His Will Our Food
“Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him
who sent me and to accomplish His work.”
John 4:34 (ESV)
Participation is the evidence of His love burning within our hearts. Love is God’s compulsion to personal involvement in His purposes.
Watchman Nee stated:
“Spiritual food of a believer is nothing more nor less than accomplishing God’s work. The kingdom of God suffers greatly at the hands of “spiritual believers” who busy themselves with prayer and Bible study and attend only to their spiritual need.”
– Watchman Nee
Whenever the primary focus of life becomes narrowed and reduced to self, we have lost the principal purpose of the Christ within. He is ever consumed with the Will of the Father. He is ever expending and pouring out His life into the empty vessels of humanity.
“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die,
it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
He that loveth his life shall lose it…”
John 12:24-25 (KJV)
The great adventure of the Christian life is discovered in the doing of His Will. There is that indomitable press to live beyond the confines of our own resources and comfort to walk in His world. The pulse of God in Peter’s heart impelled him to step out of the boat of reason into the unfathomable Will and Call of God.
May we hear His voice:
“Launch out into the deep
and let your nets down for a haul.”
Luke 5:4 (MKJV)
He is calling us to deep places. There are lives to be touched, hearts to be mended, and dry roots to be watered and refreshed. Can we hear the Word of the Lord speaking “launch out”?
A strategy of the enemy is to wear down the people of God until, like Gideon, their world is reduced to simply harvesting a little wheat for their own needs because of the oppression of the Midianites. God’s call is always greater.
In his fiery exhortation to the people of God, Jude admonished them to “contend for the faith.” That faith is living, vibrant, and compelling. Within the context of the last days, Jesus warned us of a love that would grow cold and lethargic.
“And because iniquity shall abound,
the love of many will become cold.”
Matthew 24:12 (MKJV)
The Greek word for “iniquity” is best translated as lawlessness. It describes a life lived outside of the law of God as being the purpose of life. The person of Christ living within our hearts brings to us the overwhelming Law of Love, the ruling agency whereby we navigate our daily lives. This Law is referred to in the scriptures by John as the “law of life” and by James as the “law of liberty.” His Love brings us into the “law of liberty” that produces an ability to express His wonder through our fragile earthen vessels!
May we respond to the exhortation of God that is to become more pressing “as we see the Day ‘approaching” (KJV):
“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
Hebrews 10:24-25 (ESV)
The writer of Hebrews follows this powerful exhortation by stressing the gravity of His provision for us.
“For if we go on sinning deliberately
after receiving the knowledge of the truth…”
Hebrews 10:26 (ESV)
Note the context of this admonition and the temper of spirit that is to characterize our meeting together. There are countless meetings and gatherings in our land, but are they filled with exhortations to “provoke” (Greek”) one another to the shining forth of His light through each of us?
“So let your light shine before men,
so that they may see your good works,
and may glorify your Father in Heaven. “
Matthew 5:16 (LITV)
See Related Post: The Will To Do
“It is not right to credit salvation to good works. It is right and necessary, however, to expect good works to follow salvation. Salvation is not the result of good works, but good works are the result of salvation.”
– Tom Wells
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“We admit no faith to be justifying, which is not itself and in its own nature a spiritually vital principle of obedience and good works.”
– John Owen
Brian Troxel
Great post, Brian. The photo of the bread, makes be long for some of that homemade stuff.
I have a feeling you make some amazing bread – and that you have eaten well of His!
Blessings
BT
Aww that is so sweet. I’ve given up on making my own bread. When I did try I wound up using it for a doorstop🥸. Thankfully my God has always provided my daily bread.
Lord give us this day our daily bread, Amen. 🙏 Thank you BT for blessing us with well needed spiritual food. Blessings…
Thank you for the well needed kind words and encouragement.
Blessings and grace
BT
In the One Triune God Who Is Love, we trust. Faith and hope work by this Love, God Himself. We ought not to put carnal confidence or ‘spiritual’ stock in ourselves, individually or corporately as the church because before, above, and beyond all else, the Spirit of salvation and sanctification empowers and enables us to fulfill our purpose for His passion, both in our desire and our doing.
Of His ineffably, infinite omniscience, our grandly graced cooperation with the munificently multifarious operation of His Spirit is His imperial ideation, all His wise, wondrous, and winning Way through and through.
Absolutely, we need not and should not believe in ourselves; we most direly need to unwaveringly believe in Christ Jesus as the Resurrection and liberating Life, indwelling us, expressing, manifesting, and demonstrating providence and provision for His cherished creation through us. In our partaking of the Breathing Bread from heaven, and being thereby nourished, we are thus impassioned with His passion, not ever and always perfectly, but progressively and prosperously.
We must dare not feel good about ourselves, vaunting ourselves apart from His ability. Apostle Paul rigorously writes, warning us to put no confidence whatsoever in ourselves or anything at all we would do apart from Christ, the Holy One, and Just, the anointed One, our Anointing.
To the Holy Trinity of Living Infinity be all the adulation through all the ages for privileging His people to preciously partner with His preeminence and potency in granting us to be the superscendent story of His all-sufficient grace and glory! To Christ Jesus, Alleluias, the actualizing Amen of our Abba Almighty!
John 15:4-5 AMP
4 Remain in Me, and I [will remain] in you. Just as no branch can bear fruit by itself without remaining in the vine, neither can you [bear fruit, producing evidence of your faith] unless you remain in Me. 5 [b]I am the Vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him bears much fruit, for [otherwise] apart from Me [that is, cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing.
2 Corinthians 3:17-18 AMP
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty [emancipation from bondage, true freedom]. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, continually seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are progressively being transformed into His image from [one degree of] glory to [even more] glory, which comes from the Lord, [who is] the Spirit.
Philippians 2:12-13 AMP
12 So then, my dear ones, just as you have always obeyed [my instructions with enthusiasm], not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation [that is, cultivate it, bring it to full effect, actively pursue spiritual maturity] with awe-inspired fear and trembling [using serious caution and critical self-evaluation to avoid anything that might offend God or discredit the name of Christ]. 13 For it is [not your strength, but it is] [c]God who is effectively at work in you, both to will and to work [that is, strengthening, energizing, and creating in you the longing and the ability to fulfill your purpose] for His good pleasure.
Jude AMPC
24 Now to Him Who is able to keep you without stumbling or slipping or falling, and to present [you] unblemished (blameless and faultless) before the presence of His glory in triumphant joy and exultation [with unspeakable, ecstatic delight]—25 To the one only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory (splendor), majesty, might and dominion, and power and authority, before all time and now and forever (unto all the ages of eternity). Amen (so be it).
“By grace we are saved through faith, and not that of ourselves…” the summation of those who inherently know that in themselves dwelleth no good thing.
It came to me some time ago that there are many in whom there is very little of a working out of His magnificent salvation personally. This alarming lack can only be attributed to a callousness or an indifference to His working in them the doing of His wil.
“…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” Philippians 2:12-13
It is here that the crucible of faith is revealed. Years ago, during the covid thing I found myself sitting in my house with no real involvement in the things around me. One afternoon as I was sitting God spoke to me “you are becoming an armchair Christian”! It was a great admonition to me as with all of His other reproofs and exhortations that have preserved me from myself and my own tendencies. Salvation is an ever-on-going process of Him liberating me from myself. There is not a day that passes wherein I am either brought up short or feeling the depths and vastness of Him calling me out to my own self-induced limitations that hinder Him from His full expression. One scripture that I hold in my own heart as a reference to the history of Him with His people:
“Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel” Psalm 78:41
The grandness of His omnipotence is sufficient in itself to allow His creatures to hinder or miss His purposes because it rests in its own power to carry it to fulfillment in another people. It was the failure of that generation to apprehend His purposes… to whom the promise was given to find fulfillment in another generation. May we know the “press” to apprehend that for which He apprehended us. There is something amiss in the present day gospel that alleviates this “press” in many today. The alarming truth in the Parable of the Wedding Feast is a present day truth: In the Greek it declares “He called the called” and they did not come. There is a call going forth and yet few are responding as there is a misplaced trust in the Call of Him without a corresponding accountability for us to respond in “fear and trembling”.
“Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it”
Hebrews 4:1-2
The rest spoken of here is a life filled with the works of His faith moving through us, a faith that save us from the “self-works” of the law. Jesus, the word declares went about “doing good” His whole life occupied in the full and perfect expression of the Will of His Father. Paul’s life spent in traveling the known world making “Christ known”. The rest of God in the soul of man is where we are saved from our own works to work the works of Him. The gospel of today presents a rest that is a kind word for stagnation and slothfulness.
I am grateful for the correspondence we enjoy here. Blessings to you and may we continue to inspire His people “unto love and good works” 🙂
BT
John 15:4-5 AMP
4 Remain in Me, and I [will remain] in you. Just as no branch can bear fruit by itself without remaining in the vine, neither can you [bear fruit, producing evidence of your faith] unless you remain in Me. 5 [b]I am the Vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him bears much fruit, for [otherwise] apart from Me [that is, cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing.
Yes! We can do less than diddly squat if we do not abide in Him, which abiding I believe is indeed more than positional, as imperative as that is, but that the state of abiding is also that which is Spirit/spirit experiential.
Many are majorly mistaken, read: distortedly distracted, from Christ being their All Magnificent Obsession, thus their Forever First Love, and from Christ being their Forever First Love, thus their All Magnificent Obsession. Prayerfully, ardently averting distraction from Christ is the purity and simplicity of devotion to Christ. It is guarding our hearts and keeping ourselves in the love of God, clear of clutter and conformity to other than the character and call of Christ, wooing and wowing us with His forever first love and all magnificence of obsession as foremost in importance.
To not diligently do so, to not conscientiously cultivate this closeness and consistency of communion with Christ is to pass the time or even this lifetime with a correspondingly compromised, contorted, crippling image of Christ in view.
The willful wastage of time if left unrepented of and unredeemed shall give way to chilling consequences that are eternal, even for the saved as all believers must appear before the judgement seat of Christ to give personal account of the time and resources entrusted to them to faithfully steward.
What Does the Bible Say About Lukewarm Christians? 100 Verses
https://www.openbible.info/topics/lukewarm_christians
Two principles I have sought the Spirit’s strength to faithfully live by regardless of how many times or how severely I have stumbled into sin of commission and omission are expressed in the following two quotes I first came to acutely appreciate decades ago:
John G. Lake stated, “Oh, if I had one gift or one desire that I would bestow on you, more than all others, I would bestow upon you the hunger for God.”
John Piper tells us that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”
2 Corinthians 3:17-18 AMP
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty [emancipation from bondage, true freedom]. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, continually seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are progressively being transformed into His image from [one degree of] glory to [even more] glory, which comes from the Lord, [who is] the Spirit.
Psalm 27:4 AMP (emphasis mine)
ONE thing I have asked of the Lord, and THAT I will seek:
THAT I may dwell in the house of the Lord [in His presence] all the days of my life,
TO gaze upon the beauty [the delightful loveliness and majestic grandeur] of the Lord
And TO meditate in His temple [mine: which whilst in this human body is the Lord’s temple, His habitation, not an inanimate physical structure/dwelling made with hands].
Psalm 34:5 AMP
They looked to Him and were radiant;
Their faces will never blush in shame or confusion.
Psalm 34:5 CEV
Keep your eyes on the Lord! You will shine like the sun and never blush with shame.
Psalm 34:5 WYC
Nigh ye to him, and be ye lightened (Go ye near to him, and ye shall shine with joy); and your faces shall not be shamed.
Everywhere I go during my daily walks with Jesus in the village or the countryside the eyes of my spirit see and savor the ‘invisible’ Spirit of the uncreated Creator and His Christ, our Lover God, Redeemer King. In the skies above, about the trees, the wildflowers and other plant life, the wooded hilltops and grassy hillsides, the birds, the ocean harbor, shorelines and waterways, over and across buildings and stone benches and on people most preciously created in His loving image, I see Him, and sometimes hear myself ‘spontaneously’ exclaiming to Him, “Look at YOU!” Such is my spirit sight, sense, and stimulation of His wondrous, omnipresent Spirit so graciously clear, near, and dear.
Wholeheartedly, I revel and rejoice richly and royally in the transforming, transcendent truth set forth in 2 Cor. 3 of beholding and becoming. Yesterday morning I wept as I looked out my living room window in that instant awestruck by simply seeing the new springtime foliage brought forth within the past hours by the Spirit of the Living God so pleasingly showing Himself to us.
Romans 1:20 AMP
20 For ever since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through His workmanship [all His creation, the wonderful things that He has made], so that they [who fail to believe and trust in Him] are without excuse and without defense.
Hebrews 11:27 AMPC
[Motivated] by faith he left Egypt behind him, being unawed and undismayed by the wrath of the king; for he never flinched but held staunchly to his purpose and endured steadfastly as one who gazed on Him Who is invisible.
Due to the abject absence of both attention to Christocentricity and therefore ardent affection for Christ, that which regrettably results is as you most meaningfully mentioned, “…callousness or an indifference to His working in them the doing of His will.” This in return results further in a lack of conformity to the character of Christ, which even further results in a dire deficit of the fruit and the works of the Spirit being worked in and through them to the infinitely deserving glory of the goodness and grace of God.
O God, generous and all glorious, create in us consistently the increase of holy heart hunger to know You and go with You and show You to others, to gratefully behold and worshipfully obey You in Your Word, in Your Spirit, and in Your creation. Save us from our self-willfulness, our resistance to Your righteousness. We humbly ask that Your Spirit inhabit our words, speaking to the spirits of others, revealing Christ in us and through us, to the everlasting praise of Your boundless beauty and omnipotent power. Apart from abiding in You, we can do nothing, zilch. To you belongs all the glory.
Please know beloved brother Brian that I very much appreciate your fervent, learned spirit. God’s best to you! Christ’s blessings on you now and forever!
Whenever and wherever His Spirit abides in the rare and purified atmosphere of faith His wonder is touched and the fragrance of Him is released. The precursor of things to come. Would to God such things were found on a local level.
Blessings
BT
Hello Brian, how conveniently we forget the amount of work and sacrifice that it took to see the expansion of the church after the initial birth. It seems that we are content with the size of the church, while we’re forgetting about the current souls that are still lost. It’s not about the size of the church, nor is it about enriching study, as much as it is about the continued work of the harvest.
Thank you for this word.
Blessings
Many today seek to fill the pews while God is ever seeking to fill the hearts of His own with Himself. A church filled with God Himself will always be full freshly born children.
“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me”
“He must increase… we must decrease”, until we get the order right our plight will continue. In seeking our own enlargement we fail to make Him known.
The expansion of the early church was because it was not a plural and secularized entity. Appreciate the understanding God has gifted you with.
Blessings
BT
Thank you, brother. Bless you
John G. Lake quotes:
It became easy for me to detach myself from the course of life, so that while my hands and mind were engaged in the common affairs of every day, my spirit maintained its attitude of communion with God.
The ministry of Christianity is the ministry of the Spirit. It is the Spirit of God that inhabits the words, that speaks to the spirit of another and reveals Christ in and through him.
Beloved, it is not our long prayers but our believing God that gets the answer.
It is a sad thing when you hear Christians with a groan in them. When I meet the groaner, I say in my heart, “God, move that man on into the place where he comprehends what Christianity is.”
We have run into false theology, we have run into “churchianity” and human interpretations, and a hundred other follies, but friends, it is a perfectly lovely and refreshing thing to get back to Jesus.
Faith is the faculty of the Spirit to see and to touch, Hope the anchor to hold us in the everlasting arms of His care and love being the signature of a life in which HE abides. Though we see Him opaquely, that which we see is true and to whatever measure we see His image is arising out of the ashes of the first Adam into the likeness of HIM who is subduing all things unto Himself, May He quicken us in His mercy.
Grace and peace
BT
Romans 5
Amplified Bible, Classic Edition
5 Therefore, since we are justified ([a]acquitted, declared righteous, and given a right standing with God) through faith, let us [grasp the fact that we] have [the peace of reconciliation to hold and to [b]enjoy] peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).
2 Through Him also we have [our] access (entrance, introduction) by faith into this grace (state of God’s favor) in which we [firmly and safely] stand. And let us rejoice and exult in our hope of experiencing and enjoying the glory of God.
3 Moreover [let us also be full of joy now!] let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance.
4 And endurance (fortitude) develops maturity of [c]character (approved faith and [d]tried integrity). And character [of this sort] produces [the habit of] [e]joyful and confident hope of eternal salvation.
5 Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us.
“Therefore, since we are justified (acquitted, declared righteous, and given a right standing with God) through faith . . . And let us rejoice and exult in our hope of experiencing and enjoying the glory of God . . . Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us.” Sumballo
Romans 8:18-23 AMP
18 For I consider [from the standpoint of faith] that the sufferings of the present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is about to be revealed to us and in us! 19 For [even the whole] creation [all nature] waits eagerly for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration and futility, not willingly [because of some intentional fault on its part], but by the will of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will also be freed from its bondage to decay [and gain entrance] into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been moaning together as in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only this, but we too, who have the first fruits of the Spirit [a joyful indication of the blessings to come], even we groan inwardly, as we wait eagerly for [the sign of] our adoption as sons—the redemption and transformation of our body [at the resurrection].
2 Corinthians 4:17-18 AMP
For our momentary, light distress [this passing trouble] is producing for us an eternal weight of glory [a fullness] beyond all measure [surpassing all comparisons, a transcendent splendor and an endless blessedness]! So we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen; for the things which are visible are temporal [just brief and fleeting], but the things which are invisible are everlasting and imperishable.
” . . . and love being the signature of a life in which HE abides.” Particularly I appreciate your articulate facility of words here, and emphasis on HIM, adding a contrite a call for mercy.
Yes, may YOU, O Tender Strong and Strong Tenderness, the more enlighten us and enliven us as immersed in YOUR matchless Mercy, YOUR peerless Power, YOUR sufficient Sacrifice, YOUR ceaseless Compassion, YOUR faultless Faithfulness, YOUR adequate Advocacy, YOUR perfect Priesthood, YOUR royal Righteousness, YOUR jubilant Justice.
” . . . and love being the signature of a life in which HE abides.” Particularly I appreciate your articulate facility of words here, and emphasis on HIM, adding a contrite a call for mercy.
Yes, may YOU, O Tender Strong and Strong Tenderness, the more enlighten us and enliven us as immersed in YOUR matchless Mercy, YOUR peerless Power, YOUR sufficient Sacrifice, YOUR ceaseless Compassion, YOUR faultless Faithfulness, YOUR adequate Advocacy, YOUR perfect Priesthood, YOUR royal Righteousness, YOUR jubilant Justice.
💜💗❤️💚 great post
Blessed and Happy afternoon from 🇪🇦
🌺🌸💮🌹