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Showing posts with label Christ in us. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christ in us. Show all posts

Thursday, May 28, 2015

You Can’t Meet Your Own Needs for Love, Acceptance, Worth and Security

God created you with certain needs of the heart which only He can fully meet.  I, and my staff have seen that these needs are universal, whether here in the USA, or in places like Zimbabwe, Chile, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Croatia, Ukraine or England. 

Every person needs love because God is love.  Every person needs acceptance because that is what unconditional love from God truly is.  Every person needs worth because we are valuable enough for God to create us and for Jesus to die for us.  Everyone needs security because we need to know we can’t mess up the love we have and only God’s grace in Christ can provide that.  We use the acronym LAWS to help people remember their needs.

I want you to imagine four plastic buckets sitting in front of you.  Each one has a different name on it.  The first says LOVE.  The second says ACCEPTANCE.  The third says WORTH.  The fourth says SECURITY.  God made you to live with those buckets full.  In fact, you can’t live very well unless they are full.  Yet, because we don’t know they are already full, we work hard at trying to fill them ourselves. 

What are some of the ways we do this?  We may perform so people will like us.  We may manipulate people.  We may expect people to meet these needs such as in marriage and when they don’t, we get angry and start an argument.  We may look on Facebook to see what people are saying about us.  We may try to get our kids to meet these needs by making us proud for the wrong reasons.  We may try sex outside of marriage.  We may fantasize through porn.  In other words, we try to control our personal universe by living independently of God, by looking to others or things in trying  to meet these needs.

God says it this way in Jeremiah 2:13.  For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That can hold no water. (NASB)

God was speaking of Israel at the time, but it’s still an applicable illustration of what our flesh wants to try to do for us.  First, we turn away from our real Source who will abundantly satisfy our heart like living waters.  Second, we work hard to get our buckets filled but our buckets have holes in them just like Israel’s cisterns did.  (A cistern was a hole you dug into the ground and hoped rain water would fill so you could have water to satisfy your thirst.  But Israel’s had cracks in them so that the water didn’t stay very long.)

You can’t satisfy your own needs for God given LAWS, no matter how hard you work or who you try to get to meet them.  The little that you do strive for will not last and you will have to go out and work hard the next day to get it again.

If you are a Christ follower, you are united to the God who is love and He created you so He could love you.  Do you believe that?  We all get tested in this area when someone disappoints us or we disappoint ourselves.


Why don’t you thank God this week that He is the only one who can adequately meet those needs and ask Him to make them real in you?

Believe it! It's the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Do You Know God Cares about How You Smell!

Did you know God likes perfume? And you are going to see that you are that perfume!


When God was giving instructions to Moses in what to put in the Old Testament tabernacle, surprisingly, He tells him in Exodus 30 to make a small alter to burn incense on it, just in front of the entrance to the Holy of Holies. As I read that passage recently, I prayed and asked the Lord, why He wanted incense burned in front of the door to where His presence lived among Israel.


It reminded me of the "hippy" days when it seemed like everybody burned incense. I think back on this time and thought it was probably just for fun and it could have made you feel cool. But then again, some people burned it to cover the smell of other things they smoked. I was not a part of that, but I do remember lots of people burning incense.


So, I was prayerfully wondering why God would want sweet smelling incense to be burning in front of the Holy of Holies. Immediately my mind went to 2 Corinthians 2:15, "For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing." As we depend on Jesus Christ to live through us, we exude the aroma of Christ.


One of our staff had surgery a few months ago. He told me that the nurses and assistants just seemed to like to come in his room. Why? Because he was relying upon Jesus in him during his recovery and they could "smell" it. They did not know what it was but it was Jesus Christ they smelled.


Ellen (my wife) and I were recently in a city where we had to ride the bus quite a bit. It was amazing that almost every time we got on the bus, women who sat beside her wanted to engage her in conversations. She would look for an opportunity to talk with them about the One who lives in her, Jesus. Some times she shared the gospel with those without Christ. Sometimes, she explained the grace of God to those who were in Christ. Other times, she just listened and talked. It got to be a joke that every time we got on the bus, some lady would end up talking with her. Why? They smelled Jesus as He was expressing Himself through her, whether she was talking or just sitting.

Wherever you go, to work, to run, to the kid's games, to worship, to your neighbor, you can be the aroma of Christ if you will ask Him to live His life through you. This is a sweet spiritual perfume to God just as the incense in the tabernacle was a sweet physical perfume to God. Part of my daily prayer each day is, "Jesus fill me with Your love for me and live Your life through me today." I encourage you to make this request a part of your daily prayers too

Live Free In Christ,
Mark Maulding, President and Founder
GraceLifeInternational.com
All Content Copyright © 2012 Mark Maulding

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Is Your Life "Rooted" in God's Love?

You may be surprised to learn that I have a degree in horticulture.  Though I do not use that degree, I do know some things about plants and trees. Take Azaleas for example.  There is nothing more beautiful in the spring than a yard full of these colorful flowering plants. One of the greatest displays of them is often seen on television at the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia.
One of the fascinating tricks to growing beautiful healthy Azaleas is to make certain the soil they are rooted in is acidic. The acid must be the correct kind or it will destroy the roots which will then wither the plant possibly killing it.
In Ephesians 3:14-20 there is a terrific prayer I often pray for myself, my family, my staff and all those we minister to.  The prayer is basically one where we are asking God to give Christians a deeper revelation of Christ in us.  One of the results of this will be that we will be rooted and grounded in God's love for us.
Ponder the picture God gives us of roots from our soul being in the best soil they could ever be in, the perfect soil of God's love.  To have the roots of our soul drinking deeply from God's love is indescribable.  I not only say that from personal experience but mainly from the conclusion of that prayer.
So where are the roots of your soul today?  Here is a reality check. If those roots are not first and foremost in God's love, then they are somewhere else vainly attempting to get our God-given need for love met in a person, a possession or a position.  When we live like this, over time our soul withers and we may even feel like we are dying.  No spouse, child, parent, date, friend, house, car, clothes, job or anything else can provide our soul with the love we need.  Only God Himself, Who is love, can constantly nourish our soul with the perfect kind of love we need.
All of us at times seek to meet our deepest need for love in the wrong place.  This will eventually lead us into disappointment, emptiness or frustration.  Don't get me wrong, it is great to be loved by someone else, to enjoy our possessions, and to look forward to our job.  The reality is that we can actually enjoy those more when we are rooted in God's love; then we can be OK when those sources dry up.
Why don't you pray that prayer in Ephesians this week for yourself and those you care about?
Until next time, remember He loves us.

Live free in Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder
www.GraceLifeInternational.com 

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Did Jesus Have Live by Faith Like You and Me?


Did Jesus Have Live by Faith Like You and Me? 
Dear Mark,
  
When on this earth, Jesus Christ was fully God and fully human.  Many believe Jesus performed miracles and obeyed His Father by simply doing it as God.  People will often say, "Sure Jesus was able to obey God the Father because Jesus was God!"  That is a serious misunderstanding.

Jesus lived on this earth only as a human.  Though he never ceased being God, it was as if He "stuck His deity in His back pocket for 33 years." Jesus had to live like we are asked by God to live - by faith!  That is,  He daily lived completely dependent on His Father to meet all of His needs, especially for love, and to live through Him every moment.   In John 14:10, Jesus confirms this stating, "Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work."

Each day we are to ask Jesus to live His life through us.  This does not mean we will live passive lives just as Jesus did not live a passive life.  It means we will be very active as go to work, relate to our family, friends and neighbors, talk with God, read God's Word, watch TV, drive our cars, fulfill our God-given purpose, obey God and more with Jesus living through us in each of these.  Why don't we decide now that we will ask Jesus to live through us every day even if we don't feel the reality of that?  He loves us and wants to live through us!  

Be Free in Christ, 

Mark Maulding
President and Founder 
Grace Life International