He Sees in Secret

As I go through my day at work, I find myself not enjoying it many times. I know that sounds like a duh! statement, but I really get discouraged at work sometimes because I feel like it is pointless. As a result I tend to cut corners and do my job half-hearted.

As I have begun to cultivate a conscious connection with the Holy Spirit, He releases power on my heart (see ‘Walking in the Spirit’ Part 1 and Part 2).

One of the things I have noticed when He releases power on my heart is that I have zeal to do my job with unbelievable DILIGENCE and JOY, even when no one is watching. The power that the Holy Spirit releases on my heart when I fellowship with Him is such a weight on the inside. When I touch even small levels of it, I want more. I don’t want to do anything to quench the feeling of His presence on my heart. Also, I am carrying such an emotional joy in my heart, that nothing really bothers me. I will do things joyfully because I am touching Him in a way that is giving me power on the inside.

…your Father who sees in secret…(Mt. 6:4, 6, 18)

Our view of God directly influences how we will relate to Him. I always used to read ‘He sees in secret’ and immediately say, “OH NO!” I would jump to fear, thinking that He was going to punish me for some hidden sin.

I saw God as a harsh taskmaster ready to punish me for one wrong move. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. While He does discipline, He does it out of His burning heart and He is always after our heart through the discipline. He is a passionate Bridegroom God who is madly in love with His people. He has great affection and feelings for us.

I now read that verse and I say, “OH YES!”

But when you do a charitable deed (serve)…be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly…(Mt. 6:4, 6, 18)

God sees everything. He sees the small things that no one else sees, and He does not forget them. He rewards us so great for such small acts of obedience. Even a cup of cold water has eternal reward.

42…whoever gives…only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple…shall by no means lose his reward…(Mt. 10:42)

God rewards so much more than we deserve or earn. He’s not just giving us our dues for a job done, He is giving out of the overflow of His burning heart.

I, more than anything, want more capacity to feel the love of God on my heart, and the capacity to love Him back with more of my heart, loving others out of the overflow.

Matthew 5:21-6:21 is what we call the fasted lifestyle.

In Mt. 5:21-47 there are six toxins to our inner life that we need to resist. They are:

1. Spirit of Murder (hate): Mt. 5:21-26
2. Spirit of Adultery (lust): Mt. 5:27-30
3. Spirit of Treachery (marital unfaithfulness): Mt. 5:31-32
4. Lying / False vows: Mt. 5:33-37
5. Spirit of Pride / Bitterness (insisting on rights): Mt. 5:38-42
6. Spirit of Retaliation: Mt. 5:43-47

In Mt. 6:1-21, there are five nutrients that we need to water our heart with. They are:

1. Serving: Mt. 6:1-4
2. Giving: Mt. 6:1-4, 19-21
3. Praying: Mt. 6:5-13
4. Blessing Enemies: Mt. 6:14-15
5. Fasting: Mt. 6:16-18

As we begin the fasted lifestyles, our hearts are small and cannot receive much. We don’t feel anything. Over time our hearts are tenderized and enlarged. We are able to feel more of God’s love and give more back to Him.

The enlarging of my heart is my reward. It is the power to love. The reward of a lover is the power to love. I carry the reward on the inside, even if the circumstances in my life are bad.

We set our cold hearts before the bonfire of the Lord’s heart (through the fasted lifestyle) and over time our hearts become tenderized and moldable. We are not earning God’s grace, we are positioning ourselves in front of Him so that we can receive the free heat that comes from His burning presence. It’s affection-based obedience which results in the power to love Him.

This is my great reward now, and I know there is reward being stored up for me in the eternal city. God rewards so much more than we deserve. Even the smallest acts of obedience have great value in His eyes. They move His heart…

Read that verse and know that He rewards all the acts of obedience, all the acts of kindness and goodness. Even in secret, when no one else sees, He sees. We want to live our lives before His eyes, He is our great reward. He counts the movements of your heart towards Him as great and defines us as lovers of God even as we grow in grace.

Josh

Meekness (part 3)

(Review)

Meekness is the restraining of your power for the sake of a higher cause, for the sake of love. It is to use your power (words, strength, abilities, finances, time) to serve others, to lift others up. It’s embracing voluntary weakness (Sermon on the Mount lifestyle; Mt. 5-7).

Meekness is like a magnet that attracts the grace of God into our lives (Prov. 3:34; Jas. 4:6). It’s a primary virtue in the heavenly value system (Mt. 5:5; Jas. 4:6). It’s found at the depths of the heart of Jesus (Mt. 11:28-29). Those who are meek in this age will be exalted to be the future rulers of the earth in the millennial kingdom, reigning with Jesus for 1,000 years (Mt. 5:5; 2 Tim. 2:11-12; Rev. 2:26-27) in the “great reversal” (Dan. 7:25-27). Meekness is our “low road” to greatness before God.

42…You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43 Yet it shall not be among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. 44 And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve… (Mk. 10:42-45)

WHAT DOES MEEKNESS LOOK LIKE DAY-TO-DAY?

The call of the Sermon on the Mount is not to passively endure mistreatment. Rather it is a call to actively forgive and bless those who hurt us. To serve them, to give to those who take from us. It is a call to be aggressive in blessing them back, in responding in love rather than retaliation.

As we seek to cultivate the 8 beatitudes in our heart, there are 11 things we need to focus on in our lives in order to properly cultivate these virtues.

In Matthew 5:21-47 there are 6 negative issues that we need to resist and not nurture in our day to day lives. They are:

1. Spirit of Murder (revealed as anger in our heart) (5:21-26)
2. Spirit of Adultery (revealed as lust in our heart) (5:27-30)
3. Spirit of Treachery (Marital unfaithfulness) (5:31-32)
4. Making False Vows (5:33-37)
5. Spirit of Pride/Bitterness (insisting on”rights”) (5:38-42)
6. Spirit of Retaliation (hating enemies) (5:43-47)

In Matthew 6:1-21 there are 5 positive nutrients that we need to feed our heart with. They are:

1. Serving (6:1-4)
2. Giving (6:1-4, 19-21)
   
3. Praying (6:5-13)
4. Blessing Enemies (6:14-15)
5. Fasting (6:16-18)

Resisting these 6 negatives while responding in and pursuing these 5 positives is living meek before others. It’s voluntary weakness because its weak in the eyes of the world, but yet it is the most powerful way to live before God. It’s called meekness.

We seek to walk out these areas of our life in order to set our hearts in a position to encounter the heart of God (Mt. 25:1; 1 Cor. 2:9-12). We resist the 6 negative seeds in our heart while replacing them with the 5 positive nutrients with the goal of setting our heart before the bonfire of love in the heart of God and allowing Him to transform us into His likeness, fully alive in love with Him and loving our neighbor as ourselves. It is seeking to restore the first commandment to first place in our lives.

Meekness is not the same as soft spoken. You can be soft spoken, but still harbor bitter hatred in your heart. Even though you speak in a soft tone, it can still be violent to the core of your heart. If your hearts agenda is to hurt, to retaliate, to make yourself look better and someone else look bad this is not meekness.

God asks us to be meek because He is meek. He is so merciful and gentle, even as He releases His temporal judgments at the end of the age. He is desiring a people who is like Him, a people leaning on Him and not on their own strength. Meekness is leaning on the justice and judgment of God, leaving it up to Him and not taking it into our own hands. We are free to love, knowing that judgment is left up to the Lord. We are free to forgive, bless, and pray for the salvation of our enemies.

Meekness is amazing in its ability to change us and those whom we respond to in love. There is a freedom and a release when you respond in love towards others.

Josh

Meekness (part 2)

Meekness is the primary virtue we want to cultivate in our lives. Why?

God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (meek) (Jas. 4:6; Prov. 3:34)

Meekness is a magnet for the grace of God. Meekness gains us the attraction of heaven. Pride only gains the resistance of God, but meekness is an attraction for the grace of God on our hearts. Meekness is one of the fragrances of Jesus Christ. One of His extraordinary internal fragrances is the meekness that is in emanating out of His heart. When meekness is in us, it’s a sweet smelling fragrance to God and to those around us (2 Cor. 2:15).

We want the attraction of the Holy Spirit in our lives to help us. Those who walk by the Spirit will have the power to not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Gal. 5:16-26). The Holy Spirit takes what is in the heart of Jesus and the Father and declares it to us (Jn. 15:26-27; 16:12-16), and empowers us to love God with all of our heart (SoS 8:6-7; Jn. 17:26; Rom. 5:5) and as we are being transformed into His image we will have the power on the inside to not fulfill the lusts of our flesh (Gal. 5:16-17) and walk in passion for Jesus and love for one another. It’s called maturity in love for Jesus and in turn one another. The Holy Spirit desires to make us mature in our love for Jesus by releasing knowledge of His beauty to the church.

The problem is that most of us live our lives grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit. He is the very source that changes us, but He cannot when we are always grieving Him by our speech and use of power to exalt ourselves. The primary thing that grieves the Holy Spirit in our life is our use of corrupt speech. We can never go deep in God without the power of the Holy Spirit in our inner man.

29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification…30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed…(Eph. 4:29-30)

Without the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in our inner man, we are left to manage all of our fleshly lusts on our own and it is impossible to deal with the weight of these lusts without His help. We need His power manifest on our heart to begin to walk in mature love for Jesus.

Meekness is a magnet for the Holy Spirit, it is living a life that is inviting to Him. We use our energy, time, speech, and finances to serve and bless one another. Meekness is highlighted all throughout the Sermon on the Mount. It is valuable currency for intimacy with Jesus. It releases power in our lives to cause us to walk in love and righteousness.

Matthew 5:5 gives us insight into just how valuable this virtue called meekness is in the eyes of God.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. (Mt. 5:5)

Jesus says that those who pursue and possess meekness shall actually inherit the earth. They shall be given dominion over the whole earth. What a backwards way to leadership. It is exactly opposite of how we as human beings ascend to rulership over the kingdoms of the earth. We do it through enforcing our power, whether it’s a group of people revolting against the government to overthrow it or it’s the political candidates spitting out all sorts of harsh, destructive words against each other in the race to be elected. We typically use our power in the physical realm to establish our dominance over one another.

In the kingdom of God it’s exactly the opposite. Those who are meek now will be the future rulers and leaders of the earth. It’s the servants who are great in the kingdom of heaven. It’s the ones who walk in love and gentleness towards each other, those who use their power to serve, to lift up, and to edify others. These are the ones who are truly great before God.

It may look weak in the flesh, but it’s powerful on the inside. This is the most powerful way to live.

In the days to come we are going to see the wickedness and destruction of man escalate to heights never seen before. They will use power and coercion to rule the earth, unjustly killing anyone who stands in their way to reach power. The Antichrist will have the most powerful, terrifying, and destructive kingdom in all history. The people of God will be martyred for who they are along with Israel like never seen before (Dan. 12:1; Mt. 24:9-12, 21-22). We will be tormented and persecuted as Satan rages against us, knowing he has only a short time left (Rev. 12:12-17). At the end of this time, when Jesus returns, we are going to experience the “great reversal” in which the saints who were persecuted and martyred by the wicked rulers of the earth are going to come back and reign with Jesus. We will be given dominion over the whole earth (Dan. 7:25-27). Matthew 5:5 tells us it’s the ones who are meek who inherit the earth.

Revelation says we will be killed, but we are not to act in violence of any sort, no matter what. We inherit the kingdom and gain our lives through patience and meekness.

10 He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills by the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. (Rev. 13:10)

So meekness is the primary virtue that we as believers ought to pursue. It gains us the attraction of heaven which releases the power of the Holy Spirit in our inner man and brings us forth into mature love for Jesus. By our meekness we inherit the earth as we are trained now to be the future rulers of the world. Through our patience we will be granted to sit on Jesus’ throne and reign with Him.

Part 3 to come…

Josh