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Clear VisionTHE Foundation of All We Teach |
"Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve him in sincerity and truth... Serve the Lord!... Choose this day for yourselves whom you will serve, but as for Me and My House we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:14-15
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" ~ Ephesians 2:8
The foundation of all we teach, is really the foundation to all of Life. As we stated in our introduction to Me and My House, in the "from my heart to yours" section, "Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve him in sincerity and truth... Serve the Lord!... Choose this day for yourselves whom you will serve, but as for Me and My House we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:14-15
None of our teaching will make sense, nor hold any use for you, if you have not made Jesus, Y'shua of Nazareth, the Lord over your Life through the Salvation and new Life He offers you. The number one all time question we get asked is, "How do you do it all?" We don't! But what we do get done is only accomplished by the grace of God in our lives. If you desire to live an abundant, full life, and grow in character, blessings, joy, peace, patience and love, you will need the same Answer that we have found; for in Him alone is fullness of Life.
Have you made Jesus the Center of your Life? Does everything in your entire Life revolve around Him? He is all you need to turn your Life around! And your Life does need turned around. He is the One that made you. He fashioned you for a purpose. He created you with a destiny to fulfill. But you will never be able to walk out that purpose or fulfill that destiny unless you are connected to Him. You will spend your life searching for happiness to fill a void you know is in your life. This void in your life is caused by being disconnected from your Creator. This void can only be filled by Him.
You are disconnected because you have done wrong against your Creator. He is perfect in all ways; He is God! and you are not. You have done wrong, thought wrong, and had wrong attitudes. No matter how small or few you think these instances are, they have separated you from the perfect, holy God. To get connected to Him, these wrongs need to be done away with, but you are not able to get rid of them or even stop doing them on your own. You, just like all people who have ever lived, need a Savior, someone to pay the price and erase those wrongs, and someone to give you the power to live above doing them anymore. You can't do it. No amount of good outweighs even the slightest wrongs. Only One can do it for you. That One is Jesus the Christ. When He comes into your Life, He radically changes it, makes it new. He connects you to God, by cleansing away the sin that separated you from Him; and He gives you the ability to live above the sin, and walk in the purpose and destiny you were created for. He comes to give you Life abundantly!
How does Jesus come into your Life? You must turn from your sins and turn to Him. It's as simple as ABC. Admit you are a sinner (one who has done wrong against God), and in need of a Savior; realizing you've not been a good "Boss" over your own life, and you need His help to live the way He desires you to; ask for forgiveness for doing things your own way and turn from your ways to His. Believe Jesus is the only one that can save you from the penalty of sin (death and hell), and the power of sin (continuing to commit it), because He is the only sinless Son of God, who was crucified, and resurrected having conquered the sin, death, and hell; believe in faith that He forgives you when you turn away from your sins and ask His forgiveness, and that He will come into your Life and change it. Confess Him as the Lord of your Life; proclaim Him to be your new Boss who has a much better plan for your Life than you do, and will give you the ability to live that plan, as you continue to follow Him and grow in Him.
This is His priceless, yet free, gift for you. Yet it cost Him everything. The work that He began in you, turning your heart from your ways to His, He will continue to do in you. He will make you new and put His power, through His Holy Spirit, in you. All you have to do is allow His grace (that is His power to do right) to work in your Life in order to resist the temptation of the enemy of your soul (the devil, yes he is real) to turn you back to your old ways, or other ways contrary to God's. Yes, if you resist the devil he will flee from you; because there is no temptation he brings that God doesn't bring greater grace to overcome it. However, you can also resist God's grace, and deny its power to work in your Life, and in doing so fall into the same trap and sins that Christ has redeemed (brought and bought) you out of. It is your choice. As you grow in God, as the Lord over your Life, that choice for His grace will become easier.
To grow in Him Know Him, Trust Him, & Love Him. Come to Know Him. He is your closest Friend, your Father, and your Groom. He has revealed Himself in His Word, the 66 books of the Holy Bible. He wrote it through men, as a love story to you. Read it, hunger for it, study it, make it your constant companion. Talk to Him, this is prayer. You can't tell Him anything He doesn't already know, but He wants to hear it from you. But prayer isn't just talking, it's listening to Him too. He will talk to you. You probably won't hear Him with your physical ears often, but you will hear Him in your spirit, the deep down part of you where He lives. Inside, you can also hear from yourself, or your enemy. So how will you know it is God? His voice will never contradict His Word. That's why you must know His written Word, the Bible, very well. The better you get to Know Him, through His Word, the more you will recognize His voice. It's like a friend who calls you on the phone. When you first meet them, if they call you don't recognize their voice. But after you get to know them better, you think its them, but maybe aren't quite sure. After you know them very well, you are certain it is their voice when they call.
As you get to Know Him better, you will find that He can always be trusted. He is not a man that He would lie. Everything He says, He will do. Everything He is, He is perfectly; and He never changes. His ways are not our ways, and we many times won't understand His ways. But we can Trust Him that His ways are always best, and even when people mess things up, He will work them around for our good, when we "love Him and are called according to His purpose." He truly is Sovereign, there is nothing bigger or greater than Him, or that takes Him by surprise. He truly has everything under control, and will work His purposes on earth, even through the choices of people that go against Him.
As we Know Him, and realize we can Trust Him in everything, we truly will Love Him. Both the pleasures and the pains of this world will fade away as our Life gets wrapped up in Him. Even if you've never experienced it in Life, we have all dreamed it; being in Love and nothing else matters. In Loving Him, we will want nothing more than to be with Him, to forget all the worries of this world, to know He'll take perfect care of us, no matter what comes our way. We'll desire to only work alongside Him, to do His perfect will; to bring His Kingdom to this earth; to bring His Love to those around us on this earth. To worship Him in spirit and truth, sitting at His feet and adoring Him for who He really is. He becomes our all in all.
This is the Good News (Gospel) of Jesus the Christ (Y'shua the Messiah, as He was called in His time and place in His life here on earth). The next two pages in this section give this true story in 2 other ways, the first as God's Color Book, as a simple story. The second through the Scriptures, that is verses from the book of Romans from the Bible, the Romans Road. If you have any further questions, please ask. We don't have all the answers, but we do know The Answer to all of Life's questions, Jesus; and hopefully we can point you to a resource if we aren't able to explain.
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copyright Lisa Hodgen/Me and My House 1998-2008 |
