I thought this was pretty much on target and thought, since several of you
work in the music area of worship, this would be particularly of interest to
you.
Phil.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Regner Capener" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Regner Capener" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, September 16, 2005 10:14 AM
Subject: ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: WALKING GOD'S WILL
ANOTHER COFFEE BREAK: WALKING GOD'S WILL
Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning!
Yesterday's discussion on Knowing God's Will provoked some interesting
feedback - and even an article in which the author expressed his considered
opinion that to instruct people NOT to pray, "if it be thy will," was
equivalent to blasphemy.
After reading through the author's commentary - and he had some good
points - it became clear that we are dealing somewhat with semantics rather
than purpose. No Bible-believing, faith-walking, Holy Spirit-flowing
Christian has any other purpose in life than to do the will of God and to
live it daily. The problem with "if it be thy will" is one of understanding
WHAT the will of God is, and what we are dealing with.
Are we talking about the sovereign purposes of God, or are we talking about
living in such a way as to bring delight and pleasure to the Lord.
That said, the phrase "if it be thy will" is still a cop-out for many, many
Christians who are unwilling to truly seek after the will of God, and find
it for themselves in God's Word! There are few things concerning the will
of God that are not already revealed in His Word. It is the responsibility
of every Christian to get the Word of God ingrained in the core of their
being so that His will becomes apparent.
Over the next few days of our Coffee Breaks, I'd like to expand on this and
share with you why I rarely, if ever anymore, actually pray, "If it be thy
will." The reasons are quite simple, but it involves a lifetime of walking
with the Lord.
Coffee's on! Pour yourself a cup - or two. Or have some of Michael's Green
Tea. Enjoy!
Let's begin again today with the translation of Romans 12:2 that I've done
from the Greek text.
"And be not fashioned or made [in the mindset] of this world: but be
transformed and completely changed by the renewing and renovation of your
mind, that you may put to the test in the crucible of personal experience
what is that good, and acceptable, fully agreeing with the complete heart's
desire of God."
The mindset of this world is in agreement with doubt, fear and unbelief.
The mindset of this world is in agreement with Satan's question, "Hath God
said?"
The biggest word in the English Language (and every other language, for that
matter) is; IF. The use of this word is one of the biggest blockades in
existence to faith. The use of IF as a precursor to any statement means you
either don't know, or you doubt, or you know but don't believe, or you are
afraid. Now I know that my saying this is going to cause a real ruckus
among some folks, but just hold onto your horses! Give me the opportunity
to explain why I say this, and why I say that "if" should be one of the most
rarely-used words in the vocabulary of Christians.
As I noted yesterday, the will of God as described by Paul in his epistle to
the Romans is not the sovereign, unchanging purposes, but rather the heart's
desire, the intended objectives of the Lord. If we truly have a
relationship with Jesus Christ, then we KNOW Him!
Right?
Let me put it like this.
When Della and I first got married, I was pretty sure I knew her, and knew
her well. (OK, you ladies! Shaddup! I know what you're thinking! NO
husband REALLY knows his wife. Wrong!) We had known each other and worked
together for two years on a daily basis. We shared together in an
atmosphere of trust and faith.
Still, there were lots of things Della didn't know about me, and there were
lots of things I didn't know about her. Details, mostly. When it came to
principles, however, I knew Della; and she knew me. That's one thing that
hasn't changed in 23 years. I knew how Della thought, and she pretty much
knew how I thought.
Tastes? Desires? Well, that's where the learning about each other has
been. That's where Della occasionally asks me what I think about something,
or where I ask her. "If" enters the conversation when I want to defer to
her tastes or desires - and mostly when I don't know what those tastes or
desires are. The years of marriage, however, have decreased that immensely.
The longer we walk and live together, the more we know each other's desires.
Della rarely asks me anymore what I want to do in a specific situation
unless she is simply being deferential. The reason is because she already
knows what I want to do - even if we haven't specifically discussed the
details. Sometimes I think she asks me what I want or what I want to do -
not because she doesn't know, but because there are multiple choices and
maybe it's just a matter of whim rather than real choice.
You see where I'm taking this, don't you? When you walk with the Lord on a
daily, moment-by-moment basis, of course there are things you are still
learning, but the longer you walk and live with the Lord, the more you know
His heart's desire. A hundred years from now, there may yet be things I'm
still learning about the Lord - if I'm still walking around in this
untransformed physical body - but as far as knowing HIM and His heart's
desire in most things, that is locked into my being indelibly! 60+ years of
relationship with Him does that to you.
Roughly seven years ago, Della and I were in Andy and Maxine SoRelle's home
in Houston for a fairly large gathering of mostly Messianic Jewish
Christians. A couple of Rabbis were present, and there was also a gentleman
who had worked with Brother Andrew in previous years smuggling Bibles into
what was then the Soviet Union.
Andy had called these folks together in his home so they could meet Della
and me, and he asked us to share some of the things that the Lord had been
doing and saying in our lives in the midst of our spontaneous worship
gatherings. As both Della and I shared and talked about the intimacy of our
walk with the Lord, this brother who only recently had come from Russia
became more and more agitated.
Finally, he couldn't take it anymore and said, "Man, the way you talk, you'd
think you had some kind of hotline to Heaven! You actually expect me to
believe that kind of relationship with Jesus Christ is available - where you
KNOW Him, where you KNOW His voice, where you KNOW His will, where you KNOW
His heart's desires?"
So I shared with him the nature of the relationship Della and I have. Then
I said to him, "Alexei, are you married?" He nodded his head. "Do you know
your wife's voice?"
He almost looked offended. "Of course I do."
"If you couldn't see your wife, or hadn't seen her in awhile, and she called
out to you unexpectedly from another room, would you recognize her voice?"
It was a rhetorical question. "My wife and I love each other. I know her
voice as well as I know my own."
There was the key: LOVE. You see, Love recognizes Love. Love knows Love.
Love doesn't have any problem knowing the will of Love.
Alexei was persistent. "All of this is fine and good, but how do you have
that kind of relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ?"
"It's simple, really. You spend time in His presence. You spend time in
worship. You spend time in communion with Him. The longer you spend in His
presence, the more you know Him, the more you know His heart's desires, and
the greater the degree of ongoing communication that takes place in the
Spirit."
"OK," he said. "How do you spend time in His presence? How do you spend
time with someone who is not visible?"
"Easy," I said. "In worship. Worship isn't some kind of ritualistic
endeavor. It isn't singing songs, reading the Bible, or going to some
church or fellowship. Worship is communing with the Lord - in the Spirit!
In the realm of the Spirit, you worship Him. He responds in the Spirit to
you, expressing His love for you and communicating His heart in a way that
transcends all the words you can speak."
It was the answer Alexei had been looking for - as near as I could tell -
virtually all of the years he had professed to be a Christian. He broke and
began to weep. "It's so simple, and it has been staring me in the face all
these years. You have no idea how many different pastors, preachers and
church leaders I've asked that question. They've never answered it that
way. All I've ever had were religious answers that had no life."
Andy later told us that the revelation literally transformed Alexei. His
walk with the Lord as a Christian went from one of drudgery, duty and
obedience to one of joy and excitement. Alexei learned experientially the
will, the desire, the heart of the Lord - by being with Him!
Walking and living the will of God is no more complicated and difficult than
simply spending time in His presence. When you have a love-relationship,
things are communicated simply by being with each other. The longer that
relationship exists and grows, the more that gets communicated. There's no
mystery to it, whatever. It's normal!
That's not to say there aren't things you need to pray about and know the
heart's desire of the Lord concerning. On Monday, we will expand this
discussion to praying the will of God, and I'll show you from the Word how
you can pray the will of God every single time without it ever being a
question.
"And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say
unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and
be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall
believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have
whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye
desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your
Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye
do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your
trespasses." (Mark 11:22-26)
I shared this set of verses from Mark in yesterday's Coffee Break. I want
you to take notice of the last portion, "And when ye stand praying, forgive,
if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may
forgive you your trespasses."
Forgiveness comes when love exists. No love, no forgiveness. No
forgiveness, no expression of God's will - His heart's desire - being
enacted in your life.
Love is literally the entire key to walking God's will in your life. If you
walk in love, you live pleasing to the Lord, and you live in His will.
Paul wrote to the Ekklesia in Ephesus saying, "Be ye therefore followers of
God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and
hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a
sweetsmelling savour." (Ephesians 5:1-2)
John put it like this.
"And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He
that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the
truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love
of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he
abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked." (I John
2:3-6)
There's a simple corollary to this. If we know the Lord, we keep His
commandments. If we keep His commandments, we walk in His will. If we walk
in His will, the love of God is made complete in us.
The will of God and love - agape love - are inseparable. If we walk in
agape, we give ourselves to the Lord and for Him. If we walk in agape, we
give ourselves to those with whom the Lord places around us, and for them.
If we walk - and live - in this kind of love, it is virtually impossible to
walk and live out of the will of God.
Love brings delight in walking the will - the heart's desire and delight -
of the Lord. David expressed the heart of the Lord when He said, "I delight
to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart." (Psalm 40:8)
Get it? The will of God was David's delight. He delighted in the delight
of the Lord. It brought great pleasure to David to see that the Lord
received pleasure from him. He walked it and lived it.
Did David mess it up sometimes? Sure he did. But he didn't wallow in his
failures. He got up and continued to walk and delight himself in the will
of God.
You may never totally eliminate "if" from your vocabulary as you walk with
the Lord but fear, doubt, and unbelief vanish in the midst of love. Love
and fear are opposite ends of the spectrum. They can't coexist in the same
person. You can't say you love the Lord and be afraid of Him, just as you
can't say you're afraid of your husband or your wife or anyone else and
still love them. There is no fear in love. In love IS the will of God, and
it is revealed to you on a daily basis.
The apostle Paul wrote (see I Corinthians 2:9-10), "But as it is written,
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God
hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God."
Understand? The Lord reveals Himself, His plans and purposes, His will, His
heart's desire, and the phenomenal gifts He has to those that love Him. If
you love Him, you keep His commandment. If you keep His commandment, you
walk and live in His will - His heart's desire, His delight.
It's an extravagant way to live! And God is the God of the extravagant!
I'm an Extremist! I'm extreme enough to believe God can do ANYTHING - for
me -- AND for you.
Blessings on you!
Regner A. Capener
R & DC MINISTRIES
Ekklesia House
RR-15, Box 6180
Mission, TX 78574-9589
(956) 583-5355
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