Category Archives: obedience to God

Grandma’s Song- “Still Small Voice”

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(Originally written to my nieces)

Grandma used to sing a chorus to you all when you were little, “Still small voice I hear you whisper. Still small voice I won’t be the same. Still small voice He’s reaching out to you. Still small voice calling my name.” The words are so very true!
But what is the still small voice of the Holy Spirit calling you for? Why does He whisper, reaching out to you, calling your name?
He is calling because He desires to be one with us. He wants to fill us entirely, totally and completely with Himself. It is what we were meant for, relationship of oneness with God. He calls desiring that we respond.
In order for us to go God’s way and to obey that voice, we have to leave our way behind. We cannot have both. Our way of our self-life only leads to death, darkness, and destruction because our way is not God’s.
Ephesians 1 talks about God’s way the still small voice has called us to. It is a life of spiritual blessings, becoming like Him- holy and blameless. It is a life of redemption and forgiveness from our sin. All of this accomplishes the one over arching purpose, He wants us to be ONE with Him!
We do not understand this because all we have ever known is separation from God. That is why the still small voice is calling to us. He wants to show us this oneness. We must listen to the voice. We must respond to the call! We must obey!!

“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—”
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭1‬:‭4‬-‭5‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The New Life is a Life of Holiness. (Part 1)

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We come to Jesus for many reasons: Perhaps we see our life is a wreck and we need Him to save us from our poor choices. Maybe we see the direction of our lives and realize that we are separated from Him, eternally lost, facing an eternity in hell. It is true that Jesus came to extend the invitation promised in John 3:16.

““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 ESV.

We come to Jesus longing for safety from hell, but that safety is not the totality of why Jesus extended the invitation to a relationship with Him. We are to become like Him. The question then remains, what is Jesus like?

He is Holy. He is set apart by His sinlessness, His purity, His perfection.

“but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”” 1 Peter 1:15-16 ESV

Reading these words may seem like an impossibility. It may seem that God has set the bar too high for us to jump. Let me assure you,God’s commands are for our good and for His glory!

Sin is like a cancer to our soul. It eats away and weighs us down with death, darkness, and destruction. God knows that the only way we can truly experience all His goodness and all of His life is for us to be like Him, free of sin!

He wants us to not only experience the assurance of salvation free from fear of punishment and hell. He wants His life to be flowing through us, His holy and pure life, free from the destruction of sin!

We may see this as nothing but impossibility. Because we know how badly we fail time and time again. Here is where the good news comes in.

We know that Salvation that gives us the assurance of eternity with God is free! Jesus paid the price. He did it all! Holiness that makes us more and more like Him, free from sin, is not what we conjure up and work on our own. Jesus works this within us when we give ourselves to Him 💯. He does it all!!

“For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”Philippians 2:13 NLT

There is more to be said about this. For today I want to encourage you to ask God to show you what all this means in your life.

(To be continued…)

The New Life is a Life Cleansed From Sin

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A few weeks ago I introduced the topic of the New Life. This is the life that Jesus suffered, died on a cross, and then rose from the grave so He could give it to us. It is a life of freedom from the chains of sin and darkness. It is a life no longer marred by the emptiness of our sinful choices to follow ourselves and our own way. It is a life full of God’s love.

We come to God well aware of our need for forgiveness. It is plain to see how short we have fallen of His holiness- His purity, His goodness. We know we have done wrong. We have the precious promise that when we ask for His forgiveness, He will forgive. BUT there is another part to that verse. He will “cleanse.” To cleanse is “to purify; to make clean; to remove filth” Webster’s 1828 Dictionary.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9 ESV

God’s promise is not only for forgiveness, but to make us clean- free of sin! This enables us to be like Him, the very thing for which He created us.

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

1 John 1:5-7 ESV

There are many who come to God wanting to accept the forgiveness He offers, but they neglect to walk as one who has been cleansed. They walk away from a time of asking forgiveness for their sins unchanged because they simply want to be free from the guilt they feel for the wrong that they have been done. But our God wants us to walk free from SIN that caused the guilt and darkens our life with its impurity. He longs to cleanse us! The question is “Do we desire to be cleansed from sin?” If we do, He gives us the power to walk free from the slavery of our sinfulness. May we not only accept His forgiveness, but walk as those who have been set free from our sin! May we live as those who are cleansed from our sins and full of His life and light!

The New Life is a Life of Forgiveness of Sin!

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Confession of sin and repentance of sin is like frequent weeding of a garden.

Sin is not a fun topic. In fact, I believe I’ve been harping on it a lot lately, but there is a reason for that. It is not to make us feel bad. It is to gain an understanding of how dangerous sin is. The simple fact is God hates sin. He hates it because He knows sin separates us from Him. He longs for us to be connected to Him. Sin makes us unhappy and miserable. Because the one thing we were created for was to be connected to God through relationship. Sin keeps us disconnected. We will never know our life’s purpose when we are bound and tied up in sin.

There is joy in coming to God with our sin and confessing it. There is joy in receiving forgiveness.

“Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight!” Psalms 32:1 NLT

There is joy in turning from sin and loving God with all our heart all, our mind, and all our strength, displaying that love with our obedience to all He has commanded. (Matthew 28:20)

In fact, recognizing our need to be free of sin, coming to God regularly and asking God to show us anything that is not of Him within our lives so we can be close to Him is imperative.

“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalms 139:23-24 NIV

Confession of sin and repentance of sin is like frequent weeding of a garden. It keeps the sin, that destroys the goodness of God growing in us, from taking root and reaping havoc in our lives.

God’s desire for us is freedom from the slavery of sin!

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1 NIV

The New Life is Loving and Being Loved by the Savior

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Growing up in a Christian home, my parents taught me that loving Jesus was a good thing. It is easy to have the understanding that loving Jesus and being loved by Him is good! Sometimes there is a lack of understanding of what exactly loving Him and being loved by Him means.

In order to understand what being loved by Jesus means, we need to understand why He came. The Bible talks about that reason:

“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”” Matthew 1:21 NIV

Jesus’s mission was to save us from our sins. Why is this so important? Sin destroys! As Andrew Murray said, “Sin is the cause of our misery.” If you are miserable inside, there is sin inside of you! You can be free!

The problem is we come to Jesus wanting to get relief from the misery of our sin or its destruction, but not necessarily the freedom from sin itself.

Jesus loves us dearly. He wants us to experience what He freely offers, a relationship with Him. This relationship will not only free us from sin. But it requires one thing that we often find very hard to do because we try to do it on our own. This requirement is that we love Him in return. That sounds easy enough… but to love Him is to give ourselves entirely, totally and completely to Him.

This means one more thing- obedience to Him and His Word.

Jesus said:

““If you love me, keep my commands.” John 14:15 NIV

Obeying Jesus commands is hard if we do it on our own and in our strength. It is only when we depend on Jesus that we can live free. How do we do this? We come to Him knowing He loves us. We want to love Him and obey. We give ourselves fully to Him each and every day. Surrendering our thoughts, desires, and wants to His thoughts, desires, and wants that we see in His Word. He empowers us by the Holy Spirit to live Free and to love Him fully.

“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19 NIV

He loves us, we love Him. The evidence of our love for Him is our obedience to what He says.

An Undivided Heart

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“Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭86‬:‭11‬ ‭NIV‬‬

This word of this song have rocked my world, and the verse it quotes just so happens to be the WOW (Name of Bible Study I attend) verse of the week.
What do I desire more than anything? Or maybe I should say “who” do I desire more than anything me and my ways or God and His ways?
Do I love Him enough to obey Him no matter what? Or do I love myself enough to do whatever I please? When I gave Him my heart did I give Him all or do I reserve a part for me? Have I given Him a heart that is undivided?

The New Life is a Life of Surrender.

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I got married to Rich when I was 21. I had lived from the time I was 18 until I was 21 calling my own shots away from my parents and on my own. I did what I wanted, whenever I wanted to, and however I wanted. But when I stood at the altar to marry him and said “I do”… that was over. In order for my marriage to work I had to surrender to partnership. It’s kind of like a three legged race. I am connected to Rich. We have to run together, working together or our life together would fall apart.

I gave myself to him. He gave himself to me. It’s a surrender. Marriage isn’t a 50/50 thing that isn’t what works. It is me giving 💯 of myself to Rich and him giving 💯 of himself to me.

When we come to Jesus and receive His New Life. We enter into another relationship of surrender.

“And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord…”

2 Corinthians 8:5 NIV

In order for our relationship to work in our lives we have to give ourselves entirely, totally and completely to Him. Our days of doing what we want, when and how we want to have to end if we desire to have Him working in our lives. We have to surrender ourselves to Jesus 💯. In turn He gives Himself 💯 to us— His love, joy, peace, guidance, etc… We come to Him saying “All I have and all I am is Yours.” He in turn will fill us with His New Life.

This surrender is not something that only happens at an event or a special time spent praying at an altar of prayer in church. This surrender is required from the moment our eyes pop open in the morning until they close in rest at night. (Actually through the night too.) It is 24/7.

It is like we are in a three legged race with God, connected. But in order for us to win we must stay in step with Him and yield to His guidance. We have to be attentive to His every move. This surrender becomes a reality as we come to know Him. We know how He is going to move by spending time in His Word and prayer.

If your life isn’t working like you thought it should be after you’ve prayed and asked God to help you, check your surrender.

Does God have all of you, 💯? Are you surrendered to Him every moment of every day?

The New Life is a Life of Knowing God!

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We can KNOW God! That statement seems to be a little out there if we only look at it through our human eyes, but it is so very true. In fact, to KNOW God is what we were made for, anything short of KNOWING Him will end in death and eternal separation, or hell.

What is KNOWING God? It is first hand experiential KNOWING. It is living a life of intimacy/ closeness to Him. This is the kind of KNOWING that Jesus spoke of:

“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” John 17:3 NIV

This KNOWING is the New Life. It is eternal life. It is the kind of life we all long for and desire. But it will not be realized within us unless we allow Jesus into our lives. If we keep Jesus at a distance and are content to just do good deeds or live a “good” life, or be a good person, we really don’t know Him.

Jesus warned us of us “trying to be a good person” on our own without really knowing Him.

“”Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” Matthew 7:21-23 NIV

What a sad outcome to a life! They never KNEW Jesus! The truth of the matter is what we do to make ourselves feel and look good are described as a bunch of “filthy rags” in comparison to a Holy sinless God. (Isaiah 64:6)

That is why if we want to experience the New Life that is eternal life, we must know God through a close and personal relationship. We must come to Him, believing in Jesus His Son, asking Him to forgive us for and cleanse us of our sinful lives. We must invite Him to come and live in us so we can KNOW Him. Then the New Life of knowing Him will grow. As we seek Him in His Word, He will change us to be what we needed to be all along. As we pray to Him, listen to Him, and OBEY Him, we will KNOW Him!

That KNOWING produces the promise in us New Life that is eternal. We will live connected to Him with no fear of eternal separation from Him or death in hell because we will KNOW our God and and His eternal life!

The New Life is a Life of Faith.

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Jesus has offered us the New Life, His own life that is abundant. The New Life is more than we could ask, think or imagine. It is His life working in us!

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,” Ephesians 3:20 NIV

This Life is a life of faith. Faith is defined by Andrew Murray as being, “Nothing other than the certainty that what God says is true.” It is believing the truth of the Word. It understands that each and every promise in the Bible is for the one who believes, as well as each and every command. If we want to live the New Life and experience it’s fullness we must receive the Word by listening, reading, studying, memorizing, etc. Faith comes by the Word of God. We must believe it is true through faith.

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Romans 10:17 ESV

When we truly receive the New Life in Jesus, we experience His intimacy and closeness, His power to break the chains of sin off of our lives, His freedom. When we are born again we have new desires. That desire is to no longer do things our old way following ourselves, but we desire to follow God. We want to please Him. We want to OBEY! This requires Faith. It requires seeking God in His Word.

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Hebrews 11:6 NIV

The New Life is a life that is a life of Faith that seeks God first. It is not a passive life. It is a pursuit! It grows as we seek God and believe what He says in His Word: The New Life of Faith!

What is the New Life Given By God?

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There has been a lot said about having your own personal “come to Jesus” moment. What a wonderful moment that is! It is the special moment we realize that we cannot live rightly. It is the time we see that we are being destroyed by our sins. It is the instant we see we are dead spiritually in those sins.

That moment, when we see we need the gift of New Life, is when change in our hearts begins. However, we may lack understanding of what that means. If we don’t understand, we will never fully receive the gift we have been given. This is because when we are given New Life in Jesus, we are to live in this New Life! New Life means a new spiritual heart. New Life means new desires, new thoughts- centered on God’s Word, and new feelings — the peace, joy, and love of God.
This is how we are to live and experience the New Life. If we are living short of this experience, we are living short of the best that God desires for us.
Jesus described this New Life by a term that is very familiar, but must be realized in our lives for us to have the New Life that is offered to us. This term is to be “Born again.”
In John 3 there is an account of a religious man who had a “come to Jesus” moment too. He came because He knew Jesus was from God,and He knew what Jesus did was amazing. But He did not “Know” Jesus at that point. This is not much different than us today when we come to Jesus. We know Jesus is good and He does amazing things, but we don’t “Know” Him intimately.
Jesus immediately told the man this:

“Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.””
‭‭John‬ ‭3‬:‭3‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Webster’s 1828 Dictionary says “To be born, is to be produced or brought into life.” We are all born physically into the life we are now living here in our flesh, but there is a New Life that “is produced or brought into our lives “ when we are Born Again. We are changed by this New Life in our manner of living and conduct. This is because God’s life- manner of living and conduct- is flowing in us!

This “New Life” isn’t just a life we get in eternity but it is life we experience now! What a gift!
May we not only have our “come to Jesus moment,” but may we be changed by it as we receive this New Life that is Born in us! Because Jesus says to us what He said to Nicodemus long ago:

“You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’”
‭‭John‬ ‭3‬:‭7‬ ‭NIV‬‬

That is where the New Life Begins!