Sunday VT – 03/29/2015

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Speakers:

Steve Atherton
Karen Hocker

Scriptures used:

Psalm 37
Isaiah 55:6-9
Isaiah 58:13-14
Philippians 3:1-14
Hebrews 10:38

Subject:

I will not forget your love for me, and yet, my heart forever is wandering.
The Lord’s agenda is not our agenda.
Ps 37:4 delight thyself also in the Lord and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Delighting ourselves in the Lord is doing what He would have us do and doing His agenda and not our own agenda.
The Lord has good things in store for us if we delight ourselves in Him. We don’t even realize the things He has for us.
Delight thyself in the Lord is when more than anything in the world, the thing that you want is Him.
Jesus was not alone, though the disciples didn’t get it, His Father did not leave him. As far as anyone joining Him in that endeavor, He was all alone. He had people who stood with him (the 11), then after He resurrected, then they saw.
Delight yourself in the Lord: I can tell you, if your desire above every other thing is to serve your Heavenly Father, God is plenty big enough to use you.
“The Time Machine” has an interesting point: the people are like children in simplicity, and everything is provided for them. They don’t have to do anything, they are weak. This was the natural end of people who lived at ease after generations. There is a mantra in America that you don’t want your children to have to go through the things you went through. But it is the passing through these things that brings the greatest growth in people.
People faced all sorts of hardships in history and the people as a result became strong and courageous. Then you start moving into the ease, and the men become effeminate. In spirit, this same thing is going on today.
In Philippians Paul talked about how he pressed toward the mark. It doesn’t matter what is going on with you, rejoice in the Lord! He gives you hope, when your heart and mind are set on His ability, not you and your measly ability, then all things become possible. That hope gives you the energy to go forward, the fuel.
The dogs, the evil workers, the concision are going to come against you all the time. You need to love them, because they don’t know what they’re doing. There has not been a people who have set their affections on things above, who care not about the things of this earth. It is a fact of life. The devil has a hold of individuals, and then they take pride in the fact of it, and they consider it to be good, even though it is killing them. What do you do? Lift them up in prayer. He is bigger than all of that.
Rejoice in the hope of that deliverance for that individual. You have a hope not in that individual but in Jesus Christ.
People consider ministering as ministering to another’s flesh. This actually causes them to move away from the Lord and not toward Him. This is phelios, and comfort. This makes you sit still and do nothing because you feel satisfied. Then you will not fight.
Paul was a Pharisee who clung to the law more than anyone. He had zeal for what he thought was right. Those in the world lifted him up. Those things that profited him, he was willing to get shed of. Everything. He was ready to give it all up without exception. He suffered the loss of ALL things. Let’s compare ourselves to Paul. Did he go and try to get those things back? No, he counted all those things as dung.
We don’t even have to have confidence in our faith, we only have to have confidence in His faith. He gets done what He wants to get done. It’s His faith at work. We have to be a willing part of it, and He gets it done through us.
What’s in this for me? That’s the way we think. Do you want to walk in the Lord? Put your confidence first of all in Him. Stop trying to establish your own righteousness! If Paul couldn’t do it how can we? We get depressed when we realize that. The fact that you are wicked and evil, so what? Christ came to save the ungodly. It is unbelievable, but that is exactly what He did!
All of the things that testify against you, who cares? Let it all become as dung to you. Don’t be in that place of pitiful me. That is a bunch of lies. Grab hold of those thoughts, give that no place and reject that in the name of Jesus Christ, His blood is sufficient for me, and by His spirit I shall overcome. And go forward and confront, not draw back, whatever it is that holds you back.
The just shall live by faith. Every day I feel worthless, but I choose to put that off and press forward to that mark and each day I do that I get stronger. Those things that have plagued me I cast aside and whatever things that would hold me back, none of them is bigger than Jesus.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. God’s grace is bigger than all the things that we do. It’s not that you’re righteous but people will notice there’s something different about you: there is a joy in you; that you prayed for someone and they were healed, for example. What aspect of God’s grace ministers unto the individual, you have the answer: Jesus Christ, and His grace, and His power. Let’s press forward toward the mark. He is the mark. Let’s believe Him for what He promises He will do.