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Discussion Forum : Devotional Thoughts : Where are you in the journey?

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 Where are you in the journey?

Can you move from a place of fear to a place of life? How do we move from a life in this world to living a life from the next world? Can the eternal life be lived now in the midst of a dying world? How do we live and walk in the reality of the unseen as we live and walk in a world that presses its own reality upon us every day? A world that demands attention.

Death brother, death. It was the old Frank that was run through by many fears, anger , hatred, lusts, perversions. I knew where they came from. I allowed each and everyone of them to take hold of my life. As a Christian I had stepped forward and committed my life to Jesus. He saw that and knew it to be genuine. He said "Okay, come." Now the rest of my life would be spent in giving what I had id to Jesus, weeping 'Here is my life, such as it is, I give it completely to you." Now I know that I had nothing but my life to give him for in and of myself I was a wretch. After coming to Jesus He began to take what I had promised, slowly but surely. Yet He never made me do anything. He would simply come knocking on the door of my heart and ask for me to lay things down at the brazen alter. This took years and is still in progress. Transforming me from glory to glory, making me into His image.

Yet there was so many major battles and they had to be overcome. Think of the children of Israel in the desert all those years. The mistake is thinking that it was God who needed to keep them there. What if they had taken hold of the promises of God? What if they had trusted Him? What of, instead of listening to the ten spies and being fearful of the giants, they had listened to the two faithful spies? Is God not bigger than any giant? To say otherwise is to lessen who God is in our own minds and therefore fall into the trap of the enemy. To be led by fear is to be led by the enemy who wants us to stay in the desert. Yet, even when, by faith the children of Israel decided to take the promised land, enter into that place and cease from their own works, they still had to cross over a spring swollen mighty river. And it was not until they put their feet in the water that the water dried up. It took obedience and faith. And even when the entered the promised land they were confronted by Jericho. What is the Jericho in your life ? What is the swollen river? What are your giants?

And so, slowly I got tired of living in fear and the Lord brought up situations in my life where they had to be directly confronted. One of my major fears was going to college,another was quitting construction, another was speaking in public, another was money matters, another was self image, another was facing a life threatening disease, and a thousand more besides. So, choices had to be made, confront or flee. Always, confront or flee. I was never condemned by the the Lord when I ran. Now, I condemned myself, but not a single time did the Lord condemn me and I finally figured out that when I ran, the situation was still waiting for me and I was simply putting of the inevitable. I would go around the mountain again until I was ready to take on the obstacle. Yet probably the single biggest factor for me was recognizing that my fear was actually sin. Every single time I was afraid, I was saying "Lord, you are not Lord of my life, the fear is. " And I recognized that I was, in fact, a slave to sin because I had not reckoned on what the Lord had said to be true. We cannot be slaves and free men all at the same time. If the Lord has set me free, if He has come and opened up my jail cell, what was I doing still in the cell looking out through the bars at the world? Why had I not walked through the door that the Lord had opened? Was it safer for me to stay where I had become accustomed to? Even although it was a slavish miserable place, was it still preferable to me than to go beyond the horizons of what I had ever known? Yes, for many years it was. I was like the Israelites, threatened by armies or thirst or starvation , who wanted to tun back to Egypt with the rationale that at least in Egypt, at least in slavery, they could count on certain things. That was me.

And so I was like a pioneer back in the wagon trail days. I had started a journey, which by the way typically started at a town in Missouri called, of all names, Independence. I traveled through different rugged States, overcame deserts and rivers and mountains which were called anger and fears and lusts and insecurity, and I finally came to a vast ocean. I found many camps there, all up and down the coast. Different camps of Christianity. They had all found their way here because they had followed trails. And yet their destiny lay beyond the horizon of this sea called "Dependence." It was very comfortable on the shores, yet the master called every day. "Come away with me Frank to a place beyond what you have ever known. There are no maps, you must cast yourself upon the sea of dependence and trust me."

I looked around and saw what was happening to these people who had set up camp. The call from the sea lessened every day and many people started drifting back to the different States they had overcame. In a mad wild moment I decided, a decision of complete abandon, life or death, to throw myself upon the sea of dependence. And that is how I have come to be where I am right now. I am still on the sea, yet I have no control where I will end up. I don't care, I only know that the Lord has always been faithful and He has been directing and guiding all the way. So the question is where are you in the journey? Are you still in the jail cell? Are somewhere on the wagon-trail crossing mountains and valleys? Are you by the sea of dependence? These are the great questions of life for every Christians. We must face these questions and they must be answered ...........brother Frank

 2010/6/2 12:12
sojourner7
Member



Joined: 2007/6/27
Posts: 1573
Omaha, NE

 Re: Where are you in the journey?

GOD knows that life is a journey; and HE
has experienced and walked the way from
the manger to the cross to the grave and
into eternity, so we may follow in HIS
steps.
GOD knows that the journey must have a
destination; so HE has gone to prepare a
place for those who love HIM, a place
more glorious than we can imagine.

HENRY BLACKABY


_________________
Martin G. Smith

 2010/6/2 13:42Profile









 Re:

The question remains sojourner ... :) brother Frank

 2010/6/2 17:21





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