February 23, 2015

Sent Out Wise AND HARMLESS


"Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves." Matthew 10:16
For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. 1 Timothy 1:7


Last week we were discussing the relationship between hurting others and harming our own life, spirit, soul, mind and body.  If anyone would like the specific information on the deeper relational conflicts please let me know and I will either re-post those or link into the archives.

Every one of us will be tested to prove what is inside us.  God has made sure we are squeezed just right: pressed a little deeper here, or when we are not guarded there, to expose what is really deep in the smallest corners of our heart, mind and soul.  The proof is not really in the test itself, especially when we are such professional actors.  The real test comes in how we repent of your own actions before man and God for no reason other than to humble our self allowing Christ to increase within us and the view of others.

Three years ago we did a very shallow studied regarding how Christ sent us out as sheep among wolves, but not slaughtered. We have all matured in the past 3 years and I believe it is time to take another look at this.  Christ was not speaking of every Christian, because he was not sending everyone.  This was directed to those who were walking close to Him, those who were being trained up by Him for discipleship.  He knew that not everyone was ready and that some would be devoured if they were to run into the middle of a pack of wolves.  Yet how many times do we as new born babes in Christ toddle out and sit down to pet and feed the wolf-pack?

Charles Spurgeon, writing regarding Matthew 10:16, made note that these men (disciples) had other callings/ prominent vocations such as fishermen; but that the great calling was "Behold, I send you forth." stating "the call of the Lord overrides all other vocations".  He goes on to give a strong and loving warning to believers everywhere:

Do not try to teach till the Lord Jesus has first taught you! Do not pretend to instruct till you have been instructed! Sit at Christ’s feet before you speak in Christ’s name—but when once you are instructed, do not fail to become teachers.

This process begins in our own flesh.  If we cannot even repent without being shamed, then there is no real remorse.  If we cannot be lead by the Holy Spirit as He is shining the light within our own heart, mind and soul, how dare we boldly attempt to be the window into the one (Christ) they should emulate? We push down our own family member, friends, work associates in order to get ourselves up; we deceive ourselves when we forget that the Holy Spirit is right there crying out for the justice to begin within us.  Why do you think we are warned of the fact that as we judge, so we will be judged.  We are told to judge ourselves, and that as we judge another we have just condemned our self - after all we do the very same thing and think it has gone unnoticed by a Holy God.  How foolish, rebellious, prideful....arrogant! And yet we look in a mirror, comb our hair, being satisfied with what we say is fairly attractive. Without Christ image before God's eye we would scream," don't look we're hideous!"

Christ told us that we are not known by what we say or even pray; we are known by how we love one another.  If you treat yourself better than the brothers and sisters of Christ, you have proven you are not a sheep, but a wolf in sheep's clothing.  If when the holy spirit shows us a renegade action and we are not quick to turn and confess of that unloving thought or deed it is a seed planted for the god of this world and it will grow up, strength, stretch out and bear fruit ......unless righteously uprooted.

God said not to be deceived, God will not be mocked - what ever a man sows, that he WILL reap.  This is the reason for full confession, not lying to yourself or to others and for bearing with one another burdens.  Love covers a multitude of sins, it is not boastful, haughty, critical, neglectful or wrong doing. But neither does it allow sin to not be called sin when it shows up.  Rather it is gracious to forgive the broken in spirit and raise them up to a height which can never be obtained by fearful, godless means.  Please never present yourself before another person as speaking for God, if you are not willing to be disciplined by God.  We must fear God's strength and good will toward all mankind, and not think more of ourselves than we should.

Christ stated, he did not come to condemn the world but to save the world; but that there was one who comes to judge. He also said that the words we speak with judge us.  God promises all of us that nothing returns to Him void and that all words are recorded eternally.  If all these words are true, who do we think we are to not be humble, forgiving, reconciling, peacemakers - At times I hear heaven crying out over the world "Is there NO Shame left among the hard heart of men?"

Knowing this is rather long, I will close this off for the day with a excerpt from Charles Sprugeon:
The ungodly roar upon the righteous and seek to bring cruel accusations against them, even as against their Lord. No matter how pure the lives of the godly, the wicked will slander them! No matter how kind their actions, they will render evil in return. No matter how plain and honest their behavior, they will suspect them and no matter how disinterested in their motives, they will be sure to attribute to them the most evil designs, for the wolf comes to kill and to devour—and he will do it to the best
of his ability.
Do not deceiver yourself instead humble yourself and prove your wisdom - may we find joy in the testing, even testing ourselves as to prove we  are not counterfeits of His glory. Hopefully we will hit the other side of this soon - God willing.

In Christ~kisses,
Candace


© 2015 by Candace Huffmaster
Kaleidoscope Butterfly, Inc°

February 18, 2015

Strangely Dimming World

......Having loved His own who were in the world....He loved them to the end ~ John 13:1

Sometimes I find it very enlightening to just sit with a blank piece of paper and pour our my thoughts toward life: present, eternal and happenings in between.  This is the reason we find comfort and encouragement in the psalms.  Usually, I do not include these in our segments and keep them strictly on the Selah web page.  However, since we have been pondering placing Him as a seal on our heart, I felt it was applicable.  
Have you ever thought about asking for peace in your growth of patience or self control in your passionate zeal to do good? What about purity in your wanting, even in the things of the Lord.  These are necessary attributes of His Character.  Have you ever considered that we are a window to the lost as Christ is the entry way into His Presence?  
To read the rest go to our Selah web page: or click here
This is the day that the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it!
Where ever you are today, be glad and rejoice that you can find Him.
Kisses, 
Candace

© Candace Huffmaster 2015, All Copy Rights Reserved
Kaleidoscope Butterfly, Inc°

February 14, 2015

A Seal Over Your Heart

"Put me like a seal over your heart, Like a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death, Jealousy is as severe as Sheol; Its flashes are flashes of fire, The very flame of the LORD." Song of Solomon 8:6

Valentines Day, to me, is the day when we should be expressing GOD.  After all it is God who IS love. He tells us to have faith in Him in order to believe.  Hebrews states it like this - Without faith we cannot please God, because we must believe that there is a God and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.  So many of us get incredibly disappointed on holidays like this because we do not get the presents we expected, or we get upset because someone out gifted us, or we have no one to celebrate with and usually we do not even want to be in the presence of the person we ARE with.

I thought about these things, and came away with some things which made I hope will extend great peace.  Our mere presence to another is the greatest gift we can offer.  No one "deserves" our attention, it is a gift.  When it is withheld it is brutal to someone who is wanting of it.  However, if someone loves Christ, they should be able to rejoice in the fact that now they can be alone with Him, uninterrupted.

If someone does not want to receive your love, which brings peace, of course it hurts, but it does not harm you, it harms them.  When a person harms you, they fear - -and the one who fears cannot be perfected in Love.  When a person does not love God they cannot love others, because the love of God is not in them.    Christ came and was able to love the unlovable, he separated when His peace was not received.  But He also loved them enough to tell them the truth before leaving.

Christ came to bind up the broken hearted and to set the captives free.  When we are at peace with our brothers and sisters in Christ, His love is being perfected in us.  Think of God in Christ, how He by His holy spirit kept him whole as we hurt Him, even harmed him; killing Him.  Yet this was not because He could not stop it; it was because of his great love for us. ( do not take this out of context and think I am speaking of staying in abusive relationships - that is another topic)

When we do things for those we love, it isn't because they deserve it, if we love like God.  It is because we desire, out from out energies we have, to do so freely.  While it hurts when the gifts of our love are diminished, rejected, or mocked if we gave freely and out of love, then they will not owe us anything in return.  And in the hurt you feel do not retaliate, for the harm coming to them is brutal to their heart.  The spirit of peace is within you, if you do not give it away in the testing of your faith, to seal over your heart and keep you from the evil in your midst.

I am not saying the one who hurts you is evil.  I am saying the evil one is utilizing you or them - depending on who is doing the hurting.  Remember, God uses all things for our good; because He first loved us and sent His son to be the propitiation for our own sin.

But now abide, faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is LOVE.

Know you are His beloved and He loves you to death - now who can you say that about ;)
Kisses,
Candace

© Candace Huffmaster 2015, All Copy Rights Reserved
Kaleidoscope Butterfly, Inc°

February 11, 2015

Why Are You Considering That?

Before we are saved we must consider God's ways.  Once we are saved we are to search them and align our own ways, by faith. Yet I find that many of us, even after so many years, are doing more considering our ways and searching our feelings about His ways.  

 Shouldn't we be hyper focused, now, on considering which way God is going and asking for Him to reveal His plans to us?  Once we are saved and filled with the Holy Spirit, He is powerful within us to guide us, teach us, lead us.  Of course this is a supernatural process and each one will develop as the good Lord wills.  In time however, we need to cease our questioning and be diligent to move as prompted.

There hopefully will come a time, when we have gone through temptation after temptation and wearied our self with the trial; even though God uses it for the testing of our faith.  God stated in Isaiah that we burden Him with our sin and  weary Him with all the evil we do.  And in Jeremiah 15:6 all of our backsliding and rejection was enough; He was weary due relenting from bringing disaster upon evil.

The bible speaks of how weary people become from the pains of life; it grieves God that He wants to help, yet in ignorance or arrogance we do not call upon His name. Christ implores: come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest. He understands our sufferings and knew beforehand that He was going to leave us here, as His sheep among wolves.  But He also protected us in His name, and with His power.

Trials and Pain are real, God knows they're real! Christ personally knows, having experienced all that man would ever go through and more. We will never suffer to the extreme of being wrongfully murdered with the whole world abandoning us and condemning us for all it's sin.  Thank God for all He has purposed in His heart.  He reminds us of His power every day as we see the sun rise and as it sets the moon and stars do not forsake to give our darkness a little light.  He never withholds his rain forever.  He never floods all our grain, fruit trees and livestock so that we have no means of feeding ourselves.  Yet will we remember that all work is of His hands, for His purposes?  Will we work with our hands and eat the food which our hands prepare and not remember Him and all His work, His gifts, His blessedness?

We have a tendency to make a BIG deal out of the little things and the BIGGEST thing we minimize to the point of becoming utterly ineffective in our life.  How can we continually keep on the path of ignorance and yet blame God, because after all, He is sovereign, holy, just. Crazy, isn't it; we mock the very God we praise as if it is nothing, whether in BIG things or the unnoticed nuances of our lives.

We demand our rights, liberty and free will, disregarding that He alone ordained this freedom prior to our existence. We blame Him for manipulating lives, which by the way He would not ever do, because we have to blame someone or realize our own fault.  We scream from within our self when troubled and we cannot find Him, yet we hate everyone around us, our world, our very life, essentially Him, when we are in the midst of a painful, life altering, God the Father disciplining experience.

He hopes, during this time, we will find out where He is and where we are heading; He realizes we cannot see Him and sometimes mistake false gods as His dominion and care.  Yet many times, we do not consider His ways; we consider the ways around us and our feelings.  And when we lift our hands they are balled up fists being raised in anger at the God who allows us the choice of life we desire; find most pleasing.  His hope, though He's wearied, is for our limbs to give out, our fingers when unclenched, to fall into humble hands of folded prayer.  His resolve is to love us and never leave us; this is His perfect predestined plan before all time.

Ask Him today what He's up to.  Step aside from your own worthy plans.  Instead of asking for Him to bless you, open your own mouth and bless Him with your humble praise of His loving-kindness.  Then walk away from the vanity of any work of your own hands.  As Ecclesiastes states:
Do not let your speech cause you to sin and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry on account of your voice and destroy the work of your hands? 7For in many dreams and in many words there is emptiness. Rather, fear God.


May we become One in the unity of faith and until that time, focus on defending that faith; for His eternal glory is and always will be.

Kisses,
Candace


© Candace Huffmaster 2015, All Copy Rights Reserved
Kaleidoscope Butterfly, Inc°