Wednesday, June 29, 2011

In Your Fire

Baptize me, Lord, in Your Fire
Enable me to reach higher
Spirit purify
Come and sanctify
Set me apart for Your glory
Help me to be for You holy

Teach me to run from the worldly
Live out Your will now through me
By Your grace let me love you
By Your grace let me serve you

Baptize me, Lord, in Your Fire
You are my ardent desire
Come and convict me
Of things I can see
Of things I don’t perceive

Help me to change
By Your grace
Let my heart be a flame
Let me seek to know Your ways

Baptize me, Lord in Your Fire

Friday, June 24, 2011

Help us to Love

Help us to love
As You love
Unselfishly
As You love

With all our hearts
As You love
Towards the unlovely
Even towards our enemies

Let love guide our hearts
Let it be the motive behind our actions
Let it spring from an understanding
Of Your love for us

Refine us in the fire
Let us prefer others
As better than ourselves
Let us live by the law of love

Help us to love as You love
Unreservedly as You love
Help us to love with abandon
Toward those You died for
Toward those You laid
Your life down for
So that all of us could have life
Lord, help us to love

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Devotional on christiandevotions.us website

When you have a chance, please read a devotional I have written entitled For Freedom.  It is published today online at christiandevotions.us.  I hope it is a blessing to you.  Have a great day.

Tom

Friday, June 10, 2011

Praise and Adoration

Praise and adoration
To the King of every nation
To the Holy One upon the throne
We worship You alone

You rule and reign over every adversary
You stand triumphant inside of me
You help me see Your glory in the mundane
Give me grace when it’s hard to obey

You calm the storm within me
When I am sinking at sea
Thank you for your mercy
Your love sets me free

Worship the Sovereign Lord
Worthy of all fame
Praise Him in one accord
Give Him your every day

Praise and adoration
To the King of every nation
To the One upon the throne
We worship You alone

Sunday, June 5, 2011

All Things are New

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
2 Corinthians 5:17

 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God. Romans 2:28-29

We are new creations in Christ. All things within us are new. The old has passed away. When we accepted Christ as our Savior, we experienced a new beginning. Our spirits were made alive. That inward part of us was made completely holy (see 2 Corinthians 5:21). At the new birth, we became circumcised of heart. The fleshly elements of our inward nature were cut away. We are now vessels that carry the presence of the Lord. We are mobile tabernacles of His glory. We have been made sensitive to His leading – to His voice. We are dead to sin and alive unto God.

You may ask, “But why do we still sin?” The answer is simple... when we became born again, our spirits were made perfect, but our souls and bodies were not. We are a three-part being – spirit, soul, and body
(1 Thessalonians 5:23). Our souls consist of our mind, will, and emotions. That part of us needs to be renewed through the washing of the word of God. As we meditate on God's word, with the intention to obey its truth, we allow what's in our spirit or heart to control our actions. This process is called renewing our minds (Romans 12:2). Romans 12:1 says that we are to offer our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing unto Him. But maturing in the Lord is a process and not the direct result of the one time event of salvation. This is why we can stand before God as righteous, but still fall at times because of a tendency to sin.

We are to rest in the fact that we are accepted by God, but we are also to move toward maturity. Let's set aside some time each day to fellowship with the Lord and to read and meditate on His word. We are on a journey where we are growing to look a little more like Him each day. We can be confident that He that has begun a good work in us will bring it to completion (Philippians 1:6).