Very Personal Words Experienced by One Sheep Through a Year. We Walk the Walk of a Faith
February 12
GOD'S WORD:2 Corinthians 12:7-10 "And to keep me from being puffed up and too much elated by the exceeding greatness (preeminence) of these revelations, there was given me a thorn ( thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to rack and buffet and harass me, to keep me from being excessively exalted. [Job. 2:6.] Three times I called upon the Lord and besought [Him] about this and begged that it might depart from me;"
ANOTHER SHEEP: Apostle Paul: "But three times He said to me My grace (My favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]; for My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness. Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that
the strength and power of Christ (the Messiah) may rest (yes, may a tent over and dwell) upon me!"So for the sake of Christ, I am well pleased and take pleasure in infirmities, insults, hardships, persecutions, perplexities and distresses; for when I am weak [in human strength], then am I [truly] strong (able, powerful in divine strength).
SHEEP: Thorn in the flesh –an intense, wearying or affliction. My thorn brought (is bringing) life to me. It became a revelation of 1. His GRACE - I was walking in fear and despair, which was trying to destroy me. Despite how I was walking His grace was there for me.
GOD'S WORD:John 10: 10 The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows) SHEEP: 2 His STRENGTH – I need to look to Him, draw near to Him because He says "Lo I am with you, always." His strength is made perfect* in my weakness. *Perfect – bringing to maturity, walk as He walks.
SHEEP: If I "abide in Him", I ought to walk as He walked. 3. HUMILITY– I'm nothing without Him. Do I believe? Am I willing to acknowledged my weaknesses.
GOD'S WORD: Hebrews 4:14-16 Inasmuch then as we have a great High Priest Who has [already] ascended and passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession [of faith in Him]. For we do not have a High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning. Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God's unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it].
SHEEP: 4.LOVE - a deeper revelation, beyond words. What a wonder it is to experience.
GOD'S WORD: 2 Corinthians 5:14 "For the love of Christ controls and urges and impels us, because we are of the opinion and conviction that [if] One died for all, then all died."
SHEEP: Compels – constrains, confines, leaves no option. Christ died as the substitute for all, therefore, He died as the representative of all, and all died in Him.
GOD'S WORD:Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ [in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ (the Messiah) lives in me; and the life I now live in the body I live by faith in (by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in) the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me."
Philippians 3:7-14 "But whatever former things I had that might have been gains to me, I have come to consider as [one combined] loss for Christ's sake."
Yes, furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege (the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage) of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him [of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly]. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish (refuse, dregs), in order that I may win (gain) Christ (the Anointed One).
And that I may [actually] be found and known as in Him, not having any [self-achieved] righteousness that can be called my own, based on my obedience to the Law's demands (ritualistic uprightness and supposed right standing with God thus acquired), but possessing that [genuine righteousness] which comes through faith in Christ (the Anointed One), the [truly] right standing with God, which comes from God by [saving] faith.
[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power out flowing from His resurrection it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] that if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body].
Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own.
I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward.
SHEEP: This we experience as we walk the walk of a faith. Straining forward means straining every muscle (all that he has) as he reaches toward the goal. It is focusing on intimacy with God, becoming a man or woman "after God's own heart".
