Wide open spaces

Some days it just feels like the walls are closing in. I know that’s my cue to shift my focus. I go to the Word and see what God has to say. The first two spoke to my heart and gave me peace.

“Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—the living, breathing God! Our attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious and free life.” [Rom. 8:6-7 (MSG)]

“I find myself standing where I always hoped I might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory.” “So spacious is He, so expansive, that everything finds its proper place in Him.” [Rom 5:2 & Col 1:19 (MSG)]

Then I found these following verses:

“But we know about these things because God has sent his Spirit to tell us, and his Spirit searches out and shows us all of God’s deepest secrets. No one can really know what anyone else is thinking or what he is really like except that person himself. And no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And God has actually given us his Spirit (not the world’s spirit) to tell us about the wonderful free gifts of grace and blessing that God has given us. In telling you about these gifts we have even used the very words given to us by the Holy Spirit, not words that we as men might choose. So we use the Holy Spirit’s words to explain the Holy Spirit’s facts. But the man who isn’t a Christian can’t understand and can’t accept these thoughts from God, which the Holy Spirit teaches us. They sound foolish to him because only those who have the Holy Spirit within them can understand what the Holy Spirit means. Others just can’t take it in. But the spiritual man has insight into everything, and that bothers and baffles the man of the world, who can’t understand him at all.” [1 Cor. 2:10-16 (TLB)

We have the mind of Christ living inside of us!

“Spirit can be know only by spirit—God’s Spirit and our spirit in open communication. Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God’s Spirit is doing, and can’t be judged by unspiritual critics. Who knows what God’s Spirit is doing? Christ knows, and we have Christ’s Spirit in us.” [MSG]

Then I was reading and found this. On January 14, 1914, Dr. James M. Gray was speaking in Kansas City on Romans 12:1. (Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.)

“Have you noticed that this verse does not tell us to whom we should give our bodies. It is not Jesus who asks for it. He has His own body. It is not the Father who asks for it. He remains upon His throne. Another has come to earth without a body. God gives you the privilege and the indescribable honor of presenting our bodies to the Holy Spirit, to be His dwelling place on earth.”

That certainly changed my focus! I hope it does for you too, so you can join me in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory!

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