Do not Grieve the Holy Spirit of God

A good word from Dr. Jim Denison:

Scripture warns us: "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption" (Ephesians 4:30). When we choose to sin, we grieve the Holy Spirit who indwells us this moment, who sees everything we see and knows everything we know.

By contrast, when we choose to reject temptation and live by our Father's word and will, we gladden the heart of our Lord. There is "rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents" (Luke 15:7). God knows our inner feelings and genuine motivations. He delighted to say, "I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do" (Acts 13:22).

What is your glory?

Psalmthree helped me walk this morning:

O LORD, how many are my foes!
Many are rising against me;
many are saying of my soul,
there is no salvation for him in God. Selah

But you, O LORD, are a shield about me,
my glory, and the lifter of my head.
I cried aloud to the LORD,
and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah

I lay down and slept;
I woke again, for the LORD sustained me.
I will not be afraid of many thousands of people
who have set themselves against me all around.

Arise, O LORD!
Save me, O my God!
For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;
you break the teeth of the wicked.

Salvation belongs to the LORD;

What is your glory? I was convicted that my glory is not the Lord alone. It is either my beautiful wife, my accomplishments, or people I know. My glory must be the Lord alone.

Family Value 3: Giving

Giving is another one of our family values. I wont give specifics and I want to be careful in writing about this because I want to keep it secret. Let me just say that our Father in heaven is a lavish giver. He gives and gives and gives. Chassidy and I have made this a value and a discipline because we have experienced how generous God is. We are stewards of everything we have; everything is His. Therefore, we want to continue giving him the reputation of a generous giver.

Rogers' Family Value 2: Prayer

"Prayer is not the pre-work of God. Prayer is the work of God."

Chassidy and I have adopted prayer as one of our family values because prayer is precisely the work of God. We pray to The Lord, our creator, sustainer, our savior, and Father for wisdom, direction, healing, provision, deliverance, and strength. He is our Daddy, and we ask him for things as a child asks their daddy for a piece of bread. We ask with confidence (con-fide (with faith), knowing that he loves us and loves to give good gifts to his children. We aren't afraid of what He will give because we know that He is completely good and he is not out to trick us. Jesus spoke of our Father when he said:
"Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"
(Matthew 7:9-11 ESV)
Our Father loves us and desires to "give good things to those who ask him" not just for our blessing, but for his glory and for his ultimate purpose. Tommy Nelson said, "Prayer is the thin nerve that flexes the muscle of omnipotence." Chassidy and I recognize that this has to be our first ministry. This is the first step in completing the work the Lord has given us. For example, Jesus said, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few...therefore pray to the Lord of the harvest..." We have been commanded to sow seeds of the gospel in the hearts of people all over the world, but what good is that if we don't plow up the soil by prayer. It is the good soil that receives the seed that grows to produce a crop one hundred, sixty, or thirty fold, so we view prayer as oxygen for our ministry and every other area of our life.

The past few months we have found some ways to deepen our prayer life together and would love to share those with you if you are interested. Just ask.

John

The Lord is working everywhere

Rogers Family Values

Well I have a new design for my blog. If you know me, you know that I love coffee. Thank you Father for coffee.

This post is to share with you the values that Chassidy and I build our house upon. We got this idea while visiting her boss' house and by noticing their family values written on a tablet near the dinner table. So we decide that this was something that we wanted to do as an newly established family. We have come up with three values so far that the Rogers house is built upon. The Rogers' family values so far are:
Truth
Prayer
Giving

I'll spend this blog and the next two blogs covering each one of these values.

Value 1: Truth
Chassidy and I hold fast to the teachings of the Holy Bible, The Scriptures, The Word of God. The Bible is God's revelation to man of the truth. Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? Who is God? Who are we? What is good and what is evil? These are some questions that have been asked since God created Adam. These are questions that lead to an infinite amount of questions. These are questions that people search their whole lives to get answered. Some graciously find and some do not. God has revealed himself and helped us answer these questions through graciously speaking to us through his Word.
Our faith came through hearing the Word of God (Rom. 10:17). We came as babies to know our Father through His Word. Our lives have been sustained and we have grown because of the pure spiritual milk of God's word. We have, and still, become stronger and more developed through chewing on the meat of God's Word. We are taught, rebuked, reproved, corrected, and trained daily by His Word. We are also reminded daily of who he is, who we are, and our relationship status with him through his Word. We love his Word, his Truth.
In the greatest sermon ever preached, Jesus said, "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock." (Matthew 7:24- 25) Chassidy and I have, unashamedly, chosen to daily build our house on the steady, unchanging, non-shifting rock of God's Word. If we fail to do this, we are fools...and so are you. Because the rain does fall, the floods do come, the winds does blow and beat on our house, but on God's Word we will not fall.

If you want to talk to me more about this, I would love to!

John

Faith

I have been learning a lot about faith lately. My friend Andrew quoted Tony Evans when he said, "Faith is trusting that what God has said is true." That quote is very simple but so rich. My wife (that's still so cool to say) are trying to finally read through the Bible in a year. I'm not so concerned with the year thing. I just need to do it. So I am in Genesis studying about Abraham and the man of faith he was. God told Abe to go. Abe faithfully went. God made a covenant with Abraham saying that his number of offspring will be like the stars in the sky. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham had a son when he was very very old. God is faithful. God tests Abraham and tells him to go kill his son. The same son Abraham waited so long for. The same son that through whom were Abraham's offspring going to come. Abraham faithfully took his son up the mountain, bound him, took the knife and God stopped him. God faithfully provided a sacrifice that was not Isaac. So this is where I am right now. God is faithful and Abraham is faithful. I was reading Romans 4 and something that jumped out at me was,
"No distrust made him [Abraham] waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness."
(Romans 4:20-23 ESV)

There's more:
"But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
(Romans 4:23-25 ESV)

God has said that this is the way of salvation.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
(Romans 3:23-25 ESV)

I am chief doubter because I think this is too easy. Why would God make it so easy? I want to make it harder and think that there is more I have to do. But if God said this is the way, then this is the way.

Its True

"If all men were blind, light would still exist."

Spoken by my friend John. He's an unbeliever, but he speaks truth.

Father, I pray that you would open his eyes to see the light and he would put his confidence in you.

Building my House

Jesus says, "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand."

This carries a lot more weight since being married. I am now building my house.

Newest Update

I married my best friend.

Taken from Joshua Project:
"Converts did not easily forget the Christian convert who was sewn into a fresh yak skin by merciless shaman priests and placed in the broiling sun until the contraction of the skin squeezed the life out of his frame."

We need to pray for those who are being persecuted and for those who persecute.

"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." Matt. 10:28

To God, be all glory through our suffering. He is the Prince of Peace.