daddy4ms

It is interesting that when troubles come in our lives, we tend to focus on them.  If your bank account is at zero (and ours has been many times over the years), we can become obsessed with lack of money and stress over it.  Or you can fill in your problem.  However, God has challenged us to look to Him rather than focus on our problems, worries, or stresses.  I hope this quote from Dutch Sheets will encourage you today: "Unfortunately, rather than spending our energy on abiding, we get sidetracked by the dilemma we're facing. A molehill easily becomes a mountain when stared at for too long. So it is with your soul's crisis. Staring at the problem, obsessing over it, yelling at or pleading with it . . .no amount of focus on the problem removes it. Don't major in the problem; focus on the solution." So, today choose to focus on Jesus rather than the problem.

As I mentioned yesterday, I finished Becoming Who You Are by Dutch Sheets.  One statement has caused me to reflect a lot on how we teach and disciple.  The statement was: "Because all truth comes to  you in seed form." I started to think about how we expect our children or other believers to hear a truth and then immediately see the fruit of it in their lives.  I realized this did not happen in my life.  Yet I can expect it  in others and can become impatient when it does not.  This pointed me to the parable of the soils found in Matthew 13, Mark 4 and Luke 8. Sheets goes on to explain what he means by this quote: "It became what I call the "seed principle." The concept of a seed indicates a process of growth until fruition. Suddenly I knew I couldn't expect freedom while short-circuiting the process. In the same way, you can't presume to gain freedom in problem areas of your life if you haven't abided in God's logos regarding those area...

I finished reading Becoming Who You Are last week.  I am still processing a lot from the book.  I loved this quote on the power of God's Word. "So it is with God's Word, the logos. It's God's food for our soul. We went on a logos fast at the fall, and now we need a logos feast. When you need security, you must find portions of His Word that apply and eat them. When you need self-control or discipline, you have to find verses that apply to these things and eat them. When we do this, God's Word will feed our soul the nutrients it needs."

Consider Hebrews 4:12 with definitions of the words included in quote below from Dutch Sheets: "The logos of God is alive-actively alive. It is filled with the life and energy of God. It toils and works in us, is operative and effectual. It is also fully competent, adequate, sufficient, and ample. It has enough ability to channel itself through the various areas of the soul and spirit, reaching its goal and attaining its desired end. It will arrive and will accomplish its goal when it gets there."

I know it is bad grammar.  However, this ties in with a great quote from Becoming Who You Are from Dutch Sheets. "Becoming who we are begins with the demolition of who we ain't. God's Word tears down the exalted life-force and negative strongholds in the soul, while at the same time building into it positive strongholds of God's logic and truth. It will both demolish and restore."

As I mentioned yesterday, I am sharing two quotes from Dutch Sheets book, Becoming Who You Are. Because they are longer, I wanted to give you a day to process them.  Here he shares the similarities to chewing gum and discipleship. "What in the world does chewing gum have to do with discipleship and abiding? Don't burst my bubble--work with me, okay? When we listen to our pastor or someone else preach on the Word, we're taking in the rhema (spoken words). As we wake up each morning and spend time studying the Bible, we're consuming the graphe (written words). But the longer we spend chewing--thinking, rehashing--on God's truth, in my brother's terms, the "tastier" it gets. The more we chew, the more rhema and graphe become logos --the message in the words, the understanding--and this transforms the soul."

This is the title of Chapter 13 of Dutch Sheets book, Becoming Who You Are . He talks about the importance of discipleship.  Sounds like another book I am reading called DiscipleShift. He had two great paragraphs that I am going to share-one today and one tomorrow. Think about how these quotes influence our discipleship. "Tragically, the church's majority misses out on this call to commitment. Rather than pledge to a lifelong quest of soul renovation that comes from a deep relationship with Jesus, we coast as mere acquaintances of His who happen to be "converted." We are believers, yet we're not disciples. In fact, many of us approach our faith the same way we approached high school, as a necessary requirement, something we endure to get to heaven, rather than investing in it and experiencing fulfillment."