How Does God Purify a Man for Service?

This is not done through a series of  cleansing, touching by another person, laying on of hands, or baptism. Don't let someone deceive you by telling you that there is a bunch of things you must do. Those are erroneous commandments of men.

Let's see what God does when purifying a man for service. It is God who equips.

Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.
II Corinthians 1:21-22 NKJV

For Jeremiah God put His Words in his mouth.

Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, To root out and to pull down, To destroy and to throw down, To build and to plant.” Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see a branch of an almond tree.”
Jeremiah 1:9-11 NKJV

Just like for Jeremiah it is the touching of the lips that is done to Isaiah also, which we just saw in Jeremiah is the putting of the Word into His mouth.

So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with  it, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged.” Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
Isaiah 6:5-8 NKJV

Jesus reiterates this as truth when He is speaking to His disciples.

"You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you."
John 15:3 NKJV

The Regenerate Man or Woman

You know how you can spot a monergist and gospelist, otherwise coined a calvinist? He loves the Scriptures that most men can't stand to read.

He hears "For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” So then it  is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens." and he says God is Holy and God is just! Praise the Lord!"

He hears "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the Lord , search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings." and he yells out "Praise God".

He hears "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.  And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple." and he cries out "Praise the Lord! Father take my life and make it Yours!!"

This is the regenerate man or woman. This is your brother or your sister. By your love for these the world will know the you are His.

Sent

It is only AFTER the Lord draws us unto Himself and cleanses us that we are then willing to go forth, but then we are willing to go and do whatever we are commanded.

Listen to the words of the Lord as He speaks to Isaiah. As we speak the words of the Lord many will be hardened and made fat for the day of slaughter, yet "a tenth" will be preserved. The remnant will be saved.

We are brought to the Lord by His will, cleaned by His will, sent by His will, to do His will. May His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with  it, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged.” Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.” And He said, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ “Make the heart of this people dull, And their ears heavy, And shut their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And return and be healed.” Then I said, “Lord, how long?” And He answered: “Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, The houses are without a man, The land is utterly desolate, The Lord has removed men far away, And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. But yet a tenth will  be in it, And will return and be for consuming, As a terebinth tree or as an oak, Whose stump remains when it is cut down. So the holy seed shall  be its stump.”
Isaiah 6:5-13 NKJV

Is the Bible Important?

Ezekiel 3:1, 3 NKJV

Moreover He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” And He said to me, “Son of man, feed your belly, and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you.” So I ate, and it was in my mouth like honey in sweetness.

Jeremiah 15:16 NKJV

Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.

Revelation 10:8-10 NKJV

Then the voice which I heard from heaven spoke to me again and said, “Go, take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the earth.” So I went to the angel and said to him, “Give me the little book.” And he said to me, “Take and eat it; and it will make your stomach bitter, but it will be as sweet as honey in your mouth.” Then I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. But when I had eaten it, my stomach became bitter.

Deuteronomy 8:3 NKJV

So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord .

Matthew 4:4 NKJV

But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”

Romans 10:17 NKJV

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Are You in the Faith?

The Greek word used for believe also means trust. Jesus drew a very clear line and He showed us that we are either ALL in, or not in at all. There is no fence.

Jesus clearly teaches that we must be sold out, and our lives a living sacrifice through faith. The cost of discipleship is extremely high, and it will cost us everything. He says that it will cost our very life, and that we will be hated by everyone.

This is why we must be sold out. The things of God are contrary to everything that is in our flesh, and many things are hard to receive. In this place of surrender though we simply take God at His Word, and place our selves entirely at His mercy. Look at Jesus and the cross. We say "Not my will Lord, but your will."

There is a tell I hear in people's words when talking with them that reveals their heart. When a person says "If God is ____, then I would/wouldn't _____" such a comment reveals that they are not resting in the broken place of surrender.

This place of surrender and humility before God is the tell of whether we are in the faith, for we can only be found at such a humble place through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. It is here that we know we are His and our faith is secure.

We commit our souls to the Creator and ask that God will do with us as He pleases, whatever that may look like, for His own glory. The broken humility and surrender is what it is to be in Christ. When we know we are in Him, we can rest firmly in His promises. Godspeed my friend. May He continue to bring you to this place where His power is made manifest.

Romans 8:31-39 NKJV
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can  be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It  is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It  is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Get to the Meat.

Some just don't continue to search things out. It is not that they are not saved, but they remain on the milk.

I Peter 2:1-3 NKJV

Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

Hebrews 5:12-14 NKJV

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that  is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

I Corinthians 3:2-3 NKJV

I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to  receive  it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there  are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?

The Word

The difference between a Spirit filled believer and the rest of the world is that a believer is in complete submission to the Word as absolute Truth, evidencing that Jesus Christ is Lord, and interpret scripture with scripture.

The spirit is the Word, Jesus is the Word, the Word is truth, Jesus is the Truth, we are sanctified by the truth, which is the Word. I am not confining Jesus to the written Word, as He is in a physical body right now in Heaven, but as scripture interprets scripture, the written Word is absolutely a part of Him.

I Peter 1:2 NKJV

elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.

John 6:63 NKJV

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

John 17:17 NKJV

Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.

John 14:6 NKJV

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

John 1:1 NKJV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Matthew 4:4 NKJV

But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”

Jeremiah 15:16 NKJV

Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.

Revelation 10:8-11 NKJV

Then the voice which I heard from heaven spoke to me again and said, “Go, take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the earth.” So I went to the angel and said to him, “Give me the little book.” And he said to me, “Take and eat it; and it will make your stomach bitter, but it will be as sweet as honey in your mouth.” Then I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. But when I had eaten it, my stomach became bitter. And he said to me, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings.”

Every Knee Shall Bow

It is so sad how "self" completely renders us as subjective. God says His people die from lack of knowledge. We try to filter through the Word subjectivity, which does not allow the Truth to change us but rather we try to change it to fit us. What God has done in me over the last four years is a direct result of my loss of self. It was when I accepted that Jesus IS the Word, that the Bible IS the infallible Word of God, and thee ONLY absolute in creation.

Matthew 24:35 NKJV

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away."

It was to make Jesus, the Word, my Lord and God. It was time to humble myself in complete submission before the living God. From that point forward ANYTHING that crosses the Word of God, the very creative power of the Universe, is rendered false and a lie. This is a necessary requirement to call Jesus Lord. To not do so is an oxymoron and a lie.

With this view the Word revealed so many things in me that were lies, and completely melted away all of the religious BS put there by being raised in a Christian environment. For the first time in my life, Jesus was really Lord. I take every single Word of the infallible Word of God to the bank, and throw every ounce of my being into it's trustworthiness.

Not only does the Word melt away and reveal all lies in my own heart, but also every other lie in all of creation. If there is anything that does not agree with the Bible, IT MUST FOLD IN SUBMISSION for EVERY KNEE WILL BOW TO HIM. All things must submit to the Word. If they don't, they are exposed for the lie that they are. This is how I evaluate every part of my life, through Jesus, my Lord, my God, and my Hope. He is my everything, and so my life should prove it. Regardless of how bad I want to believe a thing, if it opposes Him I must choose whom I will serve. If Jesus is my LORD, then by definition I must submit to the Word's authority over my life.

Either Jesus is who He says He is, or I am to fall flat on my face. All praise be to Him who makes me stand, for He promises we will not be ashamed. He will surely catch and lift up the ones whose trust is entirely in the Word, namely Jesus.

Either God is sovereign and THE MOST HIGH as the Bible says He is, which means that the Bible is EXACTLY the way a SOVEREIGN God desires it to be, or He is not the Almighty.

What is a Christian?

I asked Hayden how he could tell who was a Christian the other day, but then I told him not to answer that. I said we should take it one step farther, and asked him what a Christian was. He gave the typical worldly textbook answer, no offense to him because he obviously just didn't know the truth yet, of a Christian being someone who follows Jesus example and strives to live like Him. Though innocent on my son's behalf, this is a sick and corrupt lie. Because I love my son, I told him the truth.

A Christian is a person that the living God has filled with His Holy Spirit. Period. No exceptions. Anything else is just a sugar coated facade.

Ezekiel 36:26-27 NKJV

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

John 1:12-13 NKJV

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

UNFAIR!

I was just thinking about how crazy it is to truly trust God. I feel like I am cheating the system, and that it shouldn't be so easy. Don't I have to be burdened by all of my past regrets, and bear the burden of making sure I am doing what I am supposed to be doing today to make my life what I want it to be? Those are rhetorical questions, but they are the reason why I feel like I am cheating the system. What about all of the weight, fear, and doubt?? Don't I have to have those things in my life??.

I was thinking how unfair it is that I can truly be free from all of that. You know how God answered me? "It is unfair. It is called unmerited favor Osa. I have loved you with an everlasting love, and I pour my grace over you like water just because it pleases me to do so. Rest in that. Find your peace in me, and quit striving."

Over all of my life I see God's divine providence. His hand there, and there, and there, over and over again. Not ever because I was doing anything necessarily "good". In fact, most of my life has been lived in complete rebellion, but He was always there none-the-less. When I needed correction and redirection, He was no less showing His love and mercy then too.

My life is not my own. However, I am not cheating the system by trusting God, for the punishment for all of the wrongs I have done is indeed due and God would be unjust to simply turn a blind eye. Another bore the judgment due me, and because of His sacrifice I have been put into a place of unfair grace and mercy. All of my sins have been forgiven and forgotten, FOREVER. I am justified, made right, ONLY because of my faith.

God has called me, and He has a plan for me that is beyond anything I can imagine. If He so freely gave His own Son to pay the ransom for my life and soul so that I could be free, why would He withhold any good thing from me? He wouldn't. In His love I rest. In His love I live. I am truly free and alive, and God will be glorified in me for that is His good pleasure. What an amazing gift God has given to us who put our trust in the name of Jesus. So simple, yet so beyond us.

GOD'S PURPOSE IN A BELIVER'S LIFE

I do not write to the world, but I write to those who are called unto God. The world cannot receive what I have to share. God created EVERYTHING for His glory. Period. There was no obligation. He simply did what He wanted to do. Each believer is brought to Christ, by God, through faith, ONLY of grace so that we will be sanctified into the image of Christ that God might be glorified in us. This is truth. This is why we are here.

Knowing this, and believing it, changes how we perceive things. Marriage is God's greatest gift to us, because it is thee most tangible illustration of the relationship between Jesus and the Church. Marriage is also God's greatest tool to sanctify a believer. Think about it.

Some of the characteristics of Jesus that will be evident in us as we become like Him are grace, mercy, unconditional love, forgiveness, truth, openness, meekness, humility, and unwavering commitment. How do you suppose God will bring such characteristics about in your life if you do not go through situations that refine and demand these qualities? It is only under the fire of testing that we can be molded into the likeness of the God we serve.

Let Him have His perfect work in you. God can change your marriage in a heart beat, but would that rob you of the refining of your character? Nothing is impossible for our God. NOTHING. See God's hand and providence in your life, in your marriage, and let God finish what He has started. God joined you to your spouse for a reason. Your character has to be able to bare the weight of your destiny, so don't you dare lose faith when God is preforming His Word. Praise Him, and know that He is doing a great thing!

Are We Saved By Our Works?

I know many who believe we must add "works" in order to secure our salvation. This is a lie. Of course our works are an outward showing of what is in our hearts, so they are the proof of a repentant heart, but they add NOTHING to what Jesus did on the cross. When He died He said it was finished. The accounting term literally means "all accounts paid in full". I caution you if you believe your actions add anything to the FINISHED work of Christ.

You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
- Galations 5:4

So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.
- John 19:30