–Major Mitchell  (Poverty Flat)

       “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.”

                    –2 Timothy 4:6 (NKJV)
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          “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship.”
                             –Romans 12:1 (Amplified)

Many people want the “abundant life,” but I wonder, do they really?  To have that abundant life is to forsake the world and the things in it, forsake yourself and pick up your cross daily to follow Jesus.  That is the only “reasonable, rational, and intelligent service and spiritual worship.”  Abundance, having whatever you want is not living an abundant life.  The having of things is not what Jesus meant.  Having more of the Spirit is to live an abundant life.  
       If the abundant life consists of “things,” then what happens when all is lost?  What happens when the storm rages and it is all washed away?  What happens when the enemy attacks and the battle is fierce and the wounds severe?  Paul understood the reality of giving his life to Christ; happiness was not having things, but knowing that he had spiritual resources within himself whether shipwrecked or in a Roman prison.
       Pascal said, “The man who lives only for himself hates nothing so much as being alone with himself.”  When days of sorrow sweep in like a whirlwind, when suffering buffets us with the winds of adversity, where will your strength lie?  If it is in “things,” if it is within yourself, then you are for sure in deep trouble.  Our lives are not our own, we are given them for a while to worship the Lord.  And what does He want?  For us to have more possession–no, but to have more of Him.  That cannot happen unless we empty ourselves of our humanistic tendencies and become rooted in Jesus, rooted and grounded in love.  “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height–to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”  (Ephesians 3:14-19, NKJV)
       To thrive in this world, get rid of the baggage that you are carrying and do not pick up any more.  Live in the fullness of Christ.  Make the sacrifice on the altar and get rid of self by being a “living, sacrifice” that is holy and “well pleasing to God.”  May the words of the hymnist, Thoro Harris, bring this truth closer to our hearts.

               “Are you trusting Jesus, all along the way?
               Does He grow more precious to your heart each day?
               Are you His disciple?  Test His Word and see,
               He will give the Spirit more abundantly.

               Come to Him believing, hearken to His call;
               All from His receiving, yield to Him your all;
               Jesus will accept you when to Him you flee;
               He will grant His blessings more abundantly.”

                    –1 Chronicles 29:11 (NKJV)
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I like the way Steven Lawson introduces Psalm 104, “It is against this black backdrop of the world’s prevailing darkness that Psalm 104 shines so brightly.”  When the humanists and evolutionists cry out aloud, here is the answer to their arrogance.  Nature amazes me, the handiwork of God is magnificent.  He has created “with stunning genius, precise detail, and brilliant order.” (Lawson)  God did not have to think about what and how to create, He simply spoke it into existence.

          1 — Bless the LORD, O my soul!  O LORD my God, You are very great:  You are clothed with honor and majesty,
          2 — Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment, who stretch out the heavens like a curtain.
          3 — He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters, who makes the clouds His chariot, who walks on the wings of the wind,
          4 — Who makes His angels spirits, His ministers a flame of fire.
          5 — You who laid the foundations of the earth, so that it should not be moved forever,
          6 — You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.
          7 — At Your rebuke they fled; at the voice of Your thunder they hastened away.
          8 — They went up over the mountains; they went down into the valleys, to the place which You founded for them.
          9 — You have set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they may not return to cover the earth.
        10 — He sends the springs into the valleys; they flow among the hills.
        11 — They give drink to every beast of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
        12 — By them the birds of the heavens have their home; they sing among the branches.  (NKJV)

       Do not take creation for granted.  Keep your focus on the things of the Lord.  The New Living Translation puts verse 1 this way, “Praise the LORD, I tell myself…”  If we are not careful we start to go through this life not recognizing the hand of God in creation.  Look at this Psalm and then try to imagine the majesty of God’s creation.  How can a person actually believe it all just happened?  Poof, there it was in complete working order–the cycles of nature, gravity, all the laws of physics–they all just happened by pure chance.  It takes a fool or a person with extreme faith to believe that.  Read these verses again and wonder in awe of the mighty works of God.
       Take time to contemplate each verse this morning and see the glory of God in it.  If your heart ever becomes dull with life.  If the everyday things of life begin to get you down, or if you seem in constant pain of one sort or another go back–focus on the majesty of God’s creation.  Maybe you have to remind yourself to praise the Lord for His mighty works of creation.  “If He does such wonders in hanging universes and worlds in place–will He not also perform His creative work in living flesh like yours?” (George O. Wood)
       He clothes Himself in a garment of light, but He has also made sure that the whole cosmos is appropriately attired as well.  He cares for the flowers that bloom and knows when the sparrow falls.  He set this mighty universe in motion by His word that His children–humankind–may enjoy it.  And as He clothed the universe He is also preparing a garment for those who believe in Him–the garment of righteousness of Jesus which we will wear at His table in heaven.

               “O tell of his might, O sing of his grace,
               Whose robe in the light, whose canopy space.
               His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
               And dark is his path on the wings of the storm.”
                         –Robert Grant

                    –Kenneth Pratt  (The Wolves of Windsor Ridge)

       “Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them…  And there was great joy in that city.”

                    –Acts 8:5,8 (NKJV)
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Another month gone by, or is it another month started?  Hard to believe that it’s already September.  Goodness, the year is whirling by, summer is almost over and fall will soon be upon us.  On this first day of September, I want to focus on joy.  “If you want joy, real joy, wonderful joy, let Jesus come into your heart.” (Joseph D. Carlson)
       Robert Louis Stevenson said, “A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five pound note.  He or she is a radiating focus of good will; and their entrance into a room is as though another candle has been lighted.”  Paul exhorts us to “rejoice in the Lord always…” (Philippians 4:4).  Have you known those with whom it is a delight to be in their presence because of the joy that comes from within their being?  Joy, like doom and gloom, is contagious.  It is an attitude that can spread hope to those around in the midst of trying circumstances.
       Joy (Greek–“chara”) — “delight, gladness of heart; cheerfulness; calmy happy.”  Webster says that joy is an “emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune, or by the prospect of possessing what one desires; a source or cause of delight.”  We must remember that joy, or the lack of it, is associated with life.  H.E. Fosdick writes, “Joy is the tingling sense of being fully alive, and that cannot come to narrow minds, absorbed by selfish concerns.”  Someone else has said, “Happiness was born a twin.”  I will say here that being happy is not the same as being joyful.  Oh, they can coincide, but a person cannot be happy in sorrow, while a person with genuine joy in their heart can “rejoice.”  Happiness normally takes an event or special circumstance whereas joy is a condition of the heart.
       No matter the situation we need to heed the words of Paul and rejoice.  The Prophet said, “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” (Habakkuk 3:18)  The early English Pentecostal writer, Donald Gee says that “Such a joy becomes independent of outward circumstances, and even of inward blessings.  It rejoices in a certain and sure possession of the Blesser.”  We have joy in knowing God.  He is our Father, and we can depend upon Him throughout this journey called life–that should bring joy to our souls.
       We have the joy of salvation–of sins forgiven.  There is a sense of relief from the intolerable burden of sin.  We can exhale a joyous sigh because our sins are gone.  We can be joyful of a spiritual hunger that is now satisfied.  I’ve had a craving for steak, and on Wednesday night I prepared steak for Annie and me for supper.  I was happy looking at the steak, I was enjoying the aroma as I fried it, but when I consumed it, my inward parts were now joyful, the hunger was abated and also the craving was gone.  I sat there with a joyful “aahhh”.  Joy is an inward satisfaction of knowing who God is and what He has done for us.  Truly we have

               “…found the joy no tongue can tell,
               How its waves of glory roll!
               It is like a great o’er-flowing-well,
               Springing up within my soul.

                    It is joy unspeakable and full of glory,
                    Full of glory, full of glory;
                    It is joy unspeakable and full of glory,
                    Oh, the half has never yet been told.”
                              –B.E. Warren

                    –2 Corinthians 2:4 (NLT)
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               “O wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?  I thank God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.  There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”
                           –Romans 7:24-8:2 (NKJV)

Romans, that wonderful book of theology written by Paul.  In it he tells of the condition of the believer.  It is well we remember that the epistles were written to the Church, therefore written to believers.  Unbelievers may gain some knowledge, some moral truths, but they cannot comprehend what Paul is saying because they do not have the Spirit of God residing in them.
       There are some vital words in this portion of Scripture.  This should be a comforting set of verses to the Christian.  “Who shall deliver me?” (7:24) to “has made me free” (8:2)  Oh, if we look at ourselves we surely can find sin.  We find things of which we can condemn ourselves, but–thank the Lord–we are not condemned if we trust in Christ.  The key–get this–are the two words, “in Christ.”  The unbeliever is not in Christ therefore he is to be condemned.  “Now!” notice, because we are in Christ, there is “now no condemnation.”  Before a person was born again they were “in Adam” and under condemnation, now, however, the believer is “in Christ.”
       Before Christ, those were “wretched” days for sure.  The term means “distressed, miserable,” and whenever the believer sins he feels that condemnation.  The unbeliever does not feel condemnation unless there is the conviction of the Holy Spirit.  When we fail to live “in Christ” and in the power of the Spirit we feel this death sentence.  Oh my, help me, Lord!  We cry and then we rejoice with Paul with the next words–“I thank God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
       The Christian is now empowered by the Spirit to live for Christ.  I will not go into the spiritual judiciary of these verses, suffice to write, “No condemnation from the law, or on account of inward corruption, or because Satan can substantiate a charge against me; there is none from any source or for any cause at all.” (Arthur Pink)  Note, however, those two words again, “in Christ.”  We must be in Christ.  Matthew and Luke both write regarding the tree that does not bear fruit, “And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Luke 3:9, NKJV)  We must bear fruit, that is an indication that we are “in Christ.”  We must be like “a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.” (Psalm 1:3, NKJV)
       No condemnation to those “in Christ.”  Pink writes, “To be in Christ Jesus is to be perfectly identified with Him in the judicial reckoning and dealings of God:  and it is also to be one with Him as vitally united by faith.”  He further states, “Immunity from condemnation does not depend in any-wise upon our ‘walk,’ but solely on our being ‘in Christ.'”  Friend take comfort–as long as we remain in Christ we are free from any condemnation that the devil may throw at us or that our mind might prompt us to remember.  Stay in Christ, look at the world with His divine biblical perspective and do not get entangled with the evil system of the world.