God's Love Life in You

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16
Almost all of us know John 3:16. We learned it in Sunday School when we were children. But until recently I hadn't stopped to fully examine closely what it says. Here's how I started to pull it apart and look at it one petal at a time like the petals on a beautiful rose:

What does it say God did? God gave
Why? Because He loved
What is the result? We gained eternal life

Okay, so what happens when we love like God loved...
What do we do? We give
Why? Because we love
What is the result? Life

What an awesome thought! If we love like God loves, then we give life! And when others give us love like God loves, we receive life from them. hmmm, that takes some pondering.

We all have people in our lives who say they love us. Do they really? Do they give us life? If we measure their love by this scripture, some may miss the mark. Then perhaps not all of that love is genuine love. Maybe what we are receiving is only control or selfishness or need. It is not the "God kind of" love that John 3:16 is talking about.

Think about who you love...your parents, your spouse, your children, your friends. Does your love for them produce life in them? Does it set them free? Does it strengthen them? Does it heal them? If it doesn’t, then take a second to look at John 3:16 and measure the love you give against the love that God gives. Reexamine your motives. Make sure your love for others is selfless, unconditional, eternal.

Then look at who loves you. Is the love you are receiving producing life in you? Or does it breed habits that lead to death? Does their love for you encourage your dreams and promote your destiny? Does their love for you direct your feet to the path God has laid out for you? If not, then perhaps their love for you is not the kind of love God wants for you. Maybe some changes need to be made to your love life.

If the love you give and receive is not creating life in you and others, then set yourself new goals in order to bring your love life into line with the kind of love God gives. What He wants for everyone is love that brings life!

Inspired by sermon of Bishop Eddie Long
Copyright Gloria Fisher 2010

Celebrating Easter

Some Christians remember Good Friday and celebrate Easter with liturgical fervor. Others say, "Every Sunday we celebrate the Resurrection." So Good Friday and Easter Sunday are not as significant in their church calendar. Both are valid and both are important in their own ways.

But think of this: do we really believe what happened on Good Friday? And do we really celebrate what happened on Easter morning? Or do we buy new clothes and hope we can sit in our usual pew on Sunday morning in spite of all the Easter visitors? And that's about it. I hope this year you’ll change your thinking about Easter forever. I pray your heart will overflow with Joy and that you’ll actually feel like shouting whether you’re in church or not!

I submit that there are still Christians who don’t understand the fullness of what happened when Jesus died on the cross and rose again. And I don’t have adequate time or space to explore all of the fullness in this blog. But I would like to give you food for thought on this Good Friday that I hope and pray will carry over to Easter morning and fill your hearts with the Joy of the Lord.

When Jesus died on the cross, how many of your sins did He forgive? Because let’s face it. You weren’t born yet when He died. So you hadn’t technically sinned at all, had you? You weren’t even thought of at the time and neither were your parents or your grandparents. So for argument’s sake we could say, "Okay, He died for all of my sins I would commit when I came to know Him and asked Him to forgive them." Or some may say, "He only forgives those that I ask Him to forgive." But then all those other sins just go unforgiven and sort of hang out there somewhere forever.

If that were true, then if you die, and there are sins that you have forgotten to ask forgiveness for would you die in unforgiveness? Absolutely not. You see, Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8) Did He? Do you believe it? If so, when did He do it? It was accomplished on the cross at the crucifixion on Calvary...for you, for me, for your parents, for everyone who would believe and accept what Jesus had done for them.

How many of your sins were forgiven on Good Friday when His blood was shed? ALL of them. All of the ones you committed in your past. All of the ones you will commit in your future. ALL of them. He has redeemed you from condemnation. Romans 8:1 says, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Does that make you want to shout? It should! His blood has bought you back from sin and death. St. Paul says in Ephesians 1:7 "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of His grace."

When you pray, do you ask God or Jesus to forgive you of your sins? Beloved, He already has! To keep on asking Him to do what He has already done is to invalidate in your mind His death on the cross. God says in Isaiah 43:18 "Do not call to mind the former things." And in Isaiah 43:24-25 "Rather you have burdened Me with your sins." "I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions...and I will not remember your sins." So instead of reminding Him of your sins, which he already forgave, thank Him for forgiving you. Thank Him for what He did on the cross. Thank Him for loving you enough to die for you. Thank Him for redeeming your soul and spirit from condemnation.

On Good Friday His blood was shed for you that in Him ALL your sins are forgiven. On Easter, Resurrection Day, He rose from the dead to show you that He is the First Fruits of those who have died...that you also will rise like He did. (1 Corinthians 15:20) Beloved, you should be shouting! You should be dancing in the streets! When King David brought the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem he was dancing before the Lord with all of his might! (2 Samuel 6:14) We should also be so bold in our Joy before the Lord.

This Easter Sunday rejoice in the Lord! This year really Celebrate before Him. He is Risen! Hallelujah!

Searching For a Church Home

For years now I have described my lack of a church affiliation as my being a "refugee from the Episcopal Church." Fortunately I have since found a church that is a good fit for me. But in the years when I first discovered that the Episcopal Church was abandoning scripture and denying the divinity of Christ I fled with no idea where to go. So I tried out different denominations but nothing seemed to fit. My description of myself includes: being a liturgical, Spirit-filled, Bible believing, renewal music lover Anglo Catholic. A church that filled my needs was impossible to find in my location.

Eventually my husband and I moved to a larger city, and we had more choices. With more choices came more puzzlement over what was a deal breaker for each of us and what was worth compromising over. As a result I did what I frequently do, I made a list. Then we used that list when we visited various churches to grade them 1 to 10 according to our likes and dislikes. At the end of our search, the church with the highest grade earned serious consideration and an appointment with the pastor/priest. It was a helpful tool in keeping us focused rather than our relying on emotional responses to a one-time Sunday visit.

You might be in a similar situation and searching for a new church. For whatever reason, maybe you need a new perspective on church. Maybe you are no longer productive where you’ve been. Maybe your church has left what you held dear when you first started your membership there. Whatever the reason for your search my list might be helpful in your search for a new church home. Let me know your thoughts........

Criteria for Finding a Church: 1 - 10 Date: ________
Name of Church: _____________________________________

Preaching from the Bible/God’s Word _____
True Worship: Adoration/Lively/Renewal music/Mix of old & new _____
Communion/Lord’s Supper weekly/regularly _____
Opportunity to accept Jesus followed by Water Baptism _____
Dynamic/Holy Spirit-inspired preaching _____
Knows about Grace _____
Adult Education/Sunday School _____
Children’s Education/Sunday School/Programs _____
Place for our ministry/where we can use our gifts _____
Believes in Tithing/Giving _____
Believes Healing/other gifts of Holy Spirit are active today _____
Racially Integrated _____
Easy access for disabled _____
Friendly _____
Outreach/Feeds the Hungry/Clothes the Naked/
Visits the Prisoners/Widows/Orphans _____
Evangelism _____
Church that our children would like _____
Denominational affiliation _____
Sense of Fellowship _____
Distance from home/traffic _____
Business/Career Networking _____

©Gloria Fisher 1997. All rights reserved.

"Behold I Have Told You in Advance"

What would we do if we knew God’s plans ahead of time? Would our faith increase? Would our testimony be bolder? Recently I began to see in Scripture more and more that God not only uses dreams, visions, angels, prophets, apostles, and saints to tell us what He’s planning to do. He also tells us directly.

As this truth unfolded before me, I realized that God loves us so much He warns us, He informs us, teaches us, and blesses us with advance knowledge of His plans. He wouldn’t impart this kind of knowledge to us in advance except that He wants to bless us. Think about the book of Revelation. The whole book is a vision given to John, the apostle, who wrote it down. The whole vision is God telling us ahead of time about the end times and the new heaven and new earth.

In the Old Testament the tabernacle was built before the temple to show the children of Israel what worship in the temple would be like–before the temple was built. Later the temple was built to show believers what worship in the kingdom of God would be like–before the kingdom had come. The patterns were all laid out and imparted to the builders of both the tabernacle and the temple before they became reality. (Exodus 25:8.9, 1 Kings 5:5)

The angel, Gabriel, told Mary, the mother of Jesus, about her pregnancy while she was still a virgin and only betrothed. (Luke 1:26-35) Gabriel also told Zacharias that his barren wife, Elizabeth, would become pregnant before she became pregnant with John...later to be John, the Baptist. (Luke 1:11-19) And the Lord told Abraham, the father of our faith, at least one year before Sarah, his wife, became pregnant. (Genesis 18:10)

Jesus himself is the very image in the flesh of all the foretelling God proclaimed to the prophets. He is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, of all that God revealed before it happened. The prophet Amos said in 3:7, "Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets."

God, the Father, proclaimed His secret counsel to the prophets. Jesus, the Son, proclaimed His secret counsel to the apostles. The Holy Spirit proclaims His secret counsel to all believers. How do we know that about the Holy Spirit? Because Jesus tells us in John 16:13, "But when He, the Spirit of truth comes...He will speak, and He will disclose to you what is to come."

Maybe you’re thinking, "I don’t know anything that is coming! I don’t know the secret counsel of God!" Yes, you do. You may be too busy to realize it but you know more than you think you know. And you have God speaking to you in more ways than you can imagine. First of all, God speaks to us through His word. Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:10 that, "...we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Good works prepared beforehand. When? Before we were born. Before we were saved and became believers. God’s word is filled with good things that God did for you before you were even born. It is so important that you read God’s word every day in order to learn, digest, and incorporate what God has done in the past, is doing today, and will do in the future. If it were not important, God would not have passed it along to His people. He wants you to know His plans.

He tells us His plans through sermons, through Christian music, through Godly friends and clergy, through the Holy Spirit living in you, and many other ways. Jesus said, "Be alert!" (Matthew 24:42) He said to all seven of the churches in Revelation, "...he who has ears, let him hear." Do you have "ears"? Does your church have ears to hear? Of course, Jesus wasn’t talking about physical ears. He was talking about spiritual ears. Do you or your church have spiritual ears to hear God when He is telling you something in advance of it happening? What does it take to have ears like that?

I submit that it takes time spent alone with God. Prayer, meditation, reading God’s word, listening, fine tuning your ability to hear. I have found through the years that most of the time when God speaks to me I am alone at the time. Sometimes I am praying but more often than not I am busy doing something and not thinking about God at all. But it is the time I had previously spent with God that makes it possible for me to hear Him. God has spoken to me in the car and in the shower and making up the bed and many other places. But I was almost always alone at the time. It’s as if He waits until I’m engrossed in something else, and He’ll say a word or He’ll ask me a question. It’s always a surprise, and I have to stop and ask, "What?" And invariably I’ll look around to see who is there, and of course, there’s no one there. No person, that is.

Some people ask, "How do you know it’s God talking to you and not just your own thoughts?" The difference I find is that when it is God the hair stands up on the back of my neck. There is what I call an "electric feeling." And I know I didn’t do anything to cause it. What God has to say to me I wouldn’t have thought of in a million years on my own. It’s always a totally new thing that I know didn’t come from me.

Jesus even told Peter ahead of time that Peter would betray Him. Had Peter thought of that before? I doubt that he had. In fact he denied that he would do it. He couldn’t imagine betraying his friend in such a way. (Luke 22:34, Matt 26:34, Mark 15:30, John 13:38) But Jesus knew and He told Peter before it happened. Why? So that Peter would not betray Him? Probably not. Or so that Peter would believe Jesus afterwards and then never doubt Him again when He told him anything?

Jesus confided to his inner circle of friends about His death and His resurrection before the events. He wanted them to know. He was trying to prepare them for what lay ahead. Sadly, they still didn’t understand until after the events were over and they remembered that He had previously told them everything. We often don’t understand either. Jesus said, "From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur you may believe that I am He." (John 13:19) He also said to them, "You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it comes to pass, you may believe." (John 14:29)

I believe that it was an important part of the teaching and training of the apostles by Jesus that He told them ahead of time of events and then later when they happened, the apostles could remember that He had already told them. It planted seeds of faith in them. And fortified them with inner assurance so they were already armed with the truth before they needed to act. It must have built their spiritual confidence after they understood. So that when Jesus told them ahead of time to go to the upper room and wait for the Holy Spirit, they obeyed. (Luke 24:49) And when the Holy Spirit came on them they remembered all that He had said, and it made sense, and they were bold in their witness when it was time to give it.

Knowing about God’s habit of foretelling His plans to His people is like a lot of truths in the Bible. Before you were aware of it, you never saw it. After you know about it, it’s everywhere you look. From Genesis to Revelation the pages are full of God’s plans and actions fully laid out to His prophets, His apostles, and His saints. It seems obvious that because God loves His people He doesn’t want them to be in the dark about Him or what He does. We are people of the Light, and God sheds light on all that He does–past, present, and future. If you want to know God’s plans for you, for your church, your family or the world, fine tune your spiritual ears to hear His voice. Spend some time alone in order to be available when God wants to talk with you. Have ears to hear. Be alert! If you listen, God will show up and tell you His plans...before they happen.

Copyright 2010 Gloria Fisher.
All rights reserved.

Eternal Bread - Part 3

In my further meditation on the feeding of the 5,000, the 4,000, and the Last Supper, the Holy Spirit helped me focus on what Jesus actually did. In each instance He blessed, He broke, and He gave out the bread. In John’s gospel Jesus said, "I am the bread." (John 6:35) If we have any doubt about what he said about Himself, remember that there are two witnesses to His statement. The fact that He was born in the city of Bethlehem. Bethlehem meaning bread. And He was laid in the tomb on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Since He is our bread we might ask: When was He blessed, broken, and given out? I believe from my study that Jesus was first blessed in the womb of His mother Mary when she came to visit her cousin, Elizabeth. In Luke 1:41-42 Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and cried out in a loud voice, "Blessed among women are you, and blessed is the fruit of your womb?" What was the fruit of Mary’s womb? The baby, Jesus. He was being blessed before He was born.

When was Jesus broken? He was broken on the cross when He bore our sins for us. Mark 15:37 says, "And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last."

When was Jesus given out? When Jesus commanded the apostles to go forth after they received the Holy Spirit and "be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." (Acts 1:8) With the Holy Spirit they were then armed with the power to preach, to bear witness (John 15:26,27), and to heal. And they had His authority to give out His body and blood in the form of the bread and wine "in remembrance" of Him. (1 Corinthians 11:24, 25) In all these ways Jesus was being given out to all the world.

In three places in the gospel of John Jesus proclaims that He is the bread. (John 6:35, John 6:48, and John 6:51). What does that mean? Probably more than we’ll ever know. But what we do know is that bread is food for our bodies. However, with Jesus as our bread we are fed in our bodies, in our souls, and in our spirits. He was blessed, broken, and given out for us. If we eat that bread, we will live forever (John 6:51, 58). He is our Eternal Bread.

Copyright 2010 Gloria Fisher.

All rights reserved.

Eternal Bread - Part 2

The dream I had about communion was dreamed on March 14, 2007, and it still lives in me. Some dreams are like that. You may walk around in them for years. Since dreams happen in the soul which is ageless and timeless our dreams are also ageless and timeless. They don’t stop after we dream them. They are still alive somewhere in our unconscious. Some we remember easily. Others we don’t. And some keep speaking to us. My dream about communion is one of those dreams that is still speaking to me two years later.

In the dream I was at my Mother’s church, Grace United Methodist Church, and someone said that we were going to have communion. Then I noticed that we were all seated at a long table. Everyone in the church sat at one extremely long table. I was on the left hand of the person at the head of the table, whom I don’t remember. Communion began. A piece of fish was handed to me. I was suppose to take a piece off of the fish and pass it down. People on the other side of the table were doing the same. I looked down at the fish and thought, "This is not how I’m used to doing communion. This is different."

But I pinched off a piece of fish and passed the rest down. The whole piece of fish was about three inches square...small fish. Then I ate my piece. Then the person handed me the bread. It looked like the bottom half of a flat biscuit, about 3 inches in diameter. I pinched off a piece of the bread and passed the rest down. Then I ate the bread. There was no wine, only fish and bread. And I looked down the table, and I couldn’t see the end of the table. It went on forever. But the fish and the bread never ran out.

The dream, I believe, was telling me that God’s provision never runs out, that He is always feeding me, all parts of me, as represented by all the people at the table. But it is more than that. Because this dream is a numinous dream (a dream that is filled with a sense of the presence of divinity) it is about more than just me. It is about all believers. It is also significant that I was at a church called Grace which to me means that I (and all believers) am feasting on God’s grace that never runs out. I thank God for this dream. It comforts me and fortifies my soul and spirit with the assurance of His eternal provision for all of us.

Copyright 2010 Gloria Fisher.

All rights reserved.

Eternal Bread - Part 1

A couple of years ago I had a dream about communion. In trying to understand the dream I began to study what Jesus said about himself being the bread of life. One of the things I learned during this process is that there is a connection between the Last Supper and the fish & bread for the feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000. As I focused on the bread in both instances I found that Jesus blessed the bread, broke it, and gave it out. In the blessing, in the breaking, and in the giving out the bread multiplied and fed more than was naturally possible.

In the feeding of the 5,000 in the gospels of Mark, Luke, and John and in the feeding of the 4,000 in the gospel of Matthew, the bread went as far as it was needed and was stopped only by the taking up of the leftovers. We can assume that if there had been 12,000 people there, then the bread would have fed 12,000 or 20,000 or however many there were. But in these instances the flow of the bread was stopped, gathered, and counted at the end of the meal. If the bread had not been stopped, it would have doubtless kept on feeding. And why was there food left over? Because God is a "too-much" God!

The same is so with the Last Supper. The bread that Jesus blessed, broke, and gave out in the upper room is still being passed out and is still feeding untold millions of believers today. In fact Paul says believers will eat it until He (Jesus) comes! (1 Corinthians 11:23-25) It is endless bread. It is abundant bread. It is "more-than-enough" bread. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will not hunger..." How much bread will it take for you not to ever be hungry again? And not only you, but all Christians everywhere who will ever live after the Resurrection? More bread than we can count. Endless bread. Eternal bread.

Copyright 2010 Gloria Fisher.

All rights reserved.