FOCUS, FIVE

A NEW COMMANDMENT I GIVE YOU:

LOVE ONE ANOTHER

In obeying the simple command and plan of "DO...SAY...PRAY," we will begin to find love, joy, and peace filling our day to day experiences.

The "fillings" will grow more frequent and more significant.

Soon other qualities will "sprout" forth. Here's two sample listings:

1. Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and

patience--Colossians 3.12.

2. (A little longer one): Love, joy, peace, patience,

kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,

and self-control.

The apostle adds, "Against such there is no law."

In such there is great reward: "He rewards those who diligently seek Him." (Hebrews 11.5-6)

FOCUS, FOUR

A NEW COMMANDMENT I GIVE YOU:

LOVE ONE ANOTHER

If we are doing a good job of removing our negative attitudes and responses, we are ready to do and say the good stuff.

Here is where the book of Proverbs can be invaluable.

There are more than 1,000 verses in Proverbs. Most of them are "either/or" statements about the consequences of what we do and say.

So long as we are repairing a relationship, daily, prayerful reading of a few verses will give us direction for improvement of what we are doing and saying.

Memorizing phrases that are especially important for us to focus on will speed up our progress.

FOCUS, THREE

A NEW COMMANDMENT I GIVE YOU:

LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

When our focus is on broken relationships, it will be important for us to look at any "beams" in our own eyes.

The apostles give us many, many lists of attitudes and behaviors to watch out for and correct when present.

A few: anger, resentment, bitterness, hatefulness, backbiting, criticism, complaint, blame....

The apostle tells us, "Sin no more;"

or, we might say, "Don't do that anymore."

You got the idea.

FOCUS, TWO

LOVE ONE ANOTHER

A new commandment I give you:

LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

Jesus' basic command to love one another is aimed at repairing and restoring a broken, damaged, difficult relationship.

Because broken, damaged relationships are difficult, we are to pray. While praying for wisdom in what to do and say, the apostles tell us that we need to pray for patience and strength to endure because this is difficult, and it takes time, therfore patience, before trust is restored.

I pray for your "being strengthened with.....great endurance and patience." Colossians 1.11.

FOCUS

LOVE ONE ANOTHER

A new command I give you:

Love one another.

The basic essentials of Jesus' focus on Love are

1. Do good to and for others.

2. Speak good to and for others.

3. Pray for wisdom and awareness of what to do and say.

This is the focus.

This will get the job done.

Get after it.

GRACE

FOR THE ABUNDANT LIFE
2 PETER 1.2

Grace and peace be yours in abundancethrough the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

Grace is the work of God to empower His promises and purposes for those who believe and follow Him through this life into His Eternal Kingdom.

God's faithfulness is the basis of our confidence. Phil. 1.6

Our obedience is the basis of God's working out His promises and purposes--Phil. 1.12-13.

Our work is revealed to us and accomplished by prayerful meditation of Scripture--Joshua 1.8-9; Psalm 1.2-3; Psalm 19; Psalm 119; John 8.31-32; John 14.21-23; John 15.3, 7; 2 Timothy 2.15; 2 Timothy3.16-17; Colossians 1.5-7; Provers 2.4.8,9; and many, many more.

The process of "prayerful meditation" is outlined by Jesus in Luke 11.9-13:

ASK--SEEK--KNOCK

ASK

Ask using the prayers and promises of Scripture: Joshua 1.6-9; John 8.31-32;John 15.7; 1 John 5.14-15; 2 Peter 1.2-4.

SEEK

As we prayerfully read Scripture, God the Holy Spirit will awaken and draw our attention to the promises and purposes that He has and wants for us at the moment we are reading. The "moment" is any and every time we prayerfully read Scripture.

When our attention is drawn to any Scripture, we are to stop and "meditate," which means to "think!' Think! Think and Listen! Listen to the thoughts that come to us. The Holy Spirit will insert His thoughts into our consciousness. We must stop reading and and listen to these thoughts and think! The Holy Spirit will put the ideas He want us to believe, trust, and obey into our mind at this time.

KNOCK

Knock is the time to obey! The "enlightenment of the eyes of your heart" is the way "that you may know" the promise and purpose that God has revealed to us at this moment. Ephesians 1.17-18.

When we "knock" on this door, we must enter the new area of obedience that God has opened for us. It is at this moment that we must choose to believe, trust, and obey what the Holy Spirit is leading us to do. Remembering that "faith without works is dead," we must do the will of God now. Believing, trusting and obeying will lead us into experiencing the abundance of His grace, love, peace, and joy. As we follow His leadership into the fulfillment of His promises to us and His purposes for us, we will experience increasing abundance of grace, peace, and the fullness of the life God has for us now and for the coming ages of eternaity--Ephesians 2.7.

GROWING IN GRACE, 2010

Grow in grace and knowledge

of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 3.18

Grace and peace be yours in abundance

through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

2 Peter 1.2

His divine power has given us every thing we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him

Who called us by His own glory and goodness.

2 Peter 1.3

I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith,

so that you will have a full understanding

of every good thing we have in Christ.

Philemon, v.6

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the glorious Father, may give you

the Spirit of wisdom and revelation,

so that you may know Him better.

Ephesians 1.17

The words "knowledge," "know," and phrase "full understanding" come from a Greek word spelled "epignosis" in our alphabet.

"Epignosis" comes from the Greek word "gnosis,"

which means "knowledge."

The "epi" intensifies the knowledge of "gnosis."

"Epignosis" is a work of the Holy Spirit, given us by the Father.

Ephesians 1.17.

The Holy Spirit gives us wisdom and revelation

to "epi-know" ("epignosis") Christ better in answer to prayer.

The prayer of Paul in Ephesians and the purpose of Peter's statements

are to awaken in us a deeper desire to know Christ better.

Our prayers intensify our desire to know the Christ

these apostles tell us about.

We may hereby come to have a desire

as passionate of that of Paul himself.

Philippians 3.7-14.

Once we see the promise and find the desire and hope

awakened in us to know Christ better,

we will begin to seek more and more

of what the Holy Spirit will show us.

If we will read what Paul and Peter wrote,

the Holy Spirit will give us the same understanding

of the glory of Christ's presence within us that they had.

Ephesians 3.4

Our responsibility is to prayerfully, thoughtfully read what Paul wrote.

With the desire awakened within us to understand what we read, the Holy Spirit will open the "eyes of our understanding." We will receive a deep realization amd understanding

of the gloriousness of Christ from the verses we are reading.

But there another very significant way to come to "epi-know"

more about our Lord Jesus:

sharing our faith!

Paul commended Philemon for sharing his faith, teling him that in doing so he would gain the "epignosis' (translated "full understanding") of

"every good thing we have in Christ" (v. 6).

When we share our desire to know the Lord Jesus with one another, we help each other think more clearly about Who He Is and What He Does. It is the process of thinking more and more clearly about what we are coming to know and understand that helps us understand at an "epi-level," deeper and deeper into our hearts, the gloriousness, graciousness, goodness, and greatness of our Lord and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

"Sharing" our faith with one another helps us think--

more and more clearly.

Our faith comes from and is based on

what we "epi-know" about the Lord Jesus.

"Gnosis" knowledge is what we gain from reading and sharing.

As we read and share, the Holy Spirit works

our "knowledge" into "epi-knowldge."

When we respond in faith to new understanding of Jesus,

the Holy Spirit releases grace to accomplish "great and mighty things"

which we have been totally blind to up to this new point.

Our hearts and lives are changed forever,

eternally in such a way that our lives

now reflect and reveal the glory which we have discovered.

Prayerfully read to understand the Scriptures.

Talk to one another about what you are seek and find.

God's divine power will give us

everything we need for life and godliness

as we grow in grace and "epi-knowledge"

of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.