The Cross

May 18, 2010 Teach me your way, O LORD,                                                      and I will walk in your truth;    give me an undivided heart,    that I may fear your name. Psalm 86:11 My dearest Sisters, Loved by the LORD of Life and death, Three tests before breakfast, "O how loved I am!" And how loved you are, when the Lord is relentless in His molding us into the likeness of His Son! It is then His Word lives and His Spirit convicts of sin and He allows us to be humbled, testing us. We are left pummeled as He is moves us from self-dependence to Christ-dependence. It most-often requires suffering to bring us to the end of ourselves. He is calling us to the Cross. Blessed be the Cross! Many of us love our Lord knowing we are assured of a blood-bought place in heaven, but few of us take up our cross and follow Him. (For that requires death to self and we side step that more than we want to admit.) Many of us desire comfort and few would choose suffering. We seek to rejoice with Him but avoid suffering embarrassment for His sake. He finds those who gladly share His feast but ignore the Cup.  Jesus said to them. "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?" Matt 20:22  We gladly confess His name in church, but avoid witnessing at every opportunity. We love Jesus as long it isn't coupled with hardship. We praise as long as we receive comfort from Him. T.K. As I considered these things I was ashamed. Often my love for Jesus is for my own sake! He waits, longing for me to find my delight in Him. If I am loving Him for His sake and not my own comfort, I will bless Him in trial, even if my heart is in anguish. When He withdraws His comfort, (His 'felt' Presence) teaching me faith-lessons and I struggle with loneliness over this loss, I have a choice... trust Him or not trust Him. My choice determines whether the trials will distract me from loving and enjoying Him.  I am so easily distracted! I pray Psalm 86:11 for myself. I find pain, emotional or physical, is a distraction. Wanting what God has seen fit to withhold or wanting things to be different or for a trial to be over feeds distraction. I find this is the same as doubting His love and care for me. There is no rest in distraction. When my heart is distracted from beholding Christ and His Cross, I am not embracing His purpose for me. I am blatantly refusing my cross and not embracing His Cross allowing self to find rich soil in which to establish a stronghold. Why do I fear to take up my cross? Is it lack of knowing Him intimately? In my head I know His Cross is life. He has gone before me bearing His Cross. If I die with Him, I will live with Him. Everything depends of the Cross. There is no other way to peace or purpose. No higher way, no safer way. Safety against the enemy. When I take up my cross am I willing to bear the Cross as long as He wills? The flesh will only yield to the Cross. To live a dying life is to live to God. Only where I count myself dead to sin will I know His resurrection life in me. Job cried, "though He slay me, yet will I trust Him". Do I love Him enough to cry out these same words? The powerful effect of the Cross with God, in heaven, in the blotting out of guilt, and our renewed union with God, is inseparable from the other effect- the breaking down of the authority of sin over man, by the crucifixion of self. Therefore scripture teaches us that the cross not only works out a disposition or desire to make such a sacrifice, but it really bestows the power to do so, and completes the work.- Andrew Murray Father,  Give us understanding of the Truth of the Cross. Take head knowledge and make it heart knowledge. Make us willing servants. Thank You forbeing a God who is at work in us, both to will and to do of Your good pleasure. Fill our hearts with a burning desire to know You intimately; for then we will embrace Your Cross and our cross. Teach us to count ourselves crucified with Christ, for it is Truth. Thank You for those who have gone on before and have nurtured us with words of Truth. We are Your purchased possession. Cherished and empowered to bring You glory and a lost world hope! Keep us faithful, keep us loving You, Keep us needing You. Keep us believing in the finished work of the Cross.  You have defeated the enemy, dealt with our sins and our old sin nature and given us freedom from the power of sin. Calvary is the secret of it all. And for this we praise You. I cry out for You to cause us to Love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength.' I pray in the power of the Name of Jesus, crucified and risen! amen embracing the Cross, az Galatians 6:14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

...on the way Jesus questioned His disciples, saying to them, "Who do people say that I am?"  They told Him, saying, "John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets."  And He continued by questioning them, "But who do you say that I am" Peter answered and said to Him, "You are the Christ."  Mark 8:27-29 My Beloved Sisters in our Savior,  5/11/2010 This morning as I was reading in the Gospels of Mark and Luke, it became very personal. I felt the question addressed to me. "Arlene, who do you say that I am?" I became very still, aware of His Presence. I was unable to look up as I digested this question. Who did I say that Jesus is? Everything that came into my mind, though definite Truth, seemed cliche. I felt the Lord asking me to go beyond the surface and consider who I deeply believed He was in my life. "Lord, You are life and breathe! You are the reason I can face today." He wanted me to go deeper....  This gentle loving voice I hear in my heart ask "What does your life say about me? What does your attitude and your actions say? What do your words say about who I am?"  More than uncomfortable, I didn't feel I had a response worthy of 'Who He is'. I in turn ask these questions of myself. 'Who do I say He is by my life daily to those I love, to strangers, to those in my life who are lost? What about when He allows hurt and disappointment and I am outwardly crowded and crushed, am I overflowing with joy and peace? When He allows me to be misunderstood do I maintain a sweet spirit? Does my life then tell the world He is faithful and His grace sufficient? That He alone gives joy regardless of trouble? All these questions against the backdrop of wanting to love Him perfectly! Further on in the passage is the answer to the struggle here. I had not noticed the succession of verses before now. Jesus immediately follows Peter’s profession with how He will suffer and die. (His Cross) Then in verse 34 it speaks of taking up ourcross (counting ourself dead to our old sin nature). He would soon die and they were to identify daily with His death in order to know His life in them. Was I following? denying? taking up my cross? Following Jesus instructions came the Transfiguration (imagine being a witness to this!!!!). Then the healing of the demon possessed boy. Finally, the statement I loved was in Luke 9:43...  And they were all amazed at the greatness of God. Read it again. Doesn't that make you want to dance and wave your arms in awe? sing or lay prostrate? When is the last time you were in awe over the greatness of your God? Some day we will hear our Great God say to us... "Enter into the joy of the Lord" this is our certain end! The end of everything that is so painful today for you who are deep in trials. Joy, not suffering is eternal! ac Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. II Cor 4:16-18 I hope today you will find the greatness of your God amazing. I pray you will embrace the question "Who do you say that I am?" Abba, How great You are my Father. Even if I fail to notice. Thank You nothing on earth can diminish Your greatness. Thank You for the day You take my face in Your hands and invite me to 'enter into Your joy'. Thank You for preparing a place for me. Thank You trials are temporary and joy eternal. Thank You for loving me with Your great love and deciding nothing can ever separate me from it. Thank You for sending the Lamb, perfect and holy, to become sin for me, He who knew no sin, that I might be made the righteousness of God. How great You are, how great Your plan. Thank You for indwelling me! You who spoke billions of galaxies into space have chosen me?!  I am in awe of You. Tears of awe and joy fill me. Your greatness is unsearchable. All glory, honor, praise be unto You. Move in my sisters hearts praise and awe of Your greatness. Encourage her this day. Pour out your Spirit on her in Jesus great name. amen Praying for each one of you by name... in His great love, az  Hudson Taylor was so feeble in the closing months of his life that he wrote a dear friend: “I am so weak I cannot write; I cannot read my Bible; I cannot even pray. I can only lie still in God’s arms like a little child, and trust.”... and that is all God asks of you, His dear child, when you grow faint in the fierce fires of affliction.  Do not try to be strong. Just be still and know that He is God, and will sustain you, and bring you through. “God keeps His choicest cordials for our deepest faintings.” “Stay firm and let thine heart take courage. Psalm 27:14