I have been crucified with Christ… —Galatians 2:20

We make it our aim…to be well pleasing to Him. —2 Corinthians 5:9

“We make it our aim….” It requires a conscious decision and effort to keep our primary goal constantly in front of us. It means holding ourselves to the highest priority year in and year out; not making our first priority to win souls, or to establish churches, or to have revivals, but seeking only “to be well pleasing to Him.” It is not a lack of spiritual experience that leads to failure, but a lack of working to keep our eyes focused and on the right goal. At least once a week examine yourself before God to see if your life is measuring up to the standard He has for you. Paul was like a musician who gives no thought to audience approval, if he can only catch a look of approval from his Conductor.

Any goal we have that diverts us even to the slightest degree from the central goal of being “approved to God” (2 Timothy 2:15) may result in our rejection from further service for Him. When you discern where the goal leads, you will understand why it is so necessary to keep “looking unto Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2). Paul spoke of the importance of controlling his own body so that it would not take him in the wrong direction. He said, “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest…I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27).

I must learn to relate everything to the primary goal, maintaining it without interruption. My worth to God publicly is measured by what I really am in my private life. Is my primary goal in life to please Him and to be acceptable to Him, or is it something less, no matter how lofty it may sound?

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Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord
Some of these scriptures seem to promote getting back on a squirrel cage or climbing a ladder to prove ourselves worthy enough and our experiences with that mentality have not been good. We’ve come to believe that you don’t use guilt as a motivator with your children… even though some of your servants use it regularly. Can we arrive at the same place, being “approved to God”, well pleasing to you, etc” from a motivation of love instead of a motivation of guilt and penalty avoidance? Perhaps acknowledging these scriptures that seem to invite us to judgement and striving but spend our time and mental energy on the others? Meanwhile placing the “hard to understand” ones at the foot of the cross and wait for you to reveal them further … in your time.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.
Philippians 4:8

“All coins have two sides. You can focus on one while knowing the other exists. You can live and breathe in the scriptures like Romans 8:28 and Jeremiah 29:11. You can preach them and sing them and encourage crowds with them. Leave these other scriptures to me and Holy Spirit to reveal to each person. If you preach about judgement and measuring up… it will be heard by ones who are not ready to hear it and they will default to a “motivation by guilt” and that is not my way. I will show each of my children what I need of them in my time and my way.”

We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ… —2 Corinthians 5:10

As they followed they were afraid. —Mark 10:32

At the beginning of our life with Jesus Christ, we were sure we knew all there was to know about following Him. It was a delight to forsake everything else and to throw ourselves before Him in a fearless statement of love. But now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is far ahead of us and is beginning to seem different and unfamiliar— “Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed” (Mark 10:32).

There is an aspect of Jesus that chills even a disciple’s heart to its depth and makes his entire spiritual life gasp for air. This unusual Person with His face set “like a flint” (Isaiah 50:7) is walking with great determination ahead of me, and He strikes terror right through me. He no longer seems to be my Counselor and Friend and has a point of view about which I know nothing. All I can do is stand and stare at Him in amazement. At first I was confident that I understood Him, but now I am not so sure. I begin to realize that there is a distance between Jesus and me and I can no longer be intimate with Him. I have no idea where He is going, and the goal has become strangely distant.

Jesus Christ had to understand fully every sin and sorrow that human beings could experience, and that is what makes Him seem unfamiliar. When we see this aspect of Him, we realize we really don’t know Him. We don’t recognize even one characteristic of His life, and we don’t know how to begin to follow Him. He is far ahead of us, a Leader who seems totally unfamiliar, and we have no friendship with Him.

The discipline of dismay is an essential lesson which a disciple must learn. The danger is that we tend to look back on our times of obedience and on our past sacrifices to God in an effort to keep our enthusiasm for Him strong (see Isaiah 50:10-11). But when the darkness of dismay comes, endure until it is over, because out of it will come the ability to follow Jesus truly, which brings inexpressibly wonderful joy.

…you are that one’s slaves whom you obey… —Romans 6:16

Preach the word! —2 Timothy 4:2

We are not saved only to be instruments for God, but to be His sons and daughters. He does not turn us into spiritual agents but into spiritual messengers, and the message must be a part of us. The Son of God was His own message— “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). As His disciples, our lives must be a holy example of the reality of our message. Even the natural heart of the unsaved will serve if called upon to do so, but it takes a heart broken by conviction of sin, baptized by the Holy Spirit, and crushed into submission to God’s purpose to make a person’s life a holy example of God’s message.

There is a difference between giving a testimony and preaching. A preacher is someone who has received the call of God and is determined to use all his energy to proclaim God’s truth. God takes us beyond our own aspirations and ideas for our lives, and molds and shapes us for His purpose, just as He worked in the disciples’ lives after Pentecost. The purpose of Pentecost was not to teach the disciples something, but to make them the incarnation of what they preached so that they would literally become God’s message in the flesh. “…you shall be witnesses to Me…” (Acts 1:8).

Allow God to have complete liberty in your life when you speak. Before God’s message can liberate other people, His liberation must first be real in you. Gather your material carefully, and then allow God to “set your words on fire” for His glory.

Journal DJR
Good morning Lord,
What about “Bold Strokes?” …Chambers concludes, “Gather your material carefully, and then allow God to “set your words on fire” for His glory.” Other language might be, “Grab life by the horns…” or “Carpe Diem.” We see that Paul certainly lived that way, both before and after your meeting with him on the Damascus Road. And you yourself took Bold Strokes a few times like tipping over the tables and driving out the merchants. I have two questions about Bold Strokes. The first comes from the times I’ve stepped out boldly in a direction, and it turned out to be the wrong direction. I assume, with the benefit of hindsight, that if I had been surrendered and connected, as we are now learning, that I wouldn’t have made those mistakes?

Yes, you’ve got that right. You can even think that you are doing right or doing good, but if you are not surrendered and connected with me, your own mind can easily lead you astray. And remember, there is an enemy that wants you astray. He has sweet sounding words, logical sounding words…

OK, I see that surrender and connection and Carpe Diem with Bold Strokes, when the time is right, is something that I’ll be working on for the rest of my days here. And maybe there. but we’ll talk about that another time.

The background of the other question is Saul-Paul’s life before and after Damascus Road. Before Damascus, he took bold strokes, albeit misdirected, like some of my initiatives. And after his surrender, connection and re-direction, he continued to take bold strokes. The question is what about the person who doesn’t naturally take bold strokes? In any direction, either good or bad? Should we aspire to do so? Can we change such seemingly hardwired personality traits?

You cannot, but I can. So the answer is, “Yes, We Can” Together, through surrender and connection, I can empower the most timid saint in bold strokes. In fact, if you read history, you will see many timid souls who became bold when I needed them. Moses and Jeremiah and others said they were unqualified and not ready… But with surrender and connection to my Spirit, they boldly “spoke truth to power” and changed history. You may not see a Pharaoh in your life that needs to be spoken to with bold strokes… Set my people free, like Moses did. But expand your thinking into metaphor and parallels, and you will see that there may indeed be Pharaohs in your life that need exactly those same bold strokes. Pharaohs and Kings, like addictions and destructive habits, need bold strokes. But don’t bother in your own will power. You’ve tried that and have experienced the same success as 95% of the New Year’s Resolutions that are made. Wait for my empowerment. That comes thru surrender and connection. Only then can you take those words and run with them…

“Gather your material carefully, and then allow God to “set your words on fire” for His glory.”

Do you also want to go away? —John 6:67

I have been crucified with Christ… —Galatians 2:20

To become one with Jesus Christ, a person must be willing not only to give up sin, but also to surrender his whole way of looking at things. Being born again by the Spirit of God means that we must first be willing to let go before we can grasp something else. The first thing we must surrender is all of our pretense or deceit. What our Lord wants us to present to Him is not our goodness, honesty, or our efforts to do better, but real solid sin. Actually, that is all He can take from us. And what He gives us in exchange for our sin is real solid righteousness. But we must surrender all pretense that we are anything, and give up all our claims of even being worthy of God’s consideration.

Once we have done that, the Spirit of God will show us what we need to surrender next. Along each step of this process, we will have to give up our claims to our rights to ourselves. Are we willing to surrender our grasp on all that we possess, our desires, and everything else in our lives? Are we ready to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?
We will suffer a sharp painful disillusionment before we fully surrender. When people really see themselves as the Lord sees them, it is not the terribly offensive sins of the flesh that shock them, but the awful nature of the pride of their own hearts opposing Jesus Christ. When they see themselves in the light of the Lord, the shame, horror, and desperate conviction hit home for them.

If you are faced with the question of whether or not to surrender, make a determination to go on through the crisis, surrendering all that you have and all that you are to Him. And God will then equip you to do all that He requires of you.

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Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord,
This surrender thing. We’ve seen that it is so essential. And it seems so simple…Just surrender. But it’s so easy to take things back after we’ve surrendered them and start doing our best and worrying about how things will turn out. Maybe I was fooling myself. Maybe I didn’t really surrender after all.

No, you did surrender, to the extent you could at the time. But you can only surrender today. It’s like manna. Sometimes you may have to surrender something multiple times a day. Then for a time, you will have to re-surrender some things daily. As long as you are walking the Earth, things will crop up that will attract your attention and worry. You can learn to trust me and not worry. That kind of faith is like a muscle, exercise it, stretch it, use it, or lose it.

1 Peter 5:7 The Message

6-7 So be content with who you are, and don’t put on airs. God’s strong hand is on you; he’ll promote you at the right time. Live carefree before God; he is most careful with you.

In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. —Romans 8:37

Paul was speaking here of the things that might seem likely to separate a saint from the love of God. But the remarkable thing is that nothing can come between the love of God and a saint. The things Paul mentioned in this passage can and do disrupt the close fellowship of our soul with God and separate our natural life from Him. But none of them is able to come between the love of God and the soul of a saint on the spiritual level. The underlying foundation of the Christian faith is the undeserved, limitless miracle of the love of God that was exhibited on the Cross of Calvary; a love that is not earned and can never be. Paul said this is the reason that “in all these things we are more than conquerors.” We are super-victors with a joy that comes from experiencing the very things which look as if they are going to overwhelm us.

Journal DJR
Good morning, Lord. We liked the wording … “A saint doesn’t know the joy of the Lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it.” And the word picture of the experienced surfer thrilling at waves that would terrify the beginner. I suppose the only way to get to be like that surfer is to face bigger and bigger waves? Bigger and bigger challenges in life?

You can never gradually build up to all of the challenges that will come your way. You may build up your trust in one area but there are so many different challenges that may come… you will never be able to build up to all of them. And besides… the analogy kind of breaks down, because the surfer is gradually building trust in HIS ability, not mine. Rather what you need is to build your belief that whatever the circumstance, that, “I’ve got this.” I’ve got you covered. Covered with my love. My grace. Regardless of the physical circumstances that may look bad or good, just believe that I’ve got this.

Romans 8:28(NLT)

28 And we know that God causes everything to work together[a] for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

Images like these and stories like Paul rejoicing in prison, are good for you to practice the way you look at life. Just remember that the goal is not to rely on your own increasing abilities. But that “I’ve got this” no matter what happens. Then you can be filled with joy regardless of yucky circumstances.


(From Kayak Session Short Film of the Year Awards 2015)

Feed My sheep. —John 21:17

This is love in the making. The love of God is not created— it is His nature. When we receive the life of Christ through the Holy Spirit, He unites us with God so that His love is demonstrated in us. The goal of the indwelling Holy Spirit is not just to unite us with God, but to do it in such a way that we will be one with the Father in exactly the same way Jesus was. And what kind of oneness did Jesus Christ have with the Father? He had such a oneness with the Father that He was obedient when His Father sent Him down here to be poured out for us. And He says to us, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21).

Peter now realizes that he does love Him, due to the revelation that came with the Lord’s piercing question. The Lord’s next point is— “Pour yourself out. Don’t testify about how much you love Me and don’t talk about the wonderful revelation you have had, just ‘Feed My sheep.’ ” Jesus has some extraordinarily peculiar sheep: some that are unkempt and dirty, some that are awkward or pushy, and some that have gone astray! But it is impossible to exhaust God’s love, and it is impossible to exhaust my love if it flows from the Spirit of God within me. The love of God pays no attention to my prejudices caused by my natural individuality. If I love my Lord, I have no business being guided by natural emotions— I have to feed His sheep. We will not be delivered or released from His commission to us. Beware of counterfeiting the love of God by following your own natural human emotions, sympathies, or understandings. That will only serve to revile and abuse the true love of God.

Journal DJR
Good morning Lord,
So we are to “Feed your sheep” That works for me as I get joy and satisfaction from encouraging people and sharing what I’ve been given. But details of how and who and where and what I feed which sheep…. leaves lots of room for “error”
It becomes clear that I cannot make feeding sheep into a method, complete with policy and procedure manuals, org charts etc. Well, I could, and I have, but when I did that, I was “leaning on my own understanding”

Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.

Trusting and submitting are things that you can do to a person… Or you can trust and submit to methods and lists or even a manifesto or constitution. But the results won’t be the same. Trusting and submitting to a person allows for a customized relationship, especially for you in your circumstances. A method or manifesto cannot do that. Methods and lists are “one size fits all” The list is the list. Don’t get me wrong, lists have value, but only a personal relationship can customize and maximize that value. The “Method” of living that I have led you to…. Surrender, Connection, Curiosity and Obedience only works in Relationship with me. Usually I will lead you to something that may have been on your “List” anyway, but it will be the right choice at the right time and place. And sometimes I will lead you to something that wasn’t on the list, something that is outside the box and breaks the rules. It is safer to stay in the box and follow all the rules. But I didn’t. And I’m calling you out of the safe box with the safe methods and rules, to “Feed my sheep” with my customized plan that I will reveal to you step by step as we go.