Change Your Clothes

Revelation 19:7-8

Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—

We are to bring God glory through our life. From our actions to our words to our thoughts, it all should bring Him glory. Though this task is impossible because we will fail, we will sin, we will love our fleshly desires, we have to strive to bring Him as much glory as possible. Not out of a requirement, but from desire. As we walk with Him, we become more like Him and fall more in love with Him. As this happens, we desire to please Him more and more. From this desire comes our passion and calling to bring Him glory. But, this cannot become confused with trying to earn salvation. It is a very fine line between serving God out of love and serving God to earn salvation as compensation. 

The last half of this verse stimulated my thoughts the most. “and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— Family, have we made ourselves ready for His return? If we truly know God, He gives us new, clean clothes instead of the heinous, torn up, shattered, and repugnant clothes that were our past, our sins, our rebellious acts of hatred towards God, our acts of self gratification and self exaltation. Have we put these new clothes on though? Have we put purity as our clothing? Have we grown closer to our King and Lover? Have we removed our old desires, old way of thought, old actions, etc and replaced it with God and His calling on our life? However, it is NECESSARY to take off the old

I pray that we take off the old and put on the new.

-Ryan

Lifelong Battle/Sacred Marriage

Revelation 16:14

For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.

This life is a battle. The first question is, which side will you be on? You will be fighting for your god(God). Will it be for the God of the Universe, the Creator, or will it be for yourself and your flesh or whatever other god it may be? The second question is, will you be ready? As Christians, we are called to be workers that study to ourselves approved (worthy) (2 Timothy 2:15). How much time do we spend studying? How much time do we spend getting orders from our King? Seeking His guidance and strength? The effects of not spending time with God is evident. When you separate yourself from Him, you will draw closer to sin, closer to idolatry, closer to rebellion, closer to bondage. We truly separate ourselves from our God. We move away, not Him. So often we find ourselves or others in dark places, places of brokeness, places of shame, places of loneliness, often times left to shout out to God “where are you,” feeling that God has left them. The thing is, many times we end up in those spots because we have walked away. We have drifted off, most likely gradually, but we walked away from God and begin to feel the repercussions of it and feel his absence and fall into sin. Though this is a majority of the situations, there are times like Job experienced, times that you haven’t walked away, but you need to be tried, you need to be refined, you need to be purified by God. It is a test of your love for Him, not His love for you. His love never changes, but He wants proof that yours is firm, that whether good or bad, you will love Him and seek Him. The Christian life is echoed throughout society. Marriage itself is a direct echo of the Christian’s commitment to God and visa versa. To love Him regardless of situations, to spend time with Him, to seek to please Him. The problem is, we fail miserably at this in life. We seek other pleasures. We say that His satisfaction is not enough for us and that we need sin to find pleasure, we need to worry to succeed... The list goes on and on. We have been unfaithful in this marriage to God, He never has been unfaithful, He is always there. But family, I raise this because often we think of our relationship with God as a friendship. It’s a marriage. It is a lifelong commitment. It is a promise to spend time with Him and to grow with Him everyday. We are to ABIDE in God. We are to become imitators of Him. We are to echo His nature. We are to be holy as He is holy (I Peter 1:16). 

Which side do we choose? 

And are we faithful to our eternal commitment with God? May we strive to do our best at it.

-Ryan

Through God's Eyes

Revelation 15:4a

Who will not fear, O Lord,

and glorify your name?

For you alone are holy.

The Fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom... (Proverbs 1:7)... Do we fear God? 

This question that so often is answer hastily by us.. In deep thought about this question, may His light expose our lives as they truly are.

God is perfect, meaning He has no fault in Him. By nature God cannot commune with imperfection. We have been tainted because we have rebelled against Him. We are unholy due to sin. Through Christ’s sacrifice we who are chosen by God and chose Him are redeemed and have been given Christ’s holiness upon our lives, however, the question remains, do we fear God? Fearing God is not to be scared to him like a monster, but to be afraid to disappoint Him because we want to make Him proud. We should view sin in a similar manner as He does. Sin is repugnant in His eyes, yet so often it is desirable in ours. As a sign of walking with God and growing in a relationship with Him, we become more like Him, if this is the case, our perspective on sin needs to change. We need to be disgusted by the sin in our life, and we must strive to repel it from our lives. If we truly fear God, we will keep His commandments and live as we would desire. We are indebted to Him, may we live daily as if we are gladly slaves of the King. Furthermore, may we bring Him the glory from our lives in every manner. For we do nothing on our own, but we can do all things through Christ who is our strength (Phil 4:13)... Family, God’s glory is not found in our sin, but our victories. May we continue, and for some begin, to fight the sin in our life for our King and conquer in His name, out of love for Him. 

May we see with God's eyes and not our own

-Ryan

Endure

Revelation 14:12

Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. 

Paul told Christians many times to “run the race set before them.” He told us to run hard and finish strong. Here in Revelation, we are reminded to finish. We are reminded to persevere. We are reminded of what our mission is: to run this race, to seek God and abide in Him and know Him intimately, and to finish this life serving our King. We are told to endure. We are to give it our all. We are to fight our hardest, relying on the strength of God to get us through. Do we cave under pressure or do we fight to stand and stand strong for our King? We are to run hard and to finish. Running hard does us no good if we don’t finish. We need to rely upon God as he is our strength and we truly “can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Phil 4:13).” Family, I really pray that we all fight to grow in our walks. Our walks with God can be compared to running up an escalator, backwards. If you lower the effort being put into achieving the goal, progress is lost and you regress, however if you push harder and run faster you will eventually reach the goal. When faced with a challenge, we are to push harder and run faster, having God guide us and provide us with the strength needed to get through this race. 

Depend on Him for strength, your own will never allow you to finish victorious.

-Ryan

In regards to chapters 6-13 of Revelation, I encourage reading those chapters and truly diving into them. I really was blown away at the amazing display of power that God demonstrates. It can be so easy to forget that God has so much power and even everything in this chapters is just a fraction of His power. Check the chapters out and be amazed at the power of our King!

Our Heart Song To God

Revelation 5:13

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

“Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come....” (Revelation 4:8b, repeated)

Is this our heart’s song to God? Do we desire to praise Him because HE IS HOLY? Because He is LORD? Because He is MIGHTY? Because He is ETERNAL? Because He is GOD? May we dwell upon this verse and see the levity of it. This verse can be restated as such, “So holy is God. Holy beyond comprehension. Holy describes Him, because He is perfectly and completely Holy. When I dwell upon the thought of His holiness, I cannot begin to fathom it. I tremor with remorse because I know how disgusting and unholy I am. However, great is the Holy One who REDEEMED me and made me as He is, holy. He is the beginning of all. He made us. He is the Creator and never leaves. He is near to me and knows everything about me, past, present and future. He holds me in His hands, ALWAYS.”

We are told in Scripture that on a day every tongue will confess and every knee will bow because God is the Lord over all Creation. Since that day is coming, I pray that we sing this song to Him every day and we confess Him every day starting now. May we not wait to sing this song when it is too late. May we live lives that reflect this now. May our lives revolve around God and His precepts. May we abide in Him. May we seek Him above all else. May we give our all for Him our of crazy love, because He loved us with CRAZIER love. May our lives give Him all the glory and all of the honor and all of the might in us. May we sing praises to His name. May we love Him with all of our hearts. This life is the training ground for eternity. If we sing praises to God now, we will sing them in eternity. However, if we praise ourselves or sin, we will praise sin for all eternity with a hardened heart towards God and a deep seeded hatred towards Him and all that is good. We truly do reap what we sow.

Blessings,

-Ryan

Conquering

Revelation 3:5

The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. 

A theme that is very distinct in this chapter was conquering and this is one instance of its recurrence. To conquer is defined by dictionary.com as “to gain, win, or obtain by effort, personal appeal, etc.; to overcome by force; subdue; or to win in war.” I like to define conquer as “to see out a mission to its entirety with success.” Our mission as followers of Christ is 1) to love Him above all else (Matthew 22:37-38) 2) Love others above ourselves as Christ loved them (Matthew 22:39) and 3) to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20) and 4) to do this throughout our life. This is the job of a Christian. Do we conquer these tasks? If not (which none of us completely conquer these tasks), then how can we improve on them and will we do them for the glory of our King? To conquer in its truest sense is not to win one battle or overcome an obstacle, it is to finish the war being victorious. Though we may stumble in our walks and make mistakes, God looks toward our victory and desires to see us striving for improvement so that we can find victory. Though we have said a prayer to give our lives to God, this is not victory, victory is found in conquering and conquering in the Christian is found by dying to oneself daily (Luke 14:25-33) and seeking the Lord above all else and knowing Him and making Him known. 

Family, this is war, will we conquer or be conquered? It’s one or the other, there is no in between. May we not let any aspect of our life slip through without being claimed for the Lord. 

May the Lord be proud of us as conquerors in His name, children of the most High God.

-Ryan

First Love

Revelation 2:4

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

A life desires God more and more, will gain Him more. One that desires Him less and less is getting exactly what they seek.

For many Christians, when they first enter into the lifelong walk with Christ, they have such a passion and zeal for Him. However, as time goes on we begin to lose that love and passion. We desire Him less and that is exactly what we are getting. Jesus is calling many of us out. Family, it is so easy to lose sight of our first love. In a relationship  that takes place over many years between two people, there is an initial rush of emotion, they long for each other’s company, they love everything about each other and they can’t wait to hear each other’s voice, etc. But as time passes, they don’t have that same passion for each other. We have all seen or experienced relationships like this. May we not let this type of attitude invade our relationship with God. His love is all we need family. He is all we need. Yet we find ourselves living for everything else many times. God is our second, third, fourth love. Why not our first? Why, when we are honest with ourselves, do we find that other things and people are contending for the position of most importance in our lives? God should have no competition for that position! In comparison to our love for Him, it should seem that we hate everyone and everything else and even ourselves, as it talks about in Luke 14:25-33. Do we love God like this? If not, why? In the passage in Luke, Jesus CLEARLY states that in order to be a disciple of Him, we must count the costs of following Him, which are to love Him above ALL else and to replace us with Him by carrying our cross daily for Him, allowing no humiliation, personal plans, personal will, or anything else to obstruct our relationship to Him. Basically we must give Him our life and make Him first in our life in order to follow Him. Family, may we not forsake our first love, but may we come back to Him and His open arms and carry on with Him being faithful until death (Revelation 2:26), bringing Him pleasure in us.

To our first true love we must return. To God we must run back to. To the cross we must embrace persistently.

-Ryan

Leaving Bondage and Loving Love

Revelation 1:5b-6

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen

Simply stated this verse is amazing. I get hung up on the first few words: “to him that loves us.” How often do we really think about the love of God? This love that is so pure, that it isn’t shallow and doesn’t have any fault in it, a love that is undeserved, that after WE rebelled and left Him He still loves us and demonstrated that love by humbling Himself and dying on the cross so that we could be redeemed and spend eternity with Him, a love that never stops, no matter what we have done or will do He still loves us, and a love that is perfect, never ending, never failing, never stopping, never bears a grudge, never turns its back, never leaves. We have all faced disappointment in life, many of us have received much disappointment from the people that we have loved and do love, family, may we remember that God’s love never, NEVER, leaves any disappointment when it is truly experienced. He will never let you down if you keep in respect to your end goal, to finish the race on earth well to hear Him say “well done my good and faithful servant (Matthew 25:21)” and to know God more than you know anything else. Family, may we long to better know this love. 

The next few words are some of the most amazing words I know in scripture, “and has freed us from our sins by his blood.” We chose bondage to sin, bondage to death over life ruling with the King. Needless to say, we chose the wrong side! However, though that could have and should have been the end of the story and we should receive justice for the actions we have committed and the thoughts that have gone through our mind, we have been given an offer to accept or refuse. We have been offered to start over and our mistakes will be erased from past, present and future, or we can choose to refuse this offer and take our punishment of eternity in hell, separated from God. May we all choose forgiveness! For those of us who have chosen forgiveness, may I ask, how differently do we live from people that choose to cary on in their ways? So often, there is very little difference from modern “Christians” to the people of this world, aside from saying a prayer to give one’s heart to the Lord, HOWEVER, salvation does not come from a prayer! Salvation comes from believing in God with all of one’s heart and loving Him and living life with Him and confessing Him (Romans 10:9). That is how one is saved. By grace through faith have we been saved (Ephesians 2:8). Faith is the total casting upon of all of the trust that you have, it revolutionizes your life because you are throwing everything that you are onto that choice. Has our faith in God completely changed our life? If not, how much faith do we have? We are told that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains (a mustard seed is extremely small, about equivalent to a fine point marker dot on paper), family, why is that all the faith that we have? Imagine if we each had faith larger than a mustard seed, imagine how this world would be changed for our King. 

This verse ends by telling us that we are part of God’s kingdom. Family, we matter to God and as His children, as part of His kingdom, may we live to please Him, may we live to know Him and to bring Him glory.

May God’s love abound more and more in us and as we abandon our chains to sin that broke with Christ’s sacrifice for us, may we love more and more.

-Ryan

Daily Life

Jude 20-21

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. 

This passage says so much with so few words. Family, these verses are things we need to remember, these are our daily goals in life as Christians. 

Are we building ourselves up in our faith? Are we seeking God with everything we are? Are we constantly striving to grow in our walk? Are we becoming more and more like Him every day we live? If not, what is standing in our way and what/who will mean more to us?

Are we praying? Are we spending time on our knees, crying out to the most holy God? Are we talking to Him and getting to know Him? Are we treating Him like a wishing well, asking for requests for ourselves more than anything or are we praising Him and thanking Him for all the He has done in our life? Family, how often are we found before the throne of God? Prayer is a beautiful thing, we get to speak to the God, the Creator, the King that forgave us after we rejected Him and committed vile actions in His sight and He listens. He truly listens to us if we approach Him like we ought to. How amazing is this? It is such a privilege, yet so few of us truly take advantage of this opportunity! Why?

Family, do we keep ourselves in the love of God? Do we abide in it? Can we be found living in God’s love, never wanting to leave? Are we truly experiencing this love? If we never experience this love, this pure, unadulterated, limitless, and crazy love, how can we claim to abide in it? Family, God is love, abiding in His love is abiding in Him and on His Word. May we seek to grow with Him and abide in Him. 

Lastly, may we wait for God’s mercy that leads to eternal life. Family, are we eagerly awaiting to be able to spend eternity with our King? I have to admit, it is tough at times. We all have hopes for our lives. Many of us can’t wait to marry and have a family, others want to reach a point of success before death, some desire just to live more and do more things, but family, if these goals are dampening our desire to be with God and making us less excited to be with Him, then we must revaluate these things. They may be a hinderance and, in all reality, they are us holding onto our desires, our worldly hopes and saying that we long for our hopes more than we do God’s. There is nothing wrong with hoping to have a family, or hoping to do well with a career, or living life, but they are wrong when they steal our desire from longing to be with God and looking forward to His return.

May we live a Jude 20-21 life every single day.

Blessings family,

-Ryan

Radical or Average?

3 John 11

Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.

Though our works are not what brings about salvation in our lives, works are a huge indication of a life. They can be manipulated to portray a false reality by posing to play a role, however, genuine actions are a key indicator of the status of a personal standing with God. The outlook on sin that one has, the love that flows from them, the desire to share His word, all of these and so many more are indicators of where one stands. A person that is sold out for God views sin as disgusting and wants nothing to do with partaking in sin, they seek to avoid compromise to the best of their ability, they have a love like God would have for everyone, friends and enemies alike, and they would have a burning passion to share His word with everyone, not just people that are similar to them. Now, many people’s response to this is “well, that’s great and all, but that’s for a RADICAL CHRISTIAN, what about if I just want to be an ORDINARY CHRISTIAN?” My response to that is, is there such thing as an ordinary Christian? This is a question that I can answer with no certainty. Personally I believe that a true follower of God, wants to be a radical Christian, and is never content with not following Him with everything. The concept of an “ordinary” Christian strikes me as one of a desire for less than is required, a lack of desire to excel, a misplaced passion, a desire to live one’s own life, a desire to make God the passenger rather than the driver. This to me sounds more like a good person than a godly one. It sounds to me like a person that is in love with the world and its offers and isn’t willing to give it all up for God. Family, as people that are called to imitate good, and since good is defined by God, we are to imitate Him. We are to be holy as He is holy (I Peter 1:16). We are to be imitators of Christ. Christ lived nothing short of a radical life, He challenged the status quo because He knew that it was short of what God desired! If our King came and lived a radical life to the point that He died for it, what makes us think that we don’t have to? 

Even if being an “ordinary Christian” was good enough for salvation (though I am not sure it is because only God can decide), I would not be looking forward to the day that I would stand before my King, and look Him in the eye and say, “God, I was an ordinary Christian for you.” Only to hear His reply, “Why? I gave you so much potential and had so much that I desired to do through you to reach my people. Why were you happy with throwing away what I hoped for you?” That response would devastate me and make me wish that I could do it all over again to be a radical Christian.

May we be RADICAL CHRISTIANS FOR GOD.

A love letter to those who rebelled against Him

2 John 9

Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.

Family, the Bible is our instructions from God on how to live this life. It is our love letter from Him. It is the greatest book ever written. The most accurate document ever written. It is the book with the highest standards. It is a gift from a holy God who did not have to reveal Himself to us. It is a gift from God after we spat in His face and displayed our hatred to Him via sinning. It is a gift after we ran with our sin and loved it more than our Maker. It is a gift that tells us that we have a chance of forgiveness IF we turn to Him and follow Him as His disciple. But yet, we treat this great book with such little reverence. We live life ignoring it so often. We turn to Facebook instead of getting our face in His Book. This verse in 2 John says it all though: “Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.” If we are not reading His teachings, how can we know Him? Oswald Chambers said, “That is the way God speaks to us, not by visions and dreams, but by words.” If we never read His word, how can we be upset when things aren’t going well or we feel disconnected from Him? Family, what Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” This book is one of God’s channels of communication to us, and we access it so scarcely many times. How do we know God if we don’t access one of His most used channels of communication with us? He has so much to show us in His word, but we have to dive into it. As this passage talks about, without knowing His word, how can we say that we know Him? We need to be in this book as much as possible, at the very least every day. My question is this, do we long for and thirst for the word of God like we starve for food or long for drink? Do we need it more than anything, short of God Himself? May we not make His word our god by going too far the other way, but family, may we dig deeper and deeper into His word, seeking Him for He promises us that when we seek Him, we shall find Him (Luke 11:9). May we be people that know our God and know His word so that we may be workers equipped in and out of season (2 Tim 2:15). Family, this is our sword and we are going into war, may we know how to use it on the battlefield because we are so familiar with it because we have used it so much.

“A Bible that is falling apart, is usually the sign of a life that isn’t.”

- Vance Havner

Blessings