Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Pastor Jonathan has been challenging us at Alife to do some daily heart connections with God in putting on the full armor of God in our lives. I believe that armor to be the testimony of being clothed in the Holy Spirit for taking possession of all that God sets before us in life. This is our individual life, our marriages, our families, our church community, our expression in the communities of the world, our expression of work in society and all that constitutes the world that is given to each of us. As leaders, we are to lead others into embracing their own worlds to bring the testimony of the life of God to all that is theirs. Last week I challenged us to freshly embrace the testimony seen in the belt of truth. This is knowing the truth of God’s love and living in the procreative power of God given desire that comes by Holy Spirit as the Spirit of the Lord in our lives.
When we know that we are loved by God we seek to hear Him so that we can make sacrifices of our love for Him. These are not sacrifices of shame or guilt, but sacrifices that testify of our love and faith towards God in who He is. Our lives must be filled with actions that testify of our connection with God from our hearts. Those actions are those of priests to our God and kings in our influence in this world. These are the testimonies of living from our hearts! We offer God thanksgiving and praise is response to hearing Him in our hearts. That thanksgiving and praise is not just in words, but in the actions of our lives. Just as we did through the act of water baptism, we do something that testifies of our identification with Him each and every day. The actions of our lives testify of our faith towards Him and they are made with outward expressions of our connection to Him in our hearts. Those confessions, actions, and outward visibilities will be a testimony to the wisdom that comes by the internal voice of Holy Spirit in our hearts. They are actions inspired by our consistent relationship with God through the Spirit of Wisdom working within us. Our lives must declare “the Lord our righteousness”! This is the testimony of Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Wisdom that leads us from today into every step leading to our tomorrow.
When we receive the righteousness of Christ we also receive His attitude of “right relationship”. Jesus summed up the commandments of God by saying that we are to “love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, and strength” and that we are to “love our neighbor as ourselves”. The key to these things is only possible when we have a revelation of God’s love for us. We love one another even as God loves us. The evidence of a revelation of God’s love for us is seen in our love for one another. Doing what is “right” is a matter of “right relationship”. When we harbor resentment, bitterness, envy, jealousy, unforgiveness, and the like, we have taken off our breastplate of righteousness. We must allow the Holy Spirit to continually write God’s character and nature upon our hearts and then we must be faithful to respond with actions in our lives that declare God’s nature of doing what is “right”. The issue of being “right” is not an issue of being “right” for “ourselves”. It is a matter of doing what is “right” for God and for our neighbor. Doing what is “right” will prove us to be a “friend” of God and one another. This is the source of true praise and thankfulness to God. It comes from our hearts. Leaders must set an example that others can follow in this and inspire them to do the same.
We know that our righteousness is through faith in Christ Jesus; but the book of James says that faith without works is dead. In order for our righteousness to be true righteousness by faith we are going to have to produce works of that righteousness. To do that we are going to have to have our breastplate of righteousness on. That’s a right relationship with God through Jesus Christ. As a part of the right relationship we have to believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord. Now there are many ways of confessing with the mouth. If we are going to confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord, we’re going to have to make a manifested confession of what we believe in our hearts.
We can take this principal and apply it in any area of our lives. Our life actions will declare our heart’s beliefs. When our actions fail to confess a righteousness according to God’s word the source is our breastplate of righteousness. If our lives’ actions refuse to confess His Lordship we don’t really believe in our hearts that Jesus is Lord. Our righteousness is not based upon the obedient work, but it is based upon us allowing Jesus to be Lord of our lives.
We live from our hearts with works that speak of our faith toward God. Our wisdom is not found in the strength of our own works, but in the empowerment of works that testify of our love for God and witness to our faith toward God in all things. It is through a right relationship with and a dependency upon God that we live from our hearts with faith toward God. It is the grace of the Spirit of Wisdom that reveals our royal and priestly roles in life.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
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