WEEK FOUR: THE GIFT THAT KEEPS GIVING – Jesus comes to make a home in your heart
“we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.” (Romans 5:5)
What an extravagant gift of love, The Lord God almighty makes a home in your heart. He fills your heart with His Holy Spirit. And he opens the eyes of his people to see his love from within. From within he strengthens and enlightens. From within he inspires and comforts. From within he sanctifies and makes you Holy, marking the believer for entry into the eternal kingdom, into His home.
Mi Casa Su Casa - Please, treat my home as if it were your own; help yourself while you stay here. Literally translated as "my house (is) your house." When we are baptized into Christ, we become sons and daughters of God. And we become recipients of his blessings. And God’s home becomes our home. And though we were once enemies of God, cut off from his presence, we become friends with God, no longer imprisoned in the hell of death. No longer cast out, we are welcomed home and receive God’s blessing. And even now, before we make the journey to our celestial home, we are given this Holy Spirit gift to reside within us so that we will know God’s love for us and BECOME God’s love for one another.
GOD RESIDES AND WE ABIDE
The Holy Spirit indeed guides us from within, He inspires us to be the hands and feet of God here and now, becoming a blessing for all of God’s children. One way I’ve found to share God’s blessing is to help those who cannot share a home in this life. Through the ministry of the Angel Tree Christmas organization.
Angel Tree Christmas™ equips churches and other organizations to restore and strengthen relationships between incarcerated parents and their children and families. Every Christmas, Angel Tree mobilizes local churches and organizations to minister to hundreds of thousands of children by delivering a gift, the Gospel message, and a personal message of love on behalf of their mom or dad behind bars. This program gives the incarcerated parent the opportunity to share their love with their families, children and loved ones. And it’s an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to flow from one heart into another, even though a prison stands in between those hearts. That’s the power of the Spirit, walls, chains, prison bars cannot restrain Him.
One such child of God is Tatianna. Tatianna was left in her grandmother's care when her mother was incarcerated. And she would pray at Christmas and New Year's,” I just want my mama here”. And through the Angel Tree program God’s Holy Spirit brought them closer to each other and to Himself, and Tatianna’s feelings of abandonment melted away. God’s Spirit helps to heal a broken heart and make a home for her mama from within Tatianna’s heart even though she is far away and seemingly completely locked away.
Another such story is Joe. After causing a deadly car wreck, Joe went to prison and left two young daughters behind. Angel Tree helped set his family on a new path. Now, he is the director of Angel Tree Sports Clinic, bringing hope to thousands of prisoners’ kids each year. The Holy Spirit living within the hearts of many believers inspires giving and builds avenues for home building from within many hearts separated by prison walls.
In this same way the Holy Spirit made a home for a King from within a virgin’s womb and made a bed in a manger (animal food trough) for that King; God’s Spirit reached across every barrier and connected people and places no matter the difficulties, no matter the shame and ugliness of the situation, not matter the manner, reasons, and convictions, God’s Spirit overcame all these things to build his home among the people. God isn’t incumbered by the laws of men, He’s not limited or intimidated by the fears, and pretenses of a social order. God chose average everyday people to do extraordinary things that would ultimately build homes in His Son’s eternal kingdom for all who love God. And now we too can cross over the barriers of darkness to bring the light of GOD’S love into the hearts of the incarcerated people and the families they are separated from. Now, we too can become the hands and feet of God by our love offerings. We can honor the love God has shared with us and spread that love to all of God’s Children. We experience that love when we receive the Holy Spirit (v.5) And we can share that love when the Angel Tree gifts are received by the children and loved ones of the incarcerated. Not to mention the incarcerated themselves and even the prison staff who see firsthand the results of this love in action.
PREPARE THE WAY – Bring your gift offerings, be the gift giver
Get involved today, follow this link to become a love giver: https://www.prisonfellowship.org/.../angel-tree-christmas/
https://www.facebook.com/PFMinistries
https://twitter.com/prisonfellowshp
Conclusion:
The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of love. It is the gracious work of the blessed Spirit to be spread abroad and build up the love of God in the hearts of all the saints. ALL the saints no matter their situations. And He blesses some to become a blessing for many. Like a sweet-smelling ointment, or as rain watering a sown seed, it is making a fruitful harvest through the shedding of love from one heart to another.
Philippians 1:10b-11
"Live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God."
Since the fall of man, Adam and every human being that followed, lost the capability to exercise holy reign over the whole of creation. Adam violated the holy command and every generation that followed did likewise. David and the nation of Israel continued this sinful trend. They too were unable to fully manifest God’s kingdom here on earth because of their unrepentant sin. Zerubbabel’s lackluster performance after returning to Jerusalem following the exile into Babylon proved that there always remains a spiritual problem of faithlessness to the law of God, a problem so prevalent that even God's wrath cannot cure it.
And I suppose this is why many Israelites rejected Jesus as the Messiah. His earthly mission was to inaugurate the kingdom and restore ...
Isaiah 5:18-19
"What sorrow for those who drag their sins behind them with ropes made of lies, who drag wickedness behind them like a cart! They even mock God and say, 'Hurry up and do something! We want to see what you can do. Let the Holy One of Israel carry out his plan, for we want to know what it is.'”
The soul believes that God is. The hearts believes that Jesus is the truth and full of grace, the heart believes that he's telling us the truth. And the Spirit through the word of God reveals the truth about grace and brings that truth both into recognition and into remembrance, making that truth clearer and more relevant for the believer. Spirit, soul, and body. By the works of these supernatural forces, faith comes to the hearer. Christianity then becomes what that hearer does with that truth and grace.
Today, there's a dichotomy of worldly ideologies surrounding the Christian church. The polarization is split between progressivism and bigotry. Neither is a good thing. Neither is a Christian worldview. The progressives starting ...
Zechariah 14:4-5
In that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley...Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him."
The Mount of Olives is east of the city across the Kidron Valley and is higher than the temple mound. Jerusalem becomes the source of living water when The Lord splits the Mount in two and a valley opens up from East to west. And a vast underground river rises up and pours out over the land towards the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean. The Dead Sea is healed and becomes a fishing resort. And Jerusalem will be raised up, elevated above her geographical surroundings.
Zechariah 14:10
"The whole land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem."
And all the heavens will change. All we know about the universe will change. There will no longer be day or night. No darkness. Only the light of The Lord. One day, neither day nor night, as if ...
Malachi 2:1-2
“Therefore, this decree is for you priests: If you don’t listen, and if you don’t take it to heart to honor my name,” says the Lord of Angel Armies, “I will send a curse among you, and I will curse your blessings. In fact, I have already begun to curse them because you are not taking it to heart.
Today the lesson from the prophet Malachi has got me thinking that I want to talk about the Holiness of God's name, not just the symbolic meanings behind the many names given to God, but the immediate presence of The Holy One that is his name.
People get into this business of naming God in their prayers. They'll be sure to end each prayer in Christ Jesus' name, or with every new line of thought they plug in a "Lord" here, or "Father God" there. And that's not necessarily a bad thing if you're wondering. However, the lesson today has to do with taking God's name to heart, giving him the honor he is owed. Not simply tagging a prayerful thought with the mention of his name.
Jesus taught us to pray the name ...
How often have you heard, "if God loves me then why _________?"
You fill in the blank.
This was Israel's response. The Lord God through his prophet Malachi, which means messenger by the way, shows concern over the spiritual condition of the nation of Israel by sharing a back-and-forth conversation with Israel and their God.
Malachi 1:2a
The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.
“I have loved you,” says the Lord.
And Israel replies...
Malachi 1:2b
Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?”
And the Lord replies...
Malachi 1:2c-3
“Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” This is the Lord’s declaration. “Even so, I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau. I turned his mountains into a wasteland and gave his inheritance to the desert jackals.”
The Lord jumps right into the heart of the matter. Esau forfeited his inheritance for a bowl of stew. His brother Jacob steals his rightful fortune and took his place in the hands of the Lord. And God is less than pleased with Esau for having sold out his soul for an earthly pleasure.
The Lord points out that...
Zechariah 12:8
"On that day the LORD will defend the people of Jerusalem; the weakest among them will be as mighty as King David! And the royal descendants will be like God, like the angel of the LORD who goes before them!"
With the help of their up-to-date Soviet weaponry, beginning on October 6, 1973, Egyptian/Arab armies attacked Israel, taking advantage of Israel’s soldiers being away from their posts observing Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). Syrian, Jordanian, and Iraqi forces joined them. And, unfortunately, our President Nixon's slowed response to aid Israel didn't help matters much.
The Arab/Egyptian goal was to reclaim territory lost during the 1967 Six Day War and, upon success, move on to defeat and destroy the Jewish State.
This is yet another example of how terribly difficult the peace process has always been since the rebirth of the Israeli nation.
And yet God's divine hand can be seen throughout all these conflicts.
Here's one example:
By October 9, Israel was down to ...
