Day 9, Paragraph 9 of Weekday Blog #1

*Starting our morning and day off great with the 10-minute Weekday Blog*

Our first DAILY blog, every Weekday in JUNE!

Thank you for joining us for this
ground-breaking JOURNEY...
through the 1st CHAPTER of Keith's book,
“Keep the FAITH…Keep Your VISION”!

If you will read this book in its entirety, then you will be equipped
to begin walking with the confidence and authority that Jesus Christ
came and died to provide for us, in order that we may work *with*
Him, be *fulfilled* in our work, lead a *successful life*, and...
      

Day NINE,
Paragraph NINE:

    
God, knowing so well our backwards way of thinking, calls us to repentance through the prophet Isaiah, "Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD." (Isaiah 55:6-8).

Question to ponder:

What does it mean to “…let him return unto the LORD” in Isaiah 55:7?  _________________________________________

Keith's "Comments from the Author":

"I can remember early in my walk with the Lord just how much I enjoyed doing ‘word studies’. For example, we’re all familiar with the passage where Jesus says, ‘without me, you can do nothing….’ When I was reading and studying that passage of Scripture, the Holy Spirit began to illuminate to me the word ‘without’. The more I looked at that word, the more things started to come together. All of a sudden, I heard in my spirit, ‘What is the word without?' It dawned on me, then, that the opposite of the word ‘without’ is the word ‘within’. What the Holy Spirit was showing me was that Jesus was not saying that, if we ‘don’t hang out with Him’ we can’t do anything. What He was showing me, however, was that ‘without’ meaning ‘on the outside of’ Him (Christ) we can do nothing, reinforcing the passage where John 15:6-9 says, ’If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered ... If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you… so shall ye be My disciples… continue ye in my love.’ Do you see how important it is that we have the Holy Spirit tutoring us in reading and understanding the Word of God? Where ‘...let him return to the Lord’ is concerned, meaning he chose to turn away from the Lord to go in the sinful ways of the world, we have another ‘word revelation’ that the Holy Spirit showed me about what ‘sin’ is. In many circles, the tendency is to think ‘sin’ refers to ‘sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll’. However, what the Holy Spirit whispered to me, concerning those things, changed my thinking from that point on. The Holy Spirit showed me that the 'sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll' are not ‘sin’ themselves, but are means by which wicked spirits lead us to turn away from God. So, what He was revealing to me is that ‘sin’ is turning toward sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, or anything else that separates us from God, building a wall or partition between us and God. Now, having said that, and listening for what the Person of the Holy Spirit will say next, let's look again at the Scripture verses from the Prophet Isaiah (below in bold). Selah. Praise the LORD!"

"Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD."  (Isaiah 55:6-8)

_____________________________

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Take me back to the top of this post.

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Take me to the beginning *DAY 1* posted June 1st.

To Show GOD BIG in a World that Sees Him small… 
sums up the reason Keith stepped out in faith to focus on reaching the lost and strengthening believers everywhere, through Toward The Mark, Inc.  Keith and Brenda's prayer is that you will be encouraged and edified by the Secrets from God's Word that Keith recounts in our written and recorded products.  The complete collection of original podcasts, music, blogs, books, CDs, and other resources of Toward The Mark, Inc. are made possible by the prayer and financial contributions of the TTM Support Family.  We'd like to welcome you onboard TODAY!

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~    "Keith Shealy & Wisdom Wednesday" on Facebook 

      

~  "TTM Singing Sergeant" on Twitter
~  "Sharing Messages God Whispers" on the website
~  "Between The Lines TTM Podcast" by Keith Shealy 

      

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It's Time To Turn Loose

As a young boy I use to love hiding under this big bush in our front yard.  One day, as I was under the bush looking out toward the street, something caught my eye.  About ten feet or so from my " hide-out" standing on our side walk was one of those big black and yellow bumble bees.  I watched as he was desperately try to fly, but each time he did he could not get but a few inches off the ground and would fall back down after only a few seconds.  Thinking that the bee might be injured, I crawled out from under the bush and went over to assess the problem.  As I drew closer to him I noticed that his legs were so completely covered in thick bright yellow pollen that it weighed him down to the point that he was, to coin an aviation term, "grounded."  If the bee had only known to turn loose of some of the pollen, he would have been able to get back to doing what God had created bees to do, "FLY!"

The simple fact is, if we are going to be able to move into the things that God has for us we are going to have to become proficient at turning stuff loose!  Paul, knowing just how detrimental the past and the things that lie there can be to our future successes teaches us, "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."  (Philippians 3:13-14)

So often we allow things into our lives that restrict our ability of "reaching forth unto those things which are before."  Satan knows full well that if he can get us loaded up with enough stuff, that he can essentially "ground" us to the status quo, making any forward progress in our lives extremely difficult to achieve.  "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"  (Mark 8:34-36)  A very wise man, who witnessed my overloading and spreading myself way too thin in the ministry, once pulled me aside and said something to me that would forever change my life.  He simply told me that I needed to select my battles more wisely.  The same goes for the choices we make concerning who we allow to get close to us, what we allow into our eye-gate and ear-gate, and so on.

Until we finally come to the place where we know without a shadow of a doubt that there is nobody or nothing worth our relationship with God, we will continually find ourselves "grounded" under the weightiness of the cares of this life.  Jesus warns us, "Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting (excess), and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth."  (Luke 21:33-35)

No matter how we slice it, the effects of sin are terribly weighty!  Like having someone three times your size continuously pinning our shoulders to the floor, the results of sin will always cost us our freedom and, ultimately can and will cost us, our lives.  Whether the burden you may be carrying today is self-inflicted or a result of someone else's actions, it really does not matter.  What does matter is that we become proficient at "turning them loose!"  Jesus said, "This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  (1 John 1:5-10)

You might ask, what if the thing that I am struggling with is not a direct result of my committing a sinful act?  What do I do then?  It is of the utmost importance that we first understand what sin really is.  Sin is not simply sex, drugs, murder, stealing and the like.  These are merely means by which sin gains access into our lives.  Sin is actually "anything" that separates us from God Himself.  It's that simple!  Whether the sin in your life is self-inflicted or a result of a generational curse, it does not matter.  Sin is sin and Jesus stands more than ready to forgive, or deliver, us from them all!  So, if you know that things are not right between you and God, if your communication with Him has been cut off, if you find yourself "grounded", do not panic.  Take a deep breath, relax, examine your heart, confess your sins, and walk away from practicing whatever it is that gave the sin access into your life.

So, you see, if the pollen-laden bumble bee in our story would have only "turned loose" of the pollen that weighed him down, he would have been free to fly.  I beseech you desperately, if there is anybody or anything in your life that is separating you from God, "Turn it loose- right now!!"

We invite you to follow these additional Scripture-based resources that we make available to help us Press Toward the Mark of becoming "one" with our Heavenly Father:

~ "Keith Shealy & Toward The Mark" on Facebook
~ Keith's "Between The Lines" Podcast on LibSyn channel; and

~ "Toward The Mark" monthly teaching feature on the website