Wednesday, March 13, 2013

03-13-13 Renouncing - Being Careful

Ephesians 5:8-20 "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."
 
I don't know why, cut the first part of this verse just reminded me of Elmer Fudd saying, 'Be vewy quiet, me hunting rabbit'. Ok, so maybe that's not exactly what this verse means, but sometimes, we can take it to the extreme that we're always looking for something to go wrong. Sometimes we can go to the extreme of looking for sin or demonic influences under every rock and in every crevice of our lives. The trouble with that is, WE are doing it. WE are aren't letting the Lord shine His Light into our lives, because WE think we have a million candle watt flashlight and it's enough. The Lord says, 'Hey kid, yeah, you with the flashlight, come over hear for a minute.' So we go saundering over to where He is and right there in front of us, He shows us His radiance, His glory. 
 
And we fall of our faces and say, 'this LITTLE light of mine, how can I let it shine - for You outshine even the sun.' We make a declaration that we are going to follow the Lord, not make the Lord follow us. It REALLY doesn't work well doing the latter.
 
Oh, He'll let us lead and He WILL follow, because He's never that far away from us. You know why He will follow us? Because His love compels Him to. He knows that sooner or later (and He hopes 'sooner' rather than 'later'), we will become tired and weary from all of our striving and will eventually trip on some Rock and fall. We may get back up and try again on our own, but we keep ending up on the ground. So finally, we stay there - not even knowing where 'there' is and cry out to the Lord. We renounce our own waywardness, self-righteousness, and self-sufficiency. and the Lord comes up to us and says, 'It's time to come home, my loved one'. He picks up our broken bodies and carries us home.
I guess what I'm saying is that Holy Spirit was sent to us so that He could show us which path to walk, using the Word of God as a map. It's asking Father for discernment when we come to a crossroad in our lives. In knowing that the days are becoming darker and darker spiritually, He would like it very much if we would allow Him to shine His Light into our hearts and minds - to not only clear out the junk (as I mentioned yesterday), but so that He can fill us so much with His LIGHT that when we walk into the darkness of the world, we will still be able to see (to keep our focus on the Lord). Daily, hourly, and sometimes by the minute or the second being in constant communication with Him so that we will be able to know where He wants us to go or not go. Be aware of your surroundings, but know that greater is the Lord Who lives in us that the demonic influences that are in the world that try to get at us (1 John 4:4).
Your Love Never Fails - Jesus Culture -- just because I heard it on the way to work and it helped me out a bit ;)
 
Strong Tower - Kutless -- (for the same reason above)

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