Imagine what it would be like to know true love.
A lovely verse filled with the precious care of God…
“And now I commit you to God and to the word of the grace of Him which is able to build up and to give you an inheritance almond the sanctified all.”
— Acts 20.32
May God give you eyes to see, and ears to hear, and a tender heart to accept, what is taking place all around you in heavenly places.
Just as a little child plays in the sandbox with his little shovel and plastic pail and all his toys, so are we when we try to act mature and build our systems and subcultures and new ways of doing and saying things about God. But the reality is that, just like the little child in the sandbox, all we can hope to do is imitate our Father and be somewhat like Him. For we will never be God. And we can accomplish nothing apart from Him because He alone has true ability and Power, and true words of Life that emanate from and are carried along by His Holy Spirit and His burning Anointing / Charisma.
In the beginning, God created us in His image. So from the beginning we see that God wants us to become like Him and be affiliated with Him. In Jesus Christ we become brand new adopted children of God. Yet, even if we become more like God, we will never become God. God is Holy. And Holy means set apart and unlike any other. God is Holy and we, though born again, will never be Holy in the same sense that God is Holy. God has never at any time sinned, something we can never boast.
In our love for God, and in our worship of God, we set Him apart in our hearts because He is unlike any other. We give to God something we will never give to any other. And we guard, in our hearts and in our words and in our passion, the Holiness of God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. In our deep love and commitment and devotion and even in our jealousy for God, we are always and ever vigilant to never liken anyone or anything to God. No man or exalted being or power or angel or any other thing in heaven or earth or creation even begins to come close to being like God. And we use no language that could give anyone any impression that there is another God or men who have transcended to become like God (e.g. “God-men”).
God alone is God. If we happen to become His children and partake of His Life and nature through Jesus, then still, God alone is God and we are not to use fancy words and mind tricks to think or suggest to ourselves or anyone that we are God (or “God-men”).
I say again that God is Holy. He is unlike any other. There is none other beside Him. God alone is to be worshipped. God alone is to be set apart in the hearts of men. God alone is to be feared and followed. Men are to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God alone. We must get this one thing correct before we go on to any other topic or teaching. God alone is God.
In this example from the book of Acts we see the apostles preventing others from mistaking the apostles for God:
“When the multitude saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voice, saying in the language of Lycaonia, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” They called Barnabas “Jupiter,” and Paul “Mercury,” because he was the chief speaker. The priest of Jupiter, whose temple was in front of their city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, and would have made a sacrifice along with the multitudes. But when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of it, they tore their clothes, and sprang into the multitude, crying out, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the sky and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them; who in the generations gone by allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he didn’t leave himself without witness, in that he did good and gave us rains from the sky and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” -Acts 14:11-17
Though God may have revealed deep secret spiritual things to a man; though a man may have been caught up to the third heaven and seen things that are not lawful to speak of…even so, that man is still a man and is not God. As the apostle Paul said:
“For if I would desire to boast, I will not be foolish; for I will speak the truth. But I forbear, so that no man may account of me above that which he sees in me, or hears from me.” –2 Corinthians 12:6
“For I say, through the grace that was given me, to every man who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think reasonably, as God has apportioned to each person a measure of faith.” –Romans 12:3
Follow God, study God, hallow and worship God alone, set God alone apart in your heart. There will never be another like God. God Himself loves you. Draw near to God alone and He will draw near to you. When you do this, you are setting yourself apart unto God in the midst of a world that ignores and despises God, and in that sense you will make yourself holy as He is holy. But you will never be God.
“Keep back / abstain from the external or outward appearance/form of evil. ” — 1 Thessalonians 5.22
A W Tozer on Christmas:
“So completely are we carried away by the excitement of this midwinter festival that we are apt to forget that its romantic appeal is the least significant thing about it. The theology of Christmas too easily gets lost under the gay wrappings, yet apart from the theological meaning it really has none at all. A half dozen doctrinally sound carols serve to keep alive the great deep truth of the Incarnation, but aside from these, popular Christmas music is void of any real lasting truth. The English mouse that was not even stirring, the German Tannenbaum so fair and lovely and the American red-nosed reindeer that has nothing to recommend it have pretty well taken over in Christmas poetry and song. These along with merry old St. Nicholas have about displaced Christian theology.… It does seem strange that so many persons become excited about Christmas and so few stop to inquire into its meaning; but I suppose this odd phenomenon is quite in harmony with our unfortunate human habit of magnifying trivialities and ignoring matters of greatest import.… The Christmas message, when stripped of its pagan overtones, is relatively simple: God is come to earth in the form of man. John 1:14; Galatians 4:4–5; 1 Timothy 3:16
In these latter-years of the twentieth century no other season of the year reveals so much religion and so little godliness as the Christmas season.… How far have we come in the corruption of our tastes from the reverence of the simple shepherds, the chant of the angels and the beauty of the heavenly host! The Star of Bethlehem could not lead a wise man to Christ today; it could not be distinguished amid the millions of artificial lights hung aloft on Main Street by the Merchants Association. No angels could sing loudly enough to make themselves heard above the raucous, earsplitting rendition of “Silent Night” meant to draw customers to the neighborhood stores. In our mad materialism we have turned beauty into ashes, prostituted every normal emotion and made merchandise of the holiest gift the world ever knew.
Christ came to bring peace and we celebrate His coming by making peace impossible for six weeks of each year. Not peace but tension, fatigue and irritation rule the Christmas season. He came to free us of debt and many respond by going deep into debt each year to buy enervating luxuries for people who do not appreciate them. He came to help the poor and we heap gifts upon those who do not need them. The simple token given out of love has been displaced by expensive presents given because we have been caught in a squeeze and don’t know how to back out of it. Not the beauty of the Lord our God is found in such a situation, but the ugliness and deformity of human sin. Matthew 2:1–11; Luke 2:8–20; Luke 4:18–19”
— A.W Tozer “The Warfare of the Spirit”
For more thoughts about the practice of celebrating “Christmas” see:
http://www.scripturesongs.net/misc/THE-PRACTICE-OF-CELEBRATING-CHRISTMAS.pdf
“But of Him, you are in Christ Jesus, Who was made to us (1) wisdom from God, and (2) righteousness and (3) sanctification, and (4) redemption: that, according as it is written, ‘He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.'”
— 1 Corinthians 1:30,31
Of Him..
…out of, proceeding forth from, emanating and emerging from the Person and intention of God… if indeed we are, this is how we have come to be within Anointed Jesus!
(1) If we have any wisdom attributed to us at all, it is Jesus Himself.
(2) If we have any righteousness attributed to us at all, it is Jesus Himself.
(3) If we are set apart from this fallen world at all, it is so in the Person of Jesus Himself, Who is not of this world.
(4) If we have been turned into something good and useful from the dark and broken state that is our nature, it is only and always because we find ourselves clothed with the Person of Jesus Himself.
Only in great humility do we truly humble ourselves.
Lord Jesus, You Yourself are the Holy One, Most High, in Whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. As we gaze upon You, we gaze upon Abba, Father.
Blessed be You, O God, my God! Thank You for You! You are my All in All.
“Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus, being powerful in the Scriptures…This one having been taught in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things about the Lord,…proving through the Scriptures Jesus to be the Christ.”
—Acts 18.21,22,33
This man was so moved by the Holy Spirit of God and he so loved and devoured anything spoken by God. He became powerful in the Scripture, the written words that God has spoken from eternity into time. O for men and women so thirsty for God! Who have embraced the Son of God, the Holy Spirit and anything God is speaking. O for those who will hear the calling of God and respond, and forsake the temptations of sin and the so-called “treasures” of this world, and detach their hearts from them, that they may be attached to God and God’s purposes and plans! Respond, you who have ears! Have ears to hear when that Precious One speaks and calls you aside unto Himself! Father God let it be so I ask in Jesus’ Name.
All by the grace and mercy and peace of God. In loving tenderness and genuine affection toward all.
—
Captured
I don’t want to see you captured by the world
when its face can seem so beautiful
don’t let them tell you it’s OK
to keep a little for your own
it’s a trap that some will never overcome
Oh, you’ve been set free
with blood that cries mercy
Oh, at such great cost
the Father’s very Son