Quick Summary
In Revelation 3 it says Wake up! Strengthen what remains. And in Hebrews chapter 4 it says that there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God for those who will enter in TODAY. 1 Corinthians 13 also says that faith, hope, and love remain but love is the greatest of these. To strengthen what remains is to strengthen our positioning of rest in Christ by remaining in his love. Revelation 3 goes onto say that Jesus did not find the peoples deeds or works complete and in James 2 is says that Abraham's faith was made complete and alive by his works. We are saved by grace through faith, but faith must have works or actions that prove we believe in order to be awake, alive, and complete. Those that do this will be victorious and clothed in white.
Yearly Cycle Updates
Pentecost is on May 17th. This was the day when the Holy Spirit was given and is with us to guide us into all truth and to help us understand all the things that God has freely given us. Pentecost is also the middle of the year. It is the bridge to the other side of the year. In the Spring of the year we play offense but in the 2nd half of the year we need to focus on defense and standing firm in our faith.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, I pray for all those watching, listening, or reading this and their families, friends, and all those connected to them along with our church and governmental leaders.
Thank you for releasing us from darkness and transferring us into the light, into the kingdom of your dear son. Thank you for your purpose and grace given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.
I ask that you the father of glory would give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation so we would know you better. That the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened to know the hope to which you have called us, and the riches of your glorious inheritance that is in us, and the immeasurable greatness of your power to us who believe. The same power that you exercised in Christ when you raised him from the dead, and seated him at your right hand in heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion,and every name that is named. Not only in this age but also in the one to come. And you put all things under his feet and made him to be the head of all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Heavenly Father, bless us and make your face shine upon us. Let us find grace and favor in your eyes.Expand our borders and our territory. Expand our capacity to receive your purpose and grace, and all that you want to do in our lives, and to let it flow through us so that we do good and are a blessing to people all over the world. Keep your hand on us and help us do TODAY what is right and best in your eyes. And to do it with peace and joy, and confidence in you. And as we do stretch out your hand to heal and do signs and wonders. And keep us from evil and pain.
Through the mighty name of Jesus. Amen
Communion Meditation
A new month is like a fresh start or new beginning. This is a time to look back at all of the progress you have made over the last month as well as look for areas where some adjustments need to be made. Here are some areas to evaluate.
Spiritual life, mindset, emotions, purpose, health, family, finances, order, time, and community.
In each of these areas you are either growing and moving forward or you are going the wrong way. There is no in between. If you find an area that seems to be going in the right direction then it give it to God and roll all of the care and worry of it onto him. Then we need to trust that God is going to navigate us in this area. If we will do this it will turn and he will lead us to a spacious place of freedom.
Every time we take communion we are proclaiming the death of Jesus. His death was the turning point for all time. It was the transition from the old to the new. Every month is a new beginning. As we break bread today let it be symbolic of releasing the last month and getting off to a fresh start this month.
As we take the cup it is a reminder of our covenant in the blood of Jesus. A covenant is a partnership or agreement. I was just reading earlier today that in a covenant the lesser person really benefits from the agreement. God has promised to be our shield and great reward. He is in our service and has given us everything he has and he placed it in Christ. God is continually working for our good and has said that if we ever get in trouble to call out to him because he will deliver us. Our role in the partnership is to abide in him and stay connected to him. To stay focused on him and follow his leading. To believe and trust in him while also calling out to him if we need help. Our role is to put his grace to work in our lives and give other people the same love and grace he has given us. We need to stay out of strife.
Wake Up! Strengthen What Remains
Last week on our Zoom with our partners we got onto the topic of Remaining Where You Are And Trusting God For the Next Level. In Exodus 16 when the manna was given the people were told to remain where they were on the Sabbath and not to go out. Hebrews 4 says the promise for a Sabbath rest still remains and that day is today. We enter into that rest by believing God, mixing the promise with faith and taking action because faith without action is incomplete. Everyday we are supposed to be remaining in the Christ and in his love. That is supposed to be our positioning and we need to be continually strengthening our positioning in his love.
After teaching on this last week Revelation chapter 3 kept coming to mind over and over again. In Revelation chapter 3 Jesus is speaking to the Church of Saris and here is what he says...
3 “To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.
4 Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. 5 The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels. 6 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
One of the things that got me onto this topic of remaining was that we had a car that needed some repairs but I thought we were going to trade it in soon so I delayed getting the car fixed. After letting the car sit idle for a while, God began to show me that I shouldn't let it sit idle, because I needed to be a good steward of the things I currently had. He began to remind me of several times when I had made a commitment in my heart to be a good steward of what I currently had and each time he moved me quickly to a new level. When we position our hearts to be grateful for and steward well where we are currently it leads to faster growth. For example, if you want a new house or car focus on being a good steward of the one you currently have and taking good care of it. If you want to grow a business or ministry or get a promotion at work strengthen what remains there currently. Often the fastest path to the next level is to be grateful for what currently remains and make the most of what you currently have.
The New Testament speaks of several things that remain. We said the Sabbath is one of these things. God's word also remains forever. We should be strengthening our level of God's word within us. In Ecclesiastes it says that anything God does is everlasting or remains forever. In 1 Corinthians 13 it also says that faith, hope and love remain but love is the greatest of these. Here is the passage on love from 1 Corinthians 13...
13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
In Revelation 3, Jesus said to strengthen what remains because he had not found their deeds to be complete in the sight of his God. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus, but in James 2 it says that faith without works or deeds is dead. I had a time when I was under financial pressure. I had prayed over it and given it to God and was speaking God's promises about supplying all of our needs but the weight or pressure of it was still on me. It was weighing on me and I was playing out scenarios in my mind to figure out a solution.
Then thankfully God reminded me of a concept that is in my book The Pockets of Prosperity called the Memorial Portion. A Memorial Portion is giving a small handful as a reminder that God can take the little we have and turn it into more than enough. The point of giving a small amount becomes a point of trust and something practical we actually do as a symbol of what we believe. Our faith or believing needs works, actions, or proof that we actually believe. In this example, I gave away a Memorial Portion of $1 to a ministry that had been helpful to me. As I was giving the $1 I was thanking and praising God that he is more than enough and immediately I felt all of the pressure lift and I knew in my spirit that the tables had turned. It wasn't the amount of money. It was taking an action that proved that I believe.
Jesus wanted to see faith that was complete and active. James chapter 2 says that our faith must have deeds or works to be complete. Here is what it says in James chapter 2:14-25...
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
When we have faith that is awake and complete we receive a robe of righteousness and we become a friend of God. In John 15 Jesus correlates obeying him and taking action with being his friend.
25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
God wants to see some physical proof or evidence that we believe. We must have corresponding action in order to make our faith complete and full. As another example, when God was moving me out of my personal training business I felt God nudging me to buy the Abundant Life Training Center domain name. Even though I hadn't started yet I bought the domain name, at a time when it didn't look possible.
Faith, hope, and love remain. Faith needs to be complete with deeds. Faith is also the substance of things hoped for. Hope is defined in the Amplified Bible as the confident expectation of good. Hope is about the future. We are to be strengthening our confidence in God. As we have active faith we will see God come through again and again which causes our confidence and trust in him to increase even more. Hope is the feeling of trust and confidence is one of the highest expressions of trust.
Faith, hope and love remain but love is the greatest because it never fails. Faith needs to be expressed through love.
Here is what it says about love in John 15.
15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
The rebuke that Jesus spoke to the Church of Sardis was spoken out of love. He wanted to see them get it right. He wanted them to remain in his love and to have a faith that was active and alive full of good deeds that were motivated by God's love in them.
Strengthen what remains. Strengthen your positioning in Christ and in his love. Strengthen your faith by mixing it with corresponding action and proof that you believe. Strengthen you hope and confidence in God. And most of all be growing and strengthening your love for God and people. Philippians 1:9 says that if our love abounds more and more in knowledge and depth of insight it teaches to discern what is the best thing to do. When we remain in God's love our lives produce much fruit.
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