Week 2: Psalm 91:9-10

"If you make the Most High your dwelling - even the Lord, who is my refuge - then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent."

Psalm 91:9-10

 

Sorry everybody, I am a day late with this one.  I know you all have been sitting at home so ready to move on our promise for this week and are going to have to start a day late now because of me!  I suppose, like I said last week, it's better late than never.  And on that note, if you haven't yet, please join us!  God did some incredible things in our lives last week as we moved on the promise from 1 John 3:6. 

 

If you joined us, please let us know how your week went - we would love to hear how God moved in your life. 

 

If you are planning on joining us for this week, please let us know - we would love to pray for and with you while we move together on trusting our Lord and Savior!

 

Now on to the good stuff:

 

As much as this pains me to say as a Cleveland Browns fan, our promise to move on this week comes from Baltimore Ravens Linebacker Ray Lewis.  Following their victory last Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts he was sporting a shirt that had Psalm 91 written on it.  Jake decided to look up Psalm 91 (I am far too stubborn a Browns fan to look up a verse on a Ravens player).  Thank the Lord someone doing this experiment isn't an idiot when it comes to sports. 

 

As it turns out, Psalm 91 ties directly into the promise we moved on last week from John 3:6, in which we focused on abiding in Christ in order to eliminate sin from our lives.  So when Psalm 91:9-10 talks about making the Lord our refuge and dwelling place, it kind of caught Jake's attention.  He shared the verse with Jana, Liz and I and we all agreed that this would be a great promise to move on for this week.

 

In Psalm 91:9-10 the outcome changes a little though.  We are still focusing on abiding in the Lord.  We are making Jesus Christ our refuge, the place we run to when we are in need - of anything! - we are making Him our dwelling place.  Just like you dwell in your house or apartment or tent or cave.  When you are dwelling in it, you are surrounded by it, protected by it, it completely covers you.  That is what we have been focusing on in these past two weeks.

 

The change in this promise comes in the outcome.  Where as abiding in Christ eliminated sin from our lives last week, this week abiding eliminates evil and plagues from our lives.  Now while I can't say that I am incredibly worried about plagues befalling my house, I would be more than happy to see sickness eliminated from my home.  And that is what we are counting on!

 

The rest of Psalm 91 continues to lay out the protection, deliverance and long life that come to those who make the Lord their dwelling and refuge.  I would highly suggest you read the entire Psalm.  I would also highly suggest that you join us in moving on that promise.  Cling to Him!  Cling to Him so tightly that He becomes absolutely everything - even the air that you breathe.  We learned from experience last week that abiding in Christ can eliminate sin from our lives.  This week I fully expect to see how abiding in Him also eliminates evil, sickness, danger and fear.

 

Just to make sure that this experiment is fully put to the test, Jana decided to come down with strep and I have developed a pretty nasty chest and sinus cold.  If there is anything last week taught us, and the Bible continually teaches us, it is that God's promises are faithful and true!  Give it a try...He won't let you down!

 

MOVE!

Abiding In Christ

So the first week is almost in the books.  It happened just like I hoped it would too!  I had such a great week MOVING on the promise of abiding in Christ and that resulting in the complete absence of sin in my life.  It wasn't just that though.  His promise was true (if you had any questions about this, I'll spoil it for you: they always are!) and I did not sin at all while I was abiding in Him.  The few slip ups that I had were all times when I was not abiding very well.

Along with not sinning though, I also found myself in such a better mood overall.  I was slow to get frustrated at work and even while driving...GASP(I tend to be a little impatient while behind the wheel)!  I had a smile on my face a good majority of the day, I was a better father and husband, I was even a better coworker.  I could feel God's love with me the entire time I was abiding in Him, and I was therefore able to love those around me...even those I am normally not particularly fond of.

Now some of you may wonder how one abides in Christ, or gets started doing it anyway.  As I wrote in my post that described what we were going to be doing this week, abiding in Christ is simply being IN Him every single part of the day.  Like one abides in their house or state or country, you remain in Him in everything you do.  This is not as easy as it sounds and it takes a lot of getting used to.  I found myself getting better and better at it as the week went along.  I happened to have a fairly easy time getting started on it because I worked by myself for the majority of the first part of the week.

Now this was the approach that I took in abiding in Christ - it's not the only way, it's not the right way, it's just the way that I did it.  I am sure that for those who are used to abiding in Christ it probably comes very naturally.  I am hoping that this little experiment leads to that...in fact, I know that it will.  Since I am not to that point yet though, I had to continuously remind myself to abide in the Lord.  I did this by quite literally praying and worshiping the Lord all day long. 

As I said, I worked alone most days, so I was able to pray and sing out loud.  This made it very easy to abide in the Lord.  Being constantly reminded of His presence, constantly offering up praises to Him, which in turn, reminds me exactly who He is, makes it very easy to be in a good mood.  Forget Arby's, my good mood food is the Bread of Life (sorry, that was a little cheesy...but seriously, they should make Christian shirts with that)!  Even when I was working with people though, I still got into the habit of praying silently or humming or whistling worship songs.

For anyone wanting a little boost in their walk with Jesus, I would definitely suggest giving this abiding in Him a try.  Even if you set out to only do it for a week, I think...no...I know you will find it too awesome to stop.  This is something that I am going to continue for the rest of my life.  When I first started this experiment I had a feeling that this is how these weekly promises would turn out.  I imagine this is similar to what David was talking about in Psalm 34:8 when he said, "Taste and see that the Lord is good..."

All it takes is a taste of the Lord to find out exactly what He has to offer.  It doesn't say to take a bite and then keep going even though the first bite isn't very good...eventually you acquire a taste for it.  Once you experience a little bit of the Lord, you know it's all good!

That is exactly what this first week has been: a taste of what is to come if we take God at His Word.  If we move on the promises He gives us, we will find so much more than what we are expecting.  I started this week expecting to eliminate sin from my life while I took God at His Word and started abiding in Him.  I got so much more though.  I got an entire life makeover.  He turned my world upside down, showed me how to love, showed me how serve, showed me how to LIVE!  To be honest, I don't want to remember what it's like to live outside of abiding in Him.

So now it's your turn.  Give it a try!  I promise you'll like what you find!

MOVE!

Introducing The Promises

Last year, my wife and I participated in this really cool thing that the National Community Church and their pastor Mark Batterson put on dubbed the “7:14 Experilent”.  Every day at 7:14 during Lent, people around the world dropped to their knees and humbled themselves before God.  The inspiration came from 2 Chronicles 7:14.  Overall the experience was very cool and my wife and I experienced some awesome breakthroughs as we joined other Christians around the world, humbling ourselves before our Lord.

Part of this process was that we would receive text messages every day at 7:14 to give us different things to pray about and reflect on.  One of these text messages was burned into my mind and I haven’t been able to shake it since.  It read, “The world has yet to see what God can do through a person FULLY CONSECRATED to Him.  Why not you?  Why not now?”  It’s a beautiful, yet convicting message.  I looked this quote up before I started writing this and found that it was first said by Henry Varley, a friend of the great evangelist D.L. Moody.  These were supposedly the words that inspired Moody to begin pursuing becoming an evangelist.  Varley’s exact words were: "The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him."

For the longest time, I didn’t do anything of importance with these words.  Out of nowhere though, they came back to me a few days ago.  Believe what you will about spontaneous memory of past events, but I don’t believe in chance.  If you believe in the Christian God of the Bible, then you shouldn’t either.  He is the Grand Weaver, the Architect of everyday, there is no chance or coincidence or happenstance with my God.  I believe that He brought this text message back to me on New Years Eve of 2012 to rock my world in 2013.  I want to document it too, so that your world can be equally rocked.  Why should I have all the fun?

Last year, just after the new year started (January 10^th to be exact), I decided to step up my prayer game.  I experienced some huge breakthroughs from it too.  I was baptized in the Holy Spirit for the first time and spoke in tongues.  I was baptized in water for the first time since I was an infant.  I was so close to God.  He was talking to me and I was talking to Him.  It was such a sweet time in my life.  Then about six months ago the communication line started to go bad.  I could still feel God with me…He just wasn’t talking to me anymore.  I think that time is over now though.  I think that might have been my little vacation.  My time of rest before it was time to get knee deep in the Lord’s work.  Up to my elbows in it.  And believe me, after being so on fire and then having six months off…I am ready to get to work!

As I stated, I believe that this whole plan came from the Lord.  I have been thinking about trying to write a book for awhile and actually started writing a few chapters of a book that was going to be about the promises that God has made to us in the Bible.  Then this text message came back to me.  “Why not you?  Why not now?”  Why not me?  What if I started taking God at His Word?  What if I started living by God’s promises to me?  Through all of history and for the rest of eternity, God has never and will never break one of the promises He has made.  So why am I not living according those promises?

There is an old hymn that most of you are probably familiar with, “Standing on the Promises”:

Standing on the promises of Christ my King,
Through eternal ages let His praises ring,
Glory in the highest, I will shout and sing,
Standing on the promises of God.

Standing, standing,
Standing on the promises of God my Savior;
Standing, standing,
I’m standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises that cannot fail,
When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail,
By the living Word of God I shall prevail,
Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises I now can see
Perfect, present cleansing in the blood for me;
Standing in the liberty where Christ makes free,
Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises of Christ the Lord,
Bound to Him eternally by love’s strong cord,
Overcoming daily with the Spirit’s sword,
Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises I shall not fall,
List’ning every moment to the Spirit’s call.
Resting in my Savior as my All in all,
Standing on the promises of God.
(Source: http://www.hymnal.net/hymn.php/h/340#ixzz2GqNxmmgI)

I absolutely love this song.  Those lyrics are so rich and just dripping with God’s truth and goodness.  Just thought I’d get that out of the way so no one thinks I am saying anything against this hymn.  The problem in my life with “Standing on the Promises” is that I am tired of standing on them.  I want to MOVE on them.  The world needs more movers and fewer talkers.  The book of James is big on this topic.  James 1:22 says, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says.”  James 2:18 continues, “But someone will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.’  Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.” and in verse 20, “You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?”  Perhaps the most well known verse from James is 2:26, “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”

I think James was going through the same thing I am: just fed up with all the talk.  Jesus said the same thing to His disciples.  Don’t just listen.  Do it!  Jesus compared it to a person building their house on a firm foundation (the one who does what Jesus teaches) versus one who builds on a foundation of sand (the one who listens but does not do).

So I am done standing on the promises of God.  I am ready to start doing the promises of God.  That’s my New Year’s resolution.  Every week, my friend Jake, his fiance Liz, my wife and I are going to search out a promise God gives us in the Bible and we are going to LIVE by that promise.  We are going to document it each week too.  The successes and failures.  The good, the bad and the ugly.  Hopefully it will inspire some of you to join us.  If this little experiment works the way I think it will, it will be something that will change us forever.  By the end of this experiment, the world WILL know what God can do “with and for and through and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him”.

 

If you would like to join us in this "experiment" please let Jake, Liz, Jana or I know.  We would be thrilled to have you along for the ride and just KNOW that God is going to do some insanely wonderful things through this small act of faithfulness.  Even if you just leave a comment on this blog that you would like to be a part, we will let you know what promise we are focusing on for the week and you can join in on the MOVING!  Ball is in your court...

 

MOVE!