God's Love and Spiritual Warfare

   By the time I was 34 years old, my life had become a mess. For years, depression, fatigue, discouragement and secret sins had been growing inside of me. I wondered over and over why Christianity was not working for me in my everyday life. Oh, and did I mention that I was a pastor at that time? Pastors are supposed to have all the answers, right?

   To try to “fix” my unraveling inner world, I prayed more, read my Bible more, went to counseling and on more than one occasion had people pray against potential demonic influences. Yet, nothing changed.

   One night, God chose to reveal to me His incredible love for me and my menacing darkness turned into marvelous light. Experiencing God’s love began to free and heal me in a way that nothing and no one prior had been able to do. Since that time, I have certainly had my share of struggles like all of us do but God has been progressively changing me since that night.

   I am coming to believe more and more that the best weapon we have in our spiritual warfare arsenal is God’s dynamic love for us personally. That’s not to say that it is the only one, of course. But I think it is maybe one of the best I have found.

   Take a look at the connection between God’s love for us and our victory in Christ.

Romans 8:37, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” NIV

1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” NIV

   To experience God’s love is to experience Christ Himself according to Ephesians 3:14-21.

   With that in mind, think about the impact of the God Who is Love, living in us. 1 John 4:18, “You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than He who is in the world.” NIV

   God’s love defeats our struggles with condemnation, false guilt, a misplaced quest for intimacy, inferiority, arrogance, feelings of loneliness and more. Galatians 5:22-23 says it this way. Love is the first and foremost evidence that the Holy Spirit is living through us.

   Ask God to make His love more and more real to you. You can even pray Ephesians 3:14-21 for yourself and those you care about just like I often do.

   You are loved! Believe it. Receive it. Live in it.


Mark Maulding, President and Founder


www.GraceLifeInternational.com
All Content Copyright © 2012 Mark Maulding

God as God

  I want to throw out some theological words to you this week. You do not need to shy away from them because I am going to explain them and I think you will be encouraged and challenged. These words are the transcendence of God and the immanence of God.

   God's immanence refers to God's nearness to us. We experience Him and His immanence when we feel His comfort, peace, love, etc. This conjures up in our minds and hearts the realities that God is our Father, Daddy, Friend, Lover of our soul, etc. I wrote about this last week regarding God as Daddy. Our response to God's immanence is intimacy with Him. Intimacy means we want to "get in God's lap".   Jesus said it this way in John 15:25, "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you."

   God's transcendence refers to God as being completely different and greater than any of us as a human. His transcendence gives us understanding that He is holy, perfect, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. It is recognizing that each of us exist because we were God's idea. This evokes an incredible sense of God's "otherness" from us. Our response to God's transcendence is worship from a proper fear of the Lord. This fear is not being fearful of His punishment because that has been taken care of at the cross. The fear of the Lord means we have such awe of Him that we want to bow down and tell Him how great and awesome He is. In 1 Peter 2:7 God says, "Honor all people, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the king."

   And do you know what is really incredible? We are united to God through our faith in Jesus Christ. We live in union with Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the triune God.

   We want to be careful that we do not over emphasize either of these more than the other. Both of these aspects of God are equally important.

   This week, let's enjoy the closeness and awe of our God Whom we are united with!

Live Free In Christ,


Mark Maulding, President and Founder



www.GraceLifeInternational.com

All Content Copyright © 2012 Mark Maulding

God as Daddy

   When I was growing up, my friends next door called their father and mother by their first names. They called their dad Bill and their mom Hazel. That seemed really strange to me. I do not ever recall hearing one of them call them dad or mom.

   Here is something else that seems strange to me. Many of us are very comfortable calling God by the name "God" or "Lord" but we may really struggle to call him Daddy, Dad, or Papa. In fact, it may even seem irreverent or even sacrilegious. The truth of the complete Gospel tells us otherwise.

   The Holy Spirit explains to us in Romans 5, that as God's children, He has made us 100% acceptable to Him by making us righteous. In Romans 6, we read that we are no longer slaves of sin because of our new identity in Christ. Next in Romans 7, it becomes clear that we are not under law but under grace alone. With that in mind, we read the really good news in Romans 8:15, "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!"

   The word "Abba" is an Aramaic word which communicates the intimacy of a father who delights in his child, such that the child also delights in his or her father. Abba Father then means Daddy Father. Jesus said the same about His relationship with God the Father in Mark 14:36 and it is repeated again in Galatians 4:6.

   As God's deeply loved children, let's take a step of faith this week and call Him Daddy, Dad or Papa. It is a step into deeper intimacy with Him.

Live Free In Christ,


Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com

All Content Copyright © 2012 Mark Maulding

Why God Blesses a Person

     Have you ever wondered what you need to do to get God to bless you? How do you get yourself in a "position" to be blessed? The answer is actually very encouraging.

    Under the Old Covenant which was centered in the 10 Commandments, a person was blessed because of obedience. Just read Deuteronomy 28:1-2. "If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all His commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God". NIV All of the blessings are listed in verses 3-14. Then verse 15 says, "However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all His commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you." NIV There are about 4 times as many curses as there are blessings if you read to the end of the chapter. The blessings God promised under the Old Covenant are conditional based on obedience. I don't know about you but I am fairly certain I do not want to be in that kind of relationship.

    Under the New Covenant, a person is blessed because of one reason and one reason only: they are in union with Christ. Ephesians 1:3 says, "Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! For in our union with Christ He has blessed us by giving us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world." GNT These blessings are conditional also but here the condition is faith not obedience. It is our faith in Jesus Christ which unites us with Christ. Once united with Christ, we are able to experience and enjoy our blessings only if we continue to live by faith. For example, God loves and accepts us unconditionally but we only enjoy this if we believe it whether we feel it or not. Have you noticed that in some instances we tend to get caught up in checking in with our feelings to tell us if something is true rather than God's word?

    It would be like having one million dollars in our checking account. If we believe we have it intellectually that is a good place to begin. But only when our faith leads us to withdraw from our "every spiritual blessing" account do we get to enjoy it.

    So then what about obedience? Living like who we are in Christ is a blessing. Living like who we are in Christ is an act of faith. The more we believe and act on our faith that we are sons and daughters of God who are deeply and unconditionally loved, the more we will obey.

    Let's be careful. We are Covenant people but the flesh wants to cause us to drift towards an Old Covenant mentality of obedience based blessings. To put it another way, we are to live with a grace based mentality growing in our understanding that we are already blessed because of Jesus' obedience. A law based mentality is exhausting while a grace based mentality is restful.

    We are already "positioned" to be blessed because we are united with Christ. He is our ultimate blessing and every aspect of who He is and who we are in Him is to be enjoyed now and forever. 

Live Free In Christ,


Mark Maulding, President and Founder



www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2012 Mark Maulding

Christian Minister Freed from Addiction

In this blog, I want you to read a wonderful story of the power of the Gospel to free each of us who are Christians.  This man was counseled in our Asheville, NC satellite office. 

"It is my pleasure to recommend Grace Life International to anyone who finds themselves in need of solid, Biblical counseling from people who have experienced the life changing good news of Christ in their own lives.

I had the distinct privilege of learning and growing beside my counselor in Asheville, NC. He is a man of great character and has an incredible drive to share the love of God with anyone, regardless of background. It was through him that I was able to see the incredible program that Grace Life has assembled to remind all of us of the unfathomable amount of freedom that Christ offers to us.

As someone who works in full-time ministry, I have to be honest that, at times, I have become numb to the message of Christ. It wasn't because I didn't believe it was true. On the contrary, I knew it was true but I never experienced the power of the message as strongly as I did than when I began my discipleship counseling at Grace Life. The practical, thought provoking questions were not an uncomfortable psychoanalysis but rather a call to return to the life giving message of Jesus Christ. The lessons are clearly laid out with pointed objectives at the end.

Before coming to Grace Life, I had struggled with an addiction for several years. I never sought help because of the shame that I felt on a daily basis. No longer will I allow myself to stay in the "mud and mire" as described in Psalm 40. This incredible counseling organization worked with me and truly believed God was going to change me. Having that vote of confidence was crucial for me. While I still have days of strong temptation, I'm leaning more and more on God to find the freedom promised in His Word. Every day I am seeing how God is continuing to grow me and heal me from my past. I am convinced that this would not have happened had I not reached out for the help available at Grace Life.

Thank you, Grace Life, for being available to listen and offer Godly wisdom. You have made an incredible impact on my life!"

Sincerely, Jonathan Wood


Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder



www.GraceLifeInternational.com

All Content Copyright © 2012 Mark Maulding