Fellowshipping & Praise the Lord with Doc329 (22)

While on the storm tossed sea Jesus sleeps and the disciples fret, yet in the Garden of Gethsemane the disciples sleep and Jesus frets. Three times Jesus prays. Mark says he was “distressed, agitated, and deeply grieved.”
In the garden Jesus threw himself on the ground praying: “Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me.” Three times Jesus prayed that prayer, and three times he came to the disciples and found them sleeping.
There are times for fretting and time for rest. Jesus not only slept calmly in the storm tossed boat, but he also prayed “distressed, agitated, and deeply grieved” in the Garden of Gethsemane.

“Father, for you all things are possible.” Jesus believed God could do anything. And like us he prayed for God’s help, “Remove this cup. Take away this terrible burden. Calm the storm.” Jesus did not question God’s power.
“Will God be with me that I may reach the other side?” I don’t know, but I hardly think you can help but ask that when you’re deeply distressed, and agitated to the point of death.

“Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.” “Nevertheless.” That great “nevertheless” is the fulcrum of faith. It does not remove us from threat. It does not give us a pass. It won’t keep us from entering the deep waters of a conflicted world; it won’t keep us from drowning, but it will take us to the other side.

We do a great disservice to the deepest insights of Biblical faith when we wrongly assume that being a Christian or following Jesus is a pass to smooth sailing and calm waters. Sometimes we sleep, but sometimes we must fret. We don’t get a pass, no more so than Jesus got a pass: “Father, for you all things are possible, nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.” Jesus was not spared the anxiety of not knowing how things would turn out, yet he went to the cross believing that nothing in all creation could separate him from the Father’s love.

Yes, God can do anything, but God’s greatest gift is his love. Nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Nothing. Nothing that happens to us. Nothing we do to ourselves. Beyond the conflict that marks all of our living, stands the unshakeable ground of God’s love for the world and for each one of us. Conflict may be the essential quality that haunts our world, but God’s love overcomes our conflict-haunted world.

Few followers of Christ understood this more powerfully than the man responsible for the greatest portion of the New Testament—the apostle Paul, a former persecutor converted to foremost witness.

Christ is coming
With clouds and with great glory.
A multitude of shining angels will attend Him. He will come to raise the dead, and to change the living saints from glory to glory.
He will come to honor those who have loved Him, and kept His commandments, and to take them to Himself.
He has not forgotten them nor His promise.
There will be a relinking of the family chain. When we look upon our dead, we may think of the morning when the trump of God shall sound, when "the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." 1 Cor. 15:52.

A little longer, and we shall see the King in His beauty.
A little longer, and He will wipe all tears from our eyes. A little longer, and He will present us "faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy." Jude 24.
Wherefore, when He gave the signs of His coming He said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh."

“Surely, I spoke of things I did not understand; I talked of things too wonderful for me to know.” Job 42:3

When we share with others the wonderful ways in which God has led us and worked in our lives, we are sharing but a minute portion of what God has really done for us. We see only a small portion of how He works.

When we finish our earthly course and meet God face to face, only then will we be able to know the amazing ways in which God has worked in our lives.
We will be able to see things that we were oblivious to while alive on earth. The questions that we had while on earth will finally be answered, we will be able to understand. Our minds cannot comprehend all of God’s ways or even His answers to our questions.

Job learned that lesson, all he needed to do was trust God.
Job came to believe that God knew what He was doing.
Job could not see the future, just as we cannot.
He did not know what lay ahead, nor do we, but he trusted God and God saw him through and He will do the same for us.

Job trusted God because he knew God. We cannot trust someone we do not know.
It is imperative that we learn everything we can about our Father. We need to know of His unconditional love for us.
When we know our Father’s heart, we will know that He will not allow anything into our lives that will not be for our benefit.

"Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you?" 2 Corinthians 13:5

If we are Christians, then there should be no question in our minds that Jesus Christ lives in us: that his power, his mind, his desires and his Spirit dwells in us!
What a blessing it is to know that Christ Jesus dwells within us! Let us always be aware of His presence in our lives and let Him rule our hearts, as well.

Paul wanted the Corinthians to realize that unless they were not who they said they were, unless they had gone back on their word and denounced Christ, then Christ indeed dwelled within them; and if he dwelled within them it had better be obvious to those in the outside world.

Do those around you see Jesus Christ in your life?
Jesus Christ, who gave of himself so selflessly, who reached out to the hurting with love and compassion, this is the Jesus that the world needs.
If Christ is ruling in us, we can't help displaying this Jesus to all those around us: our families, our neighbors and yes, even our enemies.
The world is hurting; one need only turn on the news to see that. The world groans for Jesus, but they do not know it.

The world needs Jesus now more than ever before. Let us go and be Jesus to this hurting world. Let us reach out in love and compassion. Let us resolve that we will be Jesus to all those with whom we come in contact.
Lord, let others see Jesus in me today

As we look around us we seek to understand God through his creation. We want to know God's purpose and intention in creating man and placing him on earth. Yet we cannot discover this by looking around because people do not fulfill God's ideal. The only place we find what God has intended is through his Word where it is written," Let us make man in our inage, after our own likeness."

Christian I ask you! What did God intend? Look at Jesus and you will know. For Jesus said," I always do those things that please the Father." The Father said of Christ," This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." As we look at Jesus Christ, we see what God intended man to be.

We cannot look at Adam because Adam fell, even though God did not intend man to fall. We cannot look at ourselves because we have fallen, this I must say," this was not God's intention either.
But if we look to Christ, there we find the divine ideal which God intended for his creation.

It is God's purpose for his Holy Spirit to work in your life and by the power of his spirit to change you. He will shape your life into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ

Psalms 63:1-8
O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. 3 Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.
Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name.

My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips:
When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.
Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.
My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.

"Love one another"
But how can we obey and fulfil this greatest commandment?
Our struggle is not to love one another, or to love the unlovable;
not to pretend to 'feelings' we cannot manufacture, but to make God at home in your heart

Before we can love the world .. or even before we can really love each other, we must be aware that God loves us!
And when that reality begins to dawn on us, God's LOVE will transform us!
It is God's grace that makes His LOVE a reality!
The world looks at what we do; and it cannot help it.But the world does not care Why we do what we do-- but 'the WHY' is everything to the Christian.

We cannot all be acclaimed as great ''saints,'' or for that matter as great anything! But we all can love Jesus and seek to obey His word.
When Jesus Christ is truly ''at home'' in our hearts, it must follow as the day follows the night, that God's transforming LOVE will flow through us, and we can obey this 'impossible' commandment.

A Place
God tells Moses that there is a place by Him where Moses can stand and see the glory of God as it passes by. That place is a cleft in the rock.

The lesson for us is clear!
There is only one place where man will ever see the Lord. And, that place is in Jesus Christ!
He is the Rock
1 Cor. 10:4. If we want to see the Father, then we need look no farther than the Son!

Notice what the Bible says about Jesus, John 14:9; John 1:18; Heb. 1:3. All this is, is further proof of man's need to abide in Christ, John 15:5.

The closer we draw to Him, the closer He has promised to draw to us, James 4:8.
I am convinced that the true path to revival lies not in meetings, evangelists, singing or fellowship, but I believe revival comes from an ever-deepening fellowship with Jesus Christ!

This is accomplished only through prayer and study of the Word of God. Genuine revival will never come to the modern church until we first put Jesus in the center of everything in our lives and love Him supremely.
When we get to the Place, we can count on God coming in among us!

As we look around us we seek to understand God through his creation. We want to know God's purpose and intention in creating man and placing him on earth.
Yet we cannot discover this by looking around because people do not fulfill God's ideal. The only place we find what God has intended is through his Word where it is written," Let us make man in our inage, after our own likeness."

Christian I ask you! What did God intend? Look at Jesus and you will know.
For Jesus said," I always do those things that please the Father." The Father said of Christ," This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." As we look at Jesus Christ, we see what God intended man to be.

We cannot look at Adam because Adam fell, even though God did not intend man to fall. We cannot look at ourselves because we have fallen, this I must say," this was not God's intention either.
But if we look to Christ, there we find the divine ideal which God intended for his creation.

It is God's purpose for his Holy Spirit to work in your life and by the power of his spirit to change you. He will shape your life into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ

One thing for certain is that most things don’t seem to be for certain! The low carb diet was a bad diet until suddenly this year it is a good diet until recently when it began to be reported that it is again a bad diet!
The word in society today is that everything changes and nothing remains the same.
In the midst of this doubt and confusion let me share with you three things that I absolutely know for certain.
Three things that will be certain as long as time exist.

I know God will never do me wrong so I can trust God no matter what comes my way - Psalm 119:75 "I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me."
I don’t understand some things, and I don’t like some things, that happen to me but I am absolutely certain that God loves me and I can rest in His care.

I know the good will eventually win and the bad will be punished - Ecclesiastes 8:12 "
Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him:" Vengeance belongs to God.
He keeps good record books and He who knows every idle word we speak and every hair that falls from our head will do the right thing at the right time.

I know I am a believer in Jesus Christ and I can face death and eternity unafraid- 2Timothy 1:12 "I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."
I have God’s Pardon and Peace in this life and His dependable promise for the next life.
Glory! That is a certainty that is a comfort.

As Christians we have been very good at bringing the gospel message for people to receive Jesus into a person’s heart.
But we have neglected an important part of the gospel and that is about living in God’s heart.
God’s desire is that we would become united with Him.
We are to dwell in Him and He in us. …truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)

When we think about having Jesus in our heart we sometimes think of Him as about three inches tall and we sometimes treat Him as such.
People sometimes receive Jesus into their heart and then go on with their lives instead of living in His life.

Some people wear Jesus as a good luck charm and only commune with Him when they have a need or an emergency.
But Jesus desires to live in more than just a part of our heart.
He desires to fill our heart and our entire being. He desires to have His hands in our hands and His feet in our feet so that we will go and do what He desires.

Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides (lives and remains) in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
Only what we do in Christ has eternal value.

Jesus said,"behold I stand at the door and knock: If any man hear my voice, and open the door , I will come to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."
This verse is commonly used in talking with unsaved people, but these words were spoken by Christ to a church that had put him outside. He is willing to come in to them and have fellowship with them if only they would invite Him to do so.

What is it like in your Church? Has Christ been put on the outside?
If so, He wants to come inside to have fellowship with believers.
How sad that Christians can be so busy in the work of the Lord, that they actually keep Christ on the outside as far as fellowship with Him is concerned.

We have fellowship with Him as we study His Word, meditate on it, and talk to Him in prayer. If we are too busy to do these things, we are obviously busier than the Lord ever intended us to be.
As you endeavor to commune with God, does it sometimes seem that He is far away? Does it seem as if you cannot contact Him, as if your prays get no farther than the ceiling?
No doubt every believer experiences this feeling at times, but we can learn a valuable lesson about this matter from God's relationship.