February 8, 2021

Bob Maas
“Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”
Philippians 3:7-8
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.”
1 John 3:1-3

God’s ways are higher than my ways and His thoughts than my thoughts. I am continually making adjustments in the way I view the world. I am only able to understand His Kingdom by what He chooses to reveal to me as the Holy Spirit guides me. My natural mind isn’t capable of grasping His kingdom because it is conditioned to think in terms of self-preservation and survival. The things Jesus commands me to do go against that conditioning and I have to disregard my inclinations when I obey Him. Every day, hour by hour and moment by moment, I have to consider my old nature to be dead so that I can conform to God’s ways. The more He reveals to me about His Kingdom, the more I am responsible to obey. One thing I am reminded of, over and over again, is how inadequate I am and how dependent I am on the Lord for living His way. I pray for a heart that is consumed with a desire to know Him more and more intimately.