Wake Up in a Dream

"Cease striving and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”  Ps 46:10 (NAS)

 

Stop and let God move in your life, let Jesus accomplish more than your mind could ever fathom or dream—no matter where you are with God.  There is always room for Jesus to do more good stuff in you—“far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!” (Eph 3:20, The Message).  Simply, cease striving, relax and “Be still, and know that I am God” (NIV).  Let the Lord guide your thinking, place a good dream in you, and fulfill more in your life than you could ever imagine or dream.  The alternative is to live in a way that leaves you striving, restless, stressed, and depressed with everything.  That’s what happens when trying to control everything yourself.  But God, … oh yes, … BUT GOD … the completeness of  love, the giver of peace and giver of the breath of life, He can do what you can’t control, ... so, just “Be still” – cease striving!

 

Don’t get in the trap thinking that to be still means to sit on your rump and do nothing but vegetate or snooze—seek God more than you ever have before.  Being still, not striving—is acting in humility and letting God do something good for you.  Striving is being too proud to take God’s help; it’s being oblivious, unaware of the good life in Christ.  As Jacob learned, when he awoke after the dream of the stairway, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it” (Gen 28:16).  We often reject the Spirit of Christ in various ways.  We sleep, ignoring God and his dreams for us.  We live unaware.  We live miserably.  Don’t snooze past salvation; actively respond, was that a tug by Christ’s Spirit on your heart, asking you to be one with Him?  …  Be still, get up daily to walk in God’s Spirit, listening to the Spirit whispering His counsel (John 14:26; Gal 5:25).  Don’t sleep through life, unaware of God’s never-ending presence.  There’s too much to miss, striving gets you groggy, and you miss out on Life—God’s comfort, mercy, grace, peace, advice, joy, healing, and miracles, all he has in store for you (Jeremiah 28:11-14).

 

 

When Jacob woke up, he declared, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”  God’s has a dream for you, be aware of it.  Shake the cobwebs.  Be aware that you can’t make God’s dream work, He does.  Be aware that your dreams, your striving leaves you sleeping and not aware; only when God is exalted – lifted high, given the glory – do we receive what He is dreaming for you.  Fulfill His dream of peace, joy, healing, and all that is the good life for you.  Jacob set an example for us, be like him, wake up, know that “the LORD is in this place,” exalt Him – stop striving, wake up, God’s dream will become reality.

 

Dreaming while walking with my eyes wide open,

 

Owen <><

 

 



 

Regret

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret,

but worldly sorrow brings death.

2 Corinthians 7:10

We are incapable of having lived a perfect life, having had a life that reflected the perfect glory of God.  That is no excuse to not strive to be better, nor is it a surrender flag to live in regret.  There are many things that can distress you – none of us are the exception to that.  Those mistakes are a part sin, a God’s Word says, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 6:23).  So, are we to live a life overwhelmed by the past, consumed by regret?  No!  Again, no! 

The love, mercy, and grace of God is why Christ came to cleanse us.  How is one renewed?  God’s promise is this, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor 5:17).  Christ’s Spirit moves in us and gives us a clean slate!  No more scribbling, you are His masterpiece.  There are no regrets in Christ, only hope and joy, only forgiveness and restoration, only redemption and righteousness.  When Christ is given control of our life, our very thoughts, then renewal comes, we transform in Him in new life!

To continue in regret is to wallow in guilt, shame, disappointment, sorrow, distress – sin triumphs and leaves you in regret, in need of redemption, repentance, hope, joy … having only the sorrow of the grave, death itself.  Regret is staying in satan’s chains of bondage, regret is rejecting the resurrection to life given in Christ Jesus.  Don’t regret, it only bleeds life from you; the blood of Christ has coved all you could ever regret, and its sorrow in death.  To regret, is to “to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

No regret, living in hope,

Owen <><

Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession. James 1:17-18 NLT

Celebrate Liberty

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1

As Americans today we celebrate our liberty, freedom, and independence as citizens of the United States.  Spiritually, every day is a celebration of the freedom Christ has given us with his breaking the burden, the bondage from the “yoke of slavery,” sin.  In Christ we are free of sin—that is the good news of Jesus Christ.  It is by our Lord’s grace that he pours upon us a flood of power that pushes all slavery by the evil one in to the abyss.

Americans received independence, although there were those who resisted the revolution (Loyalist or Tories) in that day; likewise throughout American history there has been opposition (violent sometimes, e.g., the Civil War, other wars, riots, personal hateful actions) to other people whose ideas, politics, etc. differ.  Today some resist Christ, refusing to turn to him; without opposition we are to exercise love toward them.  Why?  Because the freedom given in Christ is love, grace, and humility—where the actions of sin has no place!  That is true freedom, because as Christ followers, “we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (Rom 12:5-6).  Independence is therefore not of God, we have given independence up for unity and complete dependence in Christ!  As Andrew Murray states, “Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is, from the very nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue of the Christian.”

As we celebrate American national liberty, it is, nonetheless Christ who gives true freedom.  Our salvation is in Christ alone, if we live, and speak as though “being Christian and being American is indistinguishable, we lose the transforming essence of our faith” (Erwin Raphael McManus).  We must resist that confusion.  What are we to do?  We do as the Holy Spirit instructed the Apostle Peter, who wrote to believers everywhere:  “Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.  Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king” (1 Peter 2:16-17).

Celebrate, and worship the giver of true freedom,

Owen <><