Have a beautiful day my treasured friend!
MAKE NO PROVISIONS FOR THE FLESH AND BE PREPARED TO SUFFER!!!
Want to live and move always in the glow of God's glory? How wonderful is that thought to a discouraged heart! Want to know Him and enjoy the relationship with Him that He tells us we can have? Are you willing to cast aside all that will hinder you in your quest to know and experience Him in the fullness of your salvation? Then you must be prepared to suffer. This is a given!
To have, hold and enjoy the beauty and exquisiteness of the rose we must carefully pluck it from among the painful thorns, which are ever present to afflict us if we carelessly venture into their path. Christ is indeed the Rose (Rose of Sharon) above all roses. The Rose who was so bruised and crushed that He was unrecognizable as the perfect rose. The Rose from which the elixir of Heaven (that is heavens cure for all that ails humankind) pours forth into the lives of His chosen and adored children. Not in His supernatural capacity as God did He suffer. But in His capacity as a human man who trust and depends solely on the word and directions of God the Father. And through His suffering the miraculous substance of His untarnished blood has made available to those who believe the keys to heaven and the treasures of God's kingdom. Our salvation is free but the cost of being able to walk in the righteousness that Jesus blood purchased for us is not. We must put off the old man who we were and put on the new who we now are. We must put on Christ. What does it mean to put on the Lord Jesus? It doesn't mean that we can put Him on, and take him off as we do our clothing. Once we get dressed up in Him we are to stay that way intentionally. It means that we are to fill our minds with Christ's mind. our mouths with His words, No matter what it takes. We are to literally put on the very lifestyle of Christ. And allow no life situation whatsoever to entice us to take it off. We are to suit up in His love, allow His thoughts to be our thoughts, walk in our allotted righteousness, which has made us acceptable to God in Christ. And courageously go for the prize that God has set before us, which is the fulfillment of all His promises to us in this age and the one to come. See Romans 13:14: Galatians 3:27.
This requires much suffering. Dying to our old worldly ways is hard. Satan and his bumble bushes seething with thorns is scatter all along our way. Therefore, as Christ suffered for us in the flesh, we must suffered and die to the things of the flesh. Put on the mind of Christ and live according to the things of the Spirit. Hard?! Oh yeah! Painful?! certainly! You can count on it! But he who suffers in the flesh in order to live by the will of God ceases to sin according to 1 Peter 4:1-2, NKJV. Crucifying the flesh and coming alive to the life of Christ in you is the only road to victory over the evil one and the destruction he plans for your life. Crucifixion is a slow, painful death for sure. But this is the only way to take up our cross and follow sure footedly in the footsteps of our precious Lord. (Taking up our cross means taking up the same Spirit filled life that was active in Jesus.) And as the pangs of death to our flesh subside the joy of the Lord is experienced. And fountains of Holy Spirit fullness erupts, fills and flows from our hearts. This is the pathway that God has set before us. Be prepared to suffer along the way. But traveling with the mind of Christ totally active in us, we can be sure we are marching in victory. Where no weapon that satan can form against us will prosper, because God Himself will condemn him. See Isaiah 54:17.
See: Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts. Romans 13:14. For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. Galatians 5:13: For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. Galatians 5:17. Copyright © Sylvia F. Liani 2009
God is a protecting wall of fire about us. But a consuming fire of the evil that seeks our destruction, which is as thorns, briers and stable before Him.
Sending some hugs your way to wish you a supernaturally God impacting day!
Sylvia :)
