All Categories

God is Love

1/11/2020

Last week we looked at how the Fruit of the Spirit is Love in relation to our surrender. And so, why is the Fruit of the Spirit love? It is because God is Love! So, what does that really mean?
Well, one of the many things that we know about our wonderful God is that He loves to communicate with us. He loves to let us know how much He loves us. And He wants nothing but the very best for each and everyone of us. You see, God has no selfishness, He keeps nothing to Himself. God’s very nature is to always be giving. Literally everything God does is for the good of His creation. It is because God is Love! Even though He is the God of the universe He keeps nothing for Himself, because He delights to pour out His love on us. His love is so great that He sent us His Son who He had spent eternity past with so He would not lose us! That thought makes me want to yell Hallelujah! My God is awesome! Don’t you feel that way?
One of the old church fathers said it this way, “We cannot better understand the Trinity than as a revelation of divine love — the Father, the Loving One, the Fountain of Love; the Son, the Beloved One, the Reservoir of Love, in whom the love was poured out; and the Spirit, the living love united both and then overflowed into this world. The Spirit of Pentecost, the Spirit of the Father, and the Spirit of the Son is love. And when the Holy Spirit comes to us and to other men, will He be less a Spirit of Love than He is in God? It cannot be; He cannot change His nature. The Spirit of God is Love, and the Fruit of the Spirit is Love.”
When we get even a glimpse of our wonderful, awesome God how can we not give Him our absolute surrender.
I love you!
Brad

The Fruit of the Spirit is Love!

1/1/2020

As we continue to look at what it means to Walk With Jesus and Surrender ourselves completely, we will especially focus on how love influences our surrender. Today I would like to consider how The Fruit of the Spirit is Love! And how a life filled with the Holy Spirit will show itself in our daily Christian walk.
In the Old Testament we find the Holy Spirit often came upon people as a divine Spirit to show them the will of God, or to accomplish God’s will, but He didn’t dwell in them. I can’t help but wonder as I consider my own life, and your lives, if we wouldn’t prefer that Old Testament version of the Holy Spirit over the New Testament gift of the indwelling Spirit that animates and renews the whole life. You see when God gives the Holy Spirit, His great desire is to create in each of us a Holy character. He offers a Holy mind and an unselfish, loving spiritual disposition. Andrew Murray makes this short statement in his book Absolute Surrender,
“I must have the Holy Spirit sanctifying my whole inner life if I am really to live for God’s glory.” Page 19
As we look back at the disciples, and Jesus promise to send the Holy Spirit, we see Him giving them this gift to be witnesses, and then they received the Holy Spirit in such power that He took possession of their lives, and they became Holy men and women in every aspect of their lives. It was the filling of the Spirit in them that caused people to call them Christians. The Holy Spirit filled them with such love that everyone saw it. It gave their lives power that turned the world on end.
Galatians 5:22 tells us, “The Fruit of the Spirit is Love.”
We read that “Love is the fulfilling of the law” and we need to ask ourselves, has this been our daily habit to seek being filled with the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Love? Has it been our experience that we are becoming more and more loving every day because the Spirit is dwelling in our life? This should be our greatest expectation in our walk with Jesus, that the Holy Spirit come into our lives as a Spirit of Love. I pray that I can get hold of this simple truth that the Fruit of the Spirit is Love, and that love takes possession of our lives when we are filled with this Holy Spirit that Jesus promised to every one of us.
God can and will bless our Wrangell Church beyond belief when we are filled with this love. It is when we as a body pull together that we are strong. In the time of the great religious wars when Holland stood up so nobly against Spain, one of their mottoes was: “Unity gives strength.”
Andrew Murray makes an observation on this very thing,
“It is only when God’s people stand as one body, one before God in the fellowship of love, one toward another in deep affection, one before the world in love that the world can see—it is only then that they will have power to secure the blessing which they ask of God.” Absolute Surrender page 21
It’s like a pitcher of water, if you crack it into pieces it can’t be filled. You might be able to take a little piece of it and dip out a little water, but if you want the pitcher full it has to be whole. This is true of Christ Church as well. I ask you to pray with me that we will allow Jesus to melt us together into one by the power of the Holy Spirit as He did at Pentecost, when He made the disciples of one heart in the Spirit of love. “The Fruit of the Spirit is Love.” As we surrender ourselves to Jesus, the Holy Spirit will come and teach us how to love more and more.
I love you!
Brad

God Blesses Our Surrender 2

12/24/2019

Last week we discussed how God not only maintains our surrender , but He blesses our surrender! This week I would like to look a little deeper into how God blesses our surrender. So, when was Peter delivered? When was he converted and surrendered his life completely to Jesus? As often happens, his change came with a crisis. Peter discovered that instead of being strong and good, he was weak and sinful. Have you ever come to this crisis in your life? I sure have! And we must, because it’s really hard for God to save good people. And when I say that, I mean people who have not come to the point that they realize their good deeds are not what saves them. It is when we realize as Peter did, just how sick and helpless we are, that God can finally start that process in 2 Corinthians 5:17
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
It is only then that we start the discipleship process and our walk with Jesus. Peter’s change began with weeping, and he finally allowed the Holy Spirit to come down and fill his heart.
Our loving Heavenly Father loves to give us the power of the Spirit, so that we have the Spirit of God dwelling in our hearts. When we can bow before Him, confessing how we have grieved the Spirit and we have put ourself before Jesus, then God can strengthen us with the power of His Spirit by reveling Jesus to us, so He can come and dwell in our lives and cast out the self-life. Andrew Murray puts it this way,
“Let us bow before God in humility, and in that humility confess before Him the state of the whole church. No words can tell the sad state of the church of Christ on earth. I wish I had words to speak what I sometimes
feel about it. Just think of the Christians around you. I do not speak of normal Christians, or professing Christians, but I speak of hundreds and thousands of honest, earnest Christians who are not living a life in the power of God or to His glory. So little power, so little devotion or consecration to God, so little perception of the truth that a Christian is a man utterly surrendered to God’s will!” Absolute Surrender page 16
We may be tempted to say, well that was in his day. Certainly it’s different in our day, and most certainly in our church! Is it really? Is it different in my life? Is it different in your life? Or are we those “good” people who like the Rich Young Ruler had done good his whole life, and yet when Jesus showed him his true heart, he went away sorrowful? What does absolute surrender really mean, and how does our Lord bless our surrender?
I’m trying to be honest with myself here, and I hope you will as well. We are members of a last day church which is rich and in need of nothing! All to often I find myself in a partnership with the world, loving the things that the world loves, and showing the same coldness toward my fellow man that the world does. It all to often becomes about me, and what I want instead of giving myself entirely and wholly to Jesus. How much Christian work do I do in the spirit of the flesh, and in the power of self? May I be that real with you? I think these are questions we need to give some thought.
Friends, how many of us truly long to be delivered from the self-life? How many of us are willing to admit that much of our life is just the power of self, and are we ready to cast all at the feet of Jesus, the only place we can find deliverance? I pray that death will be the most desirable thing in the world to us - death to self, replaced by fellowship with Jesus! That is how God blesses our surrender and gives us that life more abundant. Giving all to Jesus! I look forward to seeing each of you. Have a wonderful Week!
I love you!
Brad

God Blesses Our Surrender

12/12/2019

We have seen how God Expects our surrender. How He Accomplishes our surrender. Then Accepts our surrender, and doesn't leave us there, but is the one who Maintains our surrender, and lastly He Blesses our surrender. And this absolute surrender to God will wonderfully bless our lives!
We saw in our first study on surrender that King Ahab, said to King Ben- hadad, “My Lord, O King, according to thy word I am thine, and all that I have.” Should we offer anything less to our Lord and Savior, who is not only our creator, but also our redeemer? And if we are willing, and do say this to Jesus and our loving Father, we can be assured that all the blessings of heaven are ours!
We have the perfect example in Jesus who was in this world for thirty- three and a half years and yet was never of this world. God ask us to be separate from the world. The Holy Spirit has been reminding me again and again as I write this, that this separation is much more than just keeping the Sabbath, not eating certain meats and claiming to be God’s people as the Israelites did. Instead our prayer should be, “Lord, anything for You.” If we with honest hearts speak that into God's ear, He will accept it, and He will teach us what that really means.
God will bless us! We have been praying for a blessing, but our part in receiving this all important blessing, as small as our part might be, is absolute surrender. It is a small thing that only we can do, and God cannot, and will not force it on us. Just as important, He cannot lead us forward in our walk without it.
If you sit down to a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with your family, on this day your best china, silverware, and goblets are on the table. In these goblets is poured juice. Now why is juice poured into these goblets? Because they are empty, and totally given up for the juice. But if you were to put ink, or oil, or vinegar into the goblet, could you fill it with juice? And can God fill us and bless us if we are not absolutely surrendered to Him? He can't!
Friends, we must truly believe that when we surrender completely to Jesus, He will fill our lives with wonderful blessings beyond what we can even imagine. If we can stand up for Jesus and say, “Lord my will is trembling, but I believe in you.” Andrew Murray said it this way,
“O God, I accept Thy demands. I am Thine and all that I have. Absolute surrender is what my soul yields to Thee by divine grace.”
We may not feel that our desires are pure, and our trust is strong, but if we humble ourselves before God and admit that we have grieved the Holy Spirit with self-will, our self-confidence and self-effort, and if we can bow before Him, and ask Him to break our hearts and if need be to roll us in the dust before Him. When we can do that, when we can accept that there is nothing good in us, that what we must have is a new life in Jesus. When we can deny self once and for all, and denying self becomes the power of our lives, then Jesus will come and take possession of our lives. When that happens our church will be a force in our community, and we will be a blessing in our families, unlike anything we have seen before. I look forward to that day! And it is coming!
Next week I would like to spend a little more time looking at how God blesses our surrender.
I love you! Brad

God Maintains Our Surrender

12/5/2019

How many times have we experienced a Week of Prayer or an amazing Campmeeting, and with every ounce of our being we have committed our lives to Jesus, just to see it fade away in a few weeks or months?
It is frustrating, but remember, when God begins the work of absolute surrender in our lives, and when Jesus has accepted our surrender, Jesus holds Himself responsible to care for it and keep it. I hope and pray that we can believe that, because our spiritual growth, and our walk with Jesus depends on it!
When it comes to surrender, there is just Jesus and me! Jesus and you! We are weak, frail, self-centered, and Jesus is the everlasting, and all powerful Ruler of the Universe. So, the real question is: Are we as frail, weak human beings afraid to trust ourselves to the all powerful God of the Universe?
Jesus is ready and willing! God the Father is ready! The Holy Spirit is ready! Do we believe that They can keep us continually, day by day, and moment by moment surrendered to Him?
Again from Andrew Murray this wonderful quote:
“If God allows the sun to shine upon you moment by moment, without intermission, will not God let His life shine upon you every moment? And why have you not experienced it? Because you have not trusted God for it, and you do not surrender yourself absolutely to God in trust.” Absolute Surrender p.12
It always comes back to faith! Do we trust Jesus with our life? Do we trust our loving Heavenly Father to do what He has promised? Do we trust the Holy Spirit to come and fill our lives with Jesus? As in every part of our walk with Jesus, He can only bless us to the extent that we can believe!
And I am well aware that a life of absolute surrender has its difficulties. In fact, it is much more than just difficult, for us it is absolutely impossible! But by the grace of God, and by Jesus dwelling in us through the Holy Spirit, it is a life that is not only possible, but in Christ it is a done deal! Our part in all this is to believe that Jesus will maintain our surrender.
Many of you have heard of the life of George Muller, that great man of prayer, who trusted in God to house thousands of orphans in England for over 40 years, and never asked for a penny from anyone but God. On his 90th Birthday he was asked what he believed was the secret of his happiness? He said, “That of all the blessings which God had given him, he believed there were two reasons for his great joy.”
The first was that by God's grace, he had been given the ability to maintain a good conscience before God day by day. The second was his fellowship with Jesus every day in the Bible, and prayer - Friends, that is a life of absolute surrender.
And this life of surrender has two sides - on one side is absolute surrender to do God's will; the other side is to let God work in us, to use us as He sees fit. We do what God wants us to do by giving up ourselves completely to do His will. May our prayer be, “Lord by Your grace I desire to do Your will in everything, every moment of every day. May there not be a word upon my lips, but for Your glory. May my temper be sweet for Your glory. May every affection in my heart be for Your glory, and according to Your will.”
Friends, let's give ourselves absolutely to God - it is Him who gives us the ability to carry out such surrender. We can say, “I give myself absolutely to Jesus, to let Him work in me to will and to do His good pleasure, as He has promised He would.”
God wants to work in us in a way we can't even understand yet, and He wants to do it every moment of every day! He is willing to maintain our life, if we can only believe it, and allow Him to do it.
Have a wonderful week!
I love you! Brad

God Accomplishes Our Surrender

11/27/2019

Last week we looked at how God expects our surrender, but He doesn't just throw out this expectation and then leave us to our destruction. Our God promises to accomplish our surrender.
I hate to admit it, but all to often I find myself worried that if I give this part of my life to Jesus, if I give Him absolute surrender, just what will that mean in my life? “Lord, I have passed through so many struggles, and so much suffering, and there is still so much self-life left, how can I give you this too, knowing it means more struggles and suffering?”
These kind of thoughts really disturb me when I realize what I am saying about my Savior and Lord with this kind of fear and anxiety. If you ever struggle with mis-trust as I do, then I have great news today! God does not ask us to give this perfect surrender in our strength, or by our will power. Our amazing God is willing to make it happen in us! Philippians 2:13 tells us, “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” That should be our greatest joy, to fall on our faces before a God who didn't just tell us what He demands, but promises to come in personally and conquer our wrong thoughts and desires, and turn us into something that brings Him great pleasure. God Himself will work in you!
Friends, I challenge you, and myself to put away the fear, and fall before God with a willing heart. If your struggling to have a willing heart, as I am, then pray this prayer, “Lord make me willing to be made willing” and He hears that prayer, and is eager to make it happen! We spend that precious time each day becoming friends with Jesus for this very reason. We must
learn to trust our dear friend, so we can say, “Lord Jesus, I am willing for You to make me willing.” If there is anything holding us back, if there is any sacrifice we are afraid to make, I encourage you here and now to prove what a gracious and wonderful God we serve, and not think for a moment that He would ask us to do anything that He will not accomplish Himself.
God offers through the Holy Spirit to fill us with Jesus, and work this absolute surrender in our lives. That is what we're told in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come; the old is gone, the new is here!” That very desire, the hungering and thirsting you feel in your heart right now is the drawing of Jesus, desiring to do His good pleasure in your life.
Friends, we have hindered the Holy Spirit again and again, but He longs to fill our lives with Jesus, to accomplish in us that absolute surrender to Himself. And He can do it! And will do it! You see, God not only accomplishes surrender in our lives, but He accepts it when we bring it to Him.
I look forward to next week, when we discuss how God Accepts Our Surrender!
I love you!
Brad

God Expects Our Surrender

11/20/2019

Last week we discovered that with God the one thing that matters most is our
surrender. Without our surrender to Jesus, our walk with Him has never even started.
Regardless of our flowery professions and pretenses, unless we have completely given
Him every part of our life, we are not disciples, and our Walk With Jesus is not really
happening.

It can't be any other way with God! It can't be, because He is the fountain of life, and
the only reason we continue to exist. Everything good in the universe is a result of God.
He created the sun, moon and stars — every flower, tree and blade of grass is
absolutely surrendered to God. They all allow Him to work in them just as He pleases.
When our Lord and Creator clothes the orchid with its breath taking beauty, it is
completely yielded, surrendered, given over to God, so He can shape and grow it to
demonstrate His glory. So as God’s redeemed children, can we expect God to be able
to grow us up into Jesus, and shape us in His beauty and glory, with only half, or part
of our lives surrendered? God can't do it!

God's very nature is life, and love, and blessings, and power. He is infinite beauty and
wants more than anything to show us every bit of it. The only thing that can keep this
from happening is our lack of absolute surrender. This is the one thing that hinders
Jesus from doing all the great things He so dearly wants to do in our lives. And now He
comes, as God, as our Creator, He claims our surrender. God expects our surrender!
Friends, if we are going to be absolutely surrendered to Jesus, then every part of our
life has to be given to Him, to use as He sees fit. If you have a pen in your pocket, that
pen is absolutely surrendered to the work of writing. That pen is totally and completely
surrendered to your hand if you are going to write properly. Just like the pen, unless
you and I are entirely given up to Jesus, He cannot accomplish His work in us. He
cannot regenerate us with His divine nature, day by day, and moment by moment.

1 Corinthians 3:16 tells us, “Don't you know that you yourself are God’s temple and
that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” As Christians, everyone of us is a temple of
God, and there is nothing He wants more than to dwell in us through the Holy Spirit,
and work mightily in everyone of our lives. The simple truth is that no matter how much
He wants that for us, He cannot do it unless we give Him Absolute Surrender!
He stands at the door of our hearts, asking, pleading with us! He is worthy, and He
claims our surrender, but He goes even beyond that. He says, “I will accomplish your
surrender if you will just get out of the way, and let Me in!”

Next week we will look at how God accomplishes our surrender!

I hope each of you have a wonderful week.
I love you!
Brad

The One Thing

11/12/2019

As your pastor, I was excited to learn that one of the top initiatives of the Alaska Conference is discipleship, which I prefer to call Walking With Jesus. And the best place to start is the beginning, and walking with Jesus always starts with surrender. Until we completely surrender our lives to Jesus, there is no discipleship, it is just admiration of a great God and man. It is only when we give our lives to Jesus we become Disciples, and the walk with Jesus begins. So for the next few months we will be giving special attention to surrender. I hope you will read carefully, because surrender for the Christian is a daily, moment by moment experience. When we cease to surrender at any stage of our walk with Jesus, our growth stops, and will not continue until we are once again completely surrendered.
In 1 Kings 20:1-4 we read,
“Now Ben-Hadad king of Aram mustered his entire army. Accompanied by thirty-two king's with their chariots, he went up and besieged Samaria and attacked it. He sent messengers into the city to Ahab king of Israel, saying, “This is what Ben-Hadad says: ‘Your silver and gold are mine, and the best of your wives and children are mine.’ The king of Israel answered, ‘Just as you say, my lord the king. I and all I have are yours.’”
King Ben-Hadad was asking for complete and absolute surrender, and that is exactly what king Ahab gave. This is exactly what Jesus is asking of you and me in our walk with Him! Our answer to every prompting of the Holy Spirit needs to be, “Just as you say, my Lord the King. I and all I have are Yours.” This is so important for us to not just accept intellectually, but to embed in our very souls! For us to completely receive God’s blessings our surrender must be completely and absolutely! And I am not talking about material blessings, this is so much deeper than that, but if we are willing to completely surrender ourselves to Jesus and stay put, there is no end to what God will do for us, and through us, because Jesus is dwelling in our lives.
Years ago Andrew Murray tells of how he was meeting with a church group, and they were talking about the condition of the church, and what the great need of the church and its believers was. In their group was a godly man who had been training workers for many years. He was asked, what is the great need of the church, and the message that ought to be preached? He answered very quietly and very simply and determinedly: “Absolute surrender to God is the one thing.” This man went on to say that with the workers that he taught, if they were sound on this one point, even if they were backwards in any other area, if they were surrendered to Jesus, and willing to be taught they continued to grow in their spiritual walk.
Friends, the condition for receiving God’s full blessing is absolute surrender to Him!
Next week we will look at how God expects our surrender! See you Sabbath!
I love you!
Brad

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.

Archives

January 2020
December 2019
November 2019

Categories