Being Busy

While I was talking with God, he shared this one liner with me, "Being busy does not glorify Me." I wondered what it meant and then He cleared it up.

We run our lives using a calendar. Some of us have it on our phone or on our computer. Mine even sends me an email a few days in advance to remind me of my appointments. So I do not even have to remember to look at the calendar. We lead busy lives.

As believers, much of our time seems to be spent with church involvement. On Sunday's we look at the things going on in the church we attend. If we put every one of those things in our calendar we would not have much left over.

James 2:26 
Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works. (NIV)

In addition we think up all kinds of projects that God should approve. We want to always be working for Him. After all, without works faith is dead. But what are those works worth?

Psalm 37:23 
The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. (NIV)

First and foremost, I believe God wants our focus on Him. He wants our praise and He wants us to have a relationship with Him. The only entry He wants to see in our calendar is a date with Him every hour of every day. If we do that and listen to His voice, He will fill in the slots in the calendar. He will direct our steps to the works He has for us to do instead of the works we think are godly.

You see, busyness is not godliness.

Modern Medicine

2 Chronicles 16
In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa developed a serious foot disease. Yet even with the severity of his disease, he did not seek the Lord's help but turned only to his physicians. So he died in the forty-first year of his reign. (NLT)

God gave us a mind to think and create. So we have created modern medicine to heal us, they say. Physicians have been around for centuries, even before Jesus ever walked the earth. As they have practiced their trade, they have become better at what they do. The more test subjects they treat the better they get at diagnosing the problem and suggesting a remedy that works most of the time.

Psalm 103:3
He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases. (NLT)

But why would God want us to turn away from Him for healing and turn instead to man? Why would he have us depend on man to heal us?

John 14:12-14 
"I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it! (NLT)

All we have to do is ask, in the name of Jesus and it will be so. If we believe. And yet, man turns away from God to be healed, to live a longer life. Is he turning to just another graven image?

Mark 16:16-18
Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved... They will be able to place their hands on the sick, and they will be healed. (NLT)

Jesus did mighty miracles and told us that we will do the same works, and even greater ones. He sent Holy Spirit to dwell within us and gave us the authority and power to call forth the miraculous.

Let's stop turning first to man and instead keep our focus on God. He will heal all our diseases.

Turn it On

2 Corinthians 4:18
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (NIV)

I remember when we got our first television set. It was sometime in the late 1940's and it was a large, boxy thing with a screen smaller then the one on this old laptop I am using now. The picture was in black and white as color had not been invented. We moved out the old stand up am/shortwave radio from it's living room position and moved in the latest technological marvel.

Unlike the hundreds of channels available today all day and all night, our television would only pick up a couple of channels and only during a rather limited period of time. When the stations were not broadcasting a show, they sent out a test pattern. Anybody remember what that looked like?

When the television is turned off we cannot see anything on it. But when we locate and then pick up that remote control and press the on button all is visible and we have access to anything available.

Perhaps our life in the spirit is similar. We make a decision to believe in God and that He sent Jesus to live amongst us, to live and die for all our transgressions. We turn on our spiritual eyes when in faith we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

He opens up a whole new dimension of life for us. We see beyond the current situations in our lives and on to what is to come; what is eternal.

Before we turned on the switch, the television set was blank. Before we turned on Jesus in our lives reading the Bible was a chore with nothing gained. It was like reading a textbook in a subject we really had no interest in.

After we found Jesus and let Him into our lives, reading became a joy. Unlike TV, there are no reruns! The Bible all of a sudden has hundreds of channels and each time we read it something new pops out just for us, for our current situation, and to propel us into our eternal life journey.

Temptation

1 Corinthians 10:13
The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure. (NLT)

How easy it is to remember that God is always with us. He knows what we desire and what we are being tempted to do or say. Sometimes we are the author of our own temptations as we listen to the thoughts coming from the enemy. "You have done it before." "What can it hurt?" "Nobody will know."

At other times we fall under the spell of others, often so called friends of ours and even our spouse. They are going off in the wrong direction, a way that we know takes us from the will of God in our life, and we choose to follow.

Another saying popped into my mind when I read this scripture. "God will not give you something you cannot handle." This is quoted often and is a misquote of the above scripture. It indicates that God is the author of temptation, but this is untrue.

James 1:13
And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, "God is tempting me." God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. (NLT)

God is watching our back all the time. He does not tempt us or put us into bad situations. We are very skilled at doing that ourselves. And He does not allow the enemy to tempt us beyond what we are able to endure.

God is faithful to His Word. We are to trust in Him in all things and listen to Holy Spirit as He guides us away from the temptations that come our way.

Sacrifice of Praise

Hebrews 13:15
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise-the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. (NIV)

The Amplified ends with "which is the fruit of lips that thankfully acknowledge and confess and glorify His name."

And the Message ends with "Let's take our place outside with Jesus, no longer pouring out the sacrificial blood of animals but pouring out sacrificial praises from our lips to God in Jesus' name."

We are no longer under the Jewish law. We no longer offer a blood sacrifice to atone for our sins. Jesus did that for us once and for all.

The sacrifice we are to offer is to openly profess His name, thankfully acknowledging and confessing and glorifying Him by what we say in Jesus' name.

And yet often our time is spent openly with God in that quite place inside, in our own home. We think of praise as what we say in church on Sunday when the praise and worship team leads us through a series of songs in that direction.

Well, that is not enough. We are to take our place outside with Jesus. We are to go outside the four walls of our house and speak His name in what we do, how we act, how we react, and what we say.

We are to be Jesus to the world around us. We are to give Him all the glory and when we reach out and touch someone we do it in the name of Jesus.

This is the sacrifice of praise we are to openly make daily.

His Glory

I believe "Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven" in the Lord's prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) is telling us that whatever His will in Heaven is, we want the same here on earth. And for that to happen we need to be in the Glory Cloud of His presence. We need to be under His anointing.

When that happens deliverance happens. Healing happens. Miracles happen. And all in the blink of an eye. No one has to do anything. God moves and people are set free.

Yes, I believe God answers prayer with or without the presence of the anointing. The difference is in the timing. When we are in His Glory, we are in timeless reality and what could take days or weeks or years to happen in the natural, if at all, happens in a moment of time.

More Glory = Less Time

Now you ask, can someone be in an atmosphere of healing and not be healed? Yes, they can. Where we are physically is not necessarily where we choose our mind and spirit to be. We have the right to ignore the presence of God and as such will not be touched by what is freely available.

Isaiah 60:1-2
Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. (NIV)

Praise and Worship can tap into the Glory Realm. It can bring down a strong anointing of God in the congregation of Spirit filled believers. Holy Spirit's presence permeates the atmosphere and people are touched. The anointing is an accelerator. It speeds up the process. The enemy has to flee in His presence.

Psalm 91:1
Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. (NIV)

We need to dwell in His presence, in the secret place. But, how do we get there? Praise and worship can play a great part in opening Heaven so the anointing is present.

Our music should being with praise--fast tempo songs that make us dance, jump, and shout to the Lord. It should continue until worship comes, not until the program or order of service says it does. Not two fast and one slow song. No, we stay in an atmosphere of praise until worship comes. And the our songs should be intimate, slow songs of love to God.

As we soak in His presence we will begin to feel the thick, heavy presence of the Lord. After the Glory comes down, the anointing, we need to wait. We need to wait for God to move. If we move out on our own we will be ahead of God and miss what He has for us. We need to minister out of God's Glory and not out of our own gift. When Holy Spirit moves, then we move with Him.

On Suffering

John 10:9-10
Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. The thief's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. (NLT)

Jesus did not come for us to suffer. He came for us to have abundant life, a rich and satisfying life. But that does not line up with satan's plan. No, he comes to steal and destroy.

Yet how often we hear about how we have to suffer for God. And so not true. It is one of the myths that keeps a child of God from receiving a healing touch. They honestly believe the lie of the enemy that tells they they are suffering for the glory of God.

John 9:3
"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Some think this man was born blind for the express purpose of having Jesus lay hands on him and give him sight. Yet the works of God were not displayed until Jesus healed him. Our sickness does not glorify God; our healing does.

It is life before Christ that was filled with suffering. We were lost and blindly following the lead of satan. Sickness and despair were a normal part of our lives. We lived from paycheck to paycheck and from doctor to doctor. It was not an abundant life. It was living for the sake of living.

When we found Jesus, we found the only way out of the grip of satan. We found the truth that had been hidden from us, masked by a cunning enemy. All we have to do is put our trust in Him for our daily lives and Holy Spirit will keep us on the right path. And that is the only path that leads to an abundant life here on earth and a path that leads to an eternity in Heaven with Jesus.

Matthew 16:23 
Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." (NIV)

When suffering tries to come upon us we need to do what Jesus did and command satan to get behind us. He has no authority in our lives and he has not power except for the power we give him. With Holy Spirit in us, we have complete power and authority over satan. It is time we used that power in our daily lives.