I thought this would be a good time for the newsletter for two reasons. We are between topics.
Plus, I am still only at 60%. I am not coughing — as much.
Main Nugget
- We cannot separate God from His salvation, so must trust the whole package (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
- Integrity fosters steadfastness (Integrity and Righteousness).
- Integrity is a choice (Integrity and Righteousness).
- Trust has an element of hope entwined in it (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
- Our prayers are useless if they aren’t back up with trust in God (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
Forming Our Habits to Grow Our Relationship with God
- Our relationship with God does not depend on what we have or not any more than it is dependent on our circumstances. Our relationship with God depends on who we are — our character, our integrity (Integrity and Righteousness).
- If we have the character of God, we are obedient to Him. Blessings are in the obedience.
- Trusting God is relying on God instead of our own understanding (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
- We have to know what God has promised so that we can trust and hope in them. If we don’t have even an elementary knowledge of His promises, there is no way we are going to trust them to be true (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
- Obedience is also a major element. Trust God, not yourself, is written as a command. Do it. Do it now (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
- Because we rely on God and are obedient to Him, we can ask for Him to bless us (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
- We have to be diligent in trusting God. We can’t pick and choose the times we will or won’t trust Him (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
- We have to totally trust God 24/7/365/eternity. We are to fully love God and not doubt (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
- However much we process/reason, we have do it in faith, not doubt. We have to totally trust God (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
- Salvation is free. We can’t buy it or earn it. But we are expected to submit to God when we accept salvation (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
- God’s salvation opens up a variety of opportunities that come with specific responsibilities related to the freedom found in Him (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
- Having specific responsibilities takes the focus off us and puts it onto God — where it should be. When we perform those responsibilities, our trust in God grows (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
- We need to put our trust and our confidence in God rather than man (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
- After we realize that we can trust God for an important matter like salvation, we know that we can trust Him for other important matters — like living (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
- Committing our hearts by delighting in pleasing God means having faith in Him (Having Confidence to Trust God without Understanding).
- We need to commit all our heart – all of our life – every part of it – to God. Jesus said the burden of doing that is light when we totally submit our hearts to God (Mt. 11: 30). In other words, we want to walk with God (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- Words and meditations are two different types of prayers, but they are connected. We have uttered and unuttered prays (Committing Our Hearts by Totally Focusing on God).
- God, Who is pure in heart, accepts us, who are wicked in heart, when we do and say acceptable things with the correct motives (Committing Our Hearts by Totally Focusing on God).
Glossary
Forming Our Habits to Grow Our Maturity
- We are guided by God to walk with integrity (Integrity and Righteousness).
- Isn’t that what integrity is about? People don’t have to guess on which side of the fence you are going to fall this day because you don’t change your principles (Integrity and Righteousness).
- Standing up for our moral beliefs takes courage, but it does bring much happiness and contentment. It takes courage because it is hard when our beliefs are opposite to those of the world (Integrity and Righteousness).
- Our integrity must in some ways mirror that of the world’s. No, I do not believe that the worldview gets to determine what integrity is. God sets the foundation. I can see that the worldview influences the implementation of the foundation. It factors into how we approach situations. But it all comes from God His way. It comes from a culture of righteousness (Integrity and Righteousness).
- This dependence on God’s integrity must be a lifetime undertaking (Integrity and Righteousness).
- Having integrity doesn’t mean being sinless (Integrity and Righteousness).
- Integrity isn’t about us not breaking the rules. That would be a salvation that we earned (Integrity and Righteousness).
- Integrity must describe all of us, not just one compartmentalized section of us. It is more about intent than whether or not we actually sinned. Integrity must have a God-focus, not a man-focus. Integrity doesn’t allow us to show favorites (Integrity and Righteousness).
- Faith starts our change to become more like Christ. It launches us on the Sanctification Road (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- We grow in faith but we also lose faith at times (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- We have to remember that the only way we can approach God is through faith. This faith opens the eyes of our hearts so recognize the invisible, spiritual things (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- It pleases God when we commit in our hearts to become like Him (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- God wants to be involved in our small things as well as our big things. He wants to be involved in our physical things as well as our spiritual things. This also tells us that God takes pleasure in our small successes (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- God is pleased when we have the mind of Christ. We have to choose to have the mindset that Jesus did: think the same way, act the same way, and live the same way. In other words, we have to imitate Jesus. When people see us, they should be seeing Jesus (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- We are to love God as Jesus loved Him. That means obeying Him, spending time with Him, and serving Him (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- It is only through God do we get the character we need (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- Committing our hearts by delighting in pleasing God means we approach Him humbly (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- Instead of thinking we have merit, we need to humbly submit ourselves to God. We please God when acknowledge Him as Sovereign God and submit our lives to Him. The only way we can do that is by acknowledging that He is so much greater than we are (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- Committing our hearts by delighting in pleasing God means we work toward expanding God’s kingdom (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- Man, serving God is hard work sometimes! It can be physically tiring and draining. It can be mentally exhausting. But we can’t sit back on the laurels of our salvation. We must do God’s bidding (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- The beautiful thing is that it is not us really doing the work. It is God working through us. We please God when we cheerfully come alongside Him in His work (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- Don’t miss this. Our goal is not that we please God. It is that we delight in pleasing Him. It is not just our actions, but our attitude for which God is looking. We are to serve God cheerfully (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- We have to constantly look to do God’s Will with the right attitude (Committing Our Hearts by Delighting in Pleasing God).
- We need a pure heart in order to approach God (Committing Our Hearts by Keeping Them Pure).
- Faith begins in the mind. It then has to get to the heart level (Committing Our Hearts by Keeping Them Pure).
- The goodness that results from our relationship with God is built on and by our conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true. We can only have the goodness after we have established the belief in God. We can only determine this belief by our thoughts, intellect, will, and affections that produces our character (Committing Our Hearts by Keeping Them Pure).
- The watching doesn’t mean passive activity. We need to be seeking God diligently (Committing Our Hearts by Keeping Them Pure).
- All we are has to belong to God, so it should be pure (Committing Our Hearts by Keeping Them Pure).
- Purity doesn’t just mean the absence of sin. It means the presence of God (Committing Our Hearts by Keeping Them Pure).
- We can’t separate heart, soul, and mind (Committing Our Hearts by Keeping Them Pure).
- Neglecting our hearts causes sin to enter them. Our actions and thoughts open the door for Satan to move right in (Committing Our Hearts by Keeping Them Pure).
- We can’t be only concerned about our actions. They aren’t the most important thing about being disciples. We have to have our hearts set on God (Committing Our Hearts by Keeping Them Pure).
- When we meditate, we contemplate the situation in which we find ourselves — and where God wants us to be. We need to keep our thoughts and our words — spoken and unspoken — focused on God (Committing Our Hearts by Totally Focusing on God).
- We must follow all God’s laws with all our hearts. We choose whether or not we are going to follow God’s laws and commandments. God wants us to choose to follow them (Committing Our Hearts by Totally Focusing on God).
- What God wants is for us to seek Him. The last thing we should want is a relationship with Him based on the good things He can do for us. God wants a totally committed relationship with us. Our hearts have to be totally submitted to Him (Committing Our Hearts by Totally Focusing on God).
- Our hearts must be filled with thanksgiving and praise (Committing Our Hearts by Totally Focusing on God).
- When we praise God, it must be complete. The praise in our hearts has to totally focus on Him (Committing Our Hearts by Totally Focusing on God).
- We cannot divide our attention between God and the world. Our Will, intellect, and feelings must be fully focused on God (Committing Our Hearts by Totally Focusing on God).
Glossary
Forming Our Habits to Grow Our Relationship with Others
- In our walk with our Lord Jesus, it is necessary for us to commit to being or doing things, for us to be fruitful in our ministries together. That is not to say that we are not allowed to disagree (Agreement in the Body of Christ).
- We aren’t sinning when we disagree with each other, necessarily. That is unless we allow the disagreement to build into discontent, causing anger to flare and causing church splits, friend splits and so on (Agreement in the Body of Christ).
- Then we must be careful how we react and keep the disagreement to a Godly context. When we have our minds set on being angry for one reason or another, we cannot possibly accomplish what God has for us to do (Agreement in the Body of Christ).
- Paul knew that it was imperative for success in any ministry, that we must have and be of like minds. For us to be of like-mindedness, as a group of individuals, we must commit ourselves to it (Agreement in the Body of Christ).
- To be fruitful for God, we must be operating from the same mindedness and agree with each other and COMMIT to doing so (Agreement in the Body of Christ).
- It makes more sense that if a person cannot agree to be a part of what a church is doing, then they should go find a church that they can be in like-mindedness with and commit to being a part of that church. Instead, however, they choose to stay where they are and be a willing instrument of the devil by causing discontent with that body of believers and allow him to attempt to thwart what God is doing in that church (Agreement in the Body of Christ).
- For us to be godly in all that we are doing for Him, we must commit to follow Him in all that we do (Agreement in the Body of Christ).
- One of the first things that we need to keep in mind is that when we are doing ministry, we are not doing it for ourselves. We are doing it for God’s glory (Agreement in the Body of Christ).
- The only way that we can possibly work for God’s glory and mean it is to abide in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit (Agreement in the Body of Christ).
- We literally cannot do anything apart from Jesus. If God took His hand off us and this world for even one second, we would literally fall apart (Agreement in the Body of Christ).
- Everything we can do is because God allows us to do so, according to His will, because it gives God pleasure to do so (Agreement in the Body of Christ).
- The surrender that we do is a willful agreement with God to accept His will for us and we follow Him accordingly (Agreement in the Body of Christ).
- You see, when we surrender our lives to God, we give up the right to do everything we want to do with our lives. We give our lives up to our own ways and follow God’s ways. That’s what it means to be faithful and devoted to our God (Agreement in the Body of Christ).
- In a very real sense, when we give our lives to the Lord, we agree with Him, that His way is better than ours. We agree with all that He wants to do with us, even if we don’t have any idea what’s next. And we are surrendering ourselves by being obedient to His call (Agreement in the Body of Christ).
- We are to be examples to others, as Jesus is an example to us (Integrity and Righteousness).
- Just doing random acts of kindness does not make us pure in God’s eyes. We can’t separate our actions from the motives for which we do them. Our motives must be we are doing them to honor God (Committing Our Hearts by Keeping Them Pure).
Glossary
To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.
Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.
Devotions in the Commit to Grow Our Habits study
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.