Thursday, June 22, 2017

Day 150 - "I Have No Personal Relationship With Christ!"

Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in My Weakness for His Strength - # 244
         
Michael’s book is available through:

Abiding Life Ministries International
Littleton, Colorado
(303) 972-0859       www.abidinglife.com

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Have you ever wondered why some people (who call themselves Christians) make some of the most absurd statements?  I hope you have, because the truth lay in the extent of one’s biblical vocabulary…  And we KNOW the truth is found in The Truth.



DAY 150

“I Have No Personal Relationship With Christ!”

The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. –John 17:22, 23

God brought order out of chaos as His Spirit moved. He does the same for us, but we must follow the order. Therefore, we will look at the order of things before examining the statement in the title, which is an assertion I often hear.

1. God's goal is building our faith, the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen--or felt--in our lives. When we are in what could be called faith-growing situations, then nothing is out of order in our lives. Rather, everything is in perfect order. We cannot have the things of God (love, awareness, and feeling) by effort. They come through the acknowledgement of faith (without feeling or even experience).

2. Some say to me, "Mike, you have a great ministry." I stop them and say, "This is not my ministry, but it is preparing me for the ministry." No one’s job, family, circumstances, or feelings are their ministry; those things only prepare us for true ministry in His presence for eternity. 

3. The purpose of life on earth is to form us into safe persons in heaven. Made in His image yet born separated from Him, we busy ourselves setting up our own kingdoms wherein we, of course, are kings and queens. To the degree that we can control our circumstances, we believe we are strong. To the degree that we cannot control, we feel weak. We are only as strong as our weakest link. Therefore, during our time on earth we must lose control of mind, will, emotions, body, others, and overall strength, until ultimately we see the wisdom in forfeiting our kingdoms for His great Kingdom. If we are losing control we need not panic, because everything is going according to plan.

4.  Every question we have about God and His dealings with us must be tempered with the remembrance of who He is. God is love, and as such He bears with us, believes in us, hopes with us, and reflects every other characteristic of love described in I Corinthians 13.

5.  What is a personal, deep relationship with Jesus? All of the above are involved in it: growing faith, ministry, and the loss of control. Perhaps we have allowed others to define what a deep, personal relationship is, and we thus believe ours is nonexistent because we have not experienced what they define that relationship to be. Not everything that is true is truth. A teaching may come from Scripture and be true but not truth. How do we tell the difference between the two? True teaching that lands at our feet and speaks of what we must do is not truth. True teaching that ends at the feet of Jesus and explains what He does for us is truth, for Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. If what we are hearing does not end at His feet, it is not truth. What does land at our feet is the issue of our being unbelieving toward having a deep, personal relationship with Jesus and continuing to maintain that there is something lacking that we must do or find. Perhaps we have not had visions or miracles, He has not awakened us in the middle of the night to heal us, or not everyone in our family is perfect. Still, according to God’s definition--the one that counts--we already are in a deep, personal relationship in accordance with the above. 

Any believer who has said, “I do not have a deep, personal relationship with Christ,” went left instead of right when it came to the fork in the road of experiencing God. Experiencing God could not be more than what He has given us as individuals to experience; the roadblock is in thinking that there is something more than what God with an IQ infinitely over 999 trillion has already initiated toward us. We are pleasing and close to Him because the life of Christ in us is pleasing and close. There is nothing more to do. Feelings of loneliness, separation, and depression may be there, but they will not go away while we are focused on them. This may appear vague as to the issue presented, but the issue is not the issue. We have proven that when things are in order, this aspect of flesh does not overwhelm us, so in that is the answer. In the end, we can own what we feel, tell God how we feel, leave it at His feet, and move on. If on a scale of one to ten it is a ten for God, He will deal with it. If He does not deal with it, then we know it is not in His order of things.

Because of Christ, we are in and experiencing a deep personal relationship with Him.

Yellow – VIP, Very Important Point      Green – IT, Incredible Truth        
Red – GP, Greatest Promises
Turquoise – UR, Unfathomable Riches           Pink – PV, Priceless Victory




Allow me a personal moment to share that I would like one day to write a book I might call A Basic Biblical Dictionary (Greek and Hebrew behind our English words, context and applications).  It probably wouldn’t contain enough words to be worth printing, but it would have huge (perhaps enormous) value.  You know, just some often-used words (incorrectly) that dramatically alter the conversation of so many Believers.  Oh, well…I suppose if each of us would just spend some time meditating and soaking on what Jesus said in Michael’s text (John 17:22-23), allowing Holy Spirit to be our Teacher as He is, we would be a long ways down the road to having all the Truth herein settled in our hearts once and for all.

Michael draws our attention to one of these words: relationship.  So often misused, or misunderstood, or completely abused.  I see daily on Facebook these last 3 uses.  If there is anything that needs to be grasped and understood, acknowledged and owned…it is every Believer’s relationship with God in Christ, as Michael drives home in this day’s writing.  Really…enough said.

As you can see by my “markings,” I consider almost EVERY WORD in this day’s writing worth meditating on for a long, long time!

p.s.  I hope you make your own evaluations (color) as to the “importance” of each word, phrase, sentence…



To access ALL past weekly blogs, go to Living Life With a Capital “C” by logging onto www .leemccm.blogspot.com 

NOTICE: another blog on Michael Wells’ book, Sidetracked In The Wilderness, called Getting Out of the Wilderness.  You can access by logging onto www.leemcchristianministries.blogspot.com


Lee McDowell Christian Ministries

P.O. Box 633244   Nacogdoches, TX 75963              936-559-5696

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