has been introduced to others, in ways that make for visual and practical applications of His love and kindness to others.
2. Speaking the Truth with Grace and knowing that even when being firm and direct in response are required, that the fruit of the Spirit within will detoxify any encroaching disposition that would seek to hijack the moment. Honor will then be bestowed upon humility. Christ will be heard in the disposition of believers who do not allow godless expressions of emotions to preside over the challenges of relationship.
3. Forgiving others reveals how grateful we are for the Grace that God has shown to us and how much of an impact it is has made through our actions and reactions to others. When we are forgiven much and we understand that the forgiveness shown to us by God is undeserved, we live among others with grace rather than a life ruled by the spirit of offense.
4. Doing good is exactly what Jesus did and it is the practical call of God upon each believer’s life. Of all that Jesus did, His life and ministry were described in scripture as “doing good.” Doing good is what we were created to do.
5. Prayer is not a meaningless redundancy and those who consistently and earnestly pray, have a spiritual Guide known as The Holy Spirit who enables believers to speak with the Lord and to hear the things of God through His counsel. As in any relationship, communication is essential. Prayer changes many things naturally and supernaturally. God transcends time and space. He is all knowing, ever present, and all powerful. He desires to speak into the lives of the redeemed and to work in and through them. Prayer changes things.
Ephesians 4:31-32 Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. 32 Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.
John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Luke 6:37 “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven.
Romans 12:21 Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.
James 5:16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of August 13, 2002
Rev. Richard Ritenour
1 John 3:1
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are......
I am called to refuse the fraudulent claim that the old nature asserts in its pursuit of restored lordship over my life. I am compelled to lay down all before the altar of my Heavenly Father's Glory. I am abundantly alive when conquered and undone, in the revelation of The Father's redeeming love. My heavenly Father bestows indisputable victory of soul and spirit, through grace's redemption and conquest over that which once ruled my fallen soul. Christ's banner is raised over me, a temple of His dwelling, in what was once vacant, ruined within by depravity's contempt toward that by which I now stand redeemed. I am beckoned to the dangerous places to which the Holy Spirit guides me, where my flesh nature is sure to suffer devastating wounds. The Word of The Almighty is my right of passage to places where I have never been from which I will never turn back. Undone in Christ, transformation raises me up in Him, born anew to become what I have never been. I desire no return to what I once was. The past was cursed and today is Promise, and in that I choose to advance.
Philippians 3:7
But Christ has shown me that what I once thought was valuable is worthless
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of July 31, 2022
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Philosophy is the fluid expression or compilation of man’s anecdotal thoughts about many things including the meaning and values of life. Science is the systematic pursuit of finding through human investigation as well as a source for the formation of theoretical postulations as to the origins of life. Philosophy and science are not evil pursuits, but they are pursuits, that are guided by a number of factors and variables. Science involves research and discovery, with many discoveries having benefited mankind from the beginning. Philosophy is a formation of values underlying visionary leadership and a key to many positive advancements.
The Bible identifies God as its Author and it claims that through Him Life was created and that through Jesus Christ life, at its highest level, is given freely to those who receive His gift of Grace through His redemptive suffering and death.
As a student of God’s Word, I have come to believe that the Bible is the perfect revelation of that which inspires faith in God as the author of Life and the standard of validation for all other findings regardless of the vehicle through which they are presented. The scriptures require faith, not validation.
All other things that claim to provide and to require proof to support all findings or theories, bow before that which requires no validation, simply requiring faith, that is the Word of God. God never asks for man’s validation. Faith is a substance that transcends the limitation of human study and philosophy. That which is finite and limited can never truly assess that which is infinite and limitless.
This is not about pitting science, philosophy, and Christian faith against one another, it is about the transcendence and the sovereignty of God presiding over the creation to which He gave and gives Life. The Word of God validates, it is not subject to validation by lesser things. The Scriptures are the standard by which all other things are measured according to Its claims.
John 14:6
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
2 Peter 1:21
for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
Job 38:4-11
4 “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.
5 Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?
6 To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone,
7 When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8 “Or who shut in the sea with doors, When it burst forth and issued from the womb;
9 When I made the clouds its garment, And thick darkness its swaddling band;
10 When I fixed My limit for it, And set bars and doors;
11 When I said, ‘This far you may come, but no farther, And here your proud waves must stop!’
Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of July 24, 2022
Rev Richard Ritenour
NOT GOD'S MISTAKE
God was not, and never will be, confused about who He created each one to be. To believe that we are God’s mistakes is to believe that His Word cannot be trusted. May each one identify with and celebrate God's design as revealed in scripture rather than being tossed around by ever changing personal feelings or cultural commentary and influence. Stand in The Truth of God's Word rather than getting caught up in the web of lies and the state of confusion. We all are loved and valuable in the eyes of The Creator. Jesus laid His life down for all, that His Truth would set people free to live confidently in His Father's design for each one's life.
Isaiah 44:24 “This is what the Lord says— your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the Lord, the Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself,
Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Psalm 139:14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well
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ENCOURAGEMENT
Week of July 17, 2022
What if My Feelings about God, Faith and Life are not Consistent with Christ’s Teachings or are possibly absent all together?
Psalm 144:15
….Happy are the people whose God is the Lord!
Feelings are wonderful experiential impulses given to us by God. Feelings are our internal sensations of happiness, sadness, excited anticipation, dread, confidence, doubt, enjoyment, displeasure, peace, distress, and a host of “feelings” in response to many different stimuli.
What if our feelings have fled or are oppressively ruining our lives? What if our feelings are triggered to extreme responses? What if feelings are absent all together? Feelings are sensory and depending what they are wired or tuned into, they can be healthy or unhealthy, honoring or dishonoring to God and others.
People who are consistently given to rage, consistent perceptions of victimization, or those who are numb to feelings both positive and negative, represent those who stand in need of deliverance or possibly medical, spiritual, mental and emotional counseling or treatments.
We all have times when we feel very deeply, and sometimes our emotions can run ahead of our character, and or our common sense. When we are consistently ruled by our emotions, it reveals a lack of depth or maturity in some other vital area of personal development. Emotions may not always accurately represent the appropriate response to a situation and our subsequent course of action.
When our feelings do not represent the character of Christ and they are unscriptural we bear the responsibility to host Holy Spirit led change and to bring our feelings back into alignment and under submission to the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence. We are not helpless and others are not always to blame for feelings that fueled a negative mindset, a faithless disposition or an indifference due to a lack of feeling.
If we are consistently mastered by our feelings, rather than energized by our faith in God, perhaps we have not grown deep enough into the rich soil of God’s Word and, or have not taken a revealing and truthful inventory of our hearts in soul-searching prayer. As we do that is when our hearts and minds can be recalibrated with the Truth of God’s Word and His Character.
It happens in the undesirable seasons of life and even in the best of times, that we may not feel inspired, we may not have any sense of God’s presence or of His love and we may walk through times of numbness.
The thing that is important to keep in mind is that our feelings are to be brought into alignment with the authority and content of the inspired Word of God. It is not what we feel, that is always true, but the Word of God is. It is not what we feel or do not feel but what the Word of God says. God’s Word is an indivisible and transformative extension of His Character.
When Simon Peter was exhausted after a fruitfulness night of fishing the Supernatural Jesus directed him out to the deep and though Peter was not feeling it, he obeyed the directives of the Lord and he launched out, catching so many fish that the nets began to tear (Luke 5:1-10.)
Sometimes when we embrace the opportunities that are afforded to us to connect with the Lord in fertile solitude and silence, the breakthrough of healthy spiritual emotion and feeling is released into our lives.
Psalm 46:10
Be still, and know that I am God,…
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Weekly EnCOURAGEment
Week of July 10, 2022
THE WORDS THAT JESUS SPOKE
John 6:63
63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you -they are full of the Spirit and life.
The Words that Jesus spoke were from His Father and were an extension of the very Divine Nature of God. He spoke nothing independently from that which The Father had given Him to speak.
Even in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus expressed his human desire that the Cup of this terrible of assignment be taken away, His heart was so aligned with the Will of the Father that He surrendered to His Father’s Will instead of to the impulses that were pulling upon His human nature.
A few thoughts regarding the Words that Jesus spoke:
1. He always acknowledged and honored His Father when He communicated anything on His behalf. That provides all of us with a tremendous example of honor and obedience. He was not merely compliant but He embraced His Father’s Words, Plans and directives.
2. Jesus spoke some things that were very comforting and some things that were very difficult for others to hear. But it was always God’s Truth and it was spoken with Grace. It did not always win the affection of people, but for those who received it, they experienced love, deliverance and freedom, life and hope.
3. What Jesus spoke was never frivolous or spoken out of a wrong disposition. Even when He spoke the hard things, Grace was always inherent in all that He spoke. His declaration concerning His role as the Good Shepherd who would give His life for the sheep, makes it clear that He loved beyond natural comprehension.
4. His Words were powerful and authoritative and that was because they were anointed by The Spirit of God.
Luke 4:18-19
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
* His Words held command over Sin, Sickness, Death, The Laws of nature, The Spirit World of both angels and demons, and His Words held command over hopelessness and lovelessness.
John 6:68
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
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Weekly EnCOURAGEment
Week of June 19, 2022
CLAY?
Isaiah 64:8
And yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We all are formed by your hand.
What I believe about God forms over time. What I believe about God determines how I will relate to Him and how my faith and life will represent Him daily among others. What I believe about God, must be drawn from a pure source, uncontaminated by unhealthy and unscriptural streams of influence that are not sourced from the springs of “living water” that Jesus spoke of.
There have been many voices and life experiences that have sought to steer others toward or away from certain beliefs and ideas about God. There have been and continue to be those things that influence personal faith, views, and relationships with God. There have been positive and negative life experiences and growth opportunities and interactions that have led others to examine scripture and to prayerfully examine and discern the integrity of the heart through its counsel and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Truthfully, and it must be God’s communicated truth, from which each believing life is liberated from small, distorted, imprisoning or imbalanced views of scripture and its transforming effect as revealed in its application in life, does Christ truly become Lord. Scriptural truth and the revelation of God, as provided through His inspired Word and from its substance and the context of personal and corporate relationship with God through Christ, requires prayerful humility and personal surrender to its author, that Christ be shaped in each one who professes His Lordship.
Like clay conditioned and shaped within the designs and hands of the potter, as placed upon a pottery wheel, followers of Christ are to be shaped by the hands of the Lord.
IMPORTANT THINGS TO CONSIDER ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF OUR FAITH, RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD AND ITS IMPACT UPON OTHERS.
1. Personal faith comes from hearing the Word of God. (Romans 10:17)
2. We must be prayerfully selective as to whom we give the powerful of spiritual influence in our lives. (2 Timothy 4:3)
3. We are to prayerfully and scripturally engage others in Truth and in Love, from the whole counsel of God’s Word and in humility. (Ephesians 4:15)
4. Knowledge without personal transformation makes one arrogant and ungracious toward others. Jesus changes our hearts not His Truth.
5. Scripture interprets scripture, meaning that we must have scriptural integrity and that comes from the whole counsel of God’s Word, not merely the cherry-picked portions that support our preferred narrative. (Matthew 4:4)
6. What we know, must be match by what is most important. (Matthew 23:23)
7. Scripture is God’s communication of His Person, His Love, His Plan, and His Promises. (1 Corinthians 8:1)
8. We are not to make converts to Christ-less religion. (Matthew 23:15)
9. We grow by God’s grace in faith, in Christ and as we are nourished and nurtured in His Divine, Exalted, Sovereign and Providential counsel, given in Word and in Spirit for personal and corporate transformation in Christ’s likeness that we might win and build up others in His Truth and Grace.
10. It is not what I feel, think, or even believe that determines the truth and authority of anything pertaining to God, but it is: (1) that which God has revealed about Himself through His Inspired Written Word (2) through the incarnate Living Word of God in Christ, and (3) from the counsel of His Holy Spirit. (Jeremiah 1:9)
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Weekly EnCOURAGEment
June 12, 2022
SOMETIMES IT’S WHAT YOU KNOW AND SOMETIMES IT’S WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW
2 Peter 3:17-18
17 You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; 18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Sometimes there is shelter and protection in not knowing certain things.
At other times knowing something is absolutely essential for personal growth and advancement.
A Christian’s growth in knowledge is relational and experiential in Christ. The first of these, “relationship,” is absolutely critical and is foundational to Christ centered growth and a knowledge of scriptural and spiritual matters. Unfortunately for many that is not widely known and understood, and that, tragically among those who profess a personal relationship with Christ at a surface level or on our own preferred terms. We can restrict greater spiritual growth by placing the priority of such at a lower level of premium than other pursuits of knowledge and experience.
Matthew 10:16
“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
1 Corinthians 14:20
Dear brothers and sisters, don’t be childish in your understanding of these things.
Be innocent as babies when it comes to evil, but be mature in understanding matters of this kind.
With knowledge comes great responsibility and accountability. There are many things that the need to know comes with age and development, and that for Christians unapologetically is framed within and built upon the context of scriptural instruction. The clear directives of scripture are not merely suggestions for those whose faith and conduct are guided by scriptural principles and Christian love. They are bedrock.
There are things that that we are not to become indulgently familiar with such as reckless disregard for the truth, causing harm to others, defamation of others, lying, lack of compassion, irreverence, vulgarity, and contempt for others to name a few. I am grateful for the transforming
grace of God afforded to me when I fall short. Grace is never a license for sloppy living.
1 John 2:1-4
My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. 2 He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins – and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.
For those who know Christ, teaching our children and grandchildren the facts of life must begin from a premise of Scriptural truth. Even when the scripture does not speak to an issue specifically or exclusively, it does provide the guiding principles of scripture for every part of life. The Bible is a book of Divinely given wisdom.
We as believers should never embrace ignorance and fall into gullibility but as we walk in truth and grace with, and among others, we walk on a path that is much too narrow for the accompaniment of godless acts and attitudes to travel with us over the long haul. Yet the grace of God makes room for others who will be encouraged to join the walk in the light that guides our steps forward in the best of all directions and to the best of all places in Christ.
In God’s love, and by His grace we are never at lost and we are never missing out of the false pleasures of sin and the indulgences that consume.
Wisdom, discernment, and personal conscience are essential, and we do not have to taste of the fruit when we know that it is the product of that which poisons the soul and the spirit. Love is the greatest of all reflections of who God is in our lives and when we walk in its way, we are not missing out on anything good.
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Weekly EnCOURAGEment
Week of June 5
GHOST HUNTING SEASON
On any given summer evening you can see groups gathering in search of ghosts, spirits, and chills in my community. People are always in search of a “para-normal” experience, that which defies logic and carries the potential to blow away one’s previous spiritual history and to excite future expectations.
People part with their hard-earned money for many things, in pursuit of a thing, an experience, a high, a laugh, or for an infusion of fear that will raise the bar of ones’ desire to know what he or she has not known, to see what he or she has not seen, and to be touched by what has not touched one before. There are countless, some greater and some lesser, aims and pursuits, and yet all are driven by a need or an urge, a desire to know that there is something more than this moment, something beyond what I know or have experienced. We desire to connect with the things that are next level, things that will reach deeper into our consciousness and take us into places and experiences that we can enjoy alone or with other “seekers.”
There is a Spirit that brings those who are touched by Him and filled, to a place of resonate peace and deep and inexpressible joy. Mystics search for experience and knowledge that elude the natural senses, a perceived truth that is more enlightening and provocative that will make today more.
It is given to us, a desire to know and to experience, but apart from the foundational knowledge of God in mind and spirit, the search and experimentation, though fascinating for a season, frequently leads to dry or poisoned wells. Running after something that is not part of the routine or the norm in life, to capture or to be captured by that which is perceived transcendent, and sublime is a pursuit that is common to people of every ilk. The range of spiritual pursuit and experimentation aims at many things, often with reckless disregard and without discernment, like driving a car riding on the rims and without fuel and without a credible destination.
Truth according to scripture comes from God. Truth cannot be simply created out of convenience or human rhetoric. The reality is that Scripture Truth releases the spiritual revelation of God, the ultimate communication from a God who freely communicates His person and His love for people. There are pursuits that truly reward and inspire and there are those which deplete and confuse. The pursuit of intimacy with God, who is from everlasting to everlasting, unlimited by time and space, who was and is and always will be, Holy and Exalted is not an exhausting quest. God is a communicator, a revealer, and The One who infallibly infuses revelation of Spirit without exhaustion.
The God of scripture is a communicator and a revealer. His interactions with those whom He Has created in His image are released in Spirit and Inspired Truth. Our divine creator reveals what can only be known in Spirit and in Truth. The spiritual world is real and yet there is only One who is infallibly True and Truthful, only one who transforms the lives of those who seek Him, those who respond to His wooing. “Spirit” with our truth is a realm that is dark and is navigated without a true compass, without a guide. The scriptures refer to the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of Truth” who guides into all truth.
Power without integrity is dangerous to all. Spiritual experimentation without the infallible guidance of scriptural truth opens our lives to the influence of many things. We are created with a spirit, and it is the spirit, when renewed in Christ and baptized in the Holy Spirit, that a believer is equipped to discern truth from error, light from darkness, and spiritual life from spiritual death.
God is Spirit and He can only be known intimately in Spirit and in His Inspired Truth. He can only receive worship that comes from man’s spirit and in Divine Truth.
We are given a spiritual nature, though broken through sin, and it is restored through a saving relationship with God in Jesus Christ.
Reckless or experimental spiritualism is casting a wide net into the dark seas of the unknown with the hope of catching something, the likes of which and the fruit of which are seldom, realized immediately to be what they truly are. It is often the opening of a pandora’s box of deceitful afflictions of mind, body, and soul, an enslavement of the fallen nature to the fascination of that which is shrouded in and screams from the darkness into our positioned and reckless desire.
The God of Scriptures reveals Himself to all who receive Him, in Spirit and in Truth. Jesus Christ declares Himself to be The Way and Truth and The Life, and only in Him can one come to the Heavenly Father.
God sent His Holy Spirit following the Ascension of Christ, to bring and to baptize believers into a spiritual life which is in-dwelt and empowered for life and faith, a life which is transformed righteously by the Truth of God which draws the heart, the mind and the spirit of the believer, to a life of inner peace that rest in the sublime knowledge and a life rested in the Love of a God who gives rather than demands and who leads to the still waters and the pastures of rest.
The character of God is that which brings people into life and one which liberates the soul from endless searching for “something else.” God reveals His love for all people, and His salvation is afforded to all in Christ. He reveals our true identity and our highest purpose for living. God leads, and as a Shepherd does not drive the sheep of His pasture. The interactions with God never defile, never compromise the conscience, darken the soul, or celebrate and advance evil. The being of those who know Him in spiritual and Scriptural truth are nurtured in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control - Galatians 5:22-23.
Ephesians 6:12
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
2 Corinthians 11:14
14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.
John 8:12
Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
John 3
19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
John 12:46
I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness.
1 John 1:5
This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
1 John 1:6
If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of May 15
WHAT’S YOUR TEAM SPIRIT?
1 Corinthians 12:12-14
12 For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. 13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free - and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. 14 For in fact the body is not one member but many.
TEAM SPIRIT is a shared passion and energy that brings team members together into a shared purpose, a shared goal, and a shared commitment to achieve the goal, as One.
TEAM SPIRIT is to be more than a concept. It begins as a concept emerging from a vision or a passion that is shared with others, who go from being a disconnected assortment of personalities, ideas, abilities, and passions, to being transformed from polarity to unity.
TEAM SPIRIT is the vital disposition that connects the ranks of the team from its Leadership and establishes cohesion and coordination as it moves forward.
The Scriptures provide the best example of Team Spirit. The Greater the mission or the goal, the greater the need for Team Spirit and Team unity. It is an undeniable reality that the Holy Spirit Baptizes the church into Purpose, Power, Passion and Promise to fulfill its individual and collective Mission, by His Power and for the Glory of God alone. The Spirit Filled Church exists to:
1. Worship and Glorify The Lord.
2. To Reach The World With His Redeeming Gospel
3. To Equip Believers from the Scriptures and Through Prayer.
Acts 1:8
8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Luke 24:49-50
49 Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
The Holy Spirit is the guide, the helper, the comforting counselor, an Advocate, an intercessor and The Spirit of Truth of whom Jesus spoke, “16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever - 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. - John 14:16-18.
We are saved by Grace through faith in Christ, when we turn to Christ for forgiveness and for cleansing from all sin, through His finished work on the Cross of Calvary, receiving freely and abundantly the grace that ushers us into Salvation through Christ. We are graciously given redemption through the death and resurrection of Christ, because of His shed blood.
The Holy Spirit then takes up residence with our hearts:
1. He raises us up in Christ unto Spiritual life. (Romans 8:12-16)
2. Bearing witness within that we have become Children of God.
3. He places His desire for our Heavenly Father within our hearts which cries forth “Abba”, “Father.”
4. We are united with Christ in the Holy Spirit to live the life that we could never know apart from His indwelling.
5. We are able to love as Christ loves because of the Spirit of the Lord that takes up dwelling within our hearts. (1 Corinthians 13)
6. We are joined in relationship with one another to Worship and to Serve our Lord, while sharing His Love and His Word with the World. (Acts 2:41-46)
7. The Holy Spirit joins believers together as a body and we are coordinated with one nother to Encourage and to Equip one another to live the life of believers and to serve His will. (1 Corinthians 12)
The Holy Spirit discloses insight into that which can only be scripturally and spiritually discerned in the lives of believers. Spirituality is not marked by pride and condescension toward others but through humility and graciousness.
1 Corinthians 2:9-16
9 That is what the Scriptures mean when they say,
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared
for those who love him.”
10 But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. 11 No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. 12 And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. 13 When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. 14 But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. 15 Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. 16 For, “Who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?” But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.
For a Born Again believer, the Holy Spirit indwells and fills, seals he or she as God’s possession in Christ, transforms, leads, directs, equips, and empowers all true followers of Christ to live lives that are raised up in Spiritual life to the Glory of God.
The Holy Spirit joins the members of the church into “The Team Spirit” of God The Father, through Jesus Christ!
1 John 4:13
13 And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us.
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of May 15
PLEASE TELL ME WHY
Deuteronomy 29:29
29 The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
There are scores of things that happen or fail to happen in our lifetimes which we do not and may not ever understand. No matter how much knowledge and wisdom that one may accrue or demonstrate, apart from the Lord no knows everything and no one will ever know everything, either in this life or in the life to come.
The Bible tells us that there are secret things that belong only to the Lord God. There is nothing in the heavens, on the earth or in the earth, and there is no distance that spans beyond the reaches of God’s knowledge and wisdom, and all things are subject to Him.
Sometimes God works in ways that defy even our scriptural understanding of who He is and the Promises that He has made. But He is True and Trustworthy in His sovereign operations.
Sometimes godly people of faith fail. They get sick and they die, even as scores of faith-believing prayers are lifted in agreement toward the throne of mercy. Followers of Christ go through adversities, the likes of which the faithless at times seem to skate by. Sometimes those who are doing great things and are critically involved in the advancement of Kingdom principles, engaged in great benevolence programs, offering life sustaining aid, counsel, comfort ministries, community advocacy, civic leadership, church ministry, and not the least of which, are those wonderful family members the Lord takes home before we are ready to let them to go. Doesn’t God see the good that they are doing, the potential for what they could have done, or the fact that I need them and I can’t imagine how I go forward in life without them? It is always terrible to see babies and children suffer, and to see them harmed. Why do babies have cancers and criminals allude the law? Why is there so much corruption in every sector of society? The list could go on and on, not for infinity but certainly for a long time.
There are jobs we believe that we should have gotten, deserved recognitions that never came, and inequities that have suppressed many. We have been at times victimized without justice.
There are those who believe that God is going to provide us with the answers to all of the mysteries and “unanswered” questions of life when we go to heaven.
First of all, Heaven requires a price for admission and the only currency accepted for such is the blood of Christ over our lives.
God owes us nothing. He is not indebted to us, and Heaven is not going to be about God answering for all of the things that we feel He needs to provide an explanation for.
It is inconceivable that anything outside of the knowledge of His presence and the pre-eminence of His Glory, will even matter to us at that point. His Holiness, His Goodness, His incomparably brilliant and iridescent Light, the Worship of His Exalted Kingship Surrounding His throne, and an eternal community of righteousness in Christ, (leaving behind our fallen nature) will dissolve all other obsessions.
We know that God is good, and His goodness is not subject to our approval or how that His Goodness fits in our preferred narrative. God is compassionate, sovereign, and just in all that He does. He is Good if He does nothing for us and yet He gave His precious Son for the salvation of whoever will call out to Him for redemption.
We are called to trust Him without condition and that is extremely difficult at times because we have not had many experiences in our lives where trust has been extended to that degree.
Revelation 21:4
‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of May 8, 2022
WHO DETERMINES WHAT GROWS IN YOUR GARDEN?
A garden tells a lot about the person who plants it. It’s care and what it produces are all part of the process. In some significant ways each person’s soul is like a garden. The condition of the soul is like the condition of the soil into which a gardener plans to plant a garden in.
What grows in the garden of my heart is determined by a number of factors:
HOW I PREPARE AND MAINTAIN THE HEALTH OF THE SOIL OF MY GARDEN?
♦ Hard ground, rocks and weeds are impediments to the Growth potential of a garden. Spiritually, when one hardens his or her Heart, what grows there will be limited by a lack of depth. (Proverbs 29:1)
♦ Ground has to be broken up to receive the seeds of that which is to be planted. Hard ground inhibits the process of the rain’s refreshment of the soil and the germination of the seeds. The ground cannot soak and retain the moisture if it is wicked away by its hardness. (Ephesians 4:18)
♦ Rocks have to be removed for the roots to grow and to attain the proper depth. Rocky soil makes it impossible for wide-spread and deep plant root development to take place for plants. Removing rocks can be a very tedious undertaking. It is not the most glorious of tasks, but it is essential for a productive garden to grow. A heart of stone is not receptive to the plantings of God’s Word and for the Fruit of the Spirit to grow. (Psalm 139:23; Ezekiel 36:26)
♦ Weeds require that nothing be done in order to grow and to take over the garden. Neglect is the most direct path to the Introduction, encroachment, and a hostile take-over by weeds. All gardens require weeding, as they will rob the good plantings of their nourishment and eventually choke them out. (Matthew 13)
♦ The soil must be regularly watered. Some plants require more, and others less, but all require the right measure of water.
WHAT TYPE OF SEED DID I PLANT IN MY GARDEN?
♦ Like one’s garden, one’s heart will only produce from what has been seeded there or has grown there as a result of neglect. Faith, Hope and Love are the most important things to be grown in our hearts. God causes the increase, but we are always responsible for its absence or decrease. (Galatians 6:7-8)
HOW DO I TEND TO MY GARDEN?
♦ Most plants require pruning for greater growth for a number of reasons. Nourishment cannot be wasted on the things that are dead and incapable of growth and production. Some things cannot accommodate life and have no potential. These things must be purged. (John 15:1-7)
HARVESTING THE CROP?
♦ Gathering the fruit or vegetables are a great part of the process to be celebrated and shared with others. In Christ we share with others from the healthy fruit that God has produced in the life of the one who has offered Him a heart prepared for the planting. (Galatians 6:9)
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of May 1, 2022
Ecclesiastes 1
1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”3 What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?
What is life without God’s perspective and purpose? According to Solomon it is described in a word, “meaningless,” a word that he uses four times in verse 2. He speaks of an existence without a knowledge of God.
If not for Christ’s Lordship, and for those whom He has placed as gifts and resources in the critical parts of life, an arduous journey finding small comfort in the void of false promises and behind the mirages of phantom comforts, one would be left with little more than the insatiable appetite of vanity, the tyranny of religious enslavement, and the gnawing of the harsh realization that life offerings are often “never enough” or seldom “live up to the hype.” The trajectory of life without a personal hope in God, would be directed by one’s subscription and offering oneself as prey to scores of shifting narratives that have been formed to the deliberate exclusion of the Lord, and of His greater desires spoken over and for those created in His image.
In Christ, our lives become more than the rotten fruit of a decaying world and the demeaning assessments of godlessness. Jesus came to liberate all who call upon Him and to remove the fallen nature from its usurping imposition as author and voice of the narrative over our past, present and future.
The most noble of human ambitions apart from Christ can never produce that which only the workmanship of God’s Grace and Truth can author. That is revealed in the miracle of spiritual transformation that raises a person up into abundant life out of the wreckage of crippling disappointment and failure. God has raised us from the captivity of faithlessness into a righteousness which is not our own but belongs solely to Christ which He bestows upon all who come to Him at the bequest of redeeming grace.
Personal repentance from sin and faith in Christ as one’s personal savior is the greatest difference maker in life. A foundation in Christ and the resources of that revealed though God’s Word and His Holy Spirit are incredible!!!! They rebuff the destructive forces of life’s storms, and they unlock and reveal the greatest treasures offered in this life and for eternity. Grace is God’s smile and Truth is God’s integrity, to honor every precept that His Word utters and the Divine Promises He has made.
As the Apostle Paul stated, “It is no longer I that live but Christ who lives in me, and the life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
It is when we come to Christ that we discover the depths of truth concerning our true identity, our real purpose for living, our highest calling, the Greatest Love, a Grace that is greater than all our sin, and a Hope that transcends our time here throughout eternity.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. - 1 Corinthians 13:13
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of April 10, 2022
CHRIST CONQUERED DEATH AND I CAN CONQUER NEGATIVITY
There is one person who determines my prevailing disposition and the manner in which I react to life and to other sojourners on its paths. That person would be me.
When we allow moments or people to harden our disposition or to ruin us, we give consent for that to be inflicted upon us. When we allow the fears that occasionally pay us a visit, to become guests in the chambers of our minds and eventually within our hearts, we have allowed the one who “steals, kills and destroys,” access through which He introduces all types of evil afflictions. We determine whether we will stand in victory over them in Christ or we will tragically surrender to the tyranny of a fear driven existence. I intentionally used the word “existence,” as many things exist but fail to advance and to mature in a healthy manner and to be productive.
There are storms that all of us will have to live through and what emerges from them will be determined by where we have stood during the tempests. If we have found shelter in Christ and upon the firm foundation of The Word of God, we will find that the storm is subject to the commands of the creator. The storm then, does not control the narrative, because the narrative to which we subscribe is The Inspired, Infallible and Inerrant Word of the Living God. His Word is our armor during the heat of the battle. He has provided for us the protection of our minds and our hearts, and He has shielded us through the Faith from which He has provided the substance necessary to provide protection against the very flaming darts of hell at all times. We will be maligned and we at times may be held in contempt by those who place insatiable expectations and demands upon us, knowing that we will never meet those standards. If we run here and there trying to find acceptance from every naysayer, it will become painfully clear to others and essential that we ourselves recognize the need to be personally reminded of a few things:
1) Who we are in Christ. (Romans 8:16)
2) What God’s Word has established as our focus. (Hebrews 12:2)
3) Our security is not found in creation but in the creator. (Hebrews 13:5)
4) We are clothed in Christ, and it is beneath the representation of His sacred Name and Lordship, that we as The Father’s children be enslaved to personal insecurity, hatred, spiteful behavior, jealousy, anger, bitterness, and the drive in the wrong direction of compulsively trying to win acceptance from others. False humility is manipulation as the Holy Spirit begs for its abandonment in exchange for the joy that follows sincerity and true humility. (Philippians 1:21)
5) God accepts the redeemed based upon what He has done for us and within our lives. (Titus 3:5)
I don’t hate others unless I have first consented for hatred to be seeded, watered, and grown in my heart. I do not live in fear unless I have stopped meditating upon the promises of God’s Word, and I have forsaken the counsel of the Holy Spirit. I don’t live a small, restricted life unless I no longer believe that “faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.”
God’s Truth sets me free; it claims me, and it makes my path secure and establishes who I am and who/what I serve and how I walk and where I go. It is the foundation for a steady focus and a clear direction. We are called to please the Lord God almighty and to know that He has already demonstrated His love toward us and for us, with an unbreakable and unconditional love. His Love empowers me to be who it declares me to be, to live the life that it empowers me to live, and to focus on His transcendence when that which is far beneath it calls me to be lesser than.
Ephesians 2:10
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
CHRIST CONQUERED DEATH SO THAT I CAN CONQUER NEGATIVITY!
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Weekly En"COURAGE"mnet
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of April 3, 2022
GOD HAS ALWAYS BEEN AND WILL ALWAYS BE
Everything about God is essential to every part of life prior to and beginning with initial creation and ongoing increase. There is nothing about God that is not essential to life, its purpose, balance, and its destination. All of our yesterdays, this present moment, the coming hours or the days, months, years, and the near and distant future are already known by God and He is in them all. His infinite presence presides there to make Himself known. Romans 1 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Nothing about God is created or random. He is not a myth, or a fairy tale and He is not defined by creation. He is not un-involved, and He is not foreboding unknown far above our knowing. He is a revelator, a communicator, and one who seeks intimacy of spirit with those who have been created in His image.
There is no such thing as self-creation and advancement from a universal design which brings forth order out of chaos from an empty seat, left to billions of un-superintended units of time as calculated by man. God moved upon the formless void that existed and He introduced light and life into it and made provisions for its continuation and order.
God is not dependent upon anything for His existence and all that lives is dependent upon God for its existence. God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. The phrase ex nihilo means “out of nothing.” Though the idea of creating something from nothing is dismissed by those who see such as a physical impossibility, stating that something always requires something else out of which it is to be made.
The scriptures teach that, “1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” Genesis 1.
Void, darkness covering the deep, chaos, and water were said to be present when the Lord began to create the heavens and the earth through His spoken command. The belief that God has always existed as the only uncaused cause, espouses that He predates everything that has ever existed and was created by Him. “The beginning” references the time of heaven and earth’s creation, by God, commanding into existence all that would be made. He creates “from nothing” and whatever was present (darkness, waters, void) when God created the heavens and the earth had been created by Him, were brought into order, and furnished by Him during the days of creation. It is also confirmed that God the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit were present when the beginning of creation took place.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Genesis 1:26
“ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” John 1:1-3
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. Hebrews 11:3
By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. Psalm 33:6
GOD HAS ALWAYS BEEN AND WILL ALWAYS BE! HE WILL ALWAYS BE FAITHFUL. PUT YOUR TEMPORARY CARES INTO HIS ETERNAL HANDS!
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of March 27, 2022
John 13
12 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.
What Jesus shared with His disciples on the night before His death is extremely insightful and powerful. He did not hold a rally. He did not incite his closest followers to become more politically connected and he did not enlist them to save Him from what was to come. What was about to come was coming for their benefit as well as for all who have and will come to know His salvation through the shedding of His blood and the ultimate selflessness of laying down His life. He did not call them to arms to revolt against those responsible for the cruelty that was about to be unleashed upon Him. Jesus was not a victim. He was a free will offering as a ransom paid in full to secure the salvation of whoever will call upon God in His name. He was a sinless Lamb, a sacrifice without blemish, offered in complete willingness and with a joy greater than anguish, because of the judgment that would be laid upon Him for us, that mercy would indeed triumph over judgment for all who believe. The Divine plan of the Father foresaw and provided for all that would be gained as a result of His Son’s sacrificial death and resurrection.
Jesus before supper, laid aside His garments covering himself with a towel as he washed the feet of each of His disciples. He washed the feet of both friend and betrayer, the Father’s children and the one who sold his soul to hell as his portion for betraying God’s Only Son. Jesus loved and served them all. That tells us much about what being a follower of Christ is about.
Jesus used these monumental moments in the intimate presence of His closest followers to leave with them the most important of all lessons. They were to be like Him. They were to love like He Loved. They would later realize that Jesus afforded the same act of kindness to the one who betrayed Him as he extended to those who loved Him and left all to follow Him.
Jesus did and shared what He chose to, because it was to be a lasting image in the minds and hearts of those who would be entrusted and equipped to seed and water this Gospel around the world in His name. Jesus revealed Himself as the Servant King to them.
All leadership in Christianity that is truly Christ-like never separates the call to service from the Humbling Honor afforded the calling in our lives as His ambassadors, regardless of the title or position. All believers are called to be servants of Christ and all believers never outgrow the calling to serve others. It is not as much a duty as it is a heaven sent and entrusted privilege.
Jesus taught that we are to regard integrity and service before public Honor. It is not uncommon for a person to seek honor and yet in God’s kingdom as we live by its principles on earth as it is the higher and more enduring honor to serve others as Christ did and that we do so for His Glory.
May God help us as His children to serve with selflessness of heart, which allows for true obedience to have its place and for Christ to be exclusively exalted on the throne within our hearts. Prestige among men may come with title and position, and many times the title and positioned are served well, but the Greatest honor will be conferred upon a child of God for his or her service, to the least of these All such rewards are then joyfully placed as the King of King’s feet.
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of March 20, 2022
IF GOD NEVER EXISTED AND WHAT ABOUT DEATH?
If God never existed, who established an awareness of a higher good, a moral law, and the internal and corporate desire to worship a God, perhaps an unknown God or even a rock? Where did love and truth come from? What distinguishes virtue and honor from evil and corruption, and why do we hope? Why do mystics seek out the supernatural, pursuing that which is paranormal and other worldly? There is a revelation, a knowledge, a connection and relationship sought for among those who may deny the existence of a Holy God who desires fellowship with all people and yet they pursue ghosts and phantoms, whispers and shadows from the past or voices from another realm. (ROMANS 1:20)
God has revealed Himself to those He created and to whom He imparted free will. He gave the function of choice to those He created in His image. Humans were created sinless and yet corruptible. God did not create a race of automatons, who would be programmed, devoid of the ability to choose and to love from free will. He was with the first man and woman as they walked in the garden during the cool of the day. When man sinned against God he then hid from his creator. (GENESIS 3:8-10)
When man sinned against His creator, he became estranged and over time God's presence and His revelation and truth were not welcomed in the schools of thought. Fallen thought attempted to seize the narrative and to re-define "the concept of God" and to dismiss His existence and substitute its ways for His. Yet try as many have, they could not and cannot erase the fingerprints of God over all the good that He has designed and created. Even the beauties of nature groaned for their creator in this fallen world.
God is a Communicator, and He is relational. He loves with a perfect love and with flawless integrity. He is not raised up to the standard. He is the standard. He is the Grace and Truth that raises us from the dust of our failed past. He is the breath of life that gives us the abundant life that cannot be found in our pursuit of things which the winds carry beyond our reach.
God has revealed His intense and immeasurable love, the greater, and even the greatest love of all, when His son became one of our kind, while as God he remained sinless, fearless, flawless, powerful, living in perfect obedience and honor to His Father. Jesus was God incarnate, The Way, The Truth, and The Life, not one of many ways, many truths, or one of many paths to Life. He is God revealed to us in human flesh, as the Light that offers all people, Hope and real life, against the dark backdrop of that which denies God and oppressively enslaves people in cycles of hopeless ignorance of His Redeeming Love.
Jesus died my death, he satisfied the demands required of me because of my sin, that I would be forgiven and be made fully alive during the breadth of my days graciously given to me by my God.
For a follower of Christ, death and the eternity that follows is not a question mark. In Christ it is an exclamation point, "Gone Home"! The Word of God makes it clear that as believers, in death, we do not leave home, we go home! Where God is, His Spirit draws us. In this life He leads and when we graduate from this school, He will draw us Home. I know God! I know that He is Alive! Knowing God changes everything!
When some ask whether God exists, there is no uncertainty among those of faith who have accepted the invitation that He extends to all, to know Him through Christ. His Spirit dwells within and we live and find rest in our Lord.
Once one responds to His compelling love, he/she will never doubt that there is a loving and saving God, even if others dismiss what they cannot explain.
Jesus Christ died and was resurrected, as the greatest proof of God's existence and love for all of us.
2 Timothy 1:12
But I am not ashamed of it, for I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return.
Romans 15:13
God has revealed His intense and immeasurable love, the greater, and even the greatest love of all, when His son became one of our kind, while as God he was sinless, fearless, flawless, powerful, living in perfect obedience and honor to His Father. Jesus, was God incarnate, The Way, The Truth and The Life, not one of many ways, many truths, or one of many paths to Life. He was God revealed to us in human flesh, come to be the Light that offers all people, Hope and Life.
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of March 13, 2022
As we celebrate the passion and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ during this time of observance, we sing corporately with great joy “He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus Lives today, He walks with me and talks with me all life’s narrow ways.” We can see the Love of God manifest in and through the incarnation, mission, ministry, suffering, death, and resurrection of the one identified in scripture as Immanuel “God with Us,” and “The Word become Flesh.”
During this Lenten season we consider that Jesus Christ came to earth according to the will of God the Father. He came as the incarnation of the Divine, and His interactions with, and response to, those for whom He would give His life to redeem, always represented a perfect ambassadorship of Divine Grace and Truth.
His mission was focused from the foundations of eternity on providing rescue for those who were lost. Matthew 20:28 tells us that His mission was and is “to seek out and to save those who are lost.” His ministry on earth was supernatural and it was brought forth in Divine compassion and goodness as the scriptures tells that the Lord “went about doing Good for God was with Him.” (Acts 10:38). The body of His work while on earth was a one of perfect submission to the will of The Father and incomprehensible compassion toward those who were “oppressed.” He did come into the world with the purpose of condemning it. Christ came to bring redemption to all who would believe and receive from Him, salvation. He gave His life as the perfect atonement for our redemption. His grace and mercy was extended to the darkest parts of our lives for the sake of securing our redemption.
The Lord suffered in my place, and he was afflicted because of all human transgression. The infliction of unjust prosecution was not a victimization forced upon The Lord. It was God’s deliberate placement of Himself beneath the full weight of judgment that would have crushed fallen humanity. Jesus’ life was not taken, it was given as a ransom, as an unparalleled offering of greater love. His death satisfied the punitive demands of all transgression, and His resurrection was the flexing of Divine muscle by which He shattered the chains of death, hell, and the grave.
He satisfied in full, the demands of the Law on behalf of every person and that satisfaction invites the whole world into its provision and shelter by faith in Christ.
Today, it is because Christ lives and because He lives within the hearts of the those with a saving belief in Him and a personal surrender to His grace, that real freedom resounds. Joy overwhelms sorrow. Light cuts down the darkness. Hope rises out of hopelessness. Grace conquers failure. Mercy is greater than judgment. Life destroys the Spirit of death.
Christ, according to scripture, is seated and exalted at the right hand of The Father. He makes intercession and provides advocacy for those who trust in Him.
The scriptures will always provide the foundation for all that Christ has done and for the salvation so richly provided to all who believe in Him.
John 3:16
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
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WEEK OF MARCH 6, 2022
YESTERDAY IS NOT LATE FOR GOD
The Lord is a redeemer. He completely redeems those who come to him in repentance and faith. The redemption of the Lord secures the past, the present and the future. Grace’s ownership of that which was imprisoned in spiritual bondage is complete. The hand of God does not forcefully drag us back into the past and it doesn’t continually replay the tortured sorrows and regrets of the past that are now beneath the blood of Christ. It does not take us back to a Christ-less past, but it takes possession of our past and rewrites the narrative of that which was. The reach of redemption lays hold of the past and the blood of Christ rewrites the narrative from one of shame and failure to one of beauty for ashes, because Mercy triumphs over judgment. Birthing a new creation in Christ from every broken life is miraculous and Salvation’s masterpiece. The scriptures make it clear that who we once were is not who we are today because of Christ.
Jesus greets us in the mirror of our past. The Spirit of the Lord escorts us in this present moment. The future would be unknown if Christ were not there but thank God He is there!
Whatever yesterday may have been it is not too late for God to rewrite life’s narrative, from lost to found, broken to restored, ruin to redemption, and hopelessness to Promise.
Luke 15:24
…. for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.
1 Corinthians 6:11
11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Psalm 103:11-13
11 For his unfailing love toward those who fear him
is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.
12 He has removed our sins as far from us
as the east is from the west.
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WEEK OF FEB. 27, 2022
REV. RICHARD O. RITENOUR
DOING GOOD
Galatians 6:9
So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.
Acts 10:38
And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good………
The “doing good” part of the Christian’ life is an outgrowth of becoming. What we do reflects what we are “becoming” by God’s grace and the internally transformative work of the Holy Spirit. The final and critical component of the ministry of “doing good,” is our willingness, availability, intentionality, follow through and follow up.
Willingness is perhaps more crucial than our skillset at times. If we are willing, we can acquire the skills necessary as we step up and step into an area of need and opportunity. Not every need or opportunity is ours to personally to step into but if our hearts are tender and we trust the Lord to show and confirm the needs and opportunities that are given to us directly to respond to, our willingness will progress into follow-through. Again, no person is everyone’s everything all the time. Only God can be that. But there are plenty of opportunities to “do good” that will not only benefit others but will advance our personal growth in Christ.
Availability is one step closer to “doing good” that grows out of a willing disposition to serve others. If one is willing, availability is the willingness to step into a specific area or realm of need. Availability answers the door when specific needs call upon our willingness to act upon situation.
Most acts of goodness are either thought out benevolences or acts of premeditated kindness in response to need. All acts of goodness are intentional outgrowths of a charitable disposition. Jesus was very intentional in all that He did. His acts of goodness were extensions or expressions of His character. As we grow in Christ we become like Christ. His compassion within us overwhelms our indifference. Insulation from those for whom Christ died is displaced by a desire to be His hand extended in places of opportunity and need. Our reluctance to serve others is put to rest by the inspiration of Jesus’ example as He washed the feet of those who knew as Him as their Master and Lord. He made it clear what their response was to be in light of His example. “And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet.” – John 13:14.
The integrity of our profession is known by the Lord and examined by others, in light of our “follow through” and “follow up” when given the opportunity to do good. The proof is found in the concrete witness borne regarding such, through our follow through and follow up. Follow through and follow up are most often book-ends. Both are extremely important. The Samaritan who paid for the care of the man who had been mugged and robbed, made it clear that he would follow up to cover the needs that went beyond his initial care. “35 The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.” – Luke 10. Acts of Kindness and “doing good” are precursors to a greater investment of “kingdom” capital.
When we are born again, into the transformative growth of becoming more like Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within, shapes us into Christlikeness in thought and behavior. Jesus lived a life of goodness, and His interactions were saturated with Divine goodness. The apostle Paul’s yearnings for the spiritual growth of those within the Galatian church would continue and were likened unto the disposition of an eagerly expectant mother “…..until Christ is fully developed in your lives.” – Galatians 4:19
Doing Good unto others is never wasted time or energy. It is productive and most importantly it Christ-like. As many have said, “don’t merely tell me that you care, show me that you care.” The Gospel in action is a most powerful sermon and a most compelling witness of Christ, among others.
James 2:17-19
17 So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.18 Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.”
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Week of February 20, 2022
Rev. Richard O. Ritenour
THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Luke 10
25 And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”
27 So he answered and said, "‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
28 And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”29 But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
If living out our faith in Christ were costless and relation-less, limited to that which is comfortable and convenient, the number of real subscriptions to it would be through the roof. The words and examples of Christ have always called out and confronted self-serving and prejudicial limits which serve to issue loveless deterrents to trespass among those not like us, enforced by the kingdom of self, contrary to the Father’s principles for the advancement of His Kingdom.
No one can honestly petition the heavenly Father with, “…your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven….” while smugly looking upward toward a self- constructed ceiling of Christ-less religion that obstructs the view of The King whose kingdom we are to seek the increase and advancement of. This is a kingdom which The Lord himself said, will be approached and entered by many as, “29They will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God. 30 And indeed there are last who will be first, and there are first who will be last.” - Luke 13. When the knowledge of God is obstructed by that which is man-made, truly perverse substitutions, for the Gospel of Grace and Truth, they tragically ensure the exclusion of its relentless authors and adherents from being in the Kingdom that increases only through Grace and Truth in Christ.
Our neighbors include those who live beyond the shadows of our steeples and who are often viewed as “un-church-able” because of the offensive nature of their lifestyles. Sin indeed corrupts and it is a cancer of the soul for which there is but one cure, the redeeming blood of Christ, shed for all. Sin is presently and ultimately judged by a Holy, Righteous, and Loving God, fierce in His redeeming pursuit of all people, the revelation of His Word, and saving advocacy offered to all who receive Him. The Holy Spirit equips us with discernment and to be bold in our declaration of Christ and Scriptural Truth, yet we are not the ultimate judges of this present sinful world. The call of our separation unto Christ and away from evil is certain, but turning the collective back of the church toward those for whom has Christ died would be an evil perversion foisted upon those who should be Christ’s Ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20-21.)
Our neighbors include other humans who often have little to anything in common with us, and may not share, but rather, fiercely oppose our scriptural values. Our neighbors may include those who love us, like us, are either tolerant or intolerant of us, despise us, or are indifferent about us, and many who, in spite of seeing us often, do not even know that we exist. Their life choices and lifestyles may range from being similar to our own to being far removed from ours. Their political affiliations, vocations, interests, and recreational choices may be similar to ours or off the charts different from ours. They may be as different from us as a certain Samaritan was to a certain Jew who had fallen victim to violent thieves on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem. None of those differences mattered when they came together in a crisis of need.
Sin infects and encompasses human nature, and its effects and consequences are evident in many, many ways. There is one saving cure. There is One Saving Redeemer and there is One Saving Message. We must not allow anything to restrict the flow of God’s saving Grace and Truth from our lives into the Neighborhood of human diversity. Diversity by design is that which is created by the Divine creator and is consistent with the Inspired Word of the Creator. Sin is not a skin color, and it is not the righteous freedom associated with godly human diversity. It is that which rebels against God’s Holy Designs, comes up short of God’s Glory or crosses the line into transgression which is sin. Diversity and Depravity are not always associated with one another. Depravity is the state and economy of a fallen world, and it is into the sea of Diversity that the nets of redemption are to be cast. Grace hauls out of the dark depths that to which God has assigned great value.
The bottom line is that everyone is my neighbor and without Christ I will never see them or value them as such. Anything that wrecks my neighbor’s life is not to be compounded by a shortage of God’s grace and mercy in my heart toward to them. Neighbors are those that we have not discovered yet, but God has sought to introduce us to them for the longest time.
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Week of February 13, 2022
Rev. Richard O. Ritenour
NEXT
Next is a loaded word. It is always at least one second ahead of us and we cannot capture it, because it instantaneously reloads each second of the day. What we do next either grows out of plan of action, what we do impulsively or how we respond to those things which happen beyond our foresight and control. Prayerful reading of God’s Word and allowing our lives to be led by the Holy Spirit makes for the better and more fruitful use of our time. Faith is an essential part of capturing the full benefit of what happens next. Faith sees the next minute as the Spirit of God provides a prophetical insight & application of God’s Word in the context that most completely advances the kingdom principles of God in and through our lives, in the “Next” that is rushing upon us.
A heart that is not being fashioned after the heart of God, through prayer and in scriptural light, is one that acts and responds recklessly to the volumes of what comes “Next” in our lives. The result as such is regrettably painful and adversely consequential and/or anemic. “Next” is coming and is gone with the reading of each word in this devotion and life is a rapid compilation of the past and that which was yesterday’s “nexts.”
The Bible gives scores of practical insights and life shaping principles, which include the following, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way.” – Psalm 37:23; “Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.” – Psalm 119:105; “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.” – John 16:13; “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” - Proverbs 3:5-6
A reckless life makes for a future of anxiety, paranoia, irrational behavior, and it progressively corrupts the things that which we have counted upon to guide us into that which is “Next.” “The wicked run away when no one is chasing them, - Proverbs 28:1 We cannot always in the natural see what is next, but by faith we can see the things that God sets before us that can only be captured by that which the Bible describes as “the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” – Hebrews 11:1
To live in personal relationship with God by faith, one is plugged into the Divine order and guidance structure that makes for the most productive and fruitful use of the “Next.” It is always wise to trust God. What comes “next” is not a surprise to His Omniscience and the future is a place where His omnipresence dwells and His Omnipotence rules.
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Week of February 6, 2022
LIVE AS A CHAMPION TODAY
There are the things that we have control over in life and there are things that we do not have control over. There are probably many more things in the natural order of things that we do not have control over than things that we do. But we do have the ability to decide what our disposition will be in each situation. That fact beckons to two things and that would be Faith and Trust. When we live in these dispositions we are never at a place of disadvantage.
Faith is described in numerous ways throughout the scriptures but for the sake of this devotion I will mention two of them. Faith is as essential as the air that we breathe as believers and it is the breath of God into our Spirits that enables us to set out our sights on things that we cannot presently see, hear, touch, taste or feel in the natural. If we do catch a glimpse of that which requires faith and obedience, it may come through a Word given us and, or a sampling of the larger portion of that which God purposes to release into our lives. Another aspect of Faith is our confidence in God’s ability to perform the supernatural, that which we have discovered to be naturally impossible without Divine involvement. “Now faith is the substance of things hope for and the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1. It is the mountain moving faith which Jesus spoke of and encouraged. “So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” – Matthew 17:20. This is a principle of operation, a dynamic that the Lord supplies the wherewithal for, in order for it to operate within the lives of those who follow Him. The Lord’s specific will and plan may unfold differently than that which we hope for, when He has prepared a path that leads to a much better outcome and advances our relationship with Him.
Trust is another critical operation essential to living in victory and peace. Whereas faith is an expression of our confidence in God’s ability to remove or transform a situation or an outcome, trust is a disposition and an attitude of confidence in His integrity, His plan, and His timing. It is a resolve that has been cemented in the integrity of God’s character, whether or not it aligns with our understanding or desires. His plan is infallible, and it is based upon His sovereignty and His concern for the growth and advancement of our “whole” person….body, soul, and spirit. Faith is at times our resolve to be believe God for the impossible and trust is our resolve is to stand upon the foundation of who the Word of God declares The Lord to be regardless of what we see, hear, touch, taste or feel. “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. 18 But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.” Daniel 3:16-18 ; “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” Job 13:15; “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;” “ 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6
Faith and Trust are greater than uncertainty and fear. In Christ, the Word of God is established and guaranteed through a Divine “Yes” and “Amen” to those who believe.
In Christ we are never at a disadvantaged position. He is always Greater than what we are up against, and His power and grace are always more than enough. God affords us every day and in every situation that which enables us to live as Champions in Christ. The Spirit of the undefeated Lord lives within us. In Christ, regardless of the circumstances or the challenges, “WE ALWAYS WIN!” Live AS A CHAMPION TODAY!!
Romans 12
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
If life is no more than existence, truth no more than an obstacle, kindness no more than an unfamiliar relic, and love no more than a feeling or its absence credited to the lack of feeling, then we are living off the spoiled portions, and drawing from tainted wells.
Right living, love for others and positive influence are outgrowths among those who follow Christ, whose lives have been redeemed by grace and whose hearts and minds are being transformed by God’s sweet Holy Spirit.
When righteous moral awareness, personal accountability, compassion, concern, and respect for others fade from social conscience, lost or discarded in the pursuits for that which attempts to gain emancipation from scriptural authority and God’s design in favor of hedonism, moral ambivalence or indifference, re-definition, and detachment, we have lost our way and are estranged from our Divine Creator.
This life is a sacred gift from God and what we do with it can be either a grateful re-investment that will outlive our days or perhaps a twisted wreckage spewing social and moral toxins about. If our souls are well with God, we will have peace within and will live with regard for our neighbors as Christ did for those for whom He gave His life to save.
As followers of Christ, we are the products of a spiritual resurrection and transformation of heart and mind. We become the neighbors and friends whose hearts and lives are open to those who need a listening ear, a prayer partner, a strong hand up or just a smile of acknowledgement. We cannot be more like Christ than when the Holy Spirit is given our lives as temples for His dwelling and vessels through which His life flows into the lives of those broken but can be made whole.
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Weekly EnCOURAGEment - 5/14/23
MOTHERS ARE A GIFT FROM THE LORD
2 Timothy 1:5
When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also.
Throughout the history of the church, women have played a very significant role. They are never secondary in what God is doing. Even when the evidence of their involvement and influence is borne out in the lives of others, which is reflective of an incredible role in the advancement of what God has purposed to do.
In the context of the scripture above, it is noted that a young man’s faith, life, and instrumentality in the church could be directly linked to the influence of two women who were very much a part of his early life development. Their influence was foundational to who Timothy would become as a man of God.
Women are beautifully and distinctly made according to the design of the Heavenly Father. They have been endowed with certain sensibilities and feminine traits that are not the mark of weakness but divine design. Believing women are foundational in the nurturing and mentoring of the young. It is both the early and ongoing influence of women in God’s design that make for the strength of the following generations.
God in His eternal record of scripture noted the influence of a Godly mother and grandmother in the life of a servant of God. If it be important enough for God to note, it is important that we, as the church, never dismiss or obscure the role of Godly women in the designs of the Father in Heaven.
We celebrate and should do so daily the gift of Godly women who are second to none in their vital influence upon the young and those of all ages.
Thank you, Lord, for Mothers and for all women. You have given the human race a wonderful gift!
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Weekly EnCOURAGEment - 5/7/23
IT APPEARS THAT JESUS IS.....
....not religion. Jesus is not philosophy. Jesus is not the product of academia. Jesus is not skillful rhetoric. Jesus is not entertainment. Jesus is not clever marketing. Jesus is not appeasement. Jesus is not a steeple. Jesus is not stained glass. Jesus is not trendy, contemporary or hold the fort traditional. Jesus is not a building. Jesus is not a method. Jesus is not a good idea. Jesus is not charming. Jesus is not the way we do it here nor the way we did it then. Jesus is not jeans, a tuckless shirt or a button-down suit on Sunday. Jesus is not tomorrow's state of the art today. Jesus is not 20 minutes or an hour or two followed by a benediction. Jesus is not religious protocol. Jesus is not false humility. He is not spiritual condescension. Jesus is not a spiritual gift. Jesus is not a contribution. Jesus is not our idea. Jesus is not.....
Jesus is always and forever exalted above and beyond our natural, finite, and small minds or grand ideas. Jesus is only known as revealed by The Spirit, The Word, and The Incarnation. Jesus is known when He is living within. Jesus is Love beyond degree. Jesus is perfect Grace and Truth, and in fact, Jesus is The Way and The Truth and The Life. Jesus is John 8:58. Jesus is The Lamb of God. Jesus is The King of Kings. Jesus is The Lord of Lords. Jesus is The Alpha and Omega. Jesus is The First and The Last. Jesus is The Beginning and The End. Jesus is He who Was, Is and Always Will Be. Jesus is The Redeemer. Jesus is our Redemption. Jesus is our Justification. Jesus is our Righteousness. Jesus is our Resurrection. Jesus is our Life. Jesus is our Peace. Jesus is our Transformation. Jesus is The Healer. Jesus is The One Whose Name is Above All. He is The One Before Whom every knee shall bow. JESUS IS.......
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Weekly EnCOURAGEment - 4/23/23
Is the following statement true or detatable?
What is much more certain than the exact percentages of what we can control and cannot control in life, is the one thing that sets many other things into motion and that would be our reactions to the things that come our way in life, or the things that we go out of our way to get involved with.
“You really have no control over 10% of what happens in your life. The other 90 percent is determined by your reaction. Here are some ways to apply the 90/10 principle. If someone says something negative about you, do not be a sponge.” [STEPHEN COVEY]
Often, the difference between a good day and a bad day is determined by the conditioning of our hearts, minds, and the spiritual development of personal restraint and temperance in reaction to the things happening in our world. This is certainly not a minimization of personal tragedies, loss, and great adversity. Those are those things which are profoundly painful and trying on every level.
The things that we cannot control, need not take control of us. I realize that this statement can be a challenge and is one that we do not always succeed in facing. Prayerfully we yield our lives to Holy Spirit influence as followers of Christ and allow Him to transform our hearts with the Scriptural principles that He inspired to be written.
How many of us want to live free from the tyranny of personal enslavement to every challenge, every insult or slight from another, or even perceived life inequities. We determine how we react to or process life, each day. We can be the product of deeper maturation, growing forward with greater patience, perseverance, promise, and satisfaction in a life that is both pleasing to the Lord and a blessing to others.
The scriptures tell us that Iron sharpens iron and that the fires of adversity refine, the hammer shapes, and most importantly that with each challenge there is Holy Spirit revelation and personal conditioning in Christ.
What we become, and what we do in the life as followers of Christ is to come out of the intimate relationship that we have with the Lord. The joy of serving the Lord has been greater to saints persecuted and martyred throughout history when flames consumed their bodies, deprivation was inflicted upon them, and fiercest personal trials came their way. No, we do not always shine gloriously, but Christ does and if He lives in us, He is our Lord and because of Him, we will not be mastered by anything, or anyone, who means personal harm. Christ is greater than all else and He is with us and not against us.
Acts 5:41
So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.
Acts 16:25
But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of April 9, 2023
The STONE IS ROLLED AWAY
John 20:1
Now the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
It had been a horrific couple of days for the disciples and other followers of Christ. A woman named Mary from Magdala, a passionate follower of Christ, out of whom he had cast seven evil spirits was the first to get to the tomb while it was still dark on the Sunday following the Friday crucifixion. To her surprise the stone was rolled to the side and the tomb was empty.
It was apparent that she did not understand or could not believe that Jesus would be resurrected as he said that he would. She ran back to Peter and the other disciples who were with him to convey that the body of Jesus had been removed or stolen.
As Peter and John ran to the tomb, John outran Peter but did not go in, and as was consistent with Peter’s disposition when he arrived at the tomb, he went directly in. Finding only the graveclothes both assumed as well that Jesus had been removed by someone. We are told from the divine record that they did not yet know the scriptures, that Christ must be raised. Jesus told them but in the traumatic events of the previous days, the thought on Sunday morning that He had been resurrected did not occur to them. They each returned to their own homes confused and in fear.
We know that Jesus, resurrected, would appear to them and he would show them his hands and his feet, where the nails had been driven.
The Christian faith and its credibility hinge upon the actual resurrection of Christ. If he died and was not resurrected then, in that regard he would be as all others. The scriptures say, that “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable." 1 Corinthians 15:19.
1 Corinthians 15:14-19
14 And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. 15 Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up - if in fact the dead do not rise. 16 For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen.
But God be praised! Jesus is alive, proven by many convincing proofs. There are at least 8 resurrection appearances over the 40 days between His resurrection and ascension, beginning with the first person who came to the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene.
THE RESURRECTION APPEARANCES OF CHRIST INCLUDE:
First, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene at the tomb (Mark 16:9.)
Second, Jesus appeared to other women as they were leaving the tomb (Matthew 28:9-10.)
Third, Jesus met up with two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-32.)
Fourth, Jesus appeared to 10 disciples who were hiding together (Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-25.)
Fifth, Jesus appeared to all eleven remaining disciples (Mark 16:14; John 20:26-31.) Thomas, who had doubted Jesus’ resurrection, was with them this time.
Sixth, Jesus appeared to seven disciples, including Peter, who had denied Jesus three times (John 21.)
Seventh, Jesus appeared to the 11 disciples at a pre-arranged location on a mountain in Galilee (Matthew 28:16-20.) There Jesus told them He had been given all power and authority.
Eighth, Jesus finally appeared to as many as 500 of His followers at one time. He confirmed the completion of His mission and the promise of the Holy Spirit (Luke 22:44-49; Acts 1:3-8.)
JESUS CHRIST IS ALIVE!!!!!!!!!
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of April 2, 2023
Jesus was exalted as he arrived triumphantly in Jerusalem upon the foal of a donkey on the Sunday before His Friday crucifixion. He was hailed as God’s Anointed, the one prophetically called, “Son of David,” lauded with highest praise.
Matthew 21:9
Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: “Hosanna to the Son of David! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Hosanna in the highest!”
On Friday of that week, he was condemned to death per the wishes of those who cried out for his crucifixion to the delight of those who had conspired against Him.
Unfortunately, the heart of man apart from God is often fickle and there is no clearer or more painful example of such, as that sounded off from the same characters who cried, “Hosanna, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” on Sunday and then demanding His crucifixion at week’s end.
Mark 11
11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd, so that he should rather release Barabbas to them. 12 Pilate answered and said to them again, “What then do you want me to do with Him whom you call the King of the Jews?”
13 So they cried out again, “Crucify Him!”
Jesus knew the praises of those, among whom, many did not truly know who He was. Jesus experienced the pain of their rejection when they chose a jailed criminal for freedom while calling for His crucifixion.
Although the Lord experienced the worst of fallen humanity’s duplicitous nature he surrendered to and followed through with the Father’s plan for Him to die as the sacrificial Lamb to secure redemption for those turning from darkness to saving truth and light in Him.
Jesus loved those who hated Him. Jesus extended mercy to those who delighted in judgement without mercy. He offered salvation to all whom would come, even among those whose religious arrogance blocked the path to God for others.
God knew what man would do and yet He commended His love for the sinful, giving His only Son to die for their redemption.
We all are the beneficiaries of such wondrous Love. God loves all, as evidenced in the compassion He has demonstrated for all mankind.
Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When God became man, Immanuel, “God with Us” (Matthew 1:23), in the person of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the world bore witness of and experienced the compassion of the creator. His presence was established among those He created in His image, the single most sublime act of compassion of all.
It was the ultimate act of compassion. The presence of God walking the paths that others walked.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of March 19, 2023
THE HABITS OF CHRIST - LIFE OF COMPASSION
Isaiah 53
He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripe we are healed.
God’s presence though Jesus Christ in the world was the ultimate act of compassion. GOD SHOWED UP! The Church’s presence in the world is a conduit through which the Holy Spirit releases compassion. GOD SHOWS UP!
John 3:16-17
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
> Jesus was fully aware that those to whom He ministered were sinful, spiritually weak and broken, easily crushed by the weight of the Law. He knew the anointing was rested upon Him.
> There is no such thing as an impersonal and indifferent Christ. It was a meek and gracious and powerful Christ, who felt deeply for those who were overwhelmed and broken.
Matthew 12:20
A bruised reed He will not break,
And smoking flax He will not quench,
Till He sends forth justice to victory;
THE COMPASSION OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD
> Jesus showed compassion abroad, but He really went to great lengths to show compassion to those who were cast-off, vulnerable, the poor and the afflicted.
> Those included:
- Children -
Jesus was anointed with compassion for children even as others were annoyed by their restless presence. His arms were a safe place for them, and His blessings were full of prophetic promise and providential blessings.
Matthew 18
At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, 3 and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
2. Women
Israel was a patriarchal society in which women occupied a subordinate position and in many ways were treated as social and spiritual inferiors to men.
- A woman had no property rights.
- She could not serve as a witness.
- She could not share equally in worship.
- Singing and chanting were done by men exclusively while women listened in their own synagogue compartments.
- Ten men had to be present for a service to be held. Nine men plus one woman would not do!
Jesus, however, was sensitive to the needs of all people whether male or female.
> Woman with an issue of blood. In order to heal her, Jesus allowed a woman, who had been bleeding for twelve years, to touch him. (Luke 8:42–48).
> Another woman, a prostitute, approached Jesus while he was eating in a Pharisee’s house. She poured precious ointment on Jesus’s feet and washed them with her tears. Compassionately, Jesus, who knew her penitence and faith, defended that bold, extravagant action and sent her away with a benediction of peace (Luke 7:36–50).
> Widows especially elicited Jesus’s compassionate help.
> A typical example of Jesus’s attitude toward widows was his encounter with a funeral procession outside the city of Nain. A young man had died. He was the only child of his grief-stricken mother who faced loneliness and in all probability destitution. When Jesus saw the funeral procession and heard the mother sobbing, he was moved with compassion. “His heart went out to her” (Luke 7:13). He didn’t wait for any appeal. He acted. He touched the coffin, risking ritual contamination, and commanded the corpse to rise. Miraculously, the son obeyed as life returned to his body. Imagine the mother’s gratitude as uncontrollable joy replaced inconsolable sorrow! (vv. 11–17).
Christ was motivated by one thing - compassion.
JESUS LOVED PEOPLE: males and females, Jews and Gentiles, aliens and citizens, adults and children. Jesus saw people as individuals made in God’s image, each a member of God’s human family and a potential member of his spiritual family. He didn’t hesitate to touch lepers who were to avoid all human contact (Matthew 8:1–4; Mark 1:40–44). He intervened in the lives of people supernaturally without prejudice.
Jesus Healed Abroad:
a. He healed the son of a centurion, an officer in Rome’s oppressive army (Matthew 8:5–13.)
b. He healed the daughter of a pagan, a Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21–24.)
c. He talked with a Samaritan woman and shared with her the liberating truth about God and the worship that was pleasing to God (John 4.)
d. He chose a Samaritan as a model of God’s own compassion - a Samaritan who had compassion on a victim of theft and violence (Luke 10.)
e. Jesus welcomed the common people who gladly listened to him (Mark 12:37.)
f. The Jewish religious leaders looked down on the people with contempt because they were religiously illiterate (John 7:49), but Jesus who was moved with compassion taught the crowd, fed them repeatedly, healed their sick, and freed those who were possessed by demons (Mark 5:1–17; 8:1–10.)
g. Jesus’s pity toward the poor in their sickness, in their hunger, and in their suffering emerges in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31.)
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of March 12, 2023
DREAM AGAIN
I am revealed, not by what I say that I am, but through the evidence that is brought forth in how I live among and love others. Using Jesus talk does not make me a Jesus person. In fact, telling people what I am is not nearly as important as allowing the Spirit of God to work in and through my life to compassionately demonstrate to others who Jesus is.
Religious arrogance is not to be confused with the anointing that God places upon the lives of His children. Spiritual authority is not a license to look down on others and Christian fervor is not manifest in contempt held toward or expressed about others. Spiritual authority is established in the Word of God and is demonstrated in brokenness, humility, and love, not with continued declarations of one’s position or authority in the Kingdom of God. Jesus owns this thing called the church. We are only significant when we disappear in Christ.
1 John 3:15 -18
Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death.
1 John 4:7-11
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of March 5, 2023
WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE WE?
Acts 4:18-20
18 So they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. 20 For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.”
Perhaps the church has not encountered a greater challenge to its modern profession of faith in Christ and scripture, than it has from the verbose threats and dismissive taunts leveled against it by proponents of "another" or no gospel at all.
The idea that the Word of God will be applauded and provided genuine accommodation by the spirit of a fallen world is at a minimum, ignorant naivety or its worse a willful abandonment of scripture in a poisonous exchange of Truth for lies. Either way, the results are utter loss and spiritual death.
At times even the pulpit is pressured to compromise by the fear of what has made its way into the desires of "power people" in the seats or pews, clamoring for Grace while believing Truth to be far less relevant or even unnecessary. We may be tempted to seek the world's advocacy and influence in exchange for the silence of uncomfortable truths that are deemed socially unnecessary, and evil.
The voice of anointing and inspired Truth is sought as an exchange for a gospel light which renounces scriptural authority and teases the "feel good" appetite with indulgent and decadent counsel, that determines what the "sheep" hear or don't hear.
Ironically it is the dumbing silence that is the greatest peril and deception, covering the noise of encroaching wolves in sheep's clothing.
Hell's population will be influenced by what each "follower" of Christ becomes and does, in response to the scriptural and spiritual counsel of the Spirit of Truth. We either retain the salt of the Spirit and we transparently show forth the Light of Christ, or we become a by-word, a relic, or a group of imposters receiving the disdain directed at fools from those who, though living in darkness, recognize the difference between gold and fool’s gold.
Truth and Grace are inseparable in Christ and indispensable in this hour when it seems easier to our natural instincts to run rather than to stand, to chase after wind rather than to be filled with Holy Spirit breath, to remain silent when the Spirit of Truth pleads for His anointing to be released through the church, to reinvent rather than to be renewed, to accommodate the pleasures of the vanity of humanity rather than to host the Glory of our God's Divinity, and to preach cheap Grace, to teach the wisdom of fools and to embrace form without real life.
In Christ we can. We Can be. We can do. We can go. We can grow. We can love graciously, truthfully, and fearlessly. In Christ we can do all things, and above all, in Christ we can love as He loves.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of February 19, 2023
GOD’S PERFECT LOVE
Love is one of those things which is better shown than told. In life we will have natural affections for which the capacity is given by God. The love that Christ demonstrated for all people is a perfect love and a love that is unconditional and indestructible. It is a love that is equipped by God to think better of others and thrives in selflessness. Jesus loved his enemies and prayed for those who crucified Him even as He hung upon the cross.
The ability to love as Christ loves can only be possible through His Lordship and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in one’s heart. God makes it possible for His Love to triumph in our hearts and behaviors, where we would otherwise fall miserably short.
Feelings are not in themselves, love. Emotions can run away with one and lead to rogue behaviors. Feelings can rule over what is right and can be responses to moments of euphoria or hurt. Feelings calibrated by scripture and grounded in godly love are wonderful expressions.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. (Christ-less spirituality is for show and as such its empty reward is appropriate.) And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. (No spiritual gifting is a substitute for the absence of Christian love.) And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. (No sacrifice, no matter how extreme is a substitute for genuine love for others.)
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (Whereas rogue feelings may usurp what is right, just, merciful, gracious and thoughtful …Love triumphs righteously.)
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. (Love is Supreme to every other attribute and gifting.)
And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of February 12, 2023
BROKENNESS IS THE ROAD THAT TRAVELS DEEPER INTO EMPATHY
2 Corinthians 4:8-12 8 We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed -
The scriptures above, are ones that inspire a person of faith to persevere when afflicted in life by the adversity of one or many types. Paul’s statement is a bold declaration that faith in Christ is indestructible as it serves as the foundation of life and not the tail end of a journey on which we are driven by our circumstances and our emotional responses.
Paul was not exempt from affliction and suffering because of his faith but rather he suffered because of his faith in and ministry for Christ. The sun does not always shine in the life of a believer, but the Son always does and that is the strength of our hearts.
Those who have been broken in life, by personal loss, failure, rare afflictions, mistreatment and a host of other types of suffering that are common or uncommon, are often the things for which only scripture can provide the stabilizing perspective. “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!” 2 Corinthians 4:17 NLT
It is when we have been broken, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually and have been made whole in God’s gracious provision that we receive heaven’s degree on earth for having gone through the fire and come out of it fully alive and whole. It is then that our ability to empathize with others goes through the ceiling.
Life is a journey littered with broken souls who have not yet found the way up or forward. There are those who are prisoners to the brokenness of days or years past. There are those lying on the roads of broken and then forsaken by those things which they believed would always be there to assist them in their day of desperate personal need. Like the priest and the Levite who passed by on the other side to avoid the one who had fallen among thieves, many choose to bypass the broken because they are inconvenient reminders of the vulnerabilities of life. Sadly, even religion abandons people in their darkest hours of need. But God be praised as He is not religion, and He is not its clanging gong or cymbal. He is a rescuer. He is a searcher and a finder. He is a friend to the friendless and a healer to the broken.
He is voice of hope to those who cannot see beyond the blinding darkness of hopelessness. He is the arm that reaches out and the hands to lift up. He is the provision shared to make the broken whole. He was broken and He knows the anguish of suffering and yet He defeated it for all of us who have ever been broken. He is not merely sympathetic but His benevolent empathy pours oil into the wounds and the wealth that he forsook to become a dying servant for all upon the cross now shares it freely to make people well. He knows us and He knows our afflictions and because He is personally and fully qualified He stands for all of us as He lifts us in His arms. He speaks hope into all of our lives. He who was broken for us makes us whole in His Present and Future Glory.
Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected - a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.
As Christians let our neighbors see that because of Christ, “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed -“ Because of Christ we are overcomers and in Christ they can be too
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of February 5, 2023
HERE AND THERE
Life is a gift from the Lord, which is a vehicle for sharing the experiences of a purposeful existence with others to whom God has entrusted the same beautiful gift.
This present life is described as a mist or a vapor that appear briefly and then vanishes away.
During this momentary journey there are so many sweet opportunities to invest into that which exceeds the limited scope of our five senses in the time between birth and passing into the glorious presence of the One who has entrusted us with this precious gift.
Friendship for eternity, laughter, endless seasons of joy and unbroken peace and contentment in the presence of the One with whom we shall all live, together in His Glorious Light.
Everyone who will be there, will be there by grace and through the witness of Christ that leads to eternal life. No one will be there because of earthly perfection or riding the coattails of another.
In Christ we live in abundance and share a quality of relationship with others that, though restrained in this life within the context of our seen beginnings and endings, will provide the seeds for an eternity wondrously provided for us together in the unblemished perfection and endless design of God, together with Him and those with whom we have shared the joy of life with here and faith in the One who authors the unseen but real eternity there.
2 Corinthians 4
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of January 29, 2023
TRAVEL WELL
Life is a journey and it has a destination as revealed in scripture. All of us must make the journey and it is to our benefit to travel it well. Our feet are designed by God to walk forward. Most of the time, the direction that we choose will largely determine where we end up and what condition we are in when we get there. Sometimes, or even more often, the path will choose us and we will find ourselves traveling a route that is unfamiliar and perhaps difficult. We will experience challenges on the way and will perhaps, at times, react out of frustration or in fear, but because of Christ with us we will not stay there and we will rise above them. Fear is a human response to things that appear unknown and are potentially harmful, to things outside of our places of comfort. Potential distractions at times will litter the route of our journey.
The scriptures make it clear that God will keep those who train their focus upon Him. His peace will guard, and His Word will guide their thoughts (Isaiah 26:3)
The apostle Paul referenced His life as a fight fought well, a race completed, and a faith kept (2 Timothy 4:7.) Life is a progression. It challenges us to be, to become, to do, and to keep it as a sacred trust. Along the journey, as the Holy Spirit guides those who trust in Christ, we discover many things that provide the necessary fuel to complete it. They include the following:
1. Who is for us. God is for us.
2. Who we are. We are God’s children.
3. Why we are here. We are here because we are God’s creation.
4. Where we are going. We are in route to Heaven.
5. Why it matters. Because you matter to the One who made you with love.
To travel well and to reach the destination one must:
- Pray for wisdom.
- Keep the focus.
- Travel light (Do not lug unnecessary baggage along. The weight of it will wear you down.)
- Be Spiritual hydrated and refreshed in prayer and scriptural meditation.
- Choose traveling companions who are committed to and focused on reaching the destination.
- Rest as needed. Do not settle into rest stops. They are only a respite, not the destination.
- Utilize the provisions given to assist you in your travels by God.
- Avoid distractions and refuse to surrender to fear.
- The destination is the prize. Nothing short of heaven will get you.
- Jesus will get you there.
Hebrews 11
13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off [e]were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 14 For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. 15 And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of January 22, 2033
SILENCING THE VOICE THAT ONCE SPOKE FOR US
GALATIANS 5
16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
ROMANS 13
14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
If one knows Christ as Savior and Lord, he or she realizes that His life, death, resurrection, ascension, and promise of return have thoroughly covered that which is required for personal forgiveness, redemption, deliverance, wholeness, freedom, transformation, abundant life, and confidence in the resurrection.
Christ’s death and resurrection, followed by the sending of the Holy Spirit have made it possible to put down the old nature which once ruled over the heart and mind, while driving the search, in the quest of finding one’s self, in countless directions expecting personal fulfillment but always coming up short. There is a god-shaped vacuum within the heart without Christ, for which the mad search for its satisfaction has led to the bitter realization that what was promised was, in reality, an illusion or a mirage or had a short shelf life.
Because of Christ, the old tyrant that once ruled over the past, present and future, has lost his hold. In Christ, the redeemed are granted authority to put down and to silence the old nature which daily seeks to encroach upon the ground for which it has no credible claim. The heart, soul, and spirit are now sacred ground secured by the blood and resurrection of Christ.
There have been champions of personal freedom and recognition for all people regardless of their ethnicity or culture. Certainly one such example at the forefront of such pursuit has been Martin Luther King who gave his life in advocacy for all regardless of skin color.
Jesus Christ laid down his life that each one might be free from the tyranny that has ruled in complicity with the old sinful nature and has stolen hope, destroyed dreams, and has cursed the future while enslaving one to the past.
In prayerful meditation upon the Word of God and by residing in His perfect love, believers are lifted up and transformed, being renewed daily in Christ and in His Truth. The Holy Spirit speaks into those hearts, minds, and spirits to silence the seducing lies and the inflammatory accusations which seek to reinstate enslavement to false beliefs in empty promises and renewed condemnation.
God, grant believers the grace to grow and the discernment to the Know Truth and to see and to forsake the lies that once usurped the void which exists, as a dwelling only for God. May the Truth and Love of God be center stage in each heart, given voice through the lips of the redeemed. May the voice that was once given to the fallen nature speak no more
Ephesians 4:20-24
20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self,[a] which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
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EnCOURAGEment for the week of January 15, 2023
FAITH is…….
11 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
…..the view into the unseen. It is the confidence that one has in the Promises of God’s Word. It is the step forward and across the span of nothingness that halts the natural advancement limited by its absence but excites the soul and spirit of the one who walks in revelation truth and is led by the Spirit. It is the voice within that summons the spirit to arise to the higher standard of life and obedience, baptized in the joy of the Lord’s transcendence regardless of life’s surroundings and circumstances.
…... confidence in the One who promises and supplies the gift of abundant life, thriving in the wisdom of God quickens the soul to prudence and faithful stewardship. The storehouses are full from the gracious hand of God to those who walk in accordance of the counsel of His truth. The cup of the redeemed overflows from the goodness the Lord – Psalm 23:5.
…..that which does not place a greater focus on the need than upon the One who is faithful in all things. Faith is the fuel that propels the believing heart higher and deeper into the Promises of God and personal obedience to the Word of God.
God is a rewarder of faith in His Person, Promises, and Purposes.
Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Romans 10:17
…..rewarded by God.
Hebrews 11:6
But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
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EnCOURAGEment for the week of January 8, 2023
FAITH VS FEELINGS OR IS IT?
God created the whole person, body, soul, and spirit. Jesus Christ came to redeem the whole person and to introduce soundness into humanity’s soul and spirit. The soul is composed of three parts - the mind, the will, and the emotion. The mind, the will, and the emotions are essential parts of every person’s being. As followers of Christ, we are completely redeemed.
The transaction that took place upon the cross secured our freedom from the control of the sinful nature, as we are justified not in ourselves, but through the shed blood of Christ.
The ongoing work of the Holy Spirit within, beginning with the spiritual re-birth, brings renewal of soul and spirit. The Spirit is made alive by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and moves in alignment with the Holy Spirit’s leading. The spirit of the believer is alive in Christ and quickened in the Word of God. The Word of God sets forth the work of transformation and provides direction for a child of God through faith in Christ. The Spiritual nature of man is borne witness by the Holy Spirit in alignment with the Word of God. Therefore, the nourishment and fuel for the mind and the emotions is released into them by the union between the Spirit of the person with the Holy Spirit of God through Jesus Christ.
Emotions, feelings, and practices are to be placed under the authority of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. We are able to experience thoughts, emotions and feelings, as wonderful capabilities given to each one by God. They are capable of beautiful expressions of our humanity. In Christ, they are sanctified through the Word of God as they are yielded to the control of the Holy Spirit. They become centered and healthy, receiving the life of God, wholly through spiritual intimacy with God through Christ.
The soul and the Spirit function together harmoniously, with the mind under spiritual direction through the Lordship of Christ.
The soul emits those traits which come from the person, but the Spirit of the man focuses on the Lord. The soulish individual focuses on self and his or her sense of wellbeing and personal gratification seeks to lay hold of the natural or sensual. The Spiritual individual is spiritually alive, and is focused on the spiritual, which transcends the natural and is led by the Holy Spirit. It is focused on God through Jesus Christ.
Emotions and thoughts are essential parts of our human experience and personal development. For believers, wholeness comes through personal submission to the Word of God and through continued renewal and growth brought about through spiritual intimacy with Christ, and personal surrender to the Holy Spirit. Emotions and thoughts do not trump faith and the revelation of God. Thoughts and feelings can talk a believer out of faith and convince him or her that one’s faith and position in Christ is inconsequential in certain circumstances. When we allow our feelings/emotions to rule we will be prone to recklessness and regret. Spiritual things are discerned though the spirit.
The following scriptures give us a view of the relationship.
Romans 8:15
For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”
2 Timothy 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
2 Corinthians 5:7
For we walk by faith, not by sight.
Romans 8:14
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
Romans 12:2
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
1 Corinthians 2:8-10
8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But as it is written:
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
Colossians 3
If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
Ephesians 1:16-19
16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your [a]understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power
1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Corinthians 3:1-3
3 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; 3 for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and [a]behaving like mere men?
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of Dec. 18
GOD WILL USE YOU
God leads. God establishes. God opens. God closes. God Seeds. God Grows. God increases. God begins and God ends. There is nothing to worry about.
No matter what it looks like.
No matter what others say or do, or whatever comes your way. The Author brings to fruition. Seasons are given. Seasons are blessed. Seasons change.
You can be who God says you are, wherever He takes you, to accomplish whatever He assigns and equips you to do in His season. God smiles upon you.
Remember David in the Valley of Elah.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of Dec. 11
The Longer I Live….
I am less impressed by that which is advanced as “the show.” Granted, I’m sure that no one lives life to impress me, nor should anyone. May pretentiousness in my own heart be defeated by the work of Holy Spirit transformation.
Matthew 6:1
“Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
I am more drawn into the awe of God’s love and His kindness, grace, and patience that He extends to me each day that I may grow beyond my many shortcomings, inconsistencies, and contradictions.
Luke 7:47
Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”
I become more aware of how that the distorted value of things, titles, and indulgences that aren’t going with us when we leave this life, is based upon the misinformation campaign propagated through the massive network of illusions and false narratives as to what life is about.
Matthew 23:6-8
6 They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, 7 greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi.’ 8 But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren.
I value the discernment of the Spirit that exposes the distinctions between image and reality, perception and truth. Unfortunately, we are often plagued by the overindulgence focused on building image and a favorable or at least noteworthy perception among others at the expense of that which genuine and transparently honest.
Matthew 23:27
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.
I am more aware of the scriptural truth that I cannot live a life that pleases God and is intimately connected with Him in relationship, if I am seeking to live a life of compromise between my will, the Word of God, and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
James 4:8
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
It is clearer that I cannot earn the love of God and that He does not owe me anything. Every breath of air that I breath is a gift from God and my life, in the much broader view, is but a wispy momentary vapor. My home is not here, nor should my heart be totally rooted in this temporal world and yielded to its seductions.
Acts 17:28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’
There is a yearning for the resurrection and ultimate restoration and renewal that Christ promised in the scripture and to be together with those whom I love in His glorious presence.
Acts 3:21
whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.
I identify more with the Kingdom of the living God and Christ as its King. This is not about my church and your church, yours and mine, theirs and ours. In Christ there is One Church. There is one body redeemed by His blood, transformed by His Holy Spirit, and baptized as one. There is one Church destined to be adorned in the Holy character of God, one church without spot of wrinkle.
Isaiah 9:7
Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
I see more clearly that the first will truly be last and that the last will truly be first. There are always a multitude of interpretations which are aimed at offsetting the obvious points of Truth. There will be a day when we will realize some things that we could not or would not see in this life. The passage of 1 Corinthians 1:26-27 will be realized in greater detail. There will be no big shots or little shots, no pecking order as has been established in this corrupt world system and propagated in many forms and, unfortunately, at times within the church. God’s order will be Holy and Righteous without the corruption of human pride and exploitation of others.
1 Corinthians 1:26-27
26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many [b]noble, are called. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;
There will be many revelations forthcoming that we weren’t able to see through the glass in this present world’s dim light. Often traditions and man created religious icons and standards that violate the scriptural and spiritual incarnation of Grace and Truth in Christ have kept people blinded in worldly and religious idolatry.
Matthew 15:9
And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
There is no moral failure that is greater than the blood of Christ and there is no baggage too heavy for the arm of grace to lift from upon our lives. Often people are labeled by “their sin” and even when made new in Christ, they are often identified in terms of what they were instead of what they are becoming in Christ. I have been dreadfully guilty of such.
1 Corinthians 6:11 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Truth is not always convenient, whether historical, cultural, social, religious, or secular and we cannot erase it because we do not like it. We can learn from our history. We can grow in or beyond them as needful, and we can be transformed by God’s grace that enables all of us to becomes stronger regardless of what may otherwise be an inconvenient truth or a painful history which we dismiss because it is not our truth.’
John 8:32
And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Every day matters and one day will ultimately be our last in this life. When young, a day seems like a lifetime and as we age a lifetime seems like a day.
James 4:14
whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
I have no problem acknowledging that I am a no one, who speaks of things that others have seen or spoken of countless times before. In Christ I do have a glorious identity because of, and solely because of, God’s work of redemption and transformation in my life. As to position and pride I am nothing, but I can celebrate and acknowledge the accomplishments and growth of others, without patronization and free of condescension. I can be an encourager. I can be a voice among those cheering runners through to the finish. It is a joy to see others run well and to finish strong.
Romans 12:15
Rejoice with those who rejoice,
No legislation frees me to worship God, and none restricts me from doing so. The Bible and history prove that over and over again. Oppression is the misguided stomping that only scatters the embers of flame.
Acts 5:40-42
40 And they agreed with him, and when they had called for the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41 So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name. 42 And daily in the temple, and in every house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.
I see many streams of purported “Christianity” and my prayer for my family, those whom I serve, and for myself, is that the stream that we are drinking from, truly has its origin and flow, Christ alone.
John 15:5
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
It is through loving people when they’re alive and honoring them in day-to-day life that we can have greater joy in their remembrance when they have gone from this life. Flowery words that do not reflect our dispositions or expressions toward those in our lives when they were with us, are often expressions born of regret and a grief intensified by personal guilt.
1 Corinthians 13
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
There will never be another day exactly like today. In fact, today may be the last today that we have in this present life. Live Christ fully and without restraint. What is held back from God, holds me back from God as well.
Psalm 90:12
Teach us to realize the brevity of life,
so that we may grow in wisdom.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of December 4
T - TODAY IS A GIFT FROM GOD.
James 1:17
Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.
H - HOPE IN GOD DOES NOT DISAPPOINT.
Romans 5:5
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
A - AWESOME IS OUR GOD.
Psalm 47:2
For the Lord Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth.
N – NO TURNING BACK.
Acts 7:38-40
38 “This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, 39 whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt,
K - KNOWLEDGE IS GOOD LOVE IS BETTER.
1 Corinthians 8:1
Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.
S - SALVATION IN CHRIST LIFECHANGING.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of November 20
THE ROAD WE ARE ON
The route that each one is traveling upon today started somewhere. We can continue or change course, depending on our choice of destinations. The scriptures simplify the choice by narrowing our options to either of two destinations. Our thought process when coming to the Y in the road may not be the most significant one that we will entertain. But the Words, and thoughts of the Holy Spirit that we receive into our lives, in scriptural and spiritual contemplation in the proceeding seasons of meditation, reflection, application and personal growth will always be the truest guides as to the road that we should choose.
Living for Christ will take one to places that require ongoing prayerful conditioning and surrender of soul and spirit, to walk the narrow and winding path of life. This route is not a road of self-obsession, but rather a life of self-denial, choosing to identify with that which is far less chosen, and to travel with the one whose incomparable humility among man preceded His enthronement in sinless perfection at the right hand of God The Father. It is the path, the difficult non-accommodating one, the road of selfless inconvenience, and the road that, but for the integrity of Divine Truth and Promise, would be avoided as too costly to travel by all.
In Christ, we never travel alone, and though the steep climbs may be higher than our strength, we travel with the One who commands mountains to bow before their creator. He walks with us into the places of steep descent, as its shadows of abject darkness are cut down in the brilliant life of His presence. It is the singular route to life, often disregarded, as travelers are seduced by the lies that lead one to believe that it is a road upon one which one cannot find himself or herself, a course where too little is about us and certainly too much is about a “god,” imposing religion upon ones’ dreams, ambitions, pursuit of self-discovery, and all other things pertaining to self.’
The highway that is easiest to travel is the one that is most accommodating, at least in the beginning, convincingly promising of many things that require the compromise of principle and restraint. Indulgence to the point of sublime satisfaction is the “guaranteed” offer, teasing the insatiably thirsty impulses of wanton desire. It is a route that promises licensed recklessness without conscience or consequence. This road involves much fewer considerations and personal accountability is exchanged for the illusion of free gratification.
Jesus made it clear that the wide entry point to the broad road is very appealing and is most often chosen to be the default choice for those who are in search of that which will never be found on or along this wide interstate of one life. It invites all to jump onto this major travel route, where the only thing that matters is how the experiences gained there make one feel and how much one can feel of that which is most gratifying. Faith, character, fore-thought, and love for others are often left abandoned in pursuit of the promises made to those who yearn for life in the fast, self-indulgent, and dangerous lanes of life. Those who live solely for the moments that scratch an itch or provide a moment of euphoric high are not thinking beyond but how each experience makes one feel. Feeling mocks discretion on the wide road as it seeks life’s richest moments. Discretion is deemed never to be the better part of anything, but rather an unnecessary weight that only slows the pursuit.
Jesus chose the narrow and most difficult road that led to the place of His death, and which set the stage for His resurrected emergence out of the tomb on that first day of the week. His Words were prophetic and divinely inspired when He said, “I am the way, the Truth and The Life, and no man comes to the Father but through me.” He is the singular Way, the Way to the Father in Heaven according to His Words. He is not about feelings as much as He is about the truly abundant life that everyone can experience in Him. Upon the journey of life’s end, the realization will be given to those who found in Christ, that nothing else in this life was worth the selling of one’s soul to attain. The wide gate and the broad road of life offers the “promises” of a more lucrative and fulfilling life to the fallen nature but at the end there is spiritual death. The narrow gate and difficult path indeed call for a singular Christ centered focus and a willingness to die to self for a much greater eternal gain.
Matthew 7:13-14
13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and [b]difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of November 5, 2022
The idea that the church is defeated by the challenges of our time is as false as the notion that the cross was the place of Christ's defeat. Resurrection power was revealed in Christ early on the first day of the week following His crucifixion so that the church would be alive in Him. In Christ we live, move, and exist.
Governments, societal rhetoric, behaviors, and leanings do not determine the health, mission, and fruitfulness of the church. The church's connection with and transformation in Christ determines such. By remaining intimately connected with its life source (Christ), the church advances in the purposes and Spirit into which it is baptized.
Christ is the Vine and the redeemed are His branches. The church's advancement and its fruitfulness are the results of His Life, sourcing throughout. -John 15
The church is created by God, for God and is equipped and sustained as His vessel, through which His life flows into the world.
Life is one huge opportunity for the church every day.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of October 30, 2022
The scriptures speak to personal weariness.
Sometimes life can become burdensome and when it does how can we be refreshed and renewed?
- Come to Jesus
Life can become monotonous and wearisome, and Jesus is not the author of heavy religious lifting in addition to all of the other concerns and responsibilities we have in life. He has done that for us.
Matthew 11:28-30
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
- Place the heavy issues of life in the Lord’s hands. Laying things down can sometimes be the hardest thing to do. God will give us what we need to do so, just as He supplies us with the resources to address any challenge.
1 Peter 5:7
Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.
- Rest in Christ as He is where life comes from and the adequacy comes from His super abundant resource that flows into our minds, spirits, and bodies by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He is the life source.
John 15:5
“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.
- A believer’s identity and abilities to do all that is needed are in Christ. You are a child of God through Jesus Christ. You are not the sum of your limitations or failures. The Grace of God lifts you in Christ, above those things that are insatiably draining and disheartening.
Acts 17:28
For in him we live and move and exist.
Philippians 4:13
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
- God is always true to His Word. Do not run from God when you are weary and frustrated, rest in His character and His promises.
Psalm 103:4-6
He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies. He fills my life with good things. My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
Isaiah 40:31
But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of October 23
1 Thessalonians 2:8
So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.
Life is not diminished by the temporal nature of those material things that we fail to gain or cannot keep forever. The value of things dwell in the sentimental reminders they contain of those who have given them to us or those who made them for us. Their hands and their love were involved in their making or delivery. The practicality of “things” for life’s usage, personal or shared enjoyment and their usefulness in blessing others is where the real value of material things lie.
People are different from things and much more valuable on every level. Painfully, we cannot keep those whom we wish to have with us forever in this life, bypassing separation upon death. It seems that we are young but for a moment, while during that season of life, time drags, and the anticipation of future life experiences and advancement painfully tease the desires of youthful ambition. The hands of time are driven by the winds of successive seasons, just as fresh snow driven by the howling forces of nature. Like wind and sand, wind symbolizes the relentless force of time and we as grains of sand are carried to places yet unseen and undiscovered. The grain of sand is carried forth and its existence to others is scarcely certain, but for the place upon which it faintly lands. Our lives here, unlike other things that come and go with the winds of time and change, are of a higher order in God’s design, as each one is a creation of the Divine, a handiwork of our Creator, created to be unique and wonderful. As life ends, we take flight from this life, called away by the One from whom we came. In Christ, we are called home, to our Heavenly Father’s house, each to a unique, mysterious and unimaginably beautiful place prepared for those who embrace Christ’s promise with faith in this life. (John 14:1-3.)
As the years pass, age brings distinctions that belong to its passing seasons. We are gifted with experience as the “knowledge about” becomes the “wisdom to.” Gray hair is to correspond to the glory of maturation spiritually, physically, emotionally, and intellectually.
May we not take the beauty of life for granted, but may we savor the choicest parts of the journey, lay hold of the value of now, the hugs and kisses, the kind words and love in action, to live in the rich liberty that we are blessed to share and to receive. May we not romance the props of life instead of the precious ones that God has given to us.
May we stop today and thank God for each day, given from His hand, the easy and the difficult, the sunny and the stormy, and those times remembered and the many that we may have forgotten. May we thank God for family and friends given to us regardless of the length of their stay. May we grow more eager to forgive, ready to comfort, encourage, and to tarry a little longer.
Through the hastening seasons of life, may we learn that God does not change, that His love endures forever, and that in His nature He is love. He loves to forgive and to save.
May each moment be precious, savored, and their memories be framed with thanks. May thankfulness and grace be integral parts of the remembrances by others of our disposition when we are here.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of October 16
Jesus taught that this life is an opportunity to live for something beyond our days here and beyond that which can be processed by our five senses, in His grace and love. We are spirit. We are made alive in Christ. Grace and Truth brought us forth out of darkness into the most brilliant of life-giving light in Christ. Our lives are chosen by God to reflect the Light of the Word, the light of Christ even in the darkest of places. A light is the casting of energy and illumination, and that requires a source. Jesus Christ is that source. This world is dark, and it is spiraling downward without the saving knowledge of Christ. But in that abject darkness there are lights chosen by God which cast His reflection to the hopeless, the fearful, and those who believe that they are without purpose and love. Those in Christ are the lights that represent the reality of God and His grace and love in every place amidst every challenge.
Most in this world know how to celebrate, but many fewer have been inspired in grief, made hopeful in loss, and trusting when life makes no sense. It is those of faith who will share the light of Christ in their grief, hope despite loss, and trust when life makes no sense. And none of this will happen because we are always up to the challenge, always strong enough, or that our trust is never shaken. It is Christ within that makes us overcomers. He is our shelter in the storms of life.
Every day is a gift. God did not owe us one. But He gave us a gift, this life, that we might know Him and love Him in such a manner that these days here, would author a life to be celebrated, a life that lives beyond its days, laughter that can still be heard, smiles that still sweetly cause us to look up, throughout the joys, sorrows, the health and pains of life, strangely victorious as the worst of life is deprived of the effect that hell would hope for.
Paul describes these things, “as light and momentary” and they seemed in the natural to be nothing light or momentary. But the Holy Spirit shared insight into how even suffering and loss bring forth “a far more exceeding weight of glory.” Let me read this in full,
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
“16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing,
yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.
17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is
working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,
18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.
For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of October 9
AN AMBASSADORSHIP OF LIGHT
As believers we will be appointed by God to a unique and profound ambassadorship. We may enjoy the placement of that ambassadorship, or we may not. But central in God’s placement of His children is the advancement of His saving and Kingdom advancing message, Jesus Christ Crucified for all.
The apostle Paul referred to himself as ambassador in chains for Christ, Ephesians 6:20. Perhaps our ambassadorship will touch the lives of others in the midst of great adversity. Faith that is focused on Christ triumphs over the cruelest of adversaries. In Christ strength we can fight a good fight to the end, run through the finish, and keep the faith. In everything we can be a light in this dark world as Christ shines through us in our assignments.
Matthew 5:14
14 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.
There are many things in this life, upon this earth, which are beyond our control and our understanding. And for believers, though we are given tremendous insights from God’s Word and the counsel of the Holy Spirit, we also at times, only with God’s love, can control our reactions to and the courses that we choose in response to the painful and unexplained things in life. We choose to trust or to drown in bitterness. We choose to honor or constantly try to forget. We are thankful or we assign blame. We grieve as those without hope, or we grieve sustained in God’s Hope. Broken does not mean ruined. Tears do not mean depletion but the opening of the streams that cast reflections on shared joys and the yearning for the fulfillment of God’s promises in Christ.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of September 25
While we as believers are given abundant life in Christ (John 10:10), if this present is heaven, it certainly does not fit the description provided in scripture on many fronts.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” – (Matthew 6:10)
The Bible teaches that this present world is fallen and is largely deceived and corrupted by the “god of this age” otherwise known as the devil.
2 Corinthians 4:3-5
3 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. 5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake.
- Sin is defeated by the blood of Christ and those who accept the finished work of Christ personally, as He died for the redemption of all who come in repentance and faith, have been brought into the Light of God’s revelation through His Word.
Galatians 1:3-5
3 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Ephesians 5:8-10
as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.
While this present world is not consistent with the description of the new heaven and earth that are to come, believers do not live by the spirit of lawlessness and sin, but grow in grace and truth, longing for the eternal promises of God, which centrally includes a Heavenly dwelling on the new earth with God Himself.
Heaven and its principles are seeded in our hearts through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and because of Christ’ s life, teaching, death, resurrection, ascension, the sending of the Holy Spirit, and His Promise to return as the King of Kings and The Lord of Lords. We live in Christ, as Kingdom principles advance in our hearts, minds, speech, and conduct. But heaven is with God and in this flesh in which we live Christ is exalted in our hearts, but He will physically, and tangibility establish a righteous kingdom with the redeemed and He shall reign forever,
Heaven is with God and as His spirit dwells within the redeemed the longing is as Paul expresses, “Abba Father.”
Romans 8:14-16
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of September 18, 2022
May we be like the old pair of shoes, the ones that we prefer because they are worn and comfortable. They are the ones that we look for at times, past the others that are newer, and the fit is not as welcoming as the ones that we’ve seemingly worn a million times and are familiar to us. They are the go-to shoes.
In life there is much to be said about being a go-to person who, like the old worn shoe that just feels right, when someone needs a trusted friend, someone to talk to or a prayer partner.
Believers are to be the salt of grace (when salt is needed) to prevent the spoilage of that which will certainly be ruined without a thorough application of salt. The church is to be light when the darkness needs to be illuminated by the Holy Spirit’s counsel into the darkest of storms. Sorrow calls for the hands of Christ’s caregivers, sanctified for service unto others and those anointed to restore things broken. Peacemakers are not those who interject themselves into situations with unproven theory, but those whose discernment and discretion yield to wisdom’s lead rather than impulse when dealing with the delicate matters of relational sensitivities. They are wisdom’s mouthpieces to bring the perplexing and the unknown into the light of revelation knowledge and to rescue gain from forfeiture at the hands of recklessness. Tears are welcomed upon the shoulders of empathy and compassion, as they fall not far from the heart of one who has been injured but not slain by that over which faith in Christ prevails.
Those old worn shoes have walked many miles on the feet of the soul who came looking for them when a hill was there to climb, a distance to walk, a race to run, another chore required completion and whatever use required this choice, it was because they were always there, they were worn and tested. Because they were the go-to over and over again, they were the ones that wore the mud, were soaked in the creek, bleached by the sun, and whose tread is worn.
Jesus is the ultimate go-to for every thirsty soul, broken heart, and those searching for meaning and purpose beyond what five senses can discern. He is the Alpha and the Omega, The Beginning and The End. He will always be the First and The Last.
Revelation 22:13
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.”
Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
The Lord has ordained His church to represent His character on this earth. His followers are anointed to be those sought out old worn shoes because they have been conditioned on the trails, hills, and rocky paths of life. They are the shoes meant for the journey of life; the kind that people look for.
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EnCOURAGEment fot the Week of September 11, 2022
The foundation for receiving Holy Spirit counsel in day-to-day life or speaking as one claiming to do so as prompted by the Holy Spirit, is provided in the Love of God, in the substance and in the light of scripture. It is not by feeling or personal agenda that we are guided at the expense of scriptural foundation or the manifest presence character of Christ.
Many things are spoken on behalf of God and claim divine authority for doing so. The Scriptures do make it clear that the Holy Spirit’s outpouring (according to Joel’s Prophecy as restated in Acts 2:17) is accompanied with the release of visions, dreams, and a prophetical anointing upon both the young and old and men and women. So, we know that the Lord does continue to speak into and through believers to reveal and to advance His specific and principled purposes.
Everything that is spoken for and/or done on behalf of God is to be evaluated. Man is not authorized to add to or to alter scripture. The Holy Spirit Himself, the author of scripture, exhorts believers to test every spirit as to whether they be of God.
1 John 4
Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world. 2 This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God: If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God. 3 But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard is coming into the world and indeed is already here.
While we are delighted to fellowship with the Lord and to walk in intimate relationship with the Lord through the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, we are to prayerfully and scripturally discern all things released for consumption claiming to come from the Lord.
How Do We Discern what is of Christ and what is not?
- Is what is being spoken or done supported by the weight of Scripture? (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21)
- Does it focus on and reflect the incarnate, crucified, resurrected, ascended, exalted, and returning Christ? (John 15:26)
- Is it ministered in love? (1 Corinthians 13:1-2)
- Does it bear witness with the indwelling Holy Spirit? (2 Timothy 3:6)
- Does it build the others up in faith, hope, and love? (1 Corinthians 8:1)
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of September 4, 2022
ACCORDING TO SCRIPTURES WHERE DOES THE ANSWER OF HOPE COME FROM?
The fallen world cannot heal itself.
The fallen world is broken, and it cannot heal shattered hearts
The fallen world cannot generate brotherly love.
The fallen world cannot restore humanity to wholeness as it does not possess the resources to do it.
The fallen world cannot restore moral and relational brokenness to health.
Depravity cannot restore the image of God in man.
Religion cannot restore the image of God in man.
Good works cannot restore the image of God in man.
People cannot restore the image of God in themselves or others.
* Only Christ can!
Isaiah 43:10-11
10 “You are My witnesses,” says the Lord,
“And My servant whom I have chosen,
That you may know and believe Me,
And understand that I am He.
Before Me there was no God formed,
Nor shall there be after Me.
11 I, even I, am the Lord,
And besides Me there is no savior.
Acts 4:10-12
10 let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. 11 This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ 12 Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of August 28
INFLUENCE
Influence is a gift and a sacred trust. So many desire to possess and wield it.
Christ is the greatest of influencers. As the saving influencer for anyone who would follow, He influenced by example. He came in humility. He honored the One who sent Him. He became a servant to others. He was a healer, a reconciler, the personification of Grace and Truth, a gracious teacher, a friend to those estranged from family and discarded by society. He laid His life down for friend and enemy.
1 Corinthians 11:1
Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.
John 13:14-16
14 And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. 15 I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. 16 I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of August 21
Rev. Richard Ritenour
FIVE THINGS THAT WE WILL NEVER FORGET
1. We will never regret releasing kindness into the lives of others. The return on kindness is not always and perhaps seldom, a reciprocation for such, but rather the things that are gained are often realized in terms of meaningful connections, relationships, and eternal significance. The greatest joy in showing kindness to others is knowing that Christ within our hearts has been introduced to others, in ways that make for visual and practical applications of His love and kindness to others.
2. Speaking the Truth with Grace and knowing that even when being firm and direct in response are required, that the fruit of the Spirit within will detoxify any encroaching disposition that would seek to hijack the moment. Honor will then be bestowed upon humility. Christ will be heard in the disposition of believers who do not allow godless expressions of emotions to preside over the challenges of relationship.
3. Forgiving others reveals how grateful we are for the Grace that God has shown to us and how much of an impact it is has made through our actions and reactions to others. When we are forgiven much and we understand that the forgiveness shown to us by God is undeserved, we live among others with grace rather than a life ruled by the spirit of offense.
4. Doing good is exactly what Jesus did and it is the practical call of God upon each believer’s life. Of all that Jesus did, His life and ministry were described in scripture as “doing good.” Doing good is what we were created to do.
5. Prayer is not a meaningless redundancy and those who consistently and earnestly pray, have a spiritual Guide known as The Holy Spirit who enables believers to speak with the Lord and to hear the things of God through His counsel. As in any relationship, communication is essential. Prayer changes many things naturally and supernaturally. God transcends time and space. He is all knowing, ever present, and all powerful. He desires to speak into the lives of the redeemed and to work in and through them. Prayer changes things.
Ephesians 4:31-32 Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. 32 Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.
John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Luke 6:37 “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven.
Romans 12:21 Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.
James 5:16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of August 13, 2002
Rev. Richard Ritenour
1 John 3:1
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are......
I am called to refuse the fraudulent claim that the old nature asserts in its pursuit of restored lordship over my life. I am compelled to lay down all before the altar of my Heavenly Father's Glory. I am abundantly alive when conquered and undone, in the revelation of The Father's redeeming love. My heavenly Father bestows indisputable victory of soul and spirit, through grace's redemption and conquest over that which once ruled my fallen soul. Christ's banner is raised over me, a temple of His dwelling, in what was once vacant, ruined within by depravity's contempt toward that by which I now stand redeemed. I am beckoned to the dangerous places to which the Holy Spirit guides me, where my flesh nature is sure to suffer devastating wounds. The Word of The Almighty is my right of passage to places where I have never been from which I will never turn back. Undone in Christ, transformation raises me up in Him, born anew to become what I have never been. I desire no return to what I once was. The past was cursed and today is Promise, and in that I choose to advance.
Philippians 3:7
But Christ has shown me that what I once thought was valuable is worthless
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of July 31, 2022
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Philosophy is the fluid expression or compilation of man’s anecdotal thoughts about many things including the meaning and values of life. Science is the systematic pursuit of finding through human investigation as well as a source for the formation of theoretical postulations as to the origins of life. Philosophy and science are not evil pursuits, but they are pursuits, that are guided by a number of factors and variables. Science involves research and discovery, with many discoveries having benefited mankind from the beginning. Philosophy is a formation of values underlying visionary leadership and a key to many positive advancements.
The Bible identifies God as its Author and it claims that through Him Life was created and that through Jesus Christ life, at its highest level, is given freely to those who receive His gift of Grace through His redemptive suffering and death.
As a student of God’s Word, I have come to believe that the Bible is the perfect revelation of that which inspires faith in God as the author of Life and the standard of validation for all other findings regardless of the vehicle through which they are presented. The scriptures require faith, not validation.
All other things that claim to provide and to require proof to support all findings or theories, bow before that which requires no validation, simply requiring faith, that is the Word of God. God never asks for man’s validation. Faith is a substance that transcends the limitation of human study and philosophy. That which is finite and limited can never truly assess that which is infinite and limitless.
This is not about pitting science, philosophy, and Christian faith against one another, it is about the transcendence and the sovereignty of God presiding over the creation to which He gave and gives Life. The Word of God validates, it is not subject to validation by lesser things. The Scriptures are the standard by which all other things are measured according to Its claims.
John 14:6
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
2 Peter 1:21
for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
Job 38:4-11
4 “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.
5 Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?
6 To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone,
7 When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8 “Or who shut in the sea with doors, When it burst forth and issued from the womb;
9 When I made the clouds its garment, And thick darkness its swaddling band;
10 When I fixed My limit for it, And set bars and doors;
11 When I said, ‘This far you may come, but no farther, And here your proud waves must stop!’
Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
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EnCOURAGEment for the Week of July 24, 2022
Rev Richard Ritenour
NOT GOD'S MISTAKE
God was not, and never will be, confused about who He created each one to be. To believe that we are God’s mistakes is to believe that His Word cannot be trusted. May each one identify with and celebrate God's design as revealed in scripture rather than being tossed around by ever changing personal feelings or cultural commentary and influence. Stand in The Truth of God's Word rather than getting caught up in the web of lies and the state of confusion. We all are loved and valuable in the eyes of The Creator. Jesus laid His life down for all, that His Truth would set people free to live confidently in His Father's design for each one's life.
Isaiah 44:24 “This is what the Lord says— your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the Lord, the Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself,
Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Psalm 139:14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well
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ENCOURAGEMENT
Week of July 17, 2022
What if My Feelings about God, Faith and Life are not Consistent with Christ’s Teachings or are possibly absent all together?
Psalm 144:15
….Happy are the people whose God is the Lord!
Feelings are wonderful experiential impulses given to us by God. Feelings are our internal sensations of happiness, sadness, excited anticipation, dread, confidence, doubt, enjoyment, displeasure, peace, distress, and a host of “feelings” in response to many different stimuli.
What if our feelings have fled or are oppressively ruining our lives? What if our feelings are triggered to extreme responses? What if feelings are absent all together? Feelings are sensory and depending what they are wired or tuned into, they can be healthy or unhealthy, honoring or dishonoring to God and others.
People who are consistently given to rage, consistent perceptions of victimization, or those who are numb to feelings both positive and negative, represent those who stand in need of deliverance or possibly medical, spiritual, mental and emotional counseling or treatments.
We all have times when we feel very deeply, and sometimes our emotions can run ahead of our character, and or our common sense. When we are consistently ruled by our emotions, it reveals a lack of depth or maturity in some other vital area of personal development. Emotions may not always accurately represent the appropriate response to a situation and our subsequent course of action.
When our feelings do not represent the character of Christ and they are unscriptural we bear the responsibility to host Holy Spirit led change and to bring our feelings back into alignment and under submission to the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence. We are not helpless and others are not always to blame for feelings that fueled a negative mindset, a faithless disposition or an indifference due to a lack of feeling.
If we are consistently mastered by our feelings, rather than energized by our faith in God, perhaps we have not grown deep enough into the rich soil of God’s Word and, or have not taken a revealing and truthful inventory of our hearts in soul-searching prayer. As we do that is when our hearts and minds can be recalibrated with the Truth of God’s Word and His Character.
It happens in the undesirable seasons of life and even in the best of times, that we may not feel inspired, we may not have any sense of God’s presence or of His love and we may walk through times of numbness.
The thing that is important to keep in mind is that our feelings are to be brought into alignment with the authority and content of the inspired Word of God. It is not what we feel, that is always true, but the Word of God is. It is not what we feel or do not feel but what the Word of God says. God’s Word is an indivisible and transformative extension of His Character.
When Simon Peter was exhausted after a fruitfulness night of fishing the Supernatural Jesus directed him out to the deep and though Peter was not feeling it, he obeyed the directives of the Lord and he launched out, catching so many fish that the nets began to tear (Luke 5:1-10.)
Sometimes when we embrace the opportunities that are afforded to us to connect with the Lord in fertile solitude and silence, the breakthrough of healthy spiritual emotion and feeling is released into our lives.
Psalm 46:10
Be still, and know that I am God,…
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Weekly EnCOURAGEment
Week of July 10, 2022
THE WORDS THAT JESUS SPOKE
John 6:63
63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you -they are full of the Spirit and life.
The Words that Jesus spoke were from His Father and were an extension of the very Divine Nature of God. He spoke nothing independently from that which The Father had given Him to speak.
Even in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus expressed his human desire that the Cup of this terrible of assignment be taken away, His heart was so aligned with the Will of the Father that He surrendered to His Father’s Will instead of to the impulses that were pulling upon His human nature.
A few thoughts regarding the Words that Jesus spoke:
1. He always acknowledged and honored His Father when He communicated anything on His behalf. That provides all of us with a tremendous example of honor and obedience. He was not merely compliant but He embraced His Father’s Words, Plans and directives.
2. Jesus spoke some things that were very comforting and some things that were very difficult for others to hear. But it was always God’s Truth and it was spoken with Grace. It did not always win the affection of people, but for those who received it, they experienced love, deliverance and freedom, life and hope.
3. What Jesus spoke was never frivolous or spoken out of a wrong disposition. Even when He spoke the hard things, Grace was always inherent in all that He spoke. His declaration concerning His role as the Good Shepherd who would give His life for the sheep, makes it clear that He loved beyond natural comprehension.
4. His Words were powerful and authoritative and that was because they were anointed by The Spirit of God.
Luke 4:18-19
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
* His Words held command over Sin, Sickness, Death, The Laws of nature, The Spirit World of both angels and demons, and His Words held command over hopelessness and lovelessness.
John 6:68
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
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Weekly EnCOURAGEment
Week of June 19, 2022
CLAY?
Isaiah 64:8
And yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We all are formed by your hand.
What I believe about God forms over time. What I believe about God determines how I will relate to Him and how my faith and life will represent Him daily among others. What I believe about God, must be drawn from a pure source, uncontaminated by unhealthy and unscriptural streams of influence that are not sourced from the springs of “living water” that Jesus spoke of.
There have been many voices and life experiences that have sought to steer others toward or away from certain beliefs and ideas about God. There have been and continue to be those things that influence personal faith, views, and relationships with God. There have been positive and negative life experiences and growth opportunities and interactions that have led others to examine scripture and to prayerfully examine and discern the integrity of the heart through its counsel and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Truthfully, and it must be God’s communicated truth, from which each believing life is liberated from small, distorted, imprisoning or imbalanced views of scripture and its transforming effect as revealed in its application in life, does Christ truly become Lord. Scriptural truth and the revelation of God, as provided through His inspired Word and from its substance and the context of personal and corporate relationship with God through Christ, requires prayerful humility and personal surrender to its author, that Christ be shaped in each one who professes His Lordship.
Like clay conditioned and shaped within the designs and hands of the potter, as placed upon a pottery wheel, followers of Christ are to be shaped by the hands of the Lord.
IMPORTANT THINGS TO CONSIDER ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF OUR FAITH, RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD AND ITS IMPACT UPON OTHERS.
1. Personal faith comes from hearing the Word of God. (Romans 10:17)
2. We must be prayerfully selective as to whom we give the powerful of spiritual influence in our lives. (2 Timothy 4:3)
3. We are to prayerfully and scripturally engage others in Truth and in Love, from the whole counsel of God’s Word and in humility. (Ephesians 4:15)
4. Knowledge without personal transformation makes one arrogant and ungracious toward others. Jesus changes our hearts not His Truth.
5. Scripture interprets scripture, meaning that we must have scriptural integrity and that comes from the whole counsel of God’s Word, not merely the cherry-picked portions that support our preferred narrative. (Matthew 4:4)
6. What we know, must be match by what is most important. (Matthew 23:23)
7. Scripture is God’s communication of His Person, His Love, His Plan, and His Promises. (1 Corinthians 8:1)
8. We are not to make converts to Christ-less religion. (Matthew 23:15)
9. We grow by God’s grace in faith, in Christ and as we are nourished and nurtured in His Divine, Exalted, Sovereign and Providential counsel, given in Word and in Spirit for personal and corporate transformation in Christ’s likeness that we might win and build up others in His Truth and Grace.
10. It is not what I feel, think, or even believe that determines the truth and authority of anything pertaining to God, but it is: (1) that which God has revealed about Himself through His Inspired Written Word (2) through the incarnate Living Word of God in Christ, and (3) from the counsel of His Holy Spirit. (Jeremiah 1:9)
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Weekly EnCOURAGEment
June 12, 2022
SOMETIMES IT’S WHAT YOU KNOW AND SOMETIMES IT’S WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW
2 Peter 3:17-18
17 You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; 18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Sometimes there is shelter and protection in not knowing certain things.
At other times knowing something is absolutely essential for personal growth and advancement.
A Christian’s growth in knowledge is relational and experiential in Christ. The first of these, “relationship,” is absolutely critical and is foundational to Christ centered growth and a knowledge of scriptural and spiritual matters. Unfortunately for many that is not widely known and understood, and that, tragically among those who profess a personal relationship with Christ at a surface level or on our own preferred terms. We can restrict greater spiritual growth by placing the priority of such at a lower level of premium than other pursuits of knowledge and experience.
Matthew 10:16
“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
1 Corinthians 14:20
Dear brothers and sisters, don’t be childish in your understanding of these things.
Be innocent as babies when it comes to evil, but be mature in understanding matters of this kind.
With knowledge comes great responsibility and accountability. There are many things that the need to know comes with age and development, and that for Christians unapologetically is framed within and built upon the context of scriptural instruction. The clear directives of scripture are not merely suggestions for those whose faith and conduct are guided by scriptural principles and Christian love. They are bedrock.
There are things that that we are not to become indulgently familiar with such as reckless disregard for the truth, causing harm to others, defamation of others, lying, lack of compassion, irreverence, vulgarity, and contempt for others to name a few. I am grateful for the transforming
grace of God afforded to me when I fall short. Grace is never a license for sloppy living.
1 John 2:1-4
My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. 2 He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins – and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.
For those who know Christ, teaching our children and grandchildren the facts of life must begin from a premise of Scriptural truth. Even when the scripture does not speak to an issue specifically or exclusively, it does provide the guiding principles of scripture for every part of life. The Bible is a book of Divinely given wisdom.
We as believers should never embrace ignorance and fall into gullibility but as we walk in truth and grace with, and among others, we walk on a path that is much too narrow for the accompaniment of godless acts and attitudes to travel with us over the long haul. Yet the grace of God makes room for others who will be encouraged to join the walk in the light that guides our steps forward in the best of all directions and to the best of all places in Christ.
In God’s love, and by His grace we are never at lost and we are never missing out of the false pleasures of sin and the indulgences that consume.
Wisdom, discernment, and personal conscience are essential, and we do not have to taste of the fruit when we know that it is the product of that which poisons the soul and the spirit. Love is the greatest of all reflections of who God is in our lives and when we walk in its way, we are not missing out on anything good.
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Weekly EnCOURAGEment
Week of June 5
GHOST HUNTING SEASON
On any given summer evening you can see groups gathering in search of ghosts, spirits, and chills in my community. People are always in search of a “para-normal” experience, that which defies logic and carries the potential to blow away one’s previous spiritual history and to excite future expectations.
People part with their hard-earned money for many things, in pursuit of a thing, an experience, a high, a laugh, or for an infusion of fear that will raise the bar of ones’ desire to know what he or she has not known, to see what he or she has not seen, and to be touched by what has not touched one before. There are countless, some greater and some lesser, aims and pursuits, and yet all are driven by a need or an urge, a desire to know that there is something more than this moment, something beyond what I know or have experienced. We desire to connect with the things that are next level, things that will reach deeper into our consciousness and take us into places and experiences that we can enjoy alone or with other “seekers.”
There is a Spirit that brings those who are touched by Him and filled, to a place of resonate peace and deep and inexpressible joy. Mystics search for experience and knowledge that elude the natural senses, a perceived truth that is more enlightening and provocative that will make today more.
It is given to us, a desire to know and to experience, but apart from the foundational knowledge of God in mind and spirit, the search and experimentation, though fascinating for a season, frequently leads to dry or poisoned wells. Running after something that is not part of the routine or the norm in life, to capture or to be captured by that which is perceived transcendent, and sublime is a pursuit that is common to people of every ilk. The range of spiritual pursuit and experimentation aims at many things, often with reckless disregard and without discernment, like driving a car riding on the rims and without fuel and without a credible destination.
Truth according to scripture comes from God. Truth cannot be simply created out of convenience or human rhetoric. The reality is that Scripture Truth releases the spiritual revelation of God, the ultimate communication from a God who freely communicates His person and His love for people. There are pursuits that truly reward and inspire and there are those which deplete and confuse. The pursuit of intimacy with God, who is from everlasting to everlasting, unlimited by time and space, who was and is and always will be, Holy and Exalted is not an exhausting quest. God is a communicator, a revealer, and The One who infallibly infuses revelation of Spirit without exhaustion.
The God of scripture is a communicator and a revealer. His interactions with those whom He Has created in His image are released in Spirit and Inspired Truth. Our divine creator reveals what can only be known in Spirit and in Truth. The spiritual world is real and yet there is only One who is infallibly True and Truthful, only one who transforms the lives of those who seek Him, those who respond to His wooing. “Spirit” with our truth is a realm that is dark and is navigated without a true compass, without a guide. The scriptures refer to the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of Truth” who guides into all truth.
Power without integrity is dangerous to all. Spiritual experimentation without the infallible guidance of scriptural truth opens our lives to the influence of many things. We are created with a spirit, and it is the spirit, when renewed in Christ and baptized in the Holy Spirit, that a believer is equipped to discern truth from error, light from darkness, and spiritual life from spiritual death.
God is Spirit and He can only be known intimately in Spirit and in His Inspired Truth. He can only receive worship that comes from man’s spirit and in Divine Truth.
We are given a spiritual nature, though broken through sin, and it is restored through a saving relationship with God in Jesus Christ.
Reckless or experimental spiritualism is casting a wide net into the dark seas of the unknown with the hope of catching something, the likes of which and the fruit of which are seldom, realized immediately to be what they truly are. It is often the opening of a pandora’s box of deceitful afflictions of mind, body, and soul, an enslavement of the fallen nature to the fascination of that which is shrouded in and screams from the darkness into our positioned and reckless desire.
The God of Scriptures reveals Himself to all who receive Him, in Spirit and in Truth. Jesus Christ declares Himself to be The Way and Truth and The Life, and only in Him can one come to the Heavenly Father.
God sent His Holy Spirit following the Ascension of Christ, to bring and to baptize believers into a spiritual life which is in-dwelt and empowered for life and faith, a life which is transformed righteously by the Truth of God which draws the heart, the mind and the spirit of the believer, to a life of inner peace that rest in the sublime knowledge and a life rested in the Love of a God who gives rather than demands and who leads to the still waters and the pastures of rest.
The character of God is that which brings people into life and one which liberates the soul from endless searching for “something else.” God reveals His love for all people, and His salvation is afforded to all in Christ. He reveals our true identity and our highest purpose for living. God leads, and as a Shepherd does not drive the sheep of His pasture. The interactions with God never defile, never compromise the conscience, darken the soul, or celebrate and advance evil. The being of those who know Him in spiritual and Scriptural truth are nurtured in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control - Galatians 5:22-23.
Ephesians 6:12
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
2 Corinthians 11:14
14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.
John 8:12
Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
John 3
19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
John 12:46
I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness.
1 John 1:5
This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
1 John 1:6
If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of May 15
WHAT’S YOUR TEAM SPIRIT?
1 Corinthians 12:12-14
12 For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. 13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free - and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. 14 For in fact the body is not one member but many.
TEAM SPIRIT is a shared passion and energy that brings team members together into a shared purpose, a shared goal, and a shared commitment to achieve the goal, as One.
TEAM SPIRIT is to be more than a concept. It begins as a concept emerging from a vision or a passion that is shared with others, who go from being a disconnected assortment of personalities, ideas, abilities, and passions, to being transformed from polarity to unity.
TEAM SPIRIT is the vital disposition that connects the ranks of the team from its Leadership and establishes cohesion and coordination as it moves forward.
The Scriptures provide the best example of Team Spirit. The Greater the mission or the goal, the greater the need for Team Spirit and Team unity. It is an undeniable reality that the Holy Spirit Baptizes the church into Purpose, Power, Passion and Promise to fulfill its individual and collective Mission, by His Power and for the Glory of God alone. The Spirit Filled Church exists to:
1. Worship and Glorify The Lord.
2. To Reach The World With His Redeeming Gospel
3. To Equip Believers from the Scriptures and Through Prayer.
Acts 1:8
8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Luke 24:49-50
49 Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
The Holy Spirit is the guide, the helper, the comforting counselor, an Advocate, an intercessor and The Spirit of Truth of whom Jesus spoke, “16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever - 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. - John 14:16-18.
We are saved by Grace through faith in Christ, when we turn to Christ for forgiveness and for cleansing from all sin, through His finished work on the Cross of Calvary, receiving freely and abundantly the grace that ushers us into Salvation through Christ. We are graciously given redemption through the death and resurrection of Christ, because of His shed blood.
The Holy Spirit then takes up residence with our hearts:
1. He raises us up in Christ unto Spiritual life. (Romans 8:12-16)
2. Bearing witness within that we have become Children of God.
3. He places His desire for our Heavenly Father within our hearts which cries forth “Abba”, “Father.”
4. We are united with Christ in the Holy Spirit to live the life that we could never know apart from His indwelling.
5. We are able to love as Christ loves because of the Spirit of the Lord that takes up dwelling within our hearts. (1 Corinthians 13)
6. We are joined in relationship with one another to Worship and to Serve our Lord, while sharing His Love and His Word with the World. (Acts 2:41-46)
7. The Holy Spirit joins believers together as a body and we are coordinated with one nother to Encourage and to Equip one another to live the life of believers and to serve His will. (1 Corinthians 12)
The Holy Spirit discloses insight into that which can only be scripturally and spiritually discerned in the lives of believers. Spirituality is not marked by pride and condescension toward others but through humility and graciousness.
1 Corinthians 2:9-16
9 That is what the Scriptures mean when they say,
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared
for those who love him.”
10 But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. 11 No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. 12 And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. 13 When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. 14 But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. 15 Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. 16 For, “Who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?” But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.
For a Born Again believer, the Holy Spirit indwells and fills, seals he or she as God’s possession in Christ, transforms, leads, directs, equips, and empowers all true followers of Christ to live lives that are raised up in Spiritual life to the Glory of God.
The Holy Spirit joins the members of the church into “The Team Spirit” of God The Father, through Jesus Christ!
1 John 4:13
13 And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us.
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of May 15
PLEASE TELL ME WHY
Deuteronomy 29:29
29 The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
There are scores of things that happen or fail to happen in our lifetimes which we do not and may not ever understand. No matter how much knowledge and wisdom that one may accrue or demonstrate, apart from the Lord no knows everything and no one will ever know everything, either in this life or in the life to come.
The Bible tells us that there are secret things that belong only to the Lord God. There is nothing in the heavens, on the earth or in the earth, and there is no distance that spans beyond the reaches of God’s knowledge and wisdom, and all things are subject to Him.
Sometimes God works in ways that defy even our scriptural understanding of who He is and the Promises that He has made. But He is True and Trustworthy in His sovereign operations.
Sometimes godly people of faith fail. They get sick and they die, even as scores of faith-believing prayers are lifted in agreement toward the throne of mercy. Followers of Christ go through adversities, the likes of which the faithless at times seem to skate by. Sometimes those who are doing great things and are critically involved in the advancement of Kingdom principles, engaged in great benevolence programs, offering life sustaining aid, counsel, comfort ministries, community advocacy, civic leadership, church ministry, and not the least of which, are those wonderful family members the Lord takes home before we are ready to let them to go. Doesn’t God see the good that they are doing, the potential for what they could have done, or the fact that I need them and I can’t imagine how I go forward in life without them? It is always terrible to see babies and children suffer, and to see them harmed. Why do babies have cancers and criminals allude the law? Why is there so much corruption in every sector of society? The list could go on and on, not for infinity but certainly for a long time.
There are jobs we believe that we should have gotten, deserved recognitions that never came, and inequities that have suppressed many. We have been at times victimized without justice.
There are those who believe that God is going to provide us with the answers to all of the mysteries and “unanswered” questions of life when we go to heaven.
First of all, Heaven requires a price for admission and the only currency accepted for such is the blood of Christ over our lives.
God owes us nothing. He is not indebted to us, and Heaven is not going to be about God answering for all of the things that we feel He needs to provide an explanation for.
It is inconceivable that anything outside of the knowledge of His presence and the pre-eminence of His Glory, will even matter to us at that point. His Holiness, His Goodness, His incomparably brilliant and iridescent Light, the Worship of His Exalted Kingship Surrounding His throne, and an eternal community of righteousness in Christ, (leaving behind our fallen nature) will dissolve all other obsessions.
We know that God is good, and His goodness is not subject to our approval or how that His Goodness fits in our preferred narrative. God is compassionate, sovereign, and just in all that He does. He is Good if He does nothing for us and yet He gave His precious Son for the salvation of whoever will call out to Him for redemption.
We are called to trust Him without condition and that is extremely difficult at times because we have not had many experiences in our lives where trust has been extended to that degree.
Revelation 21:4
‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of May 8, 2022
WHO DETERMINES WHAT GROWS IN YOUR GARDEN?
A garden tells a lot about the person who plants it. It’s care and what it produces are all part of the process. In some significant ways each person’s soul is like a garden. The condition of the soul is like the condition of the soil into which a gardener plans to plant a garden in.
What grows in the garden of my heart is determined by a number of factors:
HOW I PREPARE AND MAINTAIN THE HEALTH OF THE SOIL OF MY GARDEN?
♦ Hard ground, rocks and weeds are impediments to the Growth potential of a garden. Spiritually, when one hardens his or her Heart, what grows there will be limited by a lack of depth. (Proverbs 29:1)
♦ Ground has to be broken up to receive the seeds of that which is to be planted. Hard ground inhibits the process of the rain’s refreshment of the soil and the germination of the seeds. The ground cannot soak and retain the moisture if it is wicked away by its hardness. (Ephesians 4:18)
♦ Rocks have to be removed for the roots to grow and to attain the proper depth. Rocky soil makes it impossible for wide-spread and deep plant root development to take place for plants. Removing rocks can be a very tedious undertaking. It is not the most glorious of tasks, but it is essential for a productive garden to grow. A heart of stone is not receptive to the plantings of God’s Word and for the Fruit of the Spirit to grow. (Psalm 139:23; Ezekiel 36:26)
♦ Weeds require that nothing be done in order to grow and to take over the garden. Neglect is the most direct path to the Introduction, encroachment, and a hostile take-over by weeds. All gardens require weeding, as they will rob the good plantings of their nourishment and eventually choke them out. (Matthew 13)
♦ The soil must be regularly watered. Some plants require more, and others less, but all require the right measure of water.
WHAT TYPE OF SEED DID I PLANT IN MY GARDEN?
♦ Like one’s garden, one’s heart will only produce from what has been seeded there or has grown there as a result of neglect. Faith, Hope and Love are the most important things to be grown in our hearts. God causes the increase, but we are always responsible for its absence or decrease. (Galatians 6:7-8)
HOW DO I TEND TO MY GARDEN?
♦ Most plants require pruning for greater growth for a number of reasons. Nourishment cannot be wasted on the things that are dead and incapable of growth and production. Some things cannot accommodate life and have no potential. These things must be purged. (John 15:1-7)
HARVESTING THE CROP?
♦ Gathering the fruit or vegetables are a great part of the process to be celebrated and shared with others. In Christ we share with others from the healthy fruit that God has produced in the life of the one who has offered Him a heart prepared for the planting. (Galatians 6:9)
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of May 1, 2022
Ecclesiastes 1
1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”3 What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?
What is life without God’s perspective and purpose? According to Solomon it is described in a word, “meaningless,” a word that he uses four times in verse 2. He speaks of an existence without a knowledge of God.
If not for Christ’s Lordship, and for those whom He has placed as gifts and resources in the critical parts of life, an arduous journey finding small comfort in the void of false promises and behind the mirages of phantom comforts, one would be left with little more than the insatiable appetite of vanity, the tyranny of religious enslavement, and the gnawing of the harsh realization that life offerings are often “never enough” or seldom “live up to the hype.” The trajectory of life without a personal hope in God, would be directed by one’s subscription and offering oneself as prey to scores of shifting narratives that have been formed to the deliberate exclusion of the Lord, and of His greater desires spoken over and for those created in His image.
In Christ, our lives become more than the rotten fruit of a decaying world and the demeaning assessments of godlessness. Jesus came to liberate all who call upon Him and to remove the fallen nature from its usurping imposition as author and voice of the narrative over our past, present and future.
The most noble of human ambitions apart from Christ can never produce that which only the workmanship of God’s Grace and Truth can author. That is revealed in the miracle of spiritual transformation that raises a person up into abundant life out of the wreckage of crippling disappointment and failure. God has raised us from the captivity of faithlessness into a righteousness which is not our own but belongs solely to Christ which He bestows upon all who come to Him at the bequest of redeeming grace.
Personal repentance from sin and faith in Christ as one’s personal savior is the greatest difference maker in life. A foundation in Christ and the resources of that revealed though God’s Word and His Holy Spirit are incredible!!!! They rebuff the destructive forces of life’s storms, and they unlock and reveal the greatest treasures offered in this life and for eternity. Grace is God’s smile and Truth is God’s integrity, to honor every precept that His Word utters and the Divine Promises He has made.
As the Apostle Paul stated, “It is no longer I that live but Christ who lives in me, and the life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
It is when we come to Christ that we discover the depths of truth concerning our true identity, our real purpose for living, our highest calling, the Greatest Love, a Grace that is greater than all our sin, and a Hope that transcends our time here throughout eternity.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. - 1 Corinthians 13:13
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of April 10, 2022
CHRIST CONQUERED DEATH AND I CAN CONQUER NEGATIVITY
There is one person who determines my prevailing disposition and the manner in which I react to life and to other sojourners on its paths. That person would be me.
When we allow moments or people to harden our disposition or to ruin us, we give consent for that to be inflicted upon us. When we allow the fears that occasionally pay us a visit, to become guests in the chambers of our minds and eventually within our hearts, we have allowed the one who “steals, kills and destroys,” access through which He introduces all types of evil afflictions. We determine whether we will stand in victory over them in Christ or we will tragically surrender to the tyranny of a fear driven existence. I intentionally used the word “existence,” as many things exist but fail to advance and to mature in a healthy manner and to be productive.
There are storms that all of us will have to live through and what emerges from them will be determined by where we have stood during the tempests. If we have found shelter in Christ and upon the firm foundation of The Word of God, we will find that the storm is subject to the commands of the creator. The storm then, does not control the narrative, because the narrative to which we subscribe is The Inspired, Infallible and Inerrant Word of the Living God. His Word is our armor during the heat of the battle. He has provided for us the protection of our minds and our hearts, and He has shielded us through the Faith from which He has provided the substance necessary to provide protection against the very flaming darts of hell at all times. We will be maligned and we at times may be held in contempt by those who place insatiable expectations and demands upon us, knowing that we will never meet those standards. If we run here and there trying to find acceptance from every naysayer, it will become painfully clear to others and essential that we ourselves recognize the need to be personally reminded of a few things:
1) Who we are in Christ. (Romans 8:16)
2) What God’s Word has established as our focus. (Hebrews 12:2)
3) Our security is not found in creation but in the creator. (Hebrews 13:5)
4) We are clothed in Christ, and it is beneath the representation of His sacred Name and Lordship, that we as The Father’s children be enslaved to personal insecurity, hatred, spiteful behavior, jealousy, anger, bitterness, and the drive in the wrong direction of compulsively trying to win acceptance from others. False humility is manipulation as the Holy Spirit begs for its abandonment in exchange for the joy that follows sincerity and true humility. (Philippians 1:21)
5) God accepts the redeemed based upon what He has done for us and within our lives. (Titus 3:5)
I don’t hate others unless I have first consented for hatred to be seeded, watered, and grown in my heart. I do not live in fear unless I have stopped meditating upon the promises of God’s Word, and I have forsaken the counsel of the Holy Spirit. I don’t live a small, restricted life unless I no longer believe that “faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.”
God’s Truth sets me free; it claims me, and it makes my path secure and establishes who I am and who/what I serve and how I walk and where I go. It is the foundation for a steady focus and a clear direction. We are called to please the Lord God almighty and to know that He has already demonstrated His love toward us and for us, with an unbreakable and unconditional love. His Love empowers me to be who it declares me to be, to live the life that it empowers me to live, and to focus on His transcendence when that which is far beneath it calls me to be lesser than.
Ephesians 2:10
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
CHRIST CONQUERED DEATH SO THAT I CAN CONQUER NEGATIVITY!
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Weekly En"COURAGE"mnet
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of April 3, 2022
GOD HAS ALWAYS BEEN AND WILL ALWAYS BE
Everything about God is essential to every part of life prior to and beginning with initial creation and ongoing increase. There is nothing about God that is not essential to life, its purpose, balance, and its destination. All of our yesterdays, this present moment, the coming hours or the days, months, years, and the near and distant future are already known by God and He is in them all. His infinite presence presides there to make Himself known. Romans 1 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Nothing about God is created or random. He is not a myth, or a fairy tale and He is not defined by creation. He is not un-involved, and He is not foreboding unknown far above our knowing. He is a revelator, a communicator, and one who seeks intimacy of spirit with those who have been created in His image.
There is no such thing as self-creation and advancement from a universal design which brings forth order out of chaos from an empty seat, left to billions of un-superintended units of time as calculated by man. God moved upon the formless void that existed and He introduced light and life into it and made provisions for its continuation and order.
God is not dependent upon anything for His existence and all that lives is dependent upon God for its existence. God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. The phrase ex nihilo means “out of nothing.” Though the idea of creating something from nothing is dismissed by those who see such as a physical impossibility, stating that something always requires something else out of which it is to be made.
The scriptures teach that, “1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” Genesis 1.
Void, darkness covering the deep, chaos, and water were said to be present when the Lord began to create the heavens and the earth through His spoken command. The belief that God has always existed as the only uncaused cause, espouses that He predates everything that has ever existed and was created by Him. “The beginning” references the time of heaven and earth’s creation, by God, commanding into existence all that would be made. He creates “from nothing” and whatever was present (darkness, waters, void) when God created the heavens and the earth had been created by Him, were brought into order, and furnished by Him during the days of creation. It is also confirmed that God the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit were present when the beginning of creation took place.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Genesis 1:26
“ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” John 1:1-3
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. Hebrews 11:3
By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. Psalm 33:6
GOD HAS ALWAYS BEEN AND WILL ALWAYS BE! HE WILL ALWAYS BE FAITHFUL. PUT YOUR TEMPORARY CARES INTO HIS ETERNAL HANDS!
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of March 27, 2022
John 13
12 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.
What Jesus shared with His disciples on the night before His death is extremely insightful and powerful. He did not hold a rally. He did not incite his closest followers to become more politically connected and he did not enlist them to save Him from what was to come. What was about to come was coming for their benefit as well as for all who have and will come to know His salvation through the shedding of His blood and the ultimate selflessness of laying down His life. He did not call them to arms to revolt against those responsible for the cruelty that was about to be unleashed upon Him. Jesus was not a victim. He was a free will offering as a ransom paid in full to secure the salvation of whoever will call upon God in His name. He was a sinless Lamb, a sacrifice without blemish, offered in complete willingness and with a joy greater than anguish, because of the judgment that would be laid upon Him for us, that mercy would indeed triumph over judgment for all who believe. The Divine plan of the Father foresaw and provided for all that would be gained as a result of His Son’s sacrificial death and resurrection.
Jesus before supper, laid aside His garments covering himself with a towel as he washed the feet of each of His disciples. He washed the feet of both friend and betrayer, the Father’s children and the one who sold his soul to hell as his portion for betraying God’s Only Son. Jesus loved and served them all. That tells us much about what being a follower of Christ is about.
Jesus used these monumental moments in the intimate presence of His closest followers to leave with them the most important of all lessons. They were to be like Him. They were to love like He Loved. They would later realize that Jesus afforded the same act of kindness to the one who betrayed Him as he extended to those who loved Him and left all to follow Him.
Jesus did and shared what He chose to, because it was to be a lasting image in the minds and hearts of those who would be entrusted and equipped to seed and water this Gospel around the world in His name. Jesus revealed Himself as the Servant King to them.
All leadership in Christianity that is truly Christ-like never separates the call to service from the Humbling Honor afforded the calling in our lives as His ambassadors, regardless of the title or position. All believers are called to be servants of Christ and all believers never outgrow the calling to serve others. It is not as much a duty as it is a heaven sent and entrusted privilege.
Jesus taught that we are to regard integrity and service before public Honor. It is not uncommon for a person to seek honor and yet in God’s kingdom as we live by its principles on earth as it is the higher and more enduring honor to serve others as Christ did and that we do so for His Glory.
May God help us as His children to serve with selflessness of heart, which allows for true obedience to have its place and for Christ to be exclusively exalted on the throne within our hearts. Prestige among men may come with title and position, and many times the title and positioned are served well, but the Greatest honor will be conferred upon a child of God for his or her service, to the least of these All such rewards are then joyfully placed as the King of King’s feet.
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of March 20, 2022
IF GOD NEVER EXISTED AND WHAT ABOUT DEATH?
If God never existed, who established an awareness of a higher good, a moral law, and the internal and corporate desire to worship a God, perhaps an unknown God or even a rock? Where did love and truth come from? What distinguishes virtue and honor from evil and corruption, and why do we hope? Why do mystics seek out the supernatural, pursuing that which is paranormal and other worldly? There is a revelation, a knowledge, a connection and relationship sought for among those who may deny the existence of a Holy God who desires fellowship with all people and yet they pursue ghosts and phantoms, whispers and shadows from the past or voices from another realm. (ROMANS 1:20)
God has revealed Himself to those He created and to whom He imparted free will. He gave the function of choice to those He created in His image. Humans were created sinless and yet corruptible. God did not create a race of automatons, who would be programmed, devoid of the ability to choose and to love from free will. He was with the first man and woman as they walked in the garden during the cool of the day. When man sinned against God he then hid from his creator. (GENESIS 3:8-10)
When man sinned against His creator, he became estranged and over time God's presence and His revelation and truth were not welcomed in the schools of thought. Fallen thought attempted to seize the narrative and to re-define "the concept of God" and to dismiss His existence and substitute its ways for His. Yet try as many have, they could not and cannot erase the fingerprints of God over all the good that He has designed and created. Even the beauties of nature groaned for their creator in this fallen world.
God is a Communicator, and He is relational. He loves with a perfect love and with flawless integrity. He is not raised up to the standard. He is the standard. He is the Grace and Truth that raises us from the dust of our failed past. He is the breath of life that gives us the abundant life that cannot be found in our pursuit of things which the winds carry beyond our reach.
God has revealed His intense and immeasurable love, the greater, and even the greatest love of all, when His son became one of our kind, while as God he remained sinless, fearless, flawless, powerful, living in perfect obedience and honor to His Father. Jesus was God incarnate, The Way, The Truth, and The Life, not one of many ways, many truths, or one of many paths to Life. He is God revealed to us in human flesh, as the Light that offers all people, Hope and real life, against the dark backdrop of that which denies God and oppressively enslaves people in cycles of hopeless ignorance of His Redeeming Love.
Jesus died my death, he satisfied the demands required of me because of my sin, that I would be forgiven and be made fully alive during the breadth of my days graciously given to me by my God.
For a follower of Christ, death and the eternity that follows is not a question mark. In Christ it is an exclamation point, "Gone Home"! The Word of God makes it clear that as believers, in death, we do not leave home, we go home! Where God is, His Spirit draws us. In this life He leads and when we graduate from this school, He will draw us Home. I know God! I know that He is Alive! Knowing God changes everything!
When some ask whether God exists, there is no uncertainty among those of faith who have accepted the invitation that He extends to all, to know Him through Christ. His Spirit dwells within and we live and find rest in our Lord.
Once one responds to His compelling love, he/she will never doubt that there is a loving and saving God, even if others dismiss what they cannot explain.
Jesus Christ died and was resurrected, as the greatest proof of God's existence and love for all of us.
2 Timothy 1:12
But I am not ashamed of it, for I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return.
Romans 15:13
God has revealed His intense and immeasurable love, the greater, and even the greatest love of all, when His son became one of our kind, while as God he was sinless, fearless, flawless, powerful, living in perfect obedience and honor to His Father. Jesus, was God incarnate, The Way, The Truth and The Life, not one of many ways, many truths, or one of many paths to Life. He was God revealed to us in human flesh, come to be the Light that offers all people, Hope and Life.
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Weekly En"COURAGE"ment
Rev. Richard Ritenour
Week of March 13, 2022
As we celebrate the passion and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ during this time of observance, we sing corporately with great joy “He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus Lives today, He walks with me and talks with me all life’s narrow ways.” We can see the Love of God manifest in and through the incarnation, mission, ministry, suffering, death, and resurrection of the one identified in scripture as Immanuel “God with Us,” and “The Word become Flesh.”
During this Lenten season we consider that Jesus Christ came to earth according to the will of God the Father. He came as the incarnation of the Divine, and His interactions with, and response to, those for whom He would give His life to redeem, always represented a perfect ambassadorship of Divine Grace and Truth.
His mission was focused from the foundations of eternity on providing rescue for those who were lost. Matthew 20:28 tells us that His mission was and is “to seek out and to save those who are lost.” His ministry on earth was supernatural and it was brought forth in Divine compassion and goodness as the scriptures tells that the Lord “went about doing Good for God was with Him.” (Acts 10:38). The body of His work while on earth was a one of perfect submission to the will of The Father and incomprehensible compassion toward those who were “oppressed.” He did come into the world with the purpose of condemning it. Christ came to bring redemption to all who would believe and receive from Him, salvation. He gave His life as the perfect atonement for our redemption. His grace and mercy was extended to the darkest parts of our lives for the sake of securing our redemption.
The Lord suffered in my place, and he was afflicted because of all human transgression. The infliction of unjust prosecution was not a victimization forced upon The Lord. It was God’s deliberate placement of Himself beneath the full weight of judgment that would have crushed fallen humanity. Jesus’ life was not taken, it was given as a ransom, as an unparalleled offering of greater love. His death satisfied the punitive demands of all transgression, and His resurrection was the flexing of Divine muscle by which He shattered the chains of death, hell, and the grave.
He satisfied in full, the demands of the Law on behalf of every person and that satisfaction invites the whole world into its provision and shelter by faith in Christ.
Today, it is because Christ lives and because He lives within the hearts of the those with a saving belief in Him and a personal surrender to His grace, that real freedom resounds. Joy overwhelms sorrow. Light cuts down the darkness. Hope rises out of hopelessness. Grace conquers failure. Mercy is greater than judgment. Life destroys the Spirit of death.
Christ, according to scripture, is seated and exalted at the right hand of The Father. He makes intercession and provides advocacy for those who trust in Him.
The scriptures will always provide the foundation for all that Christ has done and for the salvation so richly provided to all who believe in Him.
John 3:16
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
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WEEK OF MARCH 6, 2022
YESTERDAY IS NOT LATE FOR GOD
The Lord is a redeemer. He completely redeems those who come to him in repentance and faith. The redemption of the Lord secures the past, the present and the future. Grace’s ownership of that which was imprisoned in spiritual bondage is complete. The hand of God does not forcefully drag us back into the past and it doesn’t continually replay the tortured sorrows and regrets of the past that are now beneath the blood of Christ. It does not take us back to a Christ-less past, but it takes possession of our past and rewrites the narrative of that which was. The reach of redemption lays hold of the past and the blood of Christ rewrites the narrative from one of shame and failure to one of beauty for ashes, because Mercy triumphs over judgment. Birthing a new creation in Christ from every broken life is miraculous and Salvation’s masterpiece. The scriptures make it clear that who we once were is not who we are today because of Christ.
Jesus greets us in the mirror of our past. The Spirit of the Lord escorts us in this present moment. The future would be unknown if Christ were not there but thank God He is there!
Whatever yesterday may have been it is not too late for God to rewrite life’s narrative, from lost to found, broken to restored, ruin to redemption, and hopelessness to Promise.
Luke 15:24
…. for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.
1 Corinthians 6:11
11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Psalm 103:11-13
11 For his unfailing love toward those who fear him
is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.
12 He has removed our sins as far from us
as the east is from the west.
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WEEK OF FEB. 27, 2022
REV. RICHARD O. RITENOUR
DOING GOOD
Galatians 6:9
So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.
Acts 10:38
And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good………
The “doing good” part of the Christian’ life is an outgrowth of becoming. What we do reflects what we are “becoming” by God’s grace and the internally transformative work of the Holy Spirit. The final and critical component of the ministry of “doing good,” is our willingness, availability, intentionality, follow through and follow up.
Willingness is perhaps more crucial than our skillset at times. If we are willing, we can acquire the skills necessary as we step up and step into an area of need and opportunity. Not every need or opportunity is ours to personally to step into but if our hearts are tender and we trust the Lord to show and confirm the needs and opportunities that are given to us directly to respond to, our willingness will progress into follow-through. Again, no person is everyone’s everything all the time. Only God can be that. But there are plenty of opportunities to “do good” that will not only benefit others but will advance our personal growth in Christ.
Availability is one step closer to “doing good” that grows out of a willing disposition to serve others. If one is willing, availability is the willingness to step into a specific area or realm of need. Availability answers the door when specific needs call upon our willingness to act upon situation.
Most acts of goodness are either thought out benevolences or acts of premeditated kindness in response to need. All acts of goodness are intentional outgrowths of a charitable disposition. Jesus was very intentional in all that He did. His acts of goodness were extensions or expressions of His character. As we grow in Christ we become like Christ. His compassion within us overwhelms our indifference. Insulation from those for whom Christ died is displaced by a desire to be His hand extended in places of opportunity and need. Our reluctance to serve others is put to rest by the inspiration of Jesus’ example as He washed the feet of those who knew as Him as their Master and Lord. He made it clear what their response was to be in light of His example. “And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet.” – John 13:14.
The integrity of our profession is known by the Lord and examined by others, in light of our “follow through” and “follow up” when given the opportunity to do good. The proof is found in the concrete witness borne regarding such, through our follow through and follow up. Follow through and follow up are most often book-ends. Both are extremely important. The Samaritan who paid for the care of the man who had been mugged and robbed, made it clear that he would follow up to cover the needs that went beyond his initial care. “35 The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.” – Luke 10. Acts of Kindness and “doing good” are precursors to a greater investment of “kingdom” capital.
When we are born again, into the transformative growth of becoming more like Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within, shapes us into Christlikeness in thought and behavior. Jesus lived a life of goodness, and His interactions were saturated with Divine goodness. The apostle Paul’s yearnings for the spiritual growth of those within the Galatian church would continue and were likened unto the disposition of an eagerly expectant mother “…..until Christ is fully developed in your lives.” – Galatians 4:19
Doing Good unto others is never wasted time or energy. It is productive and most importantly it Christ-like. As many have said, “don’t merely tell me that you care, show me that you care.” The Gospel in action is a most powerful sermon and a most compelling witness of Christ, among others.
James 2:17-19
17 So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.18 Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.”
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Week of February 20, 2022
Rev. Richard O. Ritenour
THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Luke 10
25 And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”
27 So he answered and said, "‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
28 And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”29 But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
If living out our faith in Christ were costless and relation-less, limited to that which is comfortable and convenient, the number of real subscriptions to it would be through the roof. The words and examples of Christ have always called out and confronted self-serving and prejudicial limits which serve to issue loveless deterrents to trespass among those not like us, enforced by the kingdom of self, contrary to the Father’s principles for the advancement of His Kingdom.
No one can honestly petition the heavenly Father with, “…your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven….” while smugly looking upward toward a self- constructed ceiling of Christ-less religion that obstructs the view of The King whose kingdom we are to seek the increase and advancement of. This is a kingdom which The Lord himself said, will be approached and entered by many as, “29They will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God. 30 And indeed there are last who will be first, and there are first who will be last.” - Luke 13. When the knowledge of God is obstructed by that which is man-made, truly perverse substitutions, for the Gospel of Grace and Truth, they tragically ensure the exclusion of its relentless authors and adherents from being in the Kingdom that increases only through Grace and Truth in Christ.
Our neighbors include those who live beyond the shadows of our steeples and who are often viewed as “un-church-able” because of the offensive nature of their lifestyles. Sin indeed corrupts and it is a cancer of the soul for which there is but one cure, the redeeming blood of Christ, shed for all. Sin is presently and ultimately judged by a Holy, Righteous, and Loving God, fierce in His redeeming pursuit of all people, the revelation of His Word, and saving advocacy offered to all who receive Him. The Holy Spirit equips us with discernment and to be bold in our declaration of Christ and Scriptural Truth, yet we are not the ultimate judges of this present sinful world. The call of our separation unto Christ and away from evil is certain, but turning the collective back of the church toward those for whom has Christ died would be an evil perversion foisted upon those who should be Christ’s Ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20-21.)
Our neighbors include other humans who often have little to anything in common with us, and may not share, but rather, fiercely oppose our scriptural values. Our neighbors may include those who love us, like us, are either tolerant or intolerant of us, despise us, or are indifferent about us, and many who, in spite of seeing us often, do not even know that we exist. Their life choices and lifestyles may range from being similar to our own to being far removed from ours. Their political affiliations, vocations, interests, and recreational choices may be similar to ours or off the charts different from ours. They may be as different from us as a certain Samaritan was to a certain Jew who had fallen victim to violent thieves on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem. None of those differences mattered when they came together in a crisis of need.
Sin infects and encompasses human nature, and its effects and consequences are evident in many, many ways. There is one saving cure. There is One Saving Redeemer and there is One Saving Message. We must not allow anything to restrict the flow of God’s saving Grace and Truth from our lives into the Neighborhood of human diversity. Diversity by design is that which is created by the Divine creator and is consistent with the Inspired Word of the Creator. Sin is not a skin color, and it is not the righteous freedom associated with godly human diversity. It is that which rebels against God’s Holy Designs, comes up short of God’s Glory or crosses the line into transgression which is sin. Diversity and Depravity are not always associated with one another. Depravity is the state and economy of a fallen world, and it is into the sea of Diversity that the nets of redemption are to be cast. Grace hauls out of the dark depths that to which God has assigned great value.
The bottom line is that everyone is my neighbor and without Christ I will never see them or value them as such. Anything that wrecks my neighbor’s life is not to be compounded by a shortage of God’s grace and mercy in my heart toward to them. Neighbors are those that we have not discovered yet, but God has sought to introduce us to them for the longest time.
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Week of February 13, 2022
Rev. Richard O. Ritenour
NEXT
Next is a loaded word. It is always at least one second ahead of us and we cannot capture it, because it instantaneously reloads each second of the day. What we do next either grows out of plan of action, what we do impulsively or how we respond to those things which happen beyond our foresight and control. Prayerful reading of God’s Word and allowing our lives to be led by the Holy Spirit makes for the better and more fruitful use of our time. Faith is an essential part of capturing the full benefit of what happens next. Faith sees the next minute as the Spirit of God provides a prophetical insight & application of God’s Word in the context that most completely advances the kingdom principles of God in and through our lives, in the “Next” that is rushing upon us.
A heart that is not being fashioned after the heart of God, through prayer and in scriptural light, is one that acts and responds recklessly to the volumes of what comes “Next” in our lives. The result as such is regrettably painful and adversely consequential and/or anemic. “Next” is coming and is gone with the reading of each word in this devotion and life is a rapid compilation of the past and that which was yesterday’s “nexts.”
The Bible gives scores of practical insights and life shaping principles, which include the following, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way.” – Psalm 37:23; “Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.” – Psalm 119:105; “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.” – John 16:13; “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” - Proverbs 3:5-6
A reckless life makes for a future of anxiety, paranoia, irrational behavior, and it progressively corrupts the things that which we have counted upon to guide us into that which is “Next.” “The wicked run away when no one is chasing them, - Proverbs 28:1 We cannot always in the natural see what is next, but by faith we can see the things that God sets before us that can only be captured by that which the Bible describes as “the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” – Hebrews 11:1
To live in personal relationship with God by faith, one is plugged into the Divine order and guidance structure that makes for the most productive and fruitful use of the “Next.” It is always wise to trust God. What comes “next” is not a surprise to His Omniscience and the future is a place where His omnipresence dwells and His Omnipotence rules.
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Week of February 6, 2022
LIVE AS A CHAMPION TODAY
There are the things that we have control over in life and there are things that we do not have control over. There are probably many more things in the natural order of things that we do not have control over than things that we do. But we do have the ability to decide what our disposition will be in each situation. That fact beckons to two things and that would be Faith and Trust. When we live in these dispositions we are never at a place of disadvantage.
Faith is described in numerous ways throughout the scriptures but for the sake of this devotion I will mention two of them. Faith is as essential as the air that we breathe as believers and it is the breath of God into our Spirits that enables us to set out our sights on things that we cannot presently see, hear, touch, taste or feel in the natural. If we do catch a glimpse of that which requires faith and obedience, it may come through a Word given us and, or a sampling of the larger portion of that which God purposes to release into our lives. Another aspect of Faith is our confidence in God’s ability to perform the supernatural, that which we have discovered to be naturally impossible without Divine involvement. “Now faith is the substance of things hope for and the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1. It is the mountain moving faith which Jesus spoke of and encouraged. “So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” – Matthew 17:20. This is a principle of operation, a dynamic that the Lord supplies the wherewithal for, in order for it to operate within the lives of those who follow Him. The Lord’s specific will and plan may unfold differently than that which we hope for, when He has prepared a path that leads to a much better outcome and advances our relationship with Him.
Trust is another critical operation essential to living in victory and peace. Whereas faith is an expression of our confidence in God’s ability to remove or transform a situation or an outcome, trust is a disposition and an attitude of confidence in His integrity, His plan, and His timing. It is a resolve that has been cemented in the integrity of God’s character, whether or not it aligns with our understanding or desires. His plan is infallible, and it is based upon His sovereignty and His concern for the growth and advancement of our “whole” person….body, soul, and spirit. Faith is at times our resolve to be believe God for the impossible and trust is our resolve is to stand upon the foundation of who the Word of God declares The Lord to be regardless of what we see, hear, touch, taste or feel. “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. 18 But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.” Daniel 3:16-18 ; “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” Job 13:15; “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;” “ 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6
Faith and Trust are greater than uncertainty and fear. In Christ, the Word of God is established and guaranteed through a Divine “Yes” and “Amen” to those who believe.
In Christ we are never at a disadvantaged position. He is always Greater than what we are up against, and His power and grace are always more than enough. God affords us every day and in every situation that which enables us to live as Champions in Christ. The Spirit of the undefeated Lord lives within us. In Christ, regardless of the circumstances or the challenges, “WE ALWAYS WIN!” Live AS A CHAMPION TODAY!!