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Keeping Includes All 2

10/23/2021

We have been discussing how we are kept by the power of God and that his keeping is a complete keeping. Our God keeps us during times of prosperity, and in the hard times.
Some think that God can and does keep us from doing great sins of wickedness, but when it comes to the small harmless sins we cannot expect God to be bothered. It is through discipline and years of self-will that these sins are conquered.
We hear of a fellow believer falling into a grievous sin and we realize, that could have been me. Thank you God for keeping us from that sin! Thank you for keeping me. But, then we hardly notice when we fall right back into the sin of pride or selfishness for the third time that day.
And why do we doubt that God through the Holy Spirit can keep us from evil thoughts or a nasty temper and yet praise Him for keeping us from drunkenness or adultery? Is it that we think that a flare of temper or prideful thoughts are less important? God's great commandment of the New Testament is - "Love one another as I have love you." When we strike out at someone or have hatful thoughts toward them, we are sinning against Jesus highest law - we are sinning against the law of God's love.
What we are saying is: If we can believe and surrender our lives to the leading of the Holy Spirit, God can and will keep us from these "lesser" sins that we have accepted as just being human.
So, let me ask you, Can we as believers live a holier life than is generally lived? Can you and I experience the keeping of God's power all day, every day? What was the promise of 1 Peter 1:5? "Kept by the power of God through faith."
The promise is that if we can entrust ourselves entirely and absolutely to the power of God - He will keep us absolutely!
Let me close this week with this statement of hope from Andrew Murray on page 100 of Absolute Surrender
"God's keeping is all-inclusive, and let everyone who longs to live a holy life think out all their needs, and all their weaknesses, and all their shortcomings, and all their sins, and say deliberately: "Is there any sin that my God cannot keep me from?" And the heart will have to answer: "No; God can keep me from every sin."
As I consider my walk with Jesus, I realize He is offering so much more than I am accepting!

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Keeping Includes All

10/17/2021

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Last week we discussed how we are kept by the power of God. This keeping is also all-inclusive! It is important that we fully comprehend that it is us, it is you, it is me that is kept. And we are not kept somewhat or mostly, we are kept fully and completely! It is very easy for us to get lazy and despondent in our walk with Jesus, where we see Him as a force that takes care of our general well being, but is not concerned with the little things going on in our life that seem unimportant. Our God wants to be a personal friend that discusses and goes through everything with us. Nothing in our life is unimportant to Him! It is so important that He sends the Holy Spirit to be with us every moment of every day to keep us connected to Him.
Suppose I borrowed your car! When you loaned it to me, it was in great condition. You asked me to take good care of her. But, in my driving around Juneau I side-swiped a guard rail and cracked the windshield on top of trashing the tires and interior. By the time I got her back to you, she was in pretty bad shape!
Friend; you would say: "When I loaned you my car I asked you to take good care of her for me."
"What are you talking about?" I say! "Didn't I keep her for you? Here she is!"
You say, "But I didn't want you to just keep her in a general way, and you brought it back totally trashed. I expected you to personally take care of every part of it."
Friends, our God does not want to keep us in a general way where we just go our own way and then come back to Him trashed and broken. Where
He has to totally rebuild us to somehow get us into Heaven. That is the way it goes for many of us, and I praise Him that He doesn't just scrap us when we come back to Him trashed and beat up. Our loving God wants to live with us on every part of the trip, and keep us personally, on our walk with Jesus.
Another mis-conception is that God will keep us in spiritual things, but He cannot concern Himself with the temporal things in our life. If that were true we would be in big trouble! He knows that there is no way for us to keep ourselves in the spiritual or temporal parts of our life. But God says;
"My child, there is no work you are to do, and no business in which you are to engage, and not a cent which you are to spend, but I, your Father, will take that up into my keeping." Absolute Surrender p. 98
I am so thankful that the keeping of God includes everything!
We are also tempted to think that when we are going through a trial God keeps us, but in times of prosperity we don't need His keeping so much! Then others of us struggle with the opposite temptation, where we think in times of prosperity and ease we can hang on to God, but when the trials come as they always do, then our rebellious spirit wants to blame it on God and we get mad at a God who was willing to die for us.
I love this statement on page 99 of Absolute Surrender,
"Now, I bring you the message that in prosperity as in adversity, in the sunshine as in the dark, your God is ready to keep you all the time."
Aren't you thankful that we serve such a God?

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Kept By The Power of God

10/9/2021

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As we continue our study on absolute surrender. Our surrender to God the Father, Jesus our Savior and God the Holy Spirit is the key to our relationship and growth in our walk with Jesus. This week we will be looking at what it means to be kept by the Power of God!
Let's begin in 1 Peter 1:3-5
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible
and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."
"Kept by the power of God through faith" here we find two extraordinary truths about our keeping unto salvation. The first great truth is, "Kept by the power of God"; and the second is "Kept through faith." There are two sides to this wonderful promise! On one side, God promises to send the Holy Spirit to keep us in Jesus every moment of every day; then our part
is, by faith to allow the Holy Spirit to keep doing His work in us by surrendering ourselves every moment of the day. Through this process we have already started our Heaven right here on this earth, and the Holy Spirit keeps us dwelling in Jesus day by day as well. We are doubly kept! Our inheritance in Heaven is our promised future; and we are kept here on earth until Jesus comes back to accomplish that inevitable reality.
We have a great inheritance promised! But what would we think of a man who spent his whole life accumulating millions of dollars to leave to his
children and neglected to educate and train them for the responsibility of wealth? If he allowed his children to run the streets chasing sin and selfish pleasures? We would think he was a fool, am I right?
We would feel sorry for his ignorance! We would wonder why he would sacrifice to save all this money for his children's inheritance, and not prepare them to handle it wisely.
I am so thankful that our God has not only sacrificed beyond reason to give us the inheritance of eternity in bliss! But, He has also promised that He will prepare us for this inheritance.
Again, there are two simple truths; the divine side - we are kept by God's power; the human side we are kept through faith. Next week we will continue to look at what this keeping means for us as believers.

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Lacking the Fruit of the Spirit Pt. 2

10/2/2021

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This week we are going to look at how we yield to the Holy Spirit. In a continued effort to be totally open with you, I have to admit that this has been the greatest challenge in my walk with Jesus. Thankfully for me and everyone of us, our Lord is desperate to lead us to restoration if we are willing to be led. God's answer is very simple and easy. If our train has jumped the track and we have been ignoring the Holy Spirit, or gotten caught up in trying to serve God in our strength; then like the Galatians we have no other way of returning than to go back to where we went wrong, to come back from religious effort in our own strength, and stop seeking restoration by our own work, and yield ourselves humbly to the Holy Spirit. This is the only way that God can restore us to His character.
I mentioned in a sermon a while back that I believe God gave me a taste of what He wants to give each of us through the Holy Spirit. It was the greatest experience of my life! It was the greatest love, joy and peace that I have ever known and I long to have that experience again. I am also convinced that God wants and longs to give everyone of us, way more than I experienced that year. God wants to give us so much more than we have ever dreamed in the power of the Holy Spirit. Andrew Murray had this great filling of the Holy Spirit and he puts it this way:
"Is there any brother or sister whose heart is conscious: "Alas! My life knows but little of the power of the Holy Ghost"? I come to you with God's message that you can have no conception of what your life would be in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is too high and too blessed and too wonderful, but I bring you the message that just as truly as the everlasting Son of God came to this world and wrought His wonderful works, that just as truly as on Calvary He died and wrought out your redemption by His precious blood, so, just as truly, can the Holy Spirit come into your heart
that with His divine power He may sanctify you and enable you to do God's blessed will, and fill your heart with joy and with strength. But alas! we have forgotten, we have grieved, we have dishonored the Holy Spirit, and He has not been able to do His work. But I bring you the message: The Father in Heaven loves to fill His children with His Holy Spirit. God longs to give each one individually, separately, the power of the Holy Spirit for daily life. The command comes to us individually, unitedly. God wants us as His children to arise and place our sins before Him, and call upon Him for mercy. Oh, are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye perfecting in the flesh that which was begun in the Spirit? Let us bow in shame, and confess before God how our fleshy religion, our self-effort, and self confidence, have been the cause of every failure." Absolute Surrender p. 90,91
Friends, our wonderful Lord, longs to give us His precious gift of the Holy Spirit. But I have often wondered, and had people ask me: "Why do I continue to hurt my Lord so much? I'm sure I gave my whole heart, and desired to serve Jesus, why did I fail?"
The answer always comes back: "You are trying to do in your own strength what Jesus alone can do in you." And when they say; "I'm sure I know, that only Jesus alone can do it, I'm sure that I was not trusting in myself," the answer is always: "You had to be trusting in yourself or you would not have failed. If you were trusting Jesus, He could not fail."
This "perfecting in the flesh what was begun in the Spirit" runs so much deeper in our lives then we realize. We must ask God to show us that it is only when we come to the place of utter shame and emptiness that prepares us to receive the Holy Spirit into our lives, and He can give us this unimaginable blessing that we need.
So I must ask myself, and ask you these two simple questions: Are we living under the power of the Holy Spirit? Are we living as anointed, Spirit filled men and women before God?
These two questions stop me in my tracks! I hope that we will not just rush past these all important questions, but ask ourselves honestly before God: Am I a Spirit-filled Christian living under the power of the Holy Spirit?
As you consider this, if your answer is no, then I have a another question -
Are you willing to be set apart and give up yourself to the Holy Spirit to be used by Him? We are so aware that we cannot of ourselves consecrate to God. No matter how intensely we desire it, we will fail! Thankfully when we look away from self and what we want, and look to our God in Heaven we
find that acceptance, and He sends the Holy Spirit to do for us what we can never do.
So it comes down to: are we willing to give ourselves up to the Holy Spirit? We can do it right now! There may be much that we just don't understand yet, and we may not feel anything different; but come! With God the change will come. Only Jesus who gave us the Holy Spirit, can restore that Holy Spirit power in our lives. Only Jesus can give us the strength beyond our power through His Spirit to give us the indwelling Christ that will make us a "new creation." Our God longs to do this for everyone of us who are willing to give up everything, and are willing to seek our God with all our heart. His promise is that the answer will come! The gift is not far off, and our God is delighted to help us. Through the Holy Spirit He will make it possible for us to perfect, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, what was begun in the Spirit
I know this is what everyone of us want!

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Pastor Brad

Pastor Brad Traxler is the pastor of the Wrangell SDA Church. Brad Traxler is the husband of forty years to Cheryl, father to Kimberly and Ryan, and grandfather to Brad, Kevin, William, Eamon, Zairhen, Seraphina, and Zeelyah. He holds a BA in Theology and has been pastoring churches for twenty years. The greatest passion of His life has been to share Jesus.

Keeping Includes All 2

Keeping Includes All

Kept By The Power of God

Lacking the Fruit of the Spirit Pt. 2

Pastor Brad

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