In part 1 of Are you a child of God, I asked, “How do we know if we know God?”  The question could be insulting to some but it’s a question that I believe we should all ask.  The Bible tells us that many will be shocked on judgment day when they find out they didn’t really know God (Matthew 7:22-23).  If many will be shocked, don’t we want to make sure we aren’t one of them?  The tugging at my heart to write this blog revolves around this one question.  How do we know?

As I was writing part 2 I found myself having writers block which honestly doesn’t happen often.  I felt I knew what I should write but it just wasn’t coming out so I walked away from it for a bit.  During that time I prayed for the words and over the next few days God provided.  I ‘randomly’ opened my Bible and found a verse and ‘stumbled’ upon a video of a sermon online and the two fit together perfectly within the words God had already given me.  I pray part 2 speaks to your heart.          
       
What is the desire of God’s Spirit and how do we know if we are controlled by it?  1 Corinthians 13:2 “if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”  The desire of God’s spirit is love because God is love (1 John 4:8).  Love is how we know if we have God’s Spirit (1 John 4:12).  Love is how we know if we are right with God (Luke 10:25-27).  But how do we know if we really do love?  1 John 5:2-3 “This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.  In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands.”   

Does this mean that if we love God we will not sin?  Of course not.  God has made us all prone to disobedience so He can have mercy on us all (Romans 11:32).  What it does mean is that those who love Him will always be reaching for the stars, the unattainable perfection that is Jesus Christ.  Like a young child that tries to be just like his dad and fails, we are His children and we must try to be like Him.  We can’t be just like Him because we won’t be like Him until He comes back for us (1 John 3:2).  Until then, those that are His children will try to emulate Him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.  If we allow God’s spirit to control us, our life will exhibit fruit (John 15:4-5).  So the question we must ask ourselves is does my life produce this fruit?

In Psalm 127:3 we learn that children are called the fruit of the womb.  God uses children to represent innocence and purity and He says in Matthew 18:3 that if we don’t become like children, we won’t inherit eternal life.  It’s not surprising then that God ties the fruit of the womb (children) and the fruits of the spirit together in His Word with both representing righteousness.

Do you know how old Sarah was when she and Abraham conceived Isaac?  Sarah was a very young 90 years old when she had her first promised child from God.  While having a child at 90 years old when you had been barren your whole life is utterly amazing, there is something else amazing about her age.  I believe the number 90 wasn’t random but was used to further glorify God through His infinite wisdom and amazing plan.  Is it coincidence that God designed a woman’s full term pregnancy, the fruit of the womb, to be 9 months?  Is it random luck that God had Paul mention 9 fruits of the spirit in the book of Galatians, and then had the book of Galatians placed as the 9th book of the New Testament?  Sarah produced fruit from her womb at the beginning of her 9th decade on earth.  Years later in this same family tree the one bearing pure and perfect fruit, Jesus Christ, was born.

In Matthew 13 Jesus tells the Parable of the Sower.  In His illustration, there are four different kinds of people that hear the truth about God.  Some hear the message and don’t understand it, some receive the message with joy but fall away when trouble comes, others receive the message but the worries of the world choke out their faith, while others hear the message, understand it, and cling to it.  Even though 3 of the 4 groups accepted the message, only the last group produced fruit. 

Jesus said in John 15:5”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.”  This same message is also seen in Ezekiel 47:12  “Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them.”  Why do they produce fruit?  Because God’s living water flows to them.  Without God’s living water, they would not produce.  And again in Psalm 1:2-3 “but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.  That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.”

But what about the tree that doesn’t have a water source from God?  The morning after Jesus drove out those buying and selling in the temple, Jesus was looking for something to eat.  Matthew 21:19 “Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.”  The tree was created to produce fruit.  When it did not, Jesus destroyed it.  We were created to bear fruit.  If God’s living water flows to us, we will produce.  If we don’t produce good fruit, we don’t have a relationship with God, and we will wither. 

Matthew 7:19-20   “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”  Do people recognize you are a Christian by your good fruit or do you look like the rest of the world?  Producing good fruit isn’t about trying to be good enough or trying to be nice.  If you have a relationship with God, if you are a child of God, His love will flow from you like it flows to you, freely.

In part 3 of this blog we will look at what this fruit looks like to a believer being controlled by His spirit.
    

I was in the middle of writing part 2 of my latest blog when God put this blog on my heart.
 
We all want to feel loved and nurtured.  It’s a desire we are born with.  When we feel those closest to us don’t love us, it hurts.  When we feel they don’t love us it sometimes makes us bitter toward them and we may start feeling less love towards them.  It comes natural to want to return love that is given.  It’s much harder to love those that don’t love you. 

Have you ever been in a relationship where you felt your needs weren’t being met?  How did that make you feel?  One way to show love is to meet the needs of those around you.  If your needs aren’t being met you probably won’t feel loved despite what words they might say or other actions they might do.  To meet the needs of those around you, you must put others before yourself.  You may have heard it said you can’t love others unless you love yourself.  I say you can’t love others if you are too busy loving yourself.  Love is not self-seeking.

In marriage, we often try to meet our own needs and give whatever is left to our spouse.  We know from the Bible that the marriage between a man and a woman represents the marriage between God and His church.  Is it any wonder that we do the same thing with God?  We often put our own interests first and give God whatever is left.  A quick look at divorce rates and we can see how that usually works in a marriage relationship.  Do you think it works better with your relationship with God?

Since we know that the marriage between a man and a woman represents God’s marriage to His church, do you think marriage might be a target of satan?  There is no doubt about it.  Satan will use husbands and wives against each other.  Have you ever followed the Holy Spirits lead and done something that really impacted people for the good only to come home to some crazy conflict that has come out of left field?  Well I promise you it didn’t come out of left field.  It came out of hell.  When you do something to glorify God, satan will attack you.  If we love God we will be persecuted.   

When we realize that we are not fighting against our spouses but against spiritual forces, it makes it much easier to love people despite their faults, failures, and hurtful words.   Ephesians 6:12 “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.”  What do we do if those that are supposed to love us attack us?  Love them more.  Romans 12:21 “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  Of course I am not saying if your spouse says something mean to you they are evil.  It only takes a tiny crack for satan to slip in and cause destruction.  That is why it is so important to always be in prayer and always be seeking God. 

When you don’t feel loved by those that are closest to you, love them anyway.  When someone mistreats you and is undeserving of your love, love them anyway.  Love is not a feeling.  Love is a condition of your heart.  You can’t fall out of love.  Those that say this don’t know what love is.  Love is not lust.  Love is not romance.  Love is putting others before yourself despite what you do or do not get in return.  Love always forgives and always forgets past mistakes.  Love is a choice.    

I continue to feel a huge tug on my heart for the church.  I believe the anguish I feel for the church comes from God and the anguish He feels for it.  I believe with everything that is within me that the church in 2016 is very, very sick.  I am confident God knew that this would be our condition when He asked in Luke 18:8 “However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"  I pray this blog serves as a wakeup call for us all.  God is always patiently waiting for us to come back home.  Maybe some of us think we are home but maybe unbeknownst to us we have never been there.  How do we know that we are right with God?  How do we know that we know Him? 

John 3:16 is probably the most popular and well known Bible verse there is.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  The message that all one must do is believe sounds incredibly simple and easy.  Is this really all there is to it?  We know that God cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18), so that must be all there is to it right?  But if all believers did throughout human history was believe in Jesus, would the Gospel of Jesus Christ be spread?  Even demons believe in Jesus but they certainly don’t spread the Gospel, obey His teachings, and inherit salvation (James 2:19).    

I am not a theologian but after a strong tugging by the Holy Spirit I knew I needed to write this difficult blog.  As I began to write, the Holy Spirit led me to do some research on John 3:16.  It turns out that there are many, many people that believe the verse is actually mistranslated or misinterpreted.  I found that the ancient greek meaning of pisteo, the word used for believe in John 3:16 can actually mean to obey.  If we use this meaning in John 3:16 we get, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever obeys him shall not perish but have eternal life.”   Doesn’t this translation fit with the rest of John’s writings?   
 
Let’s look at some of Jesus’s words that John recorded:

 John 8:51 “Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.”

Revelation 22:13-14 “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.  Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” 

John 14:15 “If you love me, keep my commands.”

John 15:1-2 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit,”

John 15:10 “If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love,”

John 15:13-14 “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.”

If all it took was belief in Jesus why would Jesus be seemingly astonished in Luke 6:46 and say, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?

The first words recorded in the Bible of Jesus speaking to us are about believing in the Gospel but He didn’t just say to believe.  Mark 1:15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”  What does repent mean?  The merriam-webster dictionary says :to turn from sin and dedicate oneself to the amendment of one's life.  Repenting is not just about an apology.  There should be a change of heart that changes our actions.  Acts 26:20 “I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.”  While it’s true that deeds don’t save us, if our heart is right, we will have deeds.  Faith or belief without deeds is useless (James 2:17). 

When Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus, a great teacher in Israel, He said this to him.  John 3:5 “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.”  If we are born of the spirit our thoughts and actions will change.  Our cares for this world will fade.  We will be transformed into something new.  Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

When we are born again we become the new creation.  God’s laws are written in our hearts.  When God lives in us we can’t help but look and think differently than the world.  If we try to be of this world after we have been changed we will be very uncomfortable because it goes against our new nature.  2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!”  The old creation was controlled by our desire for pleasure and was self-seeking.  The new creation is controlled by God’s spirit and desires what God wants. 

How do we know if we are born of the spirit?  Romans 8:5-6 “Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.  The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.”

In part two we will look at the renewing of the mind and what it looks like to have your mind set on what the spirit desires.

I have written about this topic before but I knew when God spoke to my heart at church on Sunday that I needed to write about it again.  It’s hard to explain how it happens or what it feels like when He gives me something to write about but I often get so overwhelmed it brings me to tears.  Thoughts and words start going through my mind 100 miles an hour and I can’t help but thank Him over and over again for the message He has given me.  It usually happens after hearing a Bible verse or even a few words to a worship song.  I don’t know at the time every word I am going to write but I know I must write.

There are many examples of Jesus healing the sick during his ministry.  It didn’t matter what the sickness was, when Jesus wanted to heal someone it was completely done.  Many times the only requirement for the sick to be healed was faith.  When two blind men wanted Jesus to give them their sight back Jesus said to them, “According to your faith be it done to you.”  In the Gospel of Mark a sick woman thought that if she just touched Jesus’s garments, she would be made well.  After touching Him Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.”  If there was no faith or little faith, there was little to no healing done.  Matthew 13:58 “And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.”

Sickness and disease is often called unclean in the Bible and in a way represents our state of being without Jesus.   I believe Jesus not only healed people to show that He was sent from God (John 4:48) but also to symbolize a healing of the spirit to those who believe.  In the book of Matthew some men brought a paralyzed man to Jesus so He would heal him.  Matthew 9:2 “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”

Having faith and being made right with God are linked together over and over again throughout God’s Word.  We can’t earn righteousness.  It is a free gift from God for believing in Him.  Ephesians 2:8-9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast.”  Without Jesus we are sick and unclean.  By faith in Jesus we are made clean and whole.  Romans 3:22 “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”

No matter how hard we try we cannot be perfect while on earth.  Even the great Apostle Paul who saw Jesus with his own eyes and was perhaps one of the greatest men of the Bible, did not always get it right.  2 Corinthians 12:7 “Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.”  But like Paul said, not always getting it right has a way of keeping us humble.  If we could be perfect would we have the same desire and longing for our perfect God?  I would guess not. 

That messenger of satan torments all of us.  He wants us to turn from God, sit down and shut up.  If I listened to that evil messenger I wouldn’t be writing this.  I have made many, many mistakes in my life.  Compared to God I am a disgusting mess and it would be easy for me to assume God wouldn’t use a sinner like me.  But that is where God comes in.  I know because of my faith I am made righteous.  I know because I forgive others He forgives me (Matthew 6:14). 

As a church we often shy away from people when they are struggling with sin but don’t we all sin repeatedly?  I know I do.  We sometimes exclude people struggling with certain sins from serving in different capacities until they clean up, but aren’t we ‘cleaned up’ in God’s eyes when we believe in Jesus?  Man tries to assign different levels of sin to a sinful people and it does nothing but try to nullify the very Word of God that we cling to.   Jesus is enough.  We are to look past other people’s faults and weaknesses with gentleness and love them anyway, knowing that we have faults and weaknesses too.  God tells us in the book of Matthew to forgive others seventy seven times.  In my previous blogs I have written about the significance of the number 7 and what it represents to God.  In this case the word infinite could be used to describe its use. 

This is not to say we should ignore sin when we see it.  We should gently confront it and if someone refuses to repent and turn from it, they should be disqualified for serving for a time.  They should be disqualified not because of their sins, but because their heart is not right at that time.  I have said this before but it is worth repeating, I have seen God do some of the most amazing things through me when I was struggling mightily with sin...when I felt the weakest.   God did not work through me because I was sinning.  He worked through me despite me sinning.  When I struggle I realize just how dependent I am on Him.  When I struggle, I feel my weakest, and I rely on Him the most.  2 Corinthians 12:10 “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”    

Imagine what would happen if every member of the church realized what power they contained.  When a Holy Spirit filled person speaks, ears are opened and blind eyes are made to see.  Imagine what would happen if every Christian on this earth focused on what Jesus has done instead of what mistakes they have made.   If satan has already been defeated why do we care so much about what he has to say?  The only chance satan has to stop a spirit filled Christian is to convince us to crawl into a hole and shut up.  If you sit down with your lamp barely burning he is successful.  I spent years in a chair saying nothing.  I have now thrown my chair in the trash.

Will you join me?  Will you live your life in a way that says, “It doesn’t matter what anyone says about me.  I know who I am.  I know who’s I am.”  Will you throw your chair in the trash?  Will you let your lamp burn bright for all to see?  It doesn’t matter what talent you do or do not have or what things you struggle with.  You are weak but God is strong.  God is enough.   2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

 Chase after Him and watch what He does in your life.  It doesn’t matter what the world says about you.  It doesn’t matter what your social status is.  It doesn’t matter if others laugh at your misfortunes.  God is your father.  Place your hope in Him.  Isaiah 40:31 “but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.