5 Keys to Help Us Love More

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We all know the challenges of taking a long road trip with the kids. It is not long before we start to hear the question, “Are we there yet?”. You start counting off the miles to the destination. 2016 is another mile post along the way for each of our journeys. I ask, do we have a clear destination in mind for our spiritual journey for 2016? Do we know the route by which to travel to get to our destination? God calls us be on a journey toward spiritual maturity.

Life is a journey. A journey implies that there is always something next. A meaningful spiritual life is a journey towards spiritual maturity. That implies that no matter what age we are, there is always something next. The ultimate journey is congruence in our lives. Congruences means that who we are in private is the same as who we are in public. The overflow of our journeys is the growing capacity to love like Christ.
Joshua 22:5 give us 5 keys that we can put into practice in our next step journey toward spiritual maturity.

5 aOnly be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, bto love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.” 1
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Deut. 6:6, 17; 11:22
b ch. 23:11; Deut. 6:5; 10:12; 11:1, 13, 22a
1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Jos 22:5.

1. We need to know the Word of God
a. Read it devotionally every day
b. Study it

2. We need to fall deeper in love with God
a. When we realize His love for us even though we are sinners and unlovable
b. His Word is His love letter to us
c. The more we know Him on a personal level, the more we fall in love with Him

3. We need to walk in obedience with God by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit
a. Loving obedience is essential to living our daily lives in a way that glorifies God
b. Loving obedience opens up God’s rich blessings
c. We do this in the power of the Holy Spirit

4. We need to stay in close communion with God
a. We need to speak to God in prayer
b. We need to let God speak to us through His Word

5. We need to serve Him and others.
a. We need to grow in our love for others just as Christ loved.
b. We need to approach others with their interests at heart
c. We cannot make assumptions of others motives before knowing all the facts. v.6-34

The questions is what is the next step with God in our journey?

How to Love More in 2016

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A new year is upon us. It is a time when we make resolutions that are usually broken by the end of January. It is good to make plans and realistic goals and to develop the discipline to do the tasks necessary to make the goals a reality. I challenge you to consider before God the goal of letting Him help us to love Him and love others with the love of Christ. The Pharisees wanted to trap Jesus in theological question about which commandment is the greatest. He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).

This commandment ought to be a continuing guide for our spiritual journey for all Christ followers. That is, we need to ask God to help us love more like Jesus in 2016. We need to yield to the Holy Spirit and the Word each day so that God can transform us from the inside out to be more like Christ. Take advantage of corporate worship, prayer meetings, women’s and men’s discipleship ministries, and personal devotions and Bible study. These can be tools by which God can help the process of helping us love like Christ.

2016 be an exciting new year as we walk in loving obedience by the power of the Holy Spirit. God is able to change hearts of anyone who comes to Him in humility.
Blessings,
Pastor Lou

Four Reminders to Help Us Face Challenges God’s Way

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What are some of the hardest battles you have had to fight in your life? Perhaps it has been a painful divorce, a bad medical report, an addiction, the death of a loved one, anger, bitterness or some other challenge. Any challenge in life can develop into a stronghold that might discourage us spiritually and emotionally. Joshua chapter 6 gives us four important reminders that would help prepare us for life’s challenges.

  1. We must remember to whom we belong. Christ followers are adopted into God’s family the moment we trust Christ by faith as our personal Lord and Savior. Before the battle of Jericho, the Lord commanded Joshua to circumcise the males as an outward sign of the inner reality of belonging to God.  The Holy Spirit circumcises our hearts as an inward sign that we belong to God through Christ.
  2. We must remember the past to empower us for the future. Joshua and the Israelites celebrated the Passover before they fought the battle of Jericho. This was a tangible way to reflect on God’s holiness, purity, grace, mercy, power, and His mighty salvation. In the same way, Christ followers need to prepare to face life’s strongholds by reflecting in the same manner as we celebrate the Lord’s table. Our God is able to help us face the toughest of challenges (Eph. 3:20 ff).
  3. We must remember God’s provision and trust His present and future provision.  When and the Israelites crossed over the Jordan into the promised land, there was no need for the manna that fed them in the wilderness for 40 years. They would now be able to live off the land of milk and honey that God promised. We as Christ followers need to reflect on God’s provision in our lives. We must trust Him for His provision for our spiritual, emotional, and physical health. Then, we can face life’s strongholds and challenges today and tomorrow.
  4. We must remember we are not alone. The appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ to Joshua was to assure Joshua and Israel they would not be alone in the battle. God’s presence with them provided strength as they obeyed His will. They were able to go forth in obedience and in the power of the Holy Spirit. God lead the way, fought the battle, and graciously gave them the victory over the stronghold. The Bible reminds us that victory is only realized through faith and obedience through Jesus Christ.
Are we preparing ourselves to face the challenges of today and tomorrow? Are we willing to prepare God’s way so that we will honor and glorify Him when He gives us victory over the strongholds we face? Give these reminders serious consideration. Put them into practice with God’s help. Then give Him the glory as we see strongholds walls come down.

Talk with me about times when God helped you remember one of these principles at www.facebook.com/lousaldiveri

Three Practices That Will Help Us Worship

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As Christ followers, have you ever had those times in your life when God needed to remind you of that which you already know? This happened to me as I reflected on Exodus 19-20. God reminded me about three practices of worship. Then He challenged me again with these practices of worship. In the process of this reflection on Exodus 19-20, I realized, once again, how easily I can become careless in my attitude towards worship.

First, we need to meditate on the character of God. He is the Creator; we are the creatures. He is perfectly sovereign; we need to be dependent upon Him. He is absolutely holy; we are absolutely unholy. He is all powerful, all present, all knowing; we are not. He cannot tolerate sin; we are sinful. When we are in the presence of His holiness, we should be driven to our knees in voluntary submission, repentance, and faith.

If we consider the examples of Moses, David, Isaiah, the apostles Peter and John, all of them fell on their faces in a healthy reverential fear and love when they realized they were in the presence of God. Our daily devotions and personal worship time with God should help us meditate on His character so that we come into His presence with reverence and awe.

Second, when we realize the perfect holiness of God, we should prepare our hearts so that we can have a powerful encounter with Him. During the course of each day, we should be letting the Word and the Holy Spirit reveal sin in our hearts so that we can repent and receive God’s promised forgiveness which was won for us at Calvary. As we spend time with God throughout the day and we choose to remain obedient to Him by the power of the Holy Spirit, we will be able to see His hand in all the challenges of each day. Then when we come together on Sunday to worship corporately, we will be able to come with a humble, reverential, and submissive attitude in celebration of His grace, love and mercy.

Third, we need to come to worship with a good mental and physical alertness. In practical terms, this means that we take care of ourselves so we get good nutrition and rest before we come into His presence as individuals or corporately. If we come to worship mentally and physically exhausted, we might miss the Word and the blessings God has for us. Worship can become a chore rather than a spiritual encounter with the living God through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I believe the goal of transformation discipleship is that we becomes worshipers who worship God in spirit and truth. This is part of God’s process to help each of us mature spiritually from the inside out so that we may glorify, honor, and serve God and others through all our years.

Three Principles to Remember When You Hit the Wall

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All Christ followers will face a situation or situations that may seem insurmountable. These situations could be such things as a severe financial set back, the loss of a job, a bad marriage, a divorce, a bad medical report, etc.  Some of us may react with panic, paralyzed by fear, hopelessness, and wondering if God had forgotten us. We feel we have hit a wall with no possible solution in sight. So, what do you do? Do we give in to our fear, hopelessness, and give up on God?

Moses and the nation of Israel faced this situation when they were gracefully and miraculously delivered by God’s mighty hand from slavery in Egypt. They were on their journey towards the promise land when they realized they were being pursued from behind by Pharaoh and the Egyptian army, the Red Sea was in front of them and with no way across (Exodus 14). Israel panicked and cried out to God and complained to Moses that they escaped from Egypt only to die a harsh death at the hands of the Egyptian army in the desert. There was no apparent solution or good outcome.
“Moses answered the people, ‘Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today'” (Exodus 14:13). How quickly the Israelites had forgotten the mighty act of God releasing them from Pharaoh’s slavery in Egypt. How quickly they had forgotten the promises of God. If we are honest with ourselves, we are no different. We also forget God’s mighty acts of grace and His promises.
First, notice Moses told the Hebrews to not be afraid. In other words, stop panicking. God didn’t bring them this far to forget about them now.  Too many times when we hit the wall, we neglect God’s Word, prayer, and the assembly of Christ followers (the church) because we yield to our feeling of panic and hopelessness. Or, we try to go through this wall experience without God, thinking He either doesn’t care or He has forsaken us. When we choose to try an end run around the wall in our strength and flawed wisdom, we will not succeed. Or if we retreat from the wall, we find that God will bring us back to that situation or a similar situation to face it in His power and learn from it.
Second, they should stand and trust in God and His promises. God allows us to hit the wall occasionally in our spiritual journey so we can grow in our spiritual maturity and health. When we choose by faith to let God help us face the wall with Him, He teaches us how to be more dependent upon His character, wisdom, and strength. As we walk through this wall experience with Him, he will reveal sin in our lives which we must face, confess, and from which we must repent. He may also show us some idols the distract us from God which need to be broken. In the process, God transforms us from the inside out, develops spiritual maturity in our character, and prepares us for the next part of our journey so we might finish this life well to His glory. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we will be able to trust God and His promises as we face the wall.
Third, God told Moses to give the Hebrews this message, “Tell the Israelites to move on” (Exodus 14:15b). The message for us is to be obedient to God’s will as we face the wall.
The result will be a growing spiritual maturity. Through these wall experiences, God will give us a deeper rooted identity of who we are in Christ because He will break our pride, anger, defensiveness, and our judgmental attitudes towards other. In other words, He will bring forth true humility from the inside out. They question is will we let Him? Or, will we choose to stagnate in our journey because we have hit the wall? It is a matter of not panicking, standing firm, by faith, on the promises of God and remaining obedient to Him, by faith, even as we face the wall.
What have you learned through a wall event in your life?