Crucified With Christ!

Galatians 2:20 (AMPLIFIED Bible!)

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.

Be Cleansed By The Precious Blood of Jesus!

2 Corinthians 7:1 (Amplified Bible)

THEREFORE, SINCE these [great] promises are ours, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that contaminates and defiles body and spirit, and bring [our] consecration to completeness in the [reverential] fear of God.

OK-I have a hymn on my heart:

Cleanse Me

Search me O God and know my heart
today;

Try me, O Lord, and know my thoughts I
pray:
See if there be some wicked way in me,

Cleanse me from every sin and se me
free.



I praise Thee, Lord, for cleansing me
from sin;

Fulfil Thy Word, and make pure within;
Fill me with fire, where once I burned
with shame

Grant my desire to magnify Thy name.


Lord, take my life, and make it wholly
Thine;

Fill my poor heart with Thy great love
divine;
Take all my will, my passion, self and
pride;

I now surrender- Lord, in me abide.



O Holy Ghost, revival comes from Thee;

Send a revival- start the work in me:
Thy Word declares Thou wilt supply our
need;

For blessing now, O Lord, I humbly plead.

Is God good, or what?

\O/

Are You Truly a “Fisher of Men?

Matthew 4:19

Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

The Lord spoke to me through a dream last night.  In this dream, I was sharing The Gospel with a group of strangers in a large gazebo.  I’m not sure where that was, or who these people were, but that is irrelevant.  There was one individual-a man who kept asking me questions as I shared.  He seemed genuinely interested, but disappeared shortly after I “delivered the message”.  My wife, who I was with in this dream kept imploring me to go after this man, and make sure he heard the truth.  I kept telling my wife that “I delivered the message”, and that it was enough.  I woke up shortly after that.

I know in my heart of hearts that it was, in fact-The Lord speaking to me through this dream.  I’ve had these types of dreams before.  The settings, situations,  and characters may have been different, but the theme was ALWAYS the same-PREACHING THE GOSPEL.  These dreams seem to happen during periods of turmoil in my life where God hasn’t used me all that much to preach His Gospel.

Although I typically like the New King James translation of God’s Word, I wanted to dig a little deeper into the scripture in Matthew.  I checked out the Amplified translation, which opened up the verse a little more:

And He said to them, Come after Me [as disciples--letting Me be your Guide], follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men! (Matthew 4:19, Amplified Bible)

I like this translation because it un-packs the verse in more detail.  “Come after me (as disciples—letting Me be your guide), follow me…”.  I do not think this needs any further translation.  If you claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ, then you know what this means.  I did, however underline the word “Me” in the verse.  In this context, the Greek word, “mou”  implies ownership (I, me, mine (own)).  So-another way to read this would be: “ …Come after Me, as somebody who is Mine, as a disciple-let me be your guide, and I will make you fishers of men..”(My translation).

When you go fishing, you don’t cast your rod out into the deep and come up with neatly filleted pieces of fish.  You catch the whole fish, then you need to “clean “  them.   First, you make a slit on the bottom of the fish and reach in to rip out the fishes guts.  Then you cut the head off, just behind it’s gills.  Next, you remove the meat from it’s spine, and cut it into smaller pieces.  Next, you pull out all the small bones that can kill you if you choked on them.

Now that I’ve totally grossed you out, can you see the parallel here?  If we truly follow Jesus, He will use us as His nets, or fishing poles.  He casts (sends) us out into the deep to catch fish (Men).  He guides us to where the fish (Men) are, by His Holy Spirit.  We catch the fish (Men) by preaching The Gospel of Jesus Christ to them, and by making sure that the hook (The Word of God) gets deeply imbedded enough to snag the fish.  Once we do this, the fish (Man) needs to be cleaned.  The Good News here (no pun intended) is that God cleans the fish (Man), once he’s reeled in!  He takes out a person’s insides and gives them a new heart!  He removes the bones and takes out all the things that may choke a person!  Out of something old, He makes something new!  HALLELUJAH!!!

Are you open to being used by God today?  Pray about this.  Ask yourself-“How can I be used by God?”.  It doesn’t matter if you’re shy, afraid, or think yourself “not worthy”.  Look at how God used a puny shepherd boy named David! 

Are you open to listening to the sound of His Voice today?  Are you willing to “Follow Him”?

I’ve been through this before, so here’s a quick testimony:  Take your eyes off of everything else, and fix your eyes on JESUS! If you humble yourself, and surrender yourself COMPLETELY to Jesus, He will use you to be a Fisher of Men!  He will guide your steps, He will put You in the situation that He wants you to be in, and through His Holy Spirit-He will empower you to say what He wants you to say!  You will KNOW that God has placed you in this situation to share His Gospel because the Power of The Holy Ghost will be so strong in you, that you won’t need to do anything but OBEY what He is telling you! You won’t need to think, you won’t need to be scared, and you won’t need to worry that you don’t know what to say!  God will place His Word(s) on your lips!  God will place the scriptures you need in this situation on your heart-you won’t need a Bible! All you need to do is listen and obey!  God will be glorified in the end!

There is one thing that you always need to remember-you need to surrender to Jesus in order to be used by Him.  In your own flesh, God won’t use you.  In your own flesh, you cannot do anything.  “…With men, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26, NKJ).

So I have a question for you:  Are you ready to be used by God today?

-You’re at work, listening to your co-workers discuss what they’re doing for Halloween.  The Spirit of God prompts you to speak about Jesus…. ARE YOU READY?

-You’re at the supermarket and God put’s you into a conversation between 2 people about what they’re buying for Christmas….ARE YOU READY?

-You’re on the train, and overhear the people in the seats across from you talking about Church, and why they don’t really believe in heaven and hell…..ARE YOU READY?

-You’re in a car with a co-worker on your way to a customer.  You have a 2 hour drive, and this person is listening to satanic death metal on the radio…..ARE YOU READY?

Let me leave you with this scripture:  “Therefore, everyone who acknowledges Me before men and confesses Me [out of a state of oneness with Me], I will also acknowledge him before My Father Who is in heaven and confess [that I am abiding in] him. But whoever denies and disowns Me before men, I also will deny and disown him before My Father Who is in heaven.) Matthew 10:32-33, Amplified Bible)

So?  ARE YOU READY?

\O/