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readyornot
Member



Joined: 2018/8/17
Posts: 35


 Empty pockets to glory

Spiritual life, to those who drink, and have regular communion with the source of the living 💦 water Jesus Christ, Himself.
Many of Gods people including myself at times, according to Jeremiah 2:13 have forsaken the fountain of living waters, and carved them self out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold water.

We need Revival!!!!
Have we lost our purpose, destiny and focus, from the True living water a devoted relationship with God, and sought life pleasures in the idolatrous things of this world, things that have no real lasting value. For its time for us to consider our ways, we have sown much and brought in little we have lived self-seeking lives and earned wages only to put it into bags with holes. To busy with our own interests becoming spiritual apathetic. It’s time !!!! That the Lord’s house should be built, and us fill us with His glory.
Haggai 1

 2019/5/1 14:43Profile
TMK
Member



Joined: 2012/2/8
Posts: 6650
NC, USA

 Re: Empty pockets to glory

How about providing some practical ideas?


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Todd

 2019/5/1 15:32Profile
CofG
Member



Joined: 2017/2/12
Posts: 964
Cambodia

 Re: Empty pockets to glory

Haggai 1 is God's message to His OT people that they had neglected the number one focus of constructing His temple for the sake of focusing on building their own homes and lives. His people got delivered from Babylon and built the wall that would protect them but neglected the temple construction and focused on homes, work and family concerns. God was very not pleased. He warned His people and they repented and vowed to do the Lord's work as a first priority. In response to their repentance and re commitment, God stirred the hearts of the people to do the work and finish the temple....

Today's spiritual temple is in neglect because of many lives that have focused as a first priority on the building of their own homes and lives in lieu of the NT kingdom temple. This is a general statement that would be difficult to deny. Of course it is not a universal statement but a general one that is true. In fact, the focus on building our lives on earth is not considered neglect but proverbially prudent.

Revival of the spirit of God's people to seek the completion of His Kingdom's spiritual temple is very much in order.


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Robert

 2019/5/1 17:09Profile
twayneb
Member



Joined: 2009/4/5
Posts: 2256
Joplin, Missouri

 Re: Empty pockets to glory

This is what I have learned in my own life. First, relationship with God through Christ is just that...relationship. Intimacy and communion are at the very foundation. But to enter that relationship I must die to myself. If any man would come after me he must deny himself...right?

We have viewed salvation as a prayer of repentance or a decision for Christ that results in a change of eternal address (hell to heaven), and then we have tried to teach people how to live a good, clean, Christian life once they have made that eternal decision. But this can never deal with the problem of self and of self-determination (self-centeredness).

But the point of what Jesus did is to bring us into right relationship and cause us to become like Him. It is losing my life and allowing Him to live through me.

I have found that when I finally realized this and committed to allowing me to die and Him to live in me,; when I finally realized that communion with Him in intimacy was the key to my victory, I suddenly found myself desiring all of Him and none of me. I have not had to struggle to get rid of apathy or to overcome the pull of worldly pleasures. In fact, I simply find myself not concerned with them at all. I am too busy finding my life in Him and He is absolutely awesome. To me, those things have become about as appealing and important as dung (Paul in Philippian right?)


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Travis

 2019/5/2 10:05Profile
JFW
Member



Joined: 2011/10/21
Posts: 2009
Dothan, Alabama

 Re: brother Travis

Yes Amen!!!
This is precisely as I’ve experienced and come to understand it:)
Also there’s allot less “bending” the scriptures to “fit”... they just make sense and fit together without requiring me to fabricate a narrative to contain them-

However recently the Lord had to do a divine work of deliverance in me to free me from the bondages I had unwittingly entangled myself in, from caring what others thought, to seeking pleasure for self, etc.... but it was in an instant that He did this- I simply realized I needed deliverance and asked.... the next morning when I awoke it had already been done 😇🙏🏻


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Fletcher

 2019/5/2 11:00Profile
TMK
Member



Joined: 2012/2/8
Posts: 6650
NC, USA

 Re:

//I have found that when I finally realized this and committed to allowing me to die and Him to live in me,//

Travis, it might be helpful if you would explain this from a practical standpoint.

I think many people know the words about “dying to self” but these words are somewhat abstract. I think people struggle with how to make it a reality in their life. They don’t know where to begin. They might think it means they shouldn’t do something if they want to do it (even a legitimate thing) which obviously is not the case.


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Todd

 2019/5/2 11:36Profile
Gloryandgrace
Member



Joined: 2017/7/14
Posts: 1165
Snoqualmie, WA

 Re:


Travis: what a great revelation of God, its what Christianity truly is at it's best.

Well said brother.


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Marvin

 2019/5/2 12:01Profile
TrueWitness
Member



Joined: 2006/8/10
Posts: 661


 Re:

I really appreciate this thread and the fantastic inputs and responses that have been given. I just want to say how important is was for me to see that personal revival and transformation in my life began with assessing my heart first. If we try to just effect change in our outward behavior without dealing with heart issues, we will not be transformed. It was when the Holy Spirit put His spotlight of conviction upon my lukewarmness and prayerlessness and I humbly submitted to that conviction and allowed it to develop into a DESPERATION for a changed heart and life that I received grace to repent and focus on my relationship with Christ. I was so fed up with a so-so Christian life and I longed for the Living Water and the Bread of Life. Getting right with God by living in close union and communion with Him makes all the difference. But I had to experience holy desperation - being unable to keep going on with life as usual and embracing life with Christ as my center - that life became this wonderful experience. Don't let the distractions of this modern world saddle you into living for wood, hay and stubble. Make room in your life for your relationship with Christ to flourish and blossom by saying no to lesser things.

-Daniel

 2019/5/2 13:05Profile
twayneb
Member



Joined: 2009/4/5
Posts: 2256
Joplin, Missouri

 Re:

Fletcher: That happened with me as well. I was really struggling with things one day and decided to spend as much time as it took in His presence until the thing broke. I had always had a bondage to the approval of others.

As I prayed, He directed me to read the first three chapters of Ephesians. I have never read them like I did that day. Every four or five verses, I would have the Holy Spirit stop me and ask, "Do you see what you just read?" I would say yes and He would say, "That is how much I love you." By the time I finished chapter 3 I was jumping up and down in my kitchen, crying, praising God, and yelling, "He loves me, He loves me, He loves me" at the top of my lungs. His love became real revelation to me, not just intellectual understanding, and it has changed my entire life.

I now read the word, not for knowledge sake, but for relationship sake. I can understand ALL mysteries and miss becoming His love and all my knowledge will just be so much noise. He is showing me what it looks like to surrender to Him every area of my life and in return obtain His life.

Praise God for your experience. Your life will never be the same from her on out. Awesome!


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Travis

 2019/5/2 13:14Profile
twayneb
Member



Joined: 2009/4/5
Posts: 2256
Joplin, Missouri

 Re:

Todd: This may sound strange to some, but when I try by my own efforts to fix my problems and become more Christlike, I actually strengthen sin in my life. It is right there in Romans 7..How can I obtain spiritual deliverance and success by efforts of my own mind and flesh. Fleshly effort yields fleshly fruit. I must come to the end of myself and my own effort.

I tried to overcome fear of man and a history of past rejection that left my heart wounded and hard. I never had success. But when I finally realized I could never by my efforts fix the issue, and when I completely surrendered it to the Lord, He gave me a revelation of His love that caused all desire for human approval to disappear. I knew intellectually all about His love and I could have explained it to you Biblically, but I had never experienced it in a way that it transformed my heart.

I have found, in the past, my identity in so many things. I found my identity in my own intellect. I found my identity in my ability to work very hard physically. I found my identity in my ability to understand scripture. I needed others to give me props and so I found my identity in those props. I also found, in a negative sense, my identity in the teasing and rejections of the past. I found my identity in my in ability to be a good social butterfly (I always felt like I did not truly understand social situation well [although I know now this was a lie from the enemy]). I found identity in the mistakes and sins of the past. When things got difficult my wife says I would always return to these negative things as I talked to her.

I had to surrender my own efforts to deal with these things to Him. I had to die to my own sense of identity, my own sense of pride, my own sense of accomplishment and failure, my own opinions.

We always want something practical that we can do, and I am not sure brother if I can explain it that way. I know what it looks like for me, but others are not me. I can tell you that I have dealt with many others that struggled over the same thing. Let me give you one instance.

A lady came to our church. She had been a song leader and sang lots of "special songs" in her old church. She had always done this, her entire life, and now she was late 50's. Her identity was totally wrapped up in what she could do for God rather than in God Himself and His relationship with her.

I prayed with, counseled with this lady many times. She actually cried as she told me that it seemed like I had something that was outside of her grasp. But she could not imagine a life of joy and fulfillment in Christ apart from her talents being used in a church. So, when the opportunity came from another church for her to sing regularly she disappeared. She could not die to her talents and her sense of identity being wrapped up in them. She could not give it to God and say, "Lord, if I never sing for you again and only sing to you in private, I will be totally fulfilled in simply knowing You intimately."

I cannot say that there is a particular point in time that you completely die to self. It is a process. But there is a point in time where we are totally in and committed to the process. There is a point in time when we decide that He is going to be everything to us and that we are no longer going to find our identity in anything but Him. There is a point in time where we realize that just as He died, we die. A point where we agree to partake in His suffereings (death to the flesh) so that we can partake of His glory.

I agree with you wholeheartedly Todd in this. People have somehow interpreted dying to self as some form of monastic lifestyle where they try to do the opposite of what they want to do. Nothing could be further from the truth.


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Travis

 2019/5/2 13:38Profile





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