Times Of Refreshing

"Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago." - Acts 3:19-21 ESV

The people of Israel needed this after the crucifixion and we need personal 'times of refreshing' now. Not just one time every once in a while. We need it like we need to wash our bodies or brush our teeth.

People think the word 'repent' means to be sorry and judge ourselves for our actions but the word means 'to turn'. We turn to God and while we are doing that we are also turning away from all those things and identities that are not in Heaven's direction.

Turning to Jesus 'blots out our sins' from our mind's eye. They are no longer our focus. They move into our peripheral vision and then out of sight as we are captivated by the glory of God.

Heaven must receive Jesus. Not only is that true prophetically it is also true on a practical level.

"Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." - Colossians 3:2-4 ESV

God must also receive you but if we don't turn to Him we won't experience the refreshing. If we isolate ourselves from reminders we might forget we have this provision and live outside of what Jesus bought for us with His own blood.

I need the water of the word. I need to be around people who have this water. I need to be a part of a vision that floats on this water. If the water isn't present I get dusty.

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Turn To The Kingdom That Is At Hand

Isaiah chapter 30 is an amazing chapter...

" 'Ah, stubborn children,' declares the LORD, 'who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt! Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation. For though his officials are at Zoan and his envoys reach Hanes, everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot profit them, that brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace.'..." - Isaiah 30:1-5 ESV

The Bible shows us mindsets, doesn't it? It reveals the middle ground we can have a tendency to stand on that can turn quickly into a perilous place.

As a believer we are nomads. Our home is Heaven. Nomads live a certain way but Eygpt can begin to look attractive at times. Stability. Opportunity. Conformity that has acceptance.

This morning another passage seems to be a fitting contrast...

"Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.' " - Mark 1:14-15 ESV

Turn because God's kingdom is close by. The time for running away is over. Now is the time to draw near to the One who is drawing near to you.

Just one thought sparked from reading a chapter in Isaiah. I plan to read and reread this chapter through the day so that the mindsets that are expressed become familiar to me. Then if they pop up in my thinking I can 'turn to the kingdom that is near me' and not spend hours, days, weeks or years 'adding sin unto sin' in a frame of reference that provides no real relief.

"Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;" - 1 Peter 2:11 KJV

"...they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city." - Hebrews 11:13b-16 ESV

Nomads. That is what we are. Heaven is our real home. This is only a temporary dwelling place... a season of life.

God, Keep our focus. Help us to navigate our wants and desires in holiness. Thank you for setting a place for us at Your table and giving us eternal security in our relationship with You.

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A Stack Of Clean Towels

Praying and repenting this morning. I sit here again... chagrined and uncomfortable as Jesus washes my feet. He isn't making me feel this way. He is taking the feeling away moment by moment. But, How wrong it is that The King of kings would wash this dusty little man's feet. I want to put on my best face for Him but here He is seeing the worst of me... again.

"Jesus answered him, 'What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.' Peter said to him, 'You shall never wash my feet.' Jesus answered him, 'If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.' " - John 13:7-8 ESV

How much like Peter we all are.

The great thing is that when it is done we stand up clean again and our best face is just revealed... It isn't put on.

"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me." - 1 Corinthians 15:10 ESV

So here I sit. I come to God based on His work on the cross. My King still easily finds His towel and gently kneels before me. Tears fill my eyes now thinking about it. I should be bowing before Him but here He Is serving me and cleaning up my mess once again.

When He is done He looks me in the eyes and says...

"You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you." - Song of Songs 4:7 ESV

He is not counting the times I have needed this cleansing. He is busy numbering the hairs on my head. He is just loving me and looking forward to what He has planned for the day. That is over and done but a stack of clean towels are waiting on the shelf nearby.

Jesus did a work 2,000 years ago. That work is finished. Grace does a work once again today. By grace I can arise and go into a very productive day. By grace I can have joy unspeakable and full of glory because my feet have been gently handled by the Savior of the world.

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That Moment

That moment you realize that you are just being stubborn. You get flashes of your attitude and responses over the last few days and realize but instead of continuing in it you cry out to God, 'Oh, Have mercy on me.' and all of your mental rebellion comes pouring out as you close your eyes and turn to God and speak to Him again. The moment of decision comes and you choose humility instead of clinging to hurt. The Finished Work of the cross contrasts your stubbornness and you are overwhelmed by the mercy available to you... that is a good moment

God is stubborn about redemption. His mercy flows like a river. It can either rush past you or you can wade in and be made clean by the flow.

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Three Principles Of The Overcomer

"And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, 'Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.' " - Revelation 12:10-11 ESV

Repentance (recognizing the power and redemptive merit of the blood of Christ), confession (professing Biblical eternal truth as it pertains to life and circumstances) and not loving your life so much that you won't lay it down (having the life and mind of Christ functioning in your day to day experience) are the marks of the overcomer.

I was refreshed in this doctrine last night at coffee. P Butch Veader was so exercised in this truth. I could only stay for a few short moments because of commitments but wow! I was so glad for those few moments.

"Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." - Matthew 18:19-20 ESV

This truth does not need my endorsement but here I am endorsing it once again. With just a handful of people much can happen. If one or more of them are overcomers then watch out! The atmosphere of a place is overwhelmed by glory. People can't help but pay attention when they 'overhear' eternal words.

Thank God for people who will lay down their lives. Thank God for those who recognize the power of the blood of Christ. Thank God for ones who won't put a bushel over the candle of truth.

The accuser will one day be put down. That is what Revelation 12 declares. We have the privilege (and challenge) to function today as overcomers. It won't happen by force of will or strength of personality.

"Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts." - Zechariah 4:6b ESV

Let's turn to God and win the souls of people as ones who don't love their life so much that it must be preserved at any cost. Only God can do this in us. Only grace can reveal to us this new and living way.

Help us God. Give us backbone. Gather us and make us people that will spend the time to hide Your word in our hearts. Thank you for friends who function as brothers because God has purchased them with His blood.

Thank You God... really... Thank You.

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Turning Aside

God will never be our accomplice. He won't be anyone's accomplice.

"One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand." - Exodus 2:11-12 ESV

"And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, 'I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.' When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, 'Moses, Moses!' And he said, 'Here I am.' " - Exodus 3:2-4 ESV

We must turn aside to meet God. Repentance is the act of turning to God and in our turn to examine the mystery of holiness we are also turning away from everything else.

It makes me think of this exchange...

"Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, 'They have no wine.' And Jesus said to her, 'Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.' His mother said to the servants, 'Do whatever he tells you.' " - John 2:2-5 ESV

Jesus would not be Mary's accomplice and she seemed to know better then to impose her will on Him. She turned aside expressing the need she saw and God did things His way.

What a wonderful picture of what prayer can be like.

Then there is the picture of Peter denying Christ on the night of His crucifixion...

"And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, 'Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.' But Peter said, 'Man, I do not know what you are talking about.' And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, 'Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.' " - Luke 22:59-61 ESV

Jesus was in agony gazing at Peter from afar, loving Peter, but loving Him far away from Peter's sin. Jesus walked the road that would end in Him paying for all transgression. Not a sinner Himself. No never. But He became sin.

"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." - 2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

People may blame God for the sins of men because He forgives what no one else could forgive but His hands are clean hands.

Sin cycles can break when we turn aside.

"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." - 1 John 1:8-10 ESV

We are not our sins. God does not know us after our sins. It is when we turn aside that we discover who we are. Mouthing words will not accomplish that. Only seeing Jesus makes that happen. He is the bush that burns and Is not consumed. I want people to see those flames reflected in my eyes.

This is important for us also. We need God to show us the line between advocate and accomplice so that we can remain advocates.

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