Ultimate ground for ALL of our being

God is all-powerful; He is the Creator. But He can create and He can also delegate. He can give His power to others for them to operate.

If you know anything about delegated power, you know that’s a very threatening thing because, you know, you have micro-managers that want to control everything and macro-managers that just tell you, “Here’s the goal—go get it.”

When God created all things, Colossians 1:16 says, [16] For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

He created positions to whom He delegated authority to work and have the “powers that be” be ordained of God, explains Richard Jordan.

What delegating His authority means is He’s willing to share of Himself with others. When you think about God as a triune God, sometimes we just think, “He’s trinity, holy, holy, holy, big deal.”

You need to understand how important it is; we’re not just monotheistic, believing in one God. It’s not enough to say I believe in God; Satan’s the “god of this world.” You might be believing in the wrong one.

You need to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You can’t even believe in “christ” because the devil is a christ in Ezekiel 28. You need to believe in the Lord’s Christ.

The trinity is the demonstration of the trustworthiness of the godhead. If there was only one person in the godhead and He said, “This is it and it’s it because I said so,” how would you know He’s right and you could trust Him?

Do you just take one person’s word for anything? It would be an arbitrary statement. If somebody said it and another person witnessed it and said, “Yep, that’s what He said and He’s pretty consistent,” you’d question him because you’d wonder, “Well, are you all?”

But if you had a third person, these three people in the godhead have lived together forever. They’ve seen everything the other one has done. And they can testify of the integrity of the other members of the godhead.

That’s a good thing when you think about it. When one member of the godhead said something you can trust it because you’ve got two eternal witnesses to tell you, “He’s never said something wrong. He’s always spoken out of His goodness. He’s always been a lover. Love works no ill toward his neighbor. You can trust Him.”

It’s not an independent statement; it’s an eternal witness. That’s why Jesus said, “If I testify of myself my witness isn’t true, but I’ve got others to testify of me.”

So in the triune God you’ve got the godhead, and you know what every member of the godhead does? They all live for each other. The Father lives to exalt the Son, the Son lives to exalt the Father and the Spirit lives to exalt the Son. Every one of them exalts the other; they all live spontaneously for one another.

So the life of God is not lived to see what I can get out of it. God’s life is to give to others! That’s the way God’s life operates.

So when you talk about His omnipotence, it’s not, “Get all I can and can all I get.” You see, He has power to share His life.

Here’s the godhead and you think, “Why in the world would they have made creation?” Because they want to take this life that they have and spread it out—they want to GIVE it! They’re interested in moving out with it and they have the power to do that. And they have power to delegate because God is love.

If we’re the church of the living God it’s because we have a personal relationship with Him and He’s good because He’s loving.

*****

The Bible is considered the greatest love story ever written because it is all about real people choosing to be in a real love relationship with the Creator of the universe--the one who says of Himself, "God is love."

For those who believe the Book includes fables, concocted characters and made-up allegories written by men, there's nothing really real about their love.

A best-selling Christian memoir from the past includes this passage: “With our own love stories, every detail comes alive. Our own love stories are so poignant, so detailed, so unforgettable—at least to us. When it’s someone else’s love story, however, we will be polite and listen, but usually it’s entirely forgettable. It’s like looking at someone else’s vacation pictures. When I have skin in the game, the outcome all of a sudden matters to me and I become engaged.”

*****

Believers are in a special type of love affair with the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who brings God into EVERY aspect, facet, experience, etc., of life.

I John 4:7 says, “Love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” That means if you don’t know God, you don't know how to love people.

When you live in a consciousness of God’s love for you in Christ, it gives you an insight. You’ve got the information, and when you believe it, it becomes the energy, the life, the transforming power down in your soul that His life then works out through you.

It’s a love that abounds in knowledge and in judgment. It’s a mental-attitude love. It’s the capacity to look at a thing and value and esteem it the way God does.

At a Bible conference once I was asked during the Q&A session, “What do you find the most exciting subject in the Bible?”

For me personally it’s to stand back and look at who the Bible says Jesus Christ is and appreciate the fact that I’m in Him and that I’m complete in Him. He is the source of all my blessings, and the source of my true, real identity, and He's the one I have all my status in.

You see, the thing that's so wonderful about the grace of God is that it makes Jesus Christ everything! And the Bible says that it pleased the Father that in Him should "all fullness dwell.” If you asked God the Father what is to Him the most exciting subject in all the universe, He'd say, “My Son.”

Any way you slice it, dice it, look at it, think about it, take it apart, put it together, Jesus Christ is the apple of the Father's eye, as Psalm 17 tells us. He's the thing that causes the Father's heart to rejoice. He's the one.

It's mind-boggling when you look at who the Scripture says He is. It sort of numbs your mind. It's so big, you can just never get your arms around it.

*****

When Jesus Christ came back to earth following His death on the Cross, He said to His disciple known as “doubting Thomas,” “Just come and feel me so you know I’m real.”

The reason Christ is called the Word is because He’s the manifest person of the godhead; He's the one who brings God out of the theory—the ether and the unknown—and down into the place where He could actually enter into your experience.

He steps out of eternity where He is and steps into His creation and literally takes it upon Himself. And that’s something my mind doesn't grasp! He literally joins Himself in creation to Him, and in that unique person of all of the universe—the celebrity of all time—He becomes the man Christ Jesus.

When you look at that, you say, “Wow, I understand what Jeremiah's talking about back there when he writes, 'Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee Lord.’ He's saying, 'Man, there's nobody like Him! Nobody!’

You say, “Wow, God, thou art great—who wouldn't fear you?! Who wouldn't bow before you and say, 'You're the man!'?"

After Thomas did as Christ instructed, he cried, “My Lord and my God,”  to which Christ responded, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

When He says, “I'm the Lord, there's none like me,” He's saying, “There isn't any room in my heaven and earth for anybody who says he's me. No room out there. I've been all over creation; I've looked, I've seen; there isn't anybody like me out there.”

When John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” the statement’s saying, “I am the ultimate ground of all being and existence. Without me, there's no existence. Without me there's nothing.”

Paul says in Colossians that “by him all things consist.” In Acts 17, Paul says of God, “in whom we live and move and have our being.” How do you know there's a God? Well, how do you know who you are?!

You see, whatever you call God—whatever you name Him and whoever He is, if He's just that “holy other” that you can't contact and don't know who it is, like the Unknown God of the Athenians, at least you have to recognize there has to be some grounds for existence; some reason to believe you exist. There are great philosophers in the world who don't believe you exist. They believe all of this is an illusion.

By the way, when Jesus said, “I am the truth,” that's what He meant. He wasn't talking about, “I’m just always right and you're always wrong.” He wasn't talking about truth like “two plus two equals four.”

He was talking about truth in the ultimate basic sense of the ultimate ground of ALL of our being and who we are—the essence of our being—and Christ said, “It all resides in me.” Now, there's not a sane person on the planet who would ever claim that!

Goin' South

(grateful to report I am feeling much, much better today after a 12-hour sleep—something unheard of for me, especially since I tend toward insomnia. My shoulder is still stiff as well as my kneecap, but at least they are improving--so is the heel pain from my "good foot" that's not in a boot. I’ve got a new article in the works that I will post this evening for certain. In meantime, here’s a post from 2012 that showed up on my “recently read” stats this morning:)

I watched an old video tape of a Bible conference held in Florida in 1996, sponsored by all the grace churches down there.

A preacher who I wish I had been able to hear more from was Tennessee’s Darryl Mefford, a truly endearing speaker with a sweet demeanor and unusual, thick mountain accent (undoubtedly headed for bigger things) who died in 2004 from a sudden illness. He was only in his late 30s.

In this particular conference, focused on prayer, he said, "Every person born into this world has within themselves an internal witness to the fact that there is a God. Everybody has that understanding.

Folks run around and say that they’re atheists and they’re this thing and they’re that thing but all they’re doin’ is lyin’. They’re lyin’ to you and they’re lyin’ to themselves.

Everybody has that internal witness and they know this. God has put it inside of every man and they know this. They know there is a God, but you see what they do with that truth is verse 18: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.”

They take the truth and they suppress it. They take the truth and they bury it and they push it aside and they don’t want to hear it and they don’t want to recognize it.

As you look out into the creation you clearly have a witness, a testimony from God Almighty that He’s there and that He’s the Creator, and men know this as they look out and they see the creation and they view it.

I like to tell people all the time, Hank Williams Jr. has got that song, “If heaven ain’t a lot like Dixie than I don’t want to go.” Somebody said the other day, “I never been to Tennessee,” and I said, “You saved the best for last, ain’t you?” When folks from Florida come to Tennessee they want to move there.

You look out at the beautiful creation that God has made and you see a testimony of Himself to man and men know this, but what men do is they suppress it, and they hide it, and they develop all kinds of systems and things to suppress this knowledge that they know, and to put it aside and not have to think about it and not have to recognize God but you notice He says, “So they’re without excuse.” 

Folks think that them there over in Africa and places like that; they’re these innocent things, but you know, folks, they’re not innocent; they’re not without excuse. They have this witness within themselves-- they have that external witness. They know there’s a God but they suppress that truth and hold within unrighteousness.

He says, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator.”

They know God. They know Him. They become vain in their imaginations, in their thinking, in their thoughts and ideals. They become vain and that’s what always happens when you reject truth.

When light is given--and God gives light and men reject it--then they’re going to stumble into darkness. That’s always the result.  Notice their foolish heart is darkened and they change God “into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.”

They live their life in the vanity of their mind. That’s those vain imaginations . . .  Folks, that sword of the Spirit you’ve got there will go into men’s hearts and will cast down those imaginations and will open their hearts and cause them to understand!

It will cause them to understand their lost estate and show them the Savior who loved them and went to the Cross of Calvary and suffered and died and fully paid their sin debt and offers them a free gift.

Thinking of Job

Well, this has been a blockbuster week for me, to say the least. As I speak, I have shoulder pain, kneecap pain, foot pain, a toothache, and hacking and sneezing with almost no smell or taste, and ear cloggage.

For those who are keeping track, I am now in my 11^th week of wearing a medical “boot” on my left foot and my podiatrist told me Tuesday to wear it another 4 weeks!!!

Just yesterday, I came home from work with a swollen kneecap and shoulder due to an undetected slippery water spill ( I now figure it had to have been from a maintenance worker letting soapy water slop out of his bucket, but you certainly can’t even suggest that to management) that was like skating on ice since my boot was the first to engage with it.

Then after work, while making dinner for me and my mom, I had a sudden “whoosh” of pain in my good foot (the right) that I can now only assume has something to do with the bone spur I was diagnosed with a month ago during treatment for my Plantar Fasciitis. That heel is now sore too, giving me every reason to be fearful.

Not that I should go on, but I will, I still have the lack of smell and taste as I continually cough up phlegm and also have my ears filling up, on and off.

A bright spot today, as usual for Sundays, has been the teaching I’ve heard, starting with Ben Wanda in Louisville, OH, and then immediately followed by great messages from both my pastors (Alex Kurz and Richard Jordan) at Shorewood Bible Church.

Oh, yeah, and then there's the tooth pain. I have a molar in the very back of my mouth that is sensitive when unusual pressure is applied, and sure enough, my brother made "roasted green beans" for our Sunday dinner as a family and they were too tough for my taste (al dente, as they like to call it in the restaurant biz) and a bite of them hit the "sweet spot" for my poor dilapidated molar.

I would post more but, once again, I am overcome with tiredness, which makes me suspect I have COVID.

Here’s some old stuff until tomorrow:

Life is lived in your perception of reality, and if you focus on what you have to be thankful for, choosing to see the good in every personal situation, you’ll be better for it.

If you think you’re just going to thank God for all the (troublesome) things in your life, you’re nuts. I’m sorry. God never told you to be grateful for all those things that come into your life. He says in them, in all things, give thanks. How do you do that? You look away from yourself to who God’s made you in Christ, says Richard Jordan.

The common theme that runs through all forms of depression is self-pity. I don’t care what it is, where it came from, or how it’s induced, depression always has an element of self-pity in it. 

You know, your emotions have no intellect; no thinking capacity of their own. They’re going to respond to what you’re thinking as if that’s really what’s happening, and there’s a formula for depression that’s as accurate and as consistent as anything in algebra or geometry, and it starts with bad, erroneous thinking. 

When the problem, the injury, or the insult comes, and they do come, you respond with disappointment. And if you take an injury, insult, or rejection, plus anger, multiplied by self-pity, you’ll get depression every time without exception. You’re on the road. It will first be despair, and then it’ll be depression. 

And as long as you’re thinking about it, brooding about it, remembering to remember it—remembering to be hurt, angry, insulted and rejected—you get blinded by self-pity, and you’re blinded to the resources God has provided for you. And the difficulties you face get to be overwhelmingly large, and it becomes like the (refrain) from Hee-Haw: "Gloom, despair and agony on me. Deep, dark depression, excessive misery. If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all. Gloom, despair and agony on me." 

*****

Unrealistic expectations and misplaced dependencies represent the antithesis of grace. 

Realistic thinking is to understand where you are in the program of God, who you are, and just what is meant by the grace of God—to live in the reality of God’s grace to you in Christ, and to have grace thinking dominate your life instead of the unrealistic thinking of a performance system. 

When you don’t have grace thinking, and you have unrealistic expectations, you’re not really thinking about what God’s really doing; you’ve just got ideas of your own. And you have misplaced dependencies. You’re trusting your sufficiency or someone else’s; you’re walking in unbelief 

Life’s a lot tougher in its reality than most evangelicals and the Charismatics want you to believe it is. 

*****

Whatever you depend on to give you purpose and meaning and life, that’s what’s going to control you. 

Really the only real sin that you constantly have to deal with is the sin of unbelief. The sin of not trusting the sufficiency God has given you in Christ.

All the other things—all the sins of the flesh Paul names— adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings—all of those are really symptoms of your lack of faith in the sufficiency of who God’s made you in Christ. 

The way you cure depression is not by focusing on the symptoms, it’s focusing on the source. The battle’s in your mind, first and foremost. 

Imaginations are designed to be programmed by our conscious mind and it’s the things in our imagination that effect our emotions. 

The devil doesn’t program them, you program them. Or you allow them to be programmed by the intake your mind is having. They can be re-programmed, re-directed by your conscious thinking. So you cast down all this uncontrolled involuntary thinking that comes into your mind. Cast it down, "bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."

The way you re-program your imagination is through the conscious application of sound doctrine. That’s the objective of sound doctrine. And that’s the only way you’re going to control what Paul calls our "vain imagination." Vain means empty, useless thinking. Not based on truth, but based on error.

*****

The radio has FM and AM dial and we can choose which band we’re going to listen to.

The one band is error, and it says, "Worry and worry early." God says, "Be careful for nothing." Don’t be anxious or worried about anything. Which station do you listen to? Truth or error? 

God says He’s perfected forever all those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus. How are you going to get any better than that? You’re complete in Christ, "blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places." This is who God’s made you. 

Which are you going to believe? You say, "But look at what I’ve done," and God says, "Yeah, I know, look at what I did."

Where are you looking? What station are you listening to? He says, "Reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God."

Bottom line, godliness with contentment is where it’s at. As Paul says, "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."

You can’t worry and trust God at the same time. So when you’re worrying, you’re not trusting God. It’s impossible to be depressed and thankful at the same time. All you need to get out of depression is to be thankful. 

Understand that neither height, nor depth, or anything can separate you from the love of God and say, "I’m going to be thankful to God, in whatever happens, for who I am in Him" You bring those thoughts into captivity to the reality of truth, and that’s a depression-buster. The path to freedom is first you decide you want to be free. 

*****

Jordan tells an inspirational story of a blind teen-aged girl’s testimony at a Bible youth camp: 

“She’d been blind from birth. Had never seen the light of day. She’d heard the gospel and gotten saved. The last day of youth camp, we were having a camp fire, and all the teens were giving testimony for what they thanked God for. 

“One was thanking Him for the trees, and for getting him up that morning, and all that stuff, and somebody was thanking God for this and that, and this young girl got up and said, ‘You know, I want to thank God.’ 

“Everybody was looking at her, thinking, ‘What could this blind girl be thanking God for?' Blind from birth and has to live all of life blind to all around her. 

“She said, ‘I’ve been listening all week, and I’ve learned about how much God loves me. I’ve learned what He’s done for me in Christ, and what a wonderful future He’s assured me, and how He’s equipped me right now to live a resurrected life in its details.’

“She added, ‘You know, I thank God I was born blind. Because that means I have virgin eyes. The first thing I’ll ever see is the one who loved me and gave Himself for me.’ 

“When I heard that story, I thought, ‘You know, there’s a girl who’s got it!’ She’s so filled with the love and grace of God that self-pity is turned to thanksgiving, turned to joy unto a ‘peace that passeth all understanding.’ That’s how you have victory every single day.” 

Taking on supernatural provisions

This issue we struggle with in life is a personal one, and it’s also a very confrontational one because it brings into accountability the fact that for most of life we aren’t very content.

For most of life, we’re much more discontent than we are content. We’re much more into the idea of gaining and getting and striving and pushing in life, rather than being just in a condition of peace, says Richard Jordan in a study of Philippians 1:

[21] For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
[22] But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not.
[23] For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:
[24] Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.
[25] And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith;
[26] That your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again.
[27] Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;
[28] And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.
[29] For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;
[30] Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me.

Contentment is that emotional stability. Philippians is a tremendously emotional passage. There’s rejoicing, there’s peace, there’s confidence and there’s contentment. To define it scripturally, it’s not being up one minute and down another in your heart, but it’s to be able to have that stability that comes from that relaxed mental attitude—faith—of dependence on the supernatural provisions God has given you already in Christ.

It's not trying to gain your peace of mind and heart from the circumstances out there (good or bad, positive or negative) but rather it’s living from a life, and a confidence, inside. That’s where peace has to be.

The peace of God that passeth all understanding that the passage talks about is something internal. It isn’t conditioned upon what’s happening in life. It isn’t conditioned upon the circumstances you find yourself in.

It’s the capacity inside to have this relaxed mental attitude; just being able to relax in who God has made you in Christ and understand that the supernatural provisions that are yours in Him have made you capable, and able to live in whatever circumstances, in a way that is for His glory and your own good.

When life comes it will carry you up or it will carry you down in your reactions to them. It’s about letting the supernatural provisions be the things that work in you and control your life.

Paul makes it clear there are four things needed to be content. First, you need to be grateful; you need to be rejoicing. Contentment is not tied to your circumstances. That's that verse in I Thessalonians 5: [18] In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

Not FOR everything, because there are all kinds of things that come in life that you can’t be grateful for in the sense that they’re wonderful, exciting things. When Paul’s in poverty, suffering need, hungry—you don’t look at an empty plate and say, “Well, bless God,” the same way you do if you’ve got a big 24-ounce porterhouse in front of you and you say, “Whew, bless God I’ve got food.”

This is not tomfoolery we’re talking about. It’s not just blind, stoic, stiff upper lip kind of stuff that says, “Whatever happens it really doesn’t matter,” so you become so emotionally detached from life that you can’t be touched with life.

That’s not the issue; it’s to be right there in it and to understand there’s some resources that allow you live in it in a different way and it starts with gratitude.

If you can’t find something in the circumstances to be grateful for, you can at least thank God that in the circumstances, you’re blessing Him. If you can’t do anything else, you can at least go back and say, “Oh, how I love Jesus.” You can sing that song:

1.  
• Oh, how I love Jesus,
  Because He first loved me!
2. It tells me of a Savior’s love,
   Who died to set me free;
   It tells me of His precious blood,
   The sinner’s perfect plea.
3. It tells me of a Father’s smile
   Beaming upon His child;
   It cheers me through this little while,
   Through desert, waste, and wild.
4. It tells me what my Father hath
   In store for every day,
   And though I tread a darksome path,
   Yields sunshine all the way.
5. It tells of One whose loving heart
   Can feel my deepest woe;
   Who in each sorrow bears a part
   That none can bear below.
6. It bids my trembling heart rejoice;
   It dries each rising tear;
   It tells me, in a “still small voice,”
   To trust and never fear.

Or you can say, "When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

You sing that song to yourself. That song, by the way was written by a man who had lost his family. You know the story. He’d lost his family in a sea voyage and he later made a voyage across the same area and the captain of the ship had made an arrangement with him that when they got to the place where his family’s ship had sunk in a storm they’d have a little memorial.

He wrote that song, having lost his wife and two daughters, to memorialize that event. “Sorrows like sea billows roll”—they literally rolled in his life. And yet he had a peace and contentment that wasn’t tied to that—it was something supernatural inside, and it started with being grateful to God for the provisions that He’s made.

To be continued…