The Secret Of Strength

If you lay all these instructions before the brethren, you will be a worthy steward and a good minister of Christ Jesus, ever nourishing your own self on the truths of the faith and of the good [Christian] instruction which you have closely followed. 1 Timothy 4:6

The secret of Christ is simple and it is this, whatever we are used by the Holy Spirit to sow, is what we will reap, Galatians 6:7. Paul tells Timothy this Truth in 1 Timothy 4. So let’s put this principle in real world applications. If we want to be used by our Father, we are to pray for others to be used by Him. If we want peace, we pray for other’s to have peace. If we want to know the Truth, we share the Truth. If we want health, we are to lay hands on the sick, pray for them, forgive them, call on them to be whole and we will have health. If they ask us to walk a mile, we walk two. If we have two coats, we give one away. The secret of having strength is seeking out the well being of others and taking far, far, more thought for them, then we do for ourselves.

Now, the power behind all of this is that we cannot do these things, it has to be Christ in us, John 15:5. Our Father knows this and He is actively participating in each of our life’s so that we are ever growing stronger, by ever increasing our desire and abilities to serve others. I hear sermons all of the time that tell us what we have to do. But the glorious Truth is that it is what our Father has to do through us, not what we have to do on our own, John 14:10. It is our Father that must give us the desire, the ability, and the faith to serve others. This is why there is no condemnation for us, Romans 8:1, and this is why we cannot boast, Ephesians 2:9. So if we are serving, praise God, we are only serving because our Father has empowered us to serve. And if we aren’t serving, it is only because He has not empowered us to serve yet. Either way, our Father’s will is being done and He is glorified and our Kingdom is being served.

I pray for each and everyone of you, that our Father will empower you to serve as Jesus serves and to love as He loves. That you may be filled to all of the fulness of salvation, ever living to intercede for others, placing their needs above your own needs and eagerly desiring that they are perfect in Christ and perfectly used by Christ. I also pray that our Father will bring us together, with one heart, one mind, one accord and that He will demonstrate His mighty strength and ability through each of us.

Through Christ Our Promises Are Yes And Amen

For as many as are the promises of God, they all find their Yes [answer] in Him [Christ]. For this reason we also utter the Amen (so be it) to God through Him [in His Person and by His agency] to the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 1:20

Because of Jesus we are promised to love as Jesus loves, John 17:26.

We are promised to have perfect love and be as Jesus is, 1 John 4:17.

We are promised to be used to serve as Jesus serves, John 14:12.

We are promised to think like Jesus, 1 Corinthians 2:16.

We are promised to be sanctified as Jesus is sanctified, Hebrews 2:11.

We are promised to have the exact same knowledge as Jesus has, John 14:26.

We are promised to have the very same faith that Jesus has, Hebrews 12:2.

We are promised to be glorified to minister as Jesus is glorified to minister, John 17:22.

Our Father wants us to be great. So to insure that we are, He has made us one with Jesus. Everything that Jesus is, everything that our Father has has given to Him, has been given to us, we are now one with it all. We are flesh of Jesus' flesh and bone of His bone. As Jesus is, so are we, even while we are in this world. In Christ our Father will cause each and every one of us to be great.

We Are To Shamelessly Bug Our Father

And He said to them, Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and will say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves [of bread], For a friend of mine who is on a journey has just come, and I have nothing to put before him; And he from within will answer, Do not disturb me; the door is now closed, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and supply you [with anything]? I tell you, although he will not get up and supply him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his shameless persistence and insistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs. Luke 11:5-8

Jesus tells us in this parable to be shameless in our pursuit of asking our Father for what we need to serve the Kingdom. So basically Jesus is telling us to bug the daylights out of our Father until we receive what we need to help others. Notice that the man in this illustration did not just have a need for himself, but for those who came to him.

Jesus told this parable right after He taught the Disciples how to pray. In the Lord’s Prayer we are told to pray for things like: give us this day our daily bread and lead us not into temptation. We were not shown to pray for our own needs alone, but to pray for the needs of the body as a whole. Then after Jesus teaches us to pray for everyone, He tells us to shamelessly ask our Father to give us the things that we do not have to help others.

The Truth is that we are to continuously bug our Father to empower us to serve others. We should shamelessly ask our Father to use us to prophesy, 1 Corinthians 14:5. We should ask repeatedly and vigorously to be used to do the works that Jesus did and even greater ones, John 14:12. We should hound our Father repeatedly to send us into all of the world to preach the Truth that will set the captives free. We should bug Him to empower us to lay hands on the sick and they recover. We should repeatedly ask to be empowered to cast out demons, to freely receive and freely give. 1 John 4:17 tells us that as Jesus is, so are we in this world. We should seek, knock, and repeatedly ask our Father to make it so. The laborers are few and the need is great. It is time that we as a body expect and demand that our Father begin to work through us, as He works through Jesus. Even if it looks like our Father first says no, as the man in the parable, keep on shamelessly demanding of God that He do it!

The Power Of The Blood Of Christ

"Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; How much more shall the blood of Christ, Who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the Living God?" Hebrews 9:12-14

God's love for us surpasses everything! He willingly, readily, and freely provides for us all of the needed requirements for our eternal fellowship. Our Father has fully equipped us with Himself to serve; He has left nothing out! Have you seen through His Word the enormous responsibility that God places on Himself to insure that we are never separated from Him? Religion wants to place all of that burden on us, but God has spoken that He is the One. He is our Father and Jesus is our Shepherd. God has placed His Spirit within us and He will cause us to walk in His ways. God is the One that will teach us all things through His Holy Spirit. God is the one that will meet our needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus. Our Father is the One that will heal us by Jesus’ stripes. We have God’s mind through Christ, He has given us His angels to protect us, and He can now use us to do all things through Christ Who strengthens us and without Him we can do nothing! It’s all God; He even Authors and Finishes the faith we need to accept these Truths. It’s all God, He accomplished everything needed for us, He provides everything that pertains to our godliness, He is the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega, the First and He is the Last.

And the precious Blood of Christ has obtained our eternal salvation and the Blood of Christ has purged our consciences from dead works so that we may serve the Living God. “I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in One; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me.” John 17:23 "For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." Hebrews 2:11 “For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.” Ephesians 5:30 “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20