Thoughts
on Michael Wells’ teachings in My Weakness for His Strength - # 244
Michael’s book is
available through:
Abiding Life Ministries
International
Littleton, Colorado
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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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