Archive for the ‘CO2’ category

The Eternal Goal Nov 17, 2010

November 17th, 2010

By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing . . . I will bless you . . . —Genesis 22:16-17

Abraham, at this point, has reached where he is in touch with the very nature of God. He now understands the reality of God.

My goal is God Himself . . .
At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.

“At any cost . . . by any road” means submitting to God’s way of bringing us to the goal.

There is no possibility of questioning God when He speaks, if He speaks to His own nature in me. Prompt obedience is the only result. When Jesus says, “Come,” I simply come; when He says, “Let go,” I let go; when He says, “Trust God in this matter,” I trust. This work of obedience is the evidence that the nature of God is in me.

God’s revelation of Himself to me is influenced by my character, not by God’s character.

’Tis because I am ordinary,
Thy ways so often look ordinary to me.

It is through the discipline of obedience that I get to the place where Abraham was and I see who God is. God will never be real to me until I come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ. Then I will know and can boldly proclaim, “In all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee.”

The promises of God are of no value to us until, through obedience, we come to understand the nature of God. We may read some things in the Bible every day for a year and they may mean nothing to us. Then, because we have been obedient to God in some small detail, we suddenly see what God means and His nature is instantly opened up to us. “All the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen . . .” (2 Corinthians 1:20). Our “Yes” must be born of obedience; when by obedience we ratify a promise of God by saying, “Amen,” or, “So be it.” That promise becomes ours.

Journal DJR Nov 17,2010
Good Afternoon Lord. Kieth Green hit hard in the music today … “if you cant bring 100%, dont bother coming at all” … Wow. That’s not what we mainly hear in the contemporary Christian music. … But I notice that You said stuff like that a fair amount. And we just dont hear it. Or we are blind to it or we somehow explain it away by the other things you said about grace…. How are we to balance these things?
The answer is in the song. Just obey and you wont need to theologically confuse yourself. That is what a (well trained) child does. And I said, “come as a child”
Makes sense. I do have a tendency to over analyze and allow seeming contradictions to stumble me, when your simple answers are there all along. Thanks for hiding them in plain sight.

Arguments or Obedience

September 14th, 2010

. . . the simplicity that is in Christ —2 Corinthians 11:3



Simplicity is the secret to seeing things clearly. A saint does notthink clearly until a long time passes, but a saint ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You cannot think through spiritual confusion to make things clear; to make things clear, you must obey. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will only think yourself into further wandering thoughts and more confusion. If there is something in your life upon which God has put His pressure, then obey Him in that matter. Bring all your “arguments and . . . every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” regarding the matter, and everything will become as clear as daylight to you ( 2 Corinthians 10:5 ). Your reasoning capacity will come later, but reasoning is not how we see. We see like children, and when we try to be wise we see nothing (see Matthew 11:25 ).

Even the very smallest thing that we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is completely sufficient to account for spiritual confusion, and spending all of our time thinking about it will still never make it clear. Spiritual confusion can only be conquered through obedience. As soon as we obey, we have discernment. This is humiliating, because when we are confused we know that the reason lies in the state of our mind. But when our natural power of sight is devoted and submitted in obedience to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the very power by which we perceive God’s will, and our entire life is kept in simplicity.

The Opposition of the Natural 12 9 2009

December 8th, 2009

Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires —Galatians 5:24

I just had to put this one in there too……..   just had to.

The natural life itself is not sinful. But we must abandon sin, having nothing to do with it in any way whatsoever. Sin belongs to hell and to the devil. I, as a child of God, belong to heaven and to God. It is not a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself, my natural independence, and my self-will. This is where the battle has to be fought. The things that are right, noble, and good from the natural standpoint are the very things that keep us from being God’s best. Once we come to understand that natural moral excellence opposes or counteracts surrender to God, we bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us would debate over what is filthy, evil, and wrong, but we do debate over what is good. It is the good that opposes the best. The higher up the scale of moral excellence a person goes, the more intense the opposition to Jesus Christ. “Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh . . . .” The cost to your natural life is not just one or two things, but everything. Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself. . .” ( Matthew 16:24 ). That is, he must deny his right to himself, and he must realize who Jesus Christ is before he will bring himself to do it. Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.

We should also beware of the righteous indignation of superiority as we compare our “growth and awareness” to those that have placed themselves on a high moral platform of religous legalism. In doing this we become what we just opposed. It is simply surrender to God not opposition to anything else that keeps us connected. We are not to compare ourselves to anything or anyone, except perhaps as we look back at our own lives and what God has done because and due to our surrender. JDV

The natural life is not spiritual, and it can be made spiritual only through sacrifice. If we do not purposely sacrifice the natural, the supernatural can never become natural to us. There is no high or easy road. Each of us has the means to accomplish it entirely in his own hands.

While this may seem contradictory to the concept of grace, what we have in our hands is the ability or choice to surrender anything and everything out of our hands and onto the cross of Jesus. Connected to the Spirit of God (with the Holy Spirit inside of us) means disconnected from the natural. ….JDV/DJR

Luke 9:23
Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me.

It is not a question of praying, but of sacrificing, and thereby performing His will.

We can and will know when we have transcended the natural because our circumstances will scream at us to “do something” and yet we remain at peace knowing that God has us right where He wants us to be, in His will not knowing what will occur next. But “KNOWING” whatever occurs in our lives, it is the will of the God of the Universe. This “knowing and trusting” is supernatural……. JDV

Phillipians 4:7 Darby Translation

7and the peace of God, which surpasses every understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts by Christ Jesus

Job 22: 21
Acquaint now yourself with Him [agree with God and show yourself to be conformed to His will] and be at peace; by that [you shall prosper and great] good shall come to you.

November 20, 2009 The Forgiveness of God

November 20th, 2009
The Forgiveness of God
In Him we have . . . the forgiveness of sins . . . —Ephesians 1:7
Music For Today……. What It Feels Like
Beware of the pleasant view of the fatherhood of God: God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That thought, based solely on emotion, cannot be found anywhere in the New Testament. The only basis on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ. To base our forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us to His favor is through the Cross of Christ. There is no other way! Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony at Calvary. We should never take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our sanctification in simple faith, and then forget the enormous cost to God that made all of this ours.

Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. The cost to God was the Cross of Christ. To forgive sin, while remaining a holy God, this price had to be paid. Never accept a view of the fatherhood of God if it blots out the atonement. The revealed truth of God is that without the atonement He cannot forgive— He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God through the atonement of the Cross. God’s forgiveness is possible only in the supernatural realm.

Compared with the miracle of the forgiveness of sin, the experience of sanctification is small. Sanctification is simply the wonderful expression or evidence of the forgiveness of sins in a human life. But the thing that awakens the deepest fountain of gratitude in a human being is that God has forgiven his sin. Paul never got away from this. Once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vise, constrained by the love of God.