Before a good cup a Joe

Me – getting up another day, praying…

I don’t do frenetic.  I don’t do worry.  I don’t let it in.  I don’t start my day all out of kilter, out of whack. I refuse to stumble into my day.

In the morning when my mind wakes up, before I get up, that’s the time I start my attitude.  Before a good cup ‘a Joe, I pray.  I think a few thoughts – to my Father God.  Not a long prayer, not a lot of words (It’s 5am!) – just a few to set my mind on High.

Set your mind
I “set my mind”: Colossians 3:2; Colossians 3:15; 1 Peter 1:15; Mark 8:33; Romans 6:13:

Colossians 3:2
Set your mind and keep focused habitually on the things above [the heavenly things], not on things that are on the earth [which have only temporal value].

Colossians 3:15
Let the peace of Christ [the inner calm of one who walks daily with Him] be the controlling factor in your hearts [deciding and settling questions that arise]. To this peace indeed you were called as members in one body [of believers]. And be thankful [to God always].

1 Peter 1:15
But like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves in all your conduct [be set apart from the world by your godly character and moral courage];

Mark 8:33
…He rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan; for your mind is not set on God’s will or His values and purposes, but on what pleases man.”

Romans 6:13
Do not go on offering members of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness. But offer yourselves to God [in a decisive act] as those alive [raised] from the dead [to a new life], and your members [all of your abilities—sanctified, set apart] as instruments of righteousness [yielded] to God.

I start most every day something like this:  I get on up and get on High.  I’m lifted up.  I start my day with God in prayer – just me and God in the cavern of my head.  Creator God is everywhere.  Nowhere that He’s not.  And He’s in my head.  He knows my thoughts.  My thoughts, an open gateway to my soul, for God.

I think my thoughts to Him “in prayer”.  No one hears me, but God Himself.  He even knows what I’m about to say.  Oh mysterious, sacred God that lives inside my eternal soul.  (John 14:17; John 16:7) I know, ’cause that is what He tells us in His Word.

WHY I CAN PRAY WITH CONFIDENCE

I know He’s there.  He’s here, inside my soul.  And He’s on my throne for me, directing my willful soul.  He’s promised never to leave me nor forsake me, never leave me alone.  I’m a lion, freshly dripping from the waters, renewed this morning in His cleansing streams of life, confident in this Holy Holy Righteous Creator of all that is.  THAT’s Him.

That’s why I’m not a prairie dog slinking in the shadows through my hours and my days.  My inner man’s a lion, and I stand strong in the power of my Holy Spirit God inside me – always, ever inside me.  Never leaves me.

The one and only Savior Mediator “between God and man”, Jesus, has given me the right to be called His child.

1 Timothy 2:5
For there is [only] one God,
and [only] one Mediator
between God and mankind,Romans 9:8,Ephesians 5:6,Colossians 3:6
the Man Christ Jesus

1. Those now His Children:  John 1:12; Galatians 3:26; 1 John 3:1; Romans 8:17; Romans 8:16; Romans 9:26;  and
2. Those not His Children: Romans 9:8; Ephesians 5:6; Colossians 3:6.

John 1:12
But as many as received Him,
to them He gave
the right
to become children of God,
even to those who believe in His name

His Courts declare me: born again.  Set free.  No longer condemned to Hell – because I’ve been redeemed.

This world is not my home!  That is why…

I live with confidence
I am not afraid of death
I cast aside fear.  God is my refuge and strength
I do not allow sin to reign over me
I have exceedingly vibrant joy in my inner soul
Although I am not perfect, I have, growing in me… “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control”
I converse with my Savior all throughout my day
I make it my aim to do everything I do – with all my might, and – for the glory of God
-Source: Never Again (May 13, 2018)

We all are born into sin, the Bible says.  And… we sin and sin and sin….  But even born again – we sin.

Salvation is not so much about your sins.  After all – He’s got the vile, filthy sins of ALL THE WORLD covered by the blood bled at Calvary!  So your sins are not the problem.  The problem is your heart.  Salvation involves a heart reset.  “Whosoever wills – may come” and receive that covering, that forgiveness, because it has been offered to all.

When we bow our will in sincerity and truth, repent of our sinfulness and acknowledge Jesus as the Man, the man-God, then He saves us.  God requires that we come to Him honestly, and then follow Him.

There are no shortcuts, no quick easy sinners prayer and then be on “your way” as before, no easy-believism.  You have not been granted entrance into His Kingdom if you are not following Him. Accepting Him “as Savior and Lord”, and then living contrary to what He Himself believes… is not “following Jesus”.  That’s not a sincere faith.

That would be “faith without works”, fake faith, and that is ineffectual within Creator God’s system of justice.

James 2:20
But are you willing to recognize,
you foolish [spiritually shallow] person,
that faith without [good] works
is useless?

Salvation is all about the penalty of sin, and what God requires of us to be made free of the penalty.  It’s not about how much you’ve sinned, or how much you sin after salvation.  God requires sincerity and truth.

The faker, false inside his soul, was never born again and has yet to yield the knee.  Still lost and broken, the faker “christian” is a hollow suit, not who he claims to be.  His issue is not “sin” or “sins”.  The issue for all who birthed from a womb, is: yielding your will to God with sincerity and truth. (See both: Galatians 6:7-8; 1 Corinthians 5:8)

God wants all of me, not some fraction.  And fakers fake, giving fractions.  At least the transparent Godless sinner is honest about being a sinner!  The faker is, well, the biggest loser in the end… because he/she “thought” they were just fine.

No fractions, pieces, parts of you:

Luke 10:27
And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

Deuteronomy 13:3
you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Deuteronomy 6:5    (Also: Joshua 22:5)
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

BEING HIS, SINCERELY AND HONESTLY.
I am who I say I am.  I’m no two-faced sham imposter.  I’m the real thing in Christ.  And I “keep short accounts” with God, confessing my sins regularly:  When I trip and fall, when I fail, I do not “stay in my sin” and wallow, or else… “the Lord will not hear” my prayers.  Psalm 66:18  “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”

2 Peter 2:22
It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”

I constantly renew my strength, to fly like an eagle, so my relationship with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ does not stagnate with my struggles to be more righteous.  So I know He listens to me and answers my prayer.

Isaiah 40:31
But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Philippians 1:6
I am convinced and confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will [continue to] perfect and complete it until the day of Christ Jesus [the time of His return].

Since that moment in time in which I was born again, I have sinned, and sinned.  I sin these days too.  I do.  I do.  I do.  But I am His true child.  And He promises that I will not lose that sonship He gave me.  Same for you, if you come to Him in repentance with sincerity and truth.  That is the biblical basis of my confidence to pray.

John 8:51    Amplified Bible (AMP)
⁵¹ I assure you and most solemnly say to you, if anyone keeps My word [by living in accordance with My message] he will indeed never, ever see and experience ^{[I.e. spiritual death and separation from God]} death.”

Father God does more than Joe the father.  He does not throw me under the bus, off the train, “out”, or leave me when I sin.  I am His forever now, and He will never leave me some other day later, ever.  That is because it is He who has saved me, not me myself.

2 Corinthians 3:5
Not that we are sufficiently qualified in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency and qualifications come from God.

I was never saved by any merit of mine, any works of mine, nor because I now cling to Him tightly so as to not fall from grace into The Fire.  It is He who grasps me firmly by His Almighty Hand of Grace.  No small God, our Father!  His grace is sufficient to cover forever – the sincerely repentant heart.

My salvation does not depend on
my efforts to do good works.
The everlasting salvation in Christ
is totally His to deliver on.  Not me.
He saved me.  Not me by any good I have done.
And THAT makes all the difference in the universe!
He holds me in His Hands.
And His grip never wavers,
never slacks,
never sleeps,
never lets me go.

Born from my mother, I was created a feral thing.  Not a “child of God”, but part of His Creation.  Special, yes: “created after His own image.” But I was born separated from God because I was born as sinful flesh.  I was only human after all – born guilty and condemned, and doomed to step from earth to hell in a flash some day.

Since I am now His child, He is now my Father, and Father God never ever gets angry with His children.  He’s not like me.  He is God – Father God, “Abba Father”.  He now disciplines me in love (Hebrews 12:1-17).

He draws His children closer to Himself through loving discipline, not in wrath, not with shaming, and surely not by a recall!  He never has to change His mind about having saved you.  You were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world! (Ephesians 1:4)

Galatians 3:26
For ye are all the children of God
by faith in Christ Jesus.

I’m not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.  It showed me how to come to God.  His Word shows me how to live for Him.  “Oh my God, Jesus – how great and good You are.”

And so I start each day on High – on purpose, with an attitude set towards God, “set on God’s will… His values and purposes”, careful to not be set “on what pleases man” (from Mark 8:33).

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