Brother Gary Wednesday Evening 7/3/13

Brother Gary Wednesday Evening 7/3/13

Our sufficiency is of God.

2Co 3:4  And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:

2Co 3:5  Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;

2Co 3:6  Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

The more that we realize our dependency upon God the more of God that we have.  It is wonderful that we can be an able servant, an able minister.   It means an errand runner in the thought of someone that God gives a job to do.  It is vitally important that we understand that God wants us to be moved of the Spirit.  The Spirit gives life. 

God has ordained that not on a table of stone would we have a list of rules, like the Ten Commandments, but our heart would be yielded in such a way that the very finger of God has written His laws upon our heart. 

God help me to live so in the Spirit of God, that God’s finger would write upon the fleshly tables of my heart so that before anything happens, before the day, I would be prepared.  We want our heart to be prepared to do what God wants us to do for the Body of Christ and to win the lost.

Eph 2:10  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

We want to remember that we as an individual are the project of God.  This is a good and not a bad thought.  God loves and cares for us so much that He is working on us.  We are His project created unto good works. 

The result of being God’s workmanship is:  not only are we the project but we become the workman. 

2Ti 2:15  Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

We need to worship.  I love to get in my chair with my bible and enjoy the wonder of being saved.  But it is not enough to just sit around and drink coffee and eat toast and fellowship with God.  I must realize that I am a workman.  I am a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of God.

God has given us the tools that we can study, pray, search the scriptures and have an understanding of Bible truths.

1Pe 2:2  As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:

It is vital when we start to serve God and come to the altar confessing and turning from our sins that we get up from there and realize that there are a lot of changes that need to take place in our life. 

As wonderful, pretty, bright, and all the nice things that your mom and dad said about you, when we get saved God says, “I’m going to help you to learn how to get the milk from the word of God.  All your past life has had a penetrating effect upon your personality, on your mind, what you think about, talk about, and what you rehearse.  It is the general plan for new born babes that you become my project.”

1Pe 2:1  Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,

1Pe 2:2  As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:

Lay aside all malice.  You don’t have to be very old to be hurt by someone.  I remember my father’s testimony there was an aunt that he hated because she had showed favoritism and he wasn’t the favorite.  First it was a hurt, and then it turned to bitterness, and then it grew to the testimony that he hated that aunt until God delivered him.

I remember how mean a lady here in this town was to me.  I worked at a gas station and when she would come in, I would step out to help her and she would ask, “Is there anyone else?” 

When we get saved there must be laying aside all malice and all guile.  Guile is deceit or acting in any way other than it really is.

The envies, the evil speaking must be all laid aside.  If it isn’t then it will cause you to not be able to get the milk from the Word of God.  We must have the milk.

1Pe 2:3  If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

It is important that we have devotions and have a standard to sit by so that we know that we got something from the word of God.  If we don’t then we will read and pray and our mind will be somewhere else.

Heb 12:1  Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

There was a great cloud of witnesses then and there is even a greater cloud of witness now.  There are those that have stood true and went through difficulties. 

Brother Naylor was sick for years.  He chose to get something real from God and give out to others.  He was never healed and suffered for 38 years.  There was an unknown number that while he was sick would come to him for prayer.  He would anoint with oil and he would pray the prayer of faith and they would walk away healed. 

Where ever we are there is a work for us to do.  I was enjoying reading the Hymns written by the great cloud of witnesses:  “Twas sung by the poets, foreseen in the spirit, a time of refreshing is near.”  We are in a difficult time, but God has always had people in a difficult time.  We either choose to prosper or we choose to be weighted down.

We can have so many problems that we need a trailer behind us to pack it.  We need to know where to put the things that come across our path.  We need to put them on over into the lap of the Lord. 

Souls lost and dying, congregations starving to death, God stir us!

Lay aside every weight.  I refuse to be weighted down.  People will make you their dumping grounds.  Usually when they dump on you then there is a spirit left besides: a questionable spirit, a Laodicean spirit, a critical spirit.  Lay it aside.

Tomorrow is another day.  We have every reason to be thrilled and praising God.

The carnal man has to go. If he is there he will raise up his head, he’ll make you defensive here and there and you will be troubled with pride.  You’ll be troubled with contention.

Heb 12:2  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Check your vision.  Do you see Jesus the author and finisher of our faith?  I see him going forth conquering and to conquer.  He is above all compromise, above all fanaticism. 

2Pe 1:4  Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Every soul that is saved can be sanctified and filled with the Holy Spirit of God.  What is out in this world is too bad, but you can escape it.

2Pe 1:5  And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

2Pe 1:6  And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

2Pe 1:7  And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

2Pe 1:8  For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Add to your faith virtue, moral excellence and strength.  You will be taxed for your strength everywhere.  We must add strength.

We must know where we came from, where we are, and where we are headed.

We need temperance in all things: temperate with food, money, work, and in all areas in our life.

Brotherly kindness:  Isn’t brotherly kindness beautiful?  I had a message from my brother Bill this week.  He told me that he was concerned, “Did I have an air conditioner?  It has been hot.”  God help us to be kind.  Brothers are kind to each other. 

Add to brotherly kindness charity.

Abound.  Abound.