When you were under the fig tree, I saw you —John 1:48

Worshiping in Everyday Occasions. We presume that we would be ready for battle if confronted with a great crisis, but it is not the crisis that builds something within us— it simply reveals what we are made of already. Do you find yourself saying, “If God calls me to battle, of course I will rise to the occasion”? Yet you won’t rise to the occasion unless you have done so on God’s training ground. If you are not doing the task that is closest to you now, which God has engineered into your life, when the crisis comes, instead of being fit for battle, you will be revealed as being unfit. Crises always reveal a person’s true character.

A private relationship of worshiping God is the greatest essential element of spiritual fitness. The time will come, as Nathanael experienced in this passage, that a private “fig-tree” life will no longer be possible. Everything will be out in the open, and you will find yourself to be of no value there if you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions in your own home. If your worship is right in your private relationship with God, then when He sets you free, you will be ready. It is in the unseen life, which only God saw, that you have become perfectly fit. And when the strain of the crisis comes, you can be relied upon by God.

Are you saying, “But I can’t be expected to live a sanctified life in my present circumstances; I have no time for prayer or Bible study right now; besides, my opportunity for battle hasn’t come yet, but when it does, of course I will be ready”? No, you will not. If you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions, when you get involved in God’s work, you will not only be useless yourself but also a hindrance to those around you.

God’s training ground, where the missionary weapons are found, is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint.

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September 10, 2012

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Lord, how to be a missionary for you is not a question that crosses my mind. How to live a life that reflects you IS the question I ask often, especially when I feel fear, anger or just plain old selfishness rising up inside.

And God says…”You are not worthy, or capable of being a missionary or reflection of Jesus. However
Jesus can live through you, and reflect himself. Once again the lesson is one of surrender. Surrender your life daily, take up your cross, and give up your life so that Jesus can live through you. You do not have to be worthy to accomplish this, you simply need to surrender. Acknowledge the Lord in all your ways, and I will make your paths straight. Seek first the kingdom of God and all that you need for your life……including the ability to reflect Jesus will be provided.”

The water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life —John 4:14

We are to be fountains through which Jesus can flow as “rivers of living water” in blessing to everyone. Yet some of us are like the Dead Sea, always receiving but never giving, because our relationship is not right with the Lord Jesus. As surely as we receive blessings from Him, He will pour out blessings through us. But whenever the blessings are not being poured out in the same measure they are received, there is a defect in our relationship with Him. Is there anything between you and Jesus Christ? Is there anything hindering your faith in Him? If not, then Jesus says that out of you “will flow rivers of living water.” It is not a blessing that you pass on, or an experience that you share with others, but a river that continually flows through you. Stay at the Source, closely guarding your faith in Jesus Christ and your relationship to Him, and there will be a steady flow into the lives of others with no dryness or deadness whatsoever.

Is it excessive to say that rivers will flow out of one individual believer? Do you look at yourself and say, “But I don’t see the rivers”? Through the history of God’s work you will usually find that He has started with the obscure, the unknown, the ignored, but those who have been steadfastly true to Jesus Christ.

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September 7, 2011 (Reprise Journal entry from 2011)

Thank you Lord for the fountain of life, love, peace and joy. We used to talk about “peace meters” and other ways to tell if we were really connected to you, but we talk about that less and less now. Over time
and a bit of history and experience it is easy to know if we are truly connected to you. It is not necessarily explainable, but we just “know” when we are connected to You. We just “know” when Your fountain of living waters flow through us. And Lord, the peace, love and joy we experience, reflects desire to stay right here with you in Your fountain. And we understand that our fountain continues freely flowing as we give away the blessings You provide. I am not really certain how to accomplish this but stand ready and eager to be used in this fashion.

And God says…”You will not be aware of the blessing you are to many people and circumstances. I cannot tell you, as you cannot carry the burden of glory. It is toxic to you. But you will know it is a fountain freely flowing as your love, peace and joy is manifested in you.  Simply continue to ask to be changed from the inside out and be willing to be used by Me and many blessings will flow without your knowledge or awareness.  You will, however, be aware that your connection has been secured as you live moment by moment.”

He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water —John 7:38

A river reaches places which its source never knows. And Jesus said that, if we have received His fullness, “rivers of living water” will flow out of us, reaching in blessing even “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8) regardless of how small the visible effects of our lives may appear to be. We have nothing to do with the outflow— “This is the work of God, that you believe. . .” (John 6:29). God rarely allows a person to see how great a blessing he is to others.

A river is victoriously persistent, overcoming all barriers. For a while it goes steadily on its course, but then comes to an obstacle. And for a while it is blocked, yet it soon makes a pathway around the obstacle. Or a river will drop out of sight for miles, only later to emerge again even broader and greater than ever. Do you see God using the lives of others, but an obstacle has come into your life and you do not seem to be of any use to God? Then keep paying attention to the Source, and God will either take you around the obstacle or remove it. The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all obstacles. Never focus your eyes on the obstacle or the difficulty. The obstacle will be a matter of total indifference to the river that will flow steadily through you if you will simply remember to stay focused on the Source. Never allow anything to come between you and Jesus Christ— not emotion nor experience— nothing must keep you from the one great sovereign Source.

Think of the healing and far-reaching rivers developing and nourishing themselves in our souls! God has been opening up wonderful truths to our minds, and every point He has opened up is another indication of the wider power of the river that He will flow through us. If you believe in Jesus, you will find that God has developed and nourished in you mighty, rushing rivers of blessing for others.

Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord,
Thanks you for making it simple. Not easy but at least simple. Just keep our focus on you and the let the river flow … wherever it flows. It is indeed a simple formula … but not easy to stay on track with in the busyness of life.

Just keep the goal in mind, and focus on me. You will find when looking back that you have been a blessing to people you didn’t even think of at the time. I will let you know when you need to re-focus. You’ll feel it. It’s the function of the Holy Spirit. You’ll learn to discern the nudges from Him and differentiate from the guilt trip of the enemy.

It’s true I have been surprised sometimes about who has been blessed by something I’ve done. I guess it’s better not to plan to be a blessing so much as to focus on you and get into your plan … which is blessing people. Be an unconscious blessing?

Yes, when you plan it, sometimes your plans push my plans for blessing aside.

I see that my safest path to maximum growth and blessing for others and myself is to stay focused on you and stay in your plan. Thanks

Stay here and watch with Me —Matthew 26:38

Watch with Me.” Jesus was saying, in effect, “Watch with no private point of view at all, but watch solely and entirely with Me.” In the early stages of our Christian life, we do not watch with Jesus, we watch for Him. We do not watch with Him through the revealed truth of the Bible even in the circumstances of our own lives. Our Lord is trying to introduce us to identification with Himself through a particular “Gethsemane” experience of our own. But we refuse to go, saying, “No, Lord, I can’t see the meaning of this, and besides, it’s very painful.” And how can we possibly watch with Someone who is so incomprehensible? How are we going to understand Jesus sufficiently to watch with Him in His Gethsemane, when we don’t even know why He is suffering? We don’t know how to watch with Him— we are only used to the idea of Jesus watching with us.

The disciples loved Jesus Christ to the limit of their natural capacity, but they did not fully understand His purpose. In the Garden of Gethsemane they slept as a result of their own sorrow, and at the end of three years of the closest and most intimate relationship of their lives they “all . . . forsook Him and fled” (Matthew 26:56).

“They were all filled with the Holy Spirit . . .” (Acts 2:4). “They” refers to the same people, but something wonderful has happened between these two events— our Lord’s death, resurrection, and ascension— and the disciples have now been invaded and “filled with the Holy Spirit.” Our Lord had said, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . .” (Acts 1:8). This meant that they learned to watch with Him the rest of their lives.

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September 5, 2012

Lord, thank you for the reminder to watch with You, not just for You…but how do I actually do that? How can I watch with You and look at things like You would, when I often have trouble just avoiding bad or selfish decisions? How can I actually watch with You, like You do when I am so inwardly focused on
the issues of my life and those of my friends and family? Oh, I see, it is You watching through me.

And God says…”When you allow Jesus to live through you, by simply focusing on Him, He lives through  you. When you take his “blood and body”, you take Him to live in you and through you. When you are connected it is not you that lives, but Jesus in you. Imagine life when Jesus lives through you…..Seek first the kingdom of God, which is Jesus, and all you need or require will be provided for you in this life.”

They were Yours, You gave them to Me . . . —John 17:6

A missionary is someone in whom the Holy Spirit has brought about this realization: “You are not your own” (1 Corinthians 6:19). To say, “I am not my own,” is to have reached a high point in my spiritual stature. The true nature of that life in actual everyday confusion is evidenced by the deliberate giving up of myself to another Person through a sovereign decision, and that Person is Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit interprets and explains the nature of Jesus to me to make me one with my Lord, not that I might simply become a trophy for His showcase. Our Lord never sent any of His disciples out on the basis of what He had done for them. It was not until after the resurrection, when the disciples had perceived through the power of the Holy Spirit who Jesus really was, that He said, “Go” (Matthew 28:19; also see Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:8).

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26). He was not saying that this person cannot be good and upright, but that he cannot be someone over whom Jesus can write the word Mine. Any one of the relationships our Lord mentions in this verse can compete with our relationship with Him. I may prefer to belong to my mother, or to my wife, or to myself, but if that is the case, then, Jesus said, “[You] cannot be My disciple.” This does not mean that I will not be saved, but it does mean that I cannot be entirely His.

Our Lord makes His disciple His very own possession, becoming responsible for him. “. . . you shall be witnesses to Me . . .” (Acts 1:8). The desire that comes into a disciple is not one of doing anything for Jesus, but of being a perfect delight to Him. The missionary’s secret is truly being able to say, “I am His, and He is accomplishing His work and His purposes through me.”

Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord.
Thank you for wanting us so intensely. Your love is perfect … Mine is a work in progress. Your commitment to me is perfect … mine toward you, a work in progress. Your grace to me, perfect. My grace toward others and even myself … once again, a work in progress. So thanks for not giving up on me. Like the man who said “I believe, Help my unbelief” In this context, I say, “Lord I’m making progress, Help my lack of progress”…….

It is true, all my children are work in progress. Your journey is toward Christ-likeness. How far and how fast you travel on that journey is up to you. How far and how fast you journey toward Christ-likeness is something you will carry with you into eternity … so give that project the attention that it deserves. More than any other. Let it not be an addendum to a full schedule.

Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven —Luke 10:20

Jesus Christ is saying here, “Don’t rejoice in your successful service for Me, but rejoice because of your right relationship with Me.” The trap you may fall into in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service— rejoicing in the fact that God has used you. Yet you will never be able to measure fully what God will do through you if you have a right-standing relationship with Jesus Christ. If you keep your relationship right with Him, then regardless of your circumstances or whoever you encounter each day, He will continue to pour “rivers of living water” through you (John 7:38). And it is actually by His mercy that He does not let you know it. Once you have the right relationship with God through salvation and sanctification, remember that whatever your circumstances may be, you have been placed in them by God. And God uses the reaction of your life to your circumstances to fulfill His purpose, as long as you continue to “walk in the light as He is in the light” (1 John 1:7).

Our tendency today is to put the emphasis on service. Beware of the people who make their request for help on the basis of someone’s usefulness. If you make usefulness the test, then Jesus Christ was the greatest failure who ever lived. For the saint, direction and guidance come from God Himself, not some measure of that saint’s usefulness. It is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for Him. All that our Lord gives His attention to in a person’s life is that person’s relationship with God— something of great value to His Father. Jesus is “bringing many sons to glory . . .” (Hebrews 2:10).

Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord
It is so easy to slip back into keeping score and evaluating our performance and service. And when we do that we usually step back from the closest relationship we can have with you. Help me today to walk close with you and keep the long term view – heaven’s view.

That’s the right formula. All other formulas will distract you from that and dilute our relationship.

Jesus said to her, ’Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?’ —John 11:40

Faith must be tested, because it can only become your intimate possession through conflict. What is challenging your faith right now? The test will either prove your faith right, or it will kill it. Jesus said, “Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me” Matthew 11:6). The ultimate thing is confidence in Jesus. “We have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end . . .” (Hebrews 3:14). Believe steadfastly on Him and everything that challenges you will strengthen your faith. There is continual testing in the life of faith up to the point of our physical death, which is the last great test. Faith is absolute trust in God— trust that could never imagine that He would forsake us (see Hebrews 13:5-6).

Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord,
That was pretty harsh what Oswald said,”The test will either prove your faith right, or it will kill it.” It makes me wonder if my faith for some of the things I prayed for many years ago that didn’t come to pass … was killed? Or I just missed it? Some of the things that didn’t come to pass, you changed my desires and I saw that what did come to pass was better than what I wanted initially. But some are still out there … unfulfilled. Is that like Paul who asked about his thorn in the flesh three times and you said “My grace is sufficient for you?”

Yes, it is kind of like that but dont jump too quickly to abandon your requests. My grace is indeed sufficient for you and for Paul. But remember, I am God of the unexpected … and so it MAY be that when you have abandoned the intensity of your prayer, that I will bring the answer. There is a difference between totally giving up your prayer and your whole spiritual life and just backing off the intensity and going into a patient waiting mode. That is the way to wait for un-answered prayer … with curiosity and an underlying expectation and belief in my goodness and good plans for you. It’s time to remember Jer 29:11 … and dont take it out of context. My children were waiting, with unanswered prayers for deliverance (v 10) Jeremiah 29:11

The Message (MSG)
10-11This is God’s Word on the subject: “As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are up and not a day before, I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.

. . . one of His disciples said to Him, ’Lord, teach us to pray . . .’ —Luke 11:1

Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the natural man. We hear it said that a person’s life will suffer if he doesn’t pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer. When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve or nourish that life. Prayer is the way that the life of God in us is nourished. Our common ideas regarding prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.

“Ask, and you will receive . . .” (John 16:24). We complain before God, and sometimes we are apologetic or indifferent to Him, but we actually ask Him for very few things. Yet a child exhibits a magnificent boldness to ask! Our Lord said, “. . . unless you . . . become as little children . . .” (Matthew 18:3). Ask and God will do. Give Jesus Christ the opportunity and the room to work. The problem is that no one will ever do this until he is at his wits’ end. When a person is at his wits’ end, it no longer seems to be a cowardly thing to pray; in fact, it is the only way he can get in touch with the truth and the reality of God Himself. Be yourself before God and present Him with your problems— the very things that have brought you to your wits’ end. But as long as you think you are self-sufficient, you do not need to ask God for anything.

To say that “prayer changes things” is not as close to the truth as saying, “Prayer changes me and then I change things.” God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person’s inner nature.

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Journal Entry-JDV

Lord, thank you for this lesson that reminds us that our circumstances matter, not at all.  Doing your will regardless of our circumstance shall put us in a state of joy. Most of us are chasing joy, or are simply trying to chase the fear of our circumstances away. Over time it is finally starting to sink in Lord, that if
we seek you and seek to do Your will, we will find joy, and a peace that passes all understanding, as you meet all our needs ….

And God says…” Yes that is the story. Jesus is the water that quenches your thirst. He is the bread that satisfies your hunger. Seek Him, and be saved from concerns about your needs. You will still have needs, but you will also have the absolute certainty that I am meeting all your needs, all the time, according to My riches in Glory.  Trust in Me with all your heart and do not rely on your own understanding (or circumstances) and I will make your paths straight”.

. . . one of His disciples said to Him, ’Lord, teach us to pray . . .’ —Luke 11:1

Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you . . . —John 12:35 

Beware of not acting upon what you see in your moments on the mountaintop with God. If you do not obey the light, it will turn into darkness. “If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). The moment you forsake the matter of sanctification or neglect anything else on which God has given you His light, your spiritual life begins to disintegrate within you. Continually bring the truth out into your real life, working it out into every area, or else even the light that you possess will itself prove to be a curse.

The most difficult person to deal with is the one who has the prideful self-satisfaction of a past experience, but is not working that experience out in his everyday life. If you say you are sanctified, show it. The experience must be so genuine that it shows in your life. Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent or self-gratifying; that belief came from the pit of hell itself, regardless of how beautiful it may sound.

Your theology must work itself out, exhibiting itself in your most common everyday relationships. Our Lord said, “. . . unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). In other words, you must be more moral than the most moral person you know. You may know all about the doctrine of sanctification, but are you working it out in the everyday issues of your life? Every detail of your life, whether physical, moral, or spiritual, is to be judged and measured by the standard of the atonement by the Cross of Christ.

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August 27, 2012

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Lord, thank you for reminding me that I can live out my sanctification by simply turning my eyes to you. Thank you for the lesson about living out my life as a believer. I know that I cannot be more moral than the scribes and Pharisees, I cannot be a shining example to others….I am just to, to, weak. So thank you for living the life I want to live inside of me and for being the example through me that I cannot be myself.

And God says…”Once more you learn the lesson of surrender. The only way any man or woman can live the life of a sanctified believer is to focus on Jesus and His finished work on the cross. And remember, all that is needed for you to live a sanctified life is Jesus, and your surrender. Jesus does not need your cooperation, support or “good behavior”; He only needs your surrender. It is not a partnership, nor are you required to “do your part”. You are required to surrender and allow the transforming power of the Holy Spirit to sanctify you.”  

Matthew 5:3 (MSG) “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord,
I like the idea of not forgetting in the dark what you’ve shown us in the light. My issue has been being 100% sure of a thing I think you are showing me. If I’m only 80% I may wait … and miss the whole opportunity. Perhaps we never get to be 100% sure, this side of heaven. Except we can be 100% surrendered and then we can be sure of at least our next step. So once again, the sure path is walking with you … not in a set of rules or a check list of performance. Thanks for that. I love you.