February 27
Most of us can call God our Father. Most of us can say that without even thinking much about it. Its part of our Christianity. Calling God our father has almost become a clich. Websters dictionary defines a clich as something that has become overly familiar or commonplace. Yet a father is anything but commonplace or familiar in most of the Church. While we go on proclaiming our Heavenly Father as good, many of us cannot say the same of our human father. What happened?
God has intended his love and his blessing to flow downward to us through our fathers. Yet we see in His Church today a contradiction. Fathers, and authority in general have failed. Where God intended blessing to flow, cursing has come. And where God meant for His love to come through our fathers, we see that that very often that has not been the case.
Even so, God still desires to pass his blessing on to us. With this broken connection, these broken fathers between God and ourselves, how will God accomplish this? Malachi 4:6 says:
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers
God is restoring the fathering heart. The remarkable thing about this is that he is not only restoring natural fathers, but spiritual fathers as well. Men that perhaps failed even with their own children are now falling in love with a whole generation. Fathers are beginning to invest their time, wisdom, and even finances into young people.
Healthy, restored fathering is the key for this new generation of young people. As men stand up and they become fathers of many, the children turn their hearts back, and this fatherless generation is restored. The generation gap is closing.
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December 14
Hebrews 12:8 says, If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. The character of God, indeed, of Christ is disciplined, and the Holy Spirit is working out His character in us.
Hebrews 29:18 states, Where [there is] no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy [is] he. The word vision in that particular passage is chazown {khaw-zone'} in the original Hebrew. It means oracle, prophecy, or a divine communication or revelation, specifically about future events, prophetic vision. The Holy Spirit speaks to us through divine words, and reveals future events, and destiny. The Proverb says that where this is lacking, the people perish. This word, para` {paw-rah'} means to avoid, to neglect, to be loosed of, and show a lack of restraint. Where the prophetic word for our lives is lacking, people cast of restraint. There is no discipline, because there is seemingly no reason to be disciplined. My paraphrased version of that scripture would go as such, When there is no divine communication, nobody disciplines themselves, but those who meditate on what the Holy Spirit has revealed, they are blessed.
Galatians 5:22-23 says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. As we meditate on what the Holy Spirit has revealed to us, as we rely on him, self-control comes into fruition in our lives through the fruit of the Spirit. Discipline is required to communicate with the Holy Spirit, and to meditate on the Word, but a greater level of discipline is being worked out in us as we do. It seems as though discipline is a requirement for hearing from God, as well as a result.
However it is essential to discipline ourselves. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:24-25, Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. The word run here in this verse was originally the Greek word trecho {trekh'-o}, and it could be translated as to exert one's self, or strive hard or to spend ones strength performing or attaining something This makes it abundantly clear that we are required to actively discipline ourselves. The word egkrateuomai {eng-krat-yoo'-om-ahee} has been translated goes into strict training. This word means exhibit self-government, to be self-controlled, to conduct one's self temperately.
We must then strive hard to be self-controlled, and govern our lives in a disciplined fashion as well as eagerly desire the all the fruit of the Spirit if we are to see Gods character worked out in our lives.
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December 12
Goodbye myspace.com
Yes, this is the death of myspace, all the inappropriate ads, and everything else just added up to be not worth it to me. So I will be using this instead.
Anyway, hopefully the purevolume.com community is just as good.
Here's hoping,
Travis Waldmer
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Satellite54
God bless you, man.
posted Jun 13