The Year 2011
Things I believe will happen this year.
1. The Father showing His love to the world, like it was in the early 70"s. Heb.1:1-3, Eph 3
2. It will be a year that the sons will see the faithfulness of the Father. 1 Cor 2:9
3. We are to be the expression of the Father on the earth just like Jesus was. John 14
4. Their will be many problems and lost in the world, but in the Kingdom it will be a year of much increase. 2 Pet 1
5. Will be a year to be a doer of the word, not just a hearer. James 1:22
6. It will be a year of recoverer. 1 Pet 5
Those that have ears let them hear what the spirit of the Lord is saying.
Blessings and Grace
Doug
Thinking Out Loud
Sitting in a hotel room in Alicante, Spain, I am thinking about the family of God. I can't go any further than first knowing that He is my Father, because He chose me to be His son. It gives me great joy in knowing that He loves me. Everything that the Father has for me to do has already been done for me in Christ. That is great news. I can enter Christ's rest, and rest from my labors and watch what He does though me. It is not I but Christ working though me to accomplish the Father's will. So as He is, so now am I on the earth. I am the radiance of Him who has called me and appointed me to bear fruit on the earth, and to establish His kingdom everywhere I go.
I am laying hold of that which Christ Jesus laid hold of me for in each place that I find myself. If I will only trust in His faithfulness, I will see the land which He has promised to the heirs of Abraham. I am thinking how blessed I am, because of what the Father has predestined me to do in Christ my Lord. Walking in faith in the finished work of the cross--what joy it brings to my soul. Even as I must decrease He will increase. I am longing to see every person fully complete in Christ the Lord and walking in the full understanding of the kingdom of God and the grace in which they have been called.
Grace on your journey my friends.
Love,
Doug
Walking in a manner worthy of your calling.
Paul encourages us in Ephesians 4 on how to walk worthy of our callings. I think that most believers miss the understanding of what Paul is telling us. We try to make everything religious and miss the simple truths of what the Holy Spirit is trying to teach us. Here are a few truths that we need to walk worthy of our callings:
1. The Father chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. He predestined us to adoption as sons. Eph 1:1-5; John 15:16
2. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which the Father prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Eph 2:10
3. Grace has been given us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Eph 4:7
4. The Holy Spirit will guide us into all the truth. John 16:12-15
We think that we have to be in the ministry to really please the Father and do His will. I believe that is true. But what we think the ministry is has been the problem.
If you are a farmer, lawyer, plumber, teacher, doctor or whatever, that is your ministry. You have been called to walk in the fullness of what the Father has for you in whatever field you find yourself in. Bring honor to the Father and draw from the resources the Father has given us in Christ and walk with the Holy Spirit. Then you will see the Father build His kingdom on the earth. Do what you can, where you are at, with what you have and see what will happen.
You can pastor people without having to be a "pastor" as the world thinks. We all have been called to make disciples; our lives are the teachings that the people around us are watching. That is why Paul is encouraging us to walk worthy.
Food for thought.
Grace on your journey.
Doug
Abide in Christ’s Love
John 15:10
If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.
Jesus seems to be making a differences between His Father's commandments that Jesus kept and His commandments He wants us to keep.
I don't believe that Jesus is talking about us keeping the 10 commandments that the Father gave under the law, but His commandments that are under grace.
Jesus fulfilled the law by keeping the commandments that man could not but that Jesus did.
We are not children of the bond woman, but the free woman. We are not orphans, but sons.
I think that there are basically 5 commandments that Jesus gave us.
1. To believe on Him who was sent. (Jesus)
2. To love one another the way we have been loved. (not love your neighbor as you love yourself, but love the way Jesus and Father has loved you.)
3. To be baptized in the Holy Spirit.
4. To preach the Kingdom.
5 To make disciples.
Think about it, what is the devil fighting against?
Believing, loving, Holy Spirit, Kingdom of God and making disciples (bringing people into Christ).
Food for thought.
Grace on your journey.
Doug
The God of Glory
How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.
Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.
It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.
It’s in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free—signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit. This signet from God is the first installment on what’s coming, a reminder that we’ll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life.
I love all that the Father has for those who fine there life in Christ.
Blessings on your journey in finding your life that is hidden in Christ. Those who look will fine.
Doug
Merry Christmas
May you encounter the Father's love and walk in the grace that Jesus gave this coming year. May all that you put your hand to be increased. May you walk as sons in the Father's house, and do the works that the Father has predestined for you in Christ Jesus to do. May the peace that Jesus gave be yours.
The Father knows the plans He has for you, plans to give you hope and a future. The Father knows you have needs, so seek first His kingdom and all those things will be added. Believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those that seek Him.
Forgetting those things which lies behind, and reaching forward to what lies ahead. May you lay hold of that for which also you was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. May you press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of the Father in Christ Jesus.
We look forward to when our paths might cross in 2010.
Blessings
Doug and Rita
Knowing the Inner Man
Eph 3:14-20
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breath and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations.
2 Cor 4: 16-18
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things seen; for what is seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
I think so many time we worry about the needs of our outer man, that we miss the provision of the Father. It is important for us to know who we our in the inner man, because that is who we really are, that is where we can come into the eternal purposes of our Father. That is where we can fulfill the good works that the Father has called us to do in Christ. The inner man is the man we are becoming, so we can do the works Jesus did and yet greater, you are never going to do great works for the Father by your flesh, it is only by the spirit. The outer man has to die, so the inner man can come into his purpose.
I believe you will never come into the understanding of the Kingdom and the purpose of our Father, until we come into the knowing of who we are in Christ by the spirit man. We are to know one another after the inner man not the outer man.
Grace on your journey.
Doug
ENJOYING THE FATHER’S PLAN
Ephesians 1:3-8 How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son
I really like the idea that God took pleasure in the thinking out the plan that he had for us to walk in. I can relate to taking pleasure in the planning of things I do with my children and grandchildren. I take delight in thinking about what would be a blessing to them and how much fun they will have.
Rita might spend hours in the kitchen planning and fixing the food that we will enjoy with our family and friends before they ever come - and then we can simply enjoy our time together. Sometimes it is fun to get everybody in on the preparation - and enjoy the process and fellowship. Either way - it is the time together that is sweet!
Our Father has given us everything we need to fulfill His plans that He has for us to do in Christ. We can bring joy to His heart by receiving and enjoying and doing what He has predestined for us.
Enjoy His presence in your walk of faith.
Doug