Sanctify Me O' Lord

I've been dwelling on sanctification lately, asking God to continually change me. I know that I can't expect God to change me unless I'm in His Word daily learning of Him and His Will for my life and acting on it. Being a doer of His word. I know God is getting ready to move me to the next level but it's my move first. Will I obey?

I woke up this morning refreshed and ready to dive into the Word. I grabbed a cup of coffee my Bible and sat. I started off with a quick prayer. "Lord teach me, speak to me through your Word. I want to grow spiritually by this time in your Word." I told the Lord that's why I'm doing this Bible in a year deal to begin with. I want to know You and Your Word. I want to help better Your Kingdom through this knowledge. With that I dove in and read a few chapters in my reading in a year program. When I was finished I was still hungry for more. So I picked up my new Voice of the Covenant magazine. I looked at the contents of it and found an article called Growing Up. I thought that is for me at this time.

I read a few pages that were all speaking to my heart when I got to The Heart and Mouth Connection of this article. Part of my prayer before getting in the Word was that I wanted His Word planted deep in my heart so I could take it with me and use it with my mouth in faith. Part of it reads "The sad thing is that many Christians never develop beyond the baby stage and become skillful enough to speak God's Word from their heart and change their world. They may have been born again forty years ago, but they have never learned how to apply the Word and live victoriously in life." How true is that? I continued reading on down the page and it goes into 1 Corinthians where Paul was calling these Christians babes in Christ. Paul called them unspiritual, carnal Christians. Because they walked under the control of ordinary impulses like envy, jealousy, strife, and divisions, and were behaving after a human standard like "mere unchanged men" At that very moment God spoke to me saying is this what you want to be, "a mere unchanged man?" I said no Lord I don't. He said, "Then put more time aside for Me and My Word." I agreed.

After pausing and listening to the Lord I continued reading and it said, "It is not a fun thing to discipline our flesh, but it can be done." Let me clarify that just a few weeks ago when I was communing with the Lord I was telling Him I just want more of You Lord. He said "If you can budget your finances you can budget your time." I feel bad because I have done nothing to budget my time with God and His Word Since He spoke this to me.

I've got to share something I read just last night from a completely different source all together. This was talking about three faith actions. implement, engage, and press. I won't cover them all because this post is getting long. But Implement is an active verb meaning "to carry into effect, to fulfill or to accomplish." It also means "to give practical effort to a thing. Throughout the Bible His words brought faith to whomever He spoke. They gave direction, explanation. I don't see in the Bible that God ever spoke a word to anyone except to bring change into his life! Whatever His purpose was for any word He spoke, He was speaking to get something done in the life of the hearer! Jesus' words were the same. Cast your net...Be made whole...Seek first the kingdom of God....Hebrews 11 tells us faith is the substance...and evidence...of God's promises. We continue to read in that chapter, by faith...people acted on God's Word and received all He promised."

"Faith is what brings God's plan into our lives. Our faith is the implement of God's Word that brings His plan to pass in our lives."

At the beginning I said I know God is getting ready to move me to the next level. All these articles and Him speaking to me through them in such a short time is enough evidence for me. Like I said, it's my move. I came up with a plan to discipline my flesh. I will strive to get up earlier to spend time with the Lord. This is something I have tried in the past and have failed (gave up). The Word should be the first thing you think about in the morning and the last thing you think about before you go to sleep. I just want more of Him.