First Peter Chapter 3 is about submission. Jesus walked through the villages of Judea and he saw the people as sheep without a shepherd.  He prayed for God to bring those who would shepherd God’s people.

Our prayer is that God would open our eyes so that we can see not from the eyes of the flesh, but through the eyes of the spirit…  according to Gods perspective, for he has seated us in the heaven-lies.

As The Lord has lifted away his hand of blessing, our culture turns progressively farther from the Truth, allowing bad men to deteriorate from bad to worse.  Therefore Halloween has become the second biggest holiday in America.  The appetite of the world has become dominated by the enemy.

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1 Peter 2: 1  Wherefore laying aside all malice…  desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may be able to grow thereby.  Therefore, commit thyself to the Word of God.

To see life from God’s point of view is one aspect of spiritual wisdom. Get wisdom, get knowledge, get understanding… but keep wisdom.  Life in this world happens at the speed of light.  We learn of the things of the world in retrospect.  What used to be good, righteous and virtuous is now evil in the eyes of the world.  When we blinked, the culture flipped upside down and we didn’t have time to realize the seismic shift toward the powers of darkness where the world calls good evil and evil good.

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Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Ephesians 6 is about the spiritual warfare:  for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and might and dominion, against spiritual wickedness from on high.

Therefore, be strong in The Lord and the power of his might.  Only in Him, we live and move and have our being.  Only by putting on the full armor of God can we stand against the schemes of the devil.  Only by taking up the shield of faith, having our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, putting on the breastplate of righteousness, having our loins girt about with Truth, and taking the sword of the spirit which is the Word of Truth, can we withstand in the evil day and having done all, to stand.  Our strength, our defense, and offense is only in Him and the power of his might. Continue reading →

Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 1 Peter 2:9 & 11

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;

In the first century church, God’s people were in a battle, not against the Roman Empire, but rather against spiritual wickedness from on high.

There is an ongoing spiritual battle against the lusts of the flesh.  Lust is over desire.  It is anything that we desire more than our love of God and walking in fellowship with Him.  The forces of the power of darkness are real.  Our western culture is blind to the spiritual battle that encompasses us.  Satan is the deceiver hiding in the darkness to manipulate the culture from behind the scenes.

The day of evil is alive and well.  Evil enters the hearts of men who have not surrendered their will to God’s will.  Wherever you look, the spiritual battle is raging behind the scenes.  The world’s “sophisticated” mindset says that there is no spiritual cause…  that there is no such thing as evil.  The doctrines of “Vanity Faire” say that as long as I have “good intentions” there is nothing wrong with cheating, and serving the lusts of my own flesh.  Our culture dismisses the powers of darkness.  The devil conceals himself in the darkness and causes carnal Christians to underestimate his power and pervasive influence over them.

At the other extreme are carnal Christians who “see the devil behind every bush.”  They realize that they are oppressed and depressed by spiritual forces over which they have no power in the flesh.  They revel in their victim mentality. The evil that pervades their lives has overtaken and defeated them so that they live in depression and spiritual oppression.

The devil, the thief, cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy.  The culture of this world produces men of fear, subject to the powers of darkness.  Men who are fearful of loosing their possessions, their health, and their very lives.

In The Silence of the Lambs, Officer Starling said “what could have happened to him that he could do such evil things.”  Hannibal Lector answered “I happened to me.”   In this world of relativism, the “inconvenient truth” is that there is pure evil in this world.  However, to acknowledge that evil exists and that men are sinners, is to defy the prevailing doctrine of “moral relativism.”

God has called men of God to be lights in a world of spiritual darkness.  He has called men of God not to be influenced by the darkness, but to influence the world…  to shine as lights…  the darker the night, the brighter the light shines.

God’s exhorts us in Philippians 4:6-7 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer, and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.  And the peace of God that passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Prayer is powerful because it connects our hearts to God’s heart.  Communion, i.e., co-union with God starts with prayer.  Prayer is simply confessing what the Word of God proclaims.  Prayer is making God’s Word our word, God’s heart, our heart.  Therefore pray for them, do good to them that despitefully use you, and persecute you, for great is your reward in heaven.

The devil constantly tempts men by showing the bait and hiding the hook.  He appeals to that which is earthly, sensual, and devilish.  He tempts us to sin and then accuses us when we fall.  He reminds us of how far we have fallen from the standard of righteousness, of how we have missed and dismissed God’s divine appointment resulting in disappointment.

The devil will attack men of God by separating them from the flock so that he can prey on them and use them at his pleasure.  He celebrates when men of God fall into his snare, enticed by lust.

The Adversary uses the deceitfulness of riches, the pressures of this life, and the pleasures of sin appeal to the lusts of the carnal fallen nature.  He tempts men to say “not thy will, but mine be done.”  He distracts us from the righteousness in Christ and the focus on the Word of God.  When we turn from God and toward the enticements of the flesh, we are bound to fall.  In the words of Martin Luther, “Did we in our own strength confide, our battle would be loosing, were not the right man on our side, the man of God’s own choosing.  Doth ask who that may be?  Christ Jesus it is He, and He must win the battle.”

The devil is the deceiver and the accuser.  He accuses the brethren of falling from grace and righteousness.  He reminds us that our flesh is corrupt and that in our flesh dwelleth no good thing.  He tempts us and accuses us where we are weakest at times when our resistance is diminished.  These are the times when men of God must be committed to fellowship with other men of God in fellowship.  God has called us to the body of Christ harmoniously fitted together so that we can strengthen, edify, encourage and comfort one another in love.

God has called us as a men of God’s own choosing.  In the face of the adversary’s slanderous accusations, only God can deliver us through the truth of his word.  Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?  Who shall separate us from the love of God?  Shall persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril or sword?  Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

He has called us as a chosen people, a royal priesthood, an holy nation.  We are acceptable in God’s sight, not because of our own righteousness, but because of the Jesus Christ, the righteous sacrifice and full payment for our redemption from unrighteousness.  Therefore, in him we live and move and have our being.  I was crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life that I now live, I live by the faith of him who loved me and gave himself for me.

Your brother in Christ,

Michael

Discipling is helping people to grow into Christ from infants into mature men of God… to be able to live as wheat for God’s harvest among the weeds of this world and to shine as lights in a world of darkness.

Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. First Peter 2:9 – ll

Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;

This passage was originally written to persecuted Christians. They had scattered not to avoid persecution, but because of God’s design to move the Truth of the Word of God throughout the Roman Empire.

There is always God’s reason for persecution.   There is always good news and bad news.  What the enemy meant for bad, God meant for good.  All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

We have received mercy, having been redeemed by our Lord Jesus Christ. Through our redemption God has delivered us from the clutches of the enemy by his grace, even though we were undeserving of his mercy.  Now that we have been delivered from the kingdom of darkness and delivered into the kingdom of his dear son, we are nomads… We are strangers, foreigners, aliens, and sojourners journeying upon this pilgrimage in a strange land to which God has called us as his emissaries.  As representatives of his heavenly kingdom he has called us as his worthy ambassadors subject to a higher calling…  not to give in to the lusts and affairs of this world.  Lust is the Greek word “epithumia” meaning “over desire.”   Lust is any desire that takes precedence over our desire to follow the assignment to which God has called us.  Our fist assignment is love him above all and to walk with him according to the path that he has foreordained.

We’re aliens in this world of Vanity Faire because our citizenship is in heaven. In the Old Testament, Daniel purposed in his heart at an early age that he would not forsake his identity to which God had called him as a man of God.  Though he lived in an alien society of Babylon, Daniel never lost sight of his heavenly calling.

Ephesians says that the adversary wages war against our souls. But our exhortation is “be strong in The Lord and the power of his might, putting on the whole armor of God that we may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of darkness, against spiritual wickedness from on high.”  Our battle is not against the world and men of the world, rather it’s a spiritual battle against the powers of spiritual darkness for the souls of men.

Our culture has been blinded against the adversary’s wiles and his ways. Because he is invisible, he hides in the darkness and deceives and ensnares from behind the scenes. He attacks God’s people at their weakest points by dishonest methods to achieve his malicious ends.  He shows the bait but hides the hook.  He knows our habits and our weaknesses.  The adversary delights in tripping up men of God.  Our strength is only in the armor of God and in the power of His might.

Our intellectual resources cannot fight against the powers of the evil darkness of the adversary. Evil connotes moral absolutes.  However our politically correct culture of “relativism” does not believe in absolute truth. They prefer to believe the devil’s lie that good is evil and that evil is good.

The adversary hides in the darkness disguised as “moral relativism” and “tolerance.” The adversary wears a veil to hide his true identity and disguises himself as “an angel of light.”  In a world of relativism, there is no truth.  In a world of tolerance, there is no evil.

Lutzer says that Hitler knew that the masses would follow him if he could tell big enough lies. Only a  person that could connect with his audience could move the masses to his own aims and his own mission.  Propaganda is the tool to move the masses…  to permeate the masses with the power of false doctrine…  The revolution will succeed when the masses have been converted first by propaganda and then by force driven by hatred.  Hitler had to change the language in order to get the people’s approval.  Hitler defended his actions as a means to the end.  The end was his definition of “the good of the German people.”  So-called Christianity was tolerated as long as the church acquiesced to his definition of “the good of the German people.”  In our culture, we give women “the right to choose.”  However, the “women’s rights movement” never finishes the sentence:  “the right to choose to kill your baby.”

The power of propaganda and mass euphoria sways the masses to believe the lie and to call evil good. In the world of relativism, there is no truth.

Truth is only in Jesus Christ. He is the way the truth and the life.  We must know the Jesus Christ, the standard of the truth, in order to discern the false doctrines of moral relativism.  Therefore, the word of God says…  casting down imaginations and every high thing that exaulteth itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

To stand against the powers of darkness is to wield the sword of the spirit which is the Word of Truth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations.  And in so doing…   Give ’em Heaven!!

Your brother in Christ,

Michael

1 Peter 2:9 “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

God has called his Remnant as his chosen generation by his own grace, mercy and love.  In the Old Testament, God called Israel, not because they were great, but because they were loved.

Chosen is the antidote to elitism.  He chose them not because they were choice people but because they were unmerited.  He chose them by his own will.  Only by God’s grace was Israel chosen.  They were not elite in themselves, but because of his having chosen them by his mercy and grace.  It’s not a matter of deservedness…  If God had given them their “just deserts” they would be dead…  for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.

A priest is the one who has access to God.  Without God, we’re on the outside looking in.  We’re included by his grace as a royal priesthood.  The priest is chosen of God, having access through the tabernacle to God to represent the people in God’s presence.

Only the high priest could enter into the holy of holies once a year into the inner chamber that represented the presence of God on the high holy day of atonement once a year.

Society talks about belonging and our need to be inclusive and included, to be on the inside, looking out.  However, only God allows his people into his Holy presence.  There is a narrow gate to the narrow way to the heart of God.  Only through our Lord Jesus Christ can we enter into the holy of holies into God’s presence.  Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the father but by me.  Having access to God through Jesus Christ, we now have fellowship with God.  Fellowship means communion, i.e., co-union with God.  For truly our fellowship is with God and his Son Jesus Christ and one with another in the household of faith.

Holy means sanctified or set apart for the purpose intended by the designer.  It means to live without pretense according to that for which we have been designed, according to his divine purpose for our lives.

Ethnic group is a group of people held together by a common culture.  A sub-culture holds individuals together with a common language, a common experience and a common relationship.  Friendships develop within each sub-culture.  Orange County is a diverse region with many different sub-cultures.  The melting pot of the general culture encompasses many different sub-cultures.  Sub-cultures are exclusive and screened.  However, a collective culture is not exclusive.  The Christian culture must be inclusive and forgiving of the sub-cultures.  Christianity must be free to encompass all facets of our lives and cross over to those who are different from us ethnically and sub-culturally.

We are God’s possession.  It’s not who we are, it’s whose we are.  We are not only God’s possession, we are his prize possession.  For by grace we are saved, not of works lest any man should boast.  For we are his workmanship, his most prized possession, his puma, his poem, his masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which he hath foreordained that we should walk in it.

God’s providence, his allotment, his provision is in his chosen people.  As his chosen ones, our allotment, our blessing, our portion is in Him.  I in thee and thee in me.  Be thou my vision O Lord of my Heart, naught be all else to me save that thou art.

It’s none of me and all of thee.  That I should boast not in myself, but only in the Grace of God.

May God richly bless you…

Your Brother in Christ,

Michael

Living Stones

First Peter 2:4-6

… The Lord is gracious.  To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.

Jesus, on the last day before his crucifixion, met one last time with his disciples in the upper room.  This is recorded in John Chapter 13.  He said that he would send his Holy Spirit after he had departed and the Holy Spirit would teach them and lead them to the all truth.

They thought that Jesus was talking about an earthly kingdom.  They argued among themselves who would be greatest in the new kingdom.  Jesus taught them by washing their feet, as the lowliest servant of the household, that the chiefest among them must be servant of all.

Community is when true servants of Jesus Christ gather together to love and minister to others in his stead.  When you love others, their understanding of God is enlightened.  God did not call us to be “rugged individualists.”  Rather, he called us as servants to live in community as able ministers of the New Testament.

Many are insecure in this calling.  However, Insecurity is not of God.  God called us as able ministers of the New Testament, not only to deliver the message, but also, to be the message.  As we act upon this calling, God will empower us.  He will energize the work as we believe according to his calling…  for it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure.  We’re closest to God when we give it away, as we live out our own lives in service to God by serving others.

The cornerstone is the most basic foundation of the ancient building.  It was the most precisely cut.  It was the strongest structurally and the most valuable since it took the longest time to quarry and cut.  We’re living stones of God’s building, of which Jesus Christ is the cornerstone.  We are his fittings within God’s building, fitly framed together to the edifying of the body in love.

As living stones, we must be oriented and aligned according to the chief cornerstone.  Only he aligns our lives in his precise order, so that we can serve the living and the true God…  aligned according to his divine purpose.

God’s character is such that he cannot disappoint.  When we’re disappointed, it is the result of leakage of our own carnal natures.  When we are aligned according to His purpose, there is no disappointment.  Dis-appointment is the result of missing and “dissing” (disrespecting) God’s appointment.  Each moment of this life we have a divine appointment to align ourselves according to the chief cornerstone. .. as living stones aligned to the cornerstone as an holy habitation acceptable to The Lord.

Christianity starts with an invasion of God into our lives.  The harder we run, the greater he pursues us.  Life’s cataclysmic moments, when we are broken by running to escape God’s hot pursuit, are our “come to Jesus moments.”  Come to Jesus…  and live.

Victor Hugo’s great work, Les Miserables, is about redemption.  Jean Valjean, desperate and destitute after being released from prison, stole costly silver vessels from the church.  After having been forgiven by the priest, he was told to sell the vessels and give his life over to a pursuit of righteousness.  This is the story of the grace of God and the redemption from sin we have through our high priest, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  He paid the price of our redemption by his own precious blood as the chosen vessel of God.

When we realize the grace in which we stand, only then can We love him because he first loved us.

David was anointed to be king long before he became king.  When he finally became king, the Philistines rose against Israel and divided the land into North and South, and attacked the northern city of Bethlehem in Judea.  David’s mighty men gathered around him to protect and serve him.  According to 2 Samuel 23: 16ff, David sighed in a prayer that the kingdom would be reunited and that he could again drink from the well at the gate of his hometown in Bethlehem.  His mighty men overheard his prayer and braved the ranks of the enemy to fetch water from the well of Bethlehem.  They brought the water to David as an answer to his whispered prayer.  David was so moved by this gesture that he declared that “I’m not worthy to drink of the water for which these mighty men have risked their lives.”  He poured it out to God in praise and as a gesture of his own humility and unworthiness.

David, when he was walking with God, was a man after God’s own heart.  In his unworthiness, David understood that whatever is most precious should be poured out as an offering and a sacrifice dedicated to God.

The water from the well at Bethlehem is a picture of Jesus Christ, the fountain of living waters.  Jesus said that whosoever drinks from the living water shall never thirst…  He said blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.

We have been appointed as a royal priesthood to approach our Father directly according our calling in Christ…  for there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

As lively stones within God’s habitation aligned to Jesus Christ, the chief corner stone, we have been called to deliver God’s message on Christ’s behalf.  As God’s emissaries, as his ambassadors for Christ our charge is not only to delver the message but also to be the message.

2 Cor 5:20-21

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us:  we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.

For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Your brother in Christ,

Michael