Morning Moments

"I heard in my own country about your achievements and wisdom. And all of it is true. I could not believe it then, but now I have come and seen it with my own eyes. I was not told even half of it! Your wisdom and wealth are much greater than I had heard." {The Queen of Sheba to Solomon)1 Kings 10:6-7

Jesus said: The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behlold a greater than Solomon is here." Mt 12:42

UNBELIEVABLE! The Guinness Book of World records is full of stories that surpass imagination. You and I have a certain frame of reference, and rarely conceive that anyone could live beyond it. But there is something worse. We often cannot conceive of ourselves living beyond it. "Well, it's just the way I am," we say, or "I am only human," or "nobody's perfect", so it becomes acceptable for us to govern our lives by our own standard. We don't like it when anyone challenges that.

But God has done the impossible for us by creating in us a new nature, in righteousness and true holiness - AFTER HIS IMAGE. So here we are, patting ourselves on the back believing that defeat is common, and victory is ocassional, and that consistently being conformed to the image of Christ is merely an ideal; a target at which we are to shoot. There is something wrong with this picture.

We have grown so accustomed to the company we keep "in the flesh" that we insult the compnany we have "in the spirit." Think about it! When is the last time you heard someone refer to themselves as a "saint". No! we say we are merely sinners saved by grace which usually places the emphasis on the "sinners" part.

Solomon had it all, wisdom, wealth, and whatever those things brought. It was practically impossible for the Queen of Sheba to fathom what he really possessed. But she came and she saw and that made her a believer.

How would your life and mine change if we really realized what we possess in Christ and understood that we HAVE BEEN, not will be, blessed with EVERY spiritual blessing IN CHRIST. That we ARE more than conquerors; that we are dead and our life hid with Christ in God; that we really CAN do all things through Christ who strengthens us; that our God DOES supply all our need according (not out of) His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. WOW! What a difference there would be in our lives.

It is easy to be spiritual in church where we live unchallenged, but "out there" in the real world people need to see that what is different about us is not that we go to church, sing in the choir, do all the stuff we have learned to do. BUT that we eat and drink with publicans and sinners so that they might REALLY SEE, and SENSE the presence of the living God in vessels of flesh.

PRAYER: Thank you Lord Jesus that you are THE greater than Solomon. Help us to live with a new sense of your presence IN us and that when we RELEASE you in us, to live your life through us, we KNOW our lives cannot be explained by our own doings, but by the continuing work of Your Spirit in us conforming us to YOUR image and not our own.