The Spirit of Abba

“Boy, Dad! You sure are dusty!” the young boy said to his father who worked at a local feed processing plant in Ohio by during the week and pastored a community church in Ohio at night and on weekends. This almost daily exclamation received in response a tired and sometimes weary, “Yes, I sure am dusty,” from the pastor, dad, husband, and man trying to do good for his family, his community, and his Savior.

One Saturday morning while out washing the car, the Dad saw his oldest 4-year-old picking up handfuls of dirt mixed with the gravel and grit in the driveway and rubbing them into his little pants.

“What are you doing?!” the Dad asked with a curious brow and grin.

“I want to be like you, Dad!” came the reply from the beaming but determined little boy making his britches dusty.

What Dad doesn’t want to hear that?! The greatest words spoken by a child of their parent in admiration and honor are the same...”I want to be like you.”

Father’s Day was even more special as Reid Phillips, my middle son, joined me to break the bread of the Word of God together and share it at Abba’s House. Rather than write each point, I ask you to please watch. Watch on YouTube or in the Abba’s House app.

Like my favorite ice cream cake that my mom, Paulette, painstakingly prepares (definitely delicious!), I can write all about it. I can even share a photo of it. But until you experience it for yourself, you’ll never know how good it is!

Watch. Observe, take in with your eyes, ears, and spiritual perceptions. Challenge yourself to ask how you relate to Abba – our Heavenly Daddy or Father. Honestly assess how you welcome the One Who God gave us to comfort, to act as our inner conscious for godliness and goodness, and to cover us in His protections.

Father’s Day hit differently for each person. Some reading this may have had an incredibly blessed day of worship at church, a delicious meal and fellowship with family, and maybe even a gift or card.

Others may have some distance between them and their family members. That distance is often created by our career choices, marriages that bring about a move, or just desires to live beyond our hometown.

Some may not have an earthly father to celebrate due to death, broken relationships, or even just not knowing their dad at all.

Relationships on this earth may be imperfect and even deeply flawed. But the relationship with Abba, our heavenly Father, is meant to be much different than those of this earth. To understand this relationship and to enjoy a love like nothing imaginable, let’s look at the love of God our Father that gave us, first, His Son, then His Spirit.

It’s as simple as what God did...He gave. For God, in His Most Holy, Highest Authority wanted His created life that was made in His image – with a spirit living in a fleshly body governed by a soul or will – to fellowship with Him. To do that, we must be made holy and with our sins covered. For God so loved the world to cover our sins that He gave His Son, Jesus.

Want to know what God would be like if we were to meet Him in person? Read the Bible. God’s Word was made flesh and His fullness – God’s entire essence – came in Jesus. God incarnate. Because of this great sacrifice and act of love, those who believe and follow Jesus are adopted as children (Galatians 4:6 and Romans 8:15). Not only are we adopted, but we are also given His Spirit.

God’s Spirit – the Third Person of the Trinity – mirrors the third aspect of our human existence. Remember, our spirit lives within our own flesh. But the Holy Spirit is just that — Holy. He has a distinct role as part of the Trinity.

The Holy Spirit is the very Spirit of God expressing His presence, will, and power in the here and now at all places and at all times. How? He is God.

If the Holy Spirit lives in you, so does the Father. He reflects the love of the Father and the finished work of Jesus Christ. All of this is so because the Living and Most High God loves you.

Like the young boy in the opening story, my son Reid has rubbed the gravel and grit into his pants like his dad, and granddad, Dr. Ron Phillips, Sr., to be a messenger for the Gospel. You may have a dad you’ve modeled. Maybe you’re a dad with eyes watching you for replication. Or maybe you’re in need, as we all are, of a Father.

Just welcome Him. Invite His Spirit to live in and through you. You may look down to see you’re rubbing the gravel and grit into your pants and becoming more and more like God the Father – love in its purest and highest form.

Choosing To Be

Yes! We’re human BEINGS. Each and every single day, we choose to be, to do, to learn, to grow, to BE. Each of these choices determines who we are and who we become.

The choice to follow Jesus is more than whispered prayer to avoid hell and the separation from God in eternal death.

The choice to follow Jesus begins with first believing in His great love and sacrifice. We choose to believe in Him and accept Him as Savior.

Then, we choose to follow Him in in our love and trusting expectation – a demonstration or proof of our faith. This is where we demonstrate Jesus is Lord. We obey Jesus’ command to love Him with all of our mind, heart, soul, and strength; to choose to die to self spiritually and walk in a resurrected life in Christ.

“Now what?” you might ask. What in the world does this mean? How can I die but live? How can I be resurrected in Christ when He’s at the right hand of God the Father?

Read Colossians 3:1-11. In his book Basic Christianity, Pastor John Stott summed this up in the midst of a quote: “If we lose ourselves in following Christ, we actually find ourselves.”

Let’s move beyond words and to the application. A married person makes a choice every day to be loyal and loving or to be hateful and hurtful. One struggling to overcome addiction makes a choice every morning to continue down the road of enslaved living to substances that numb and alter only their perception, not their reality, or they live sober and fight on to be clean and free. One whose self-esteem is so fragile that they struggle with the truth can either choose to keep living lie after lie or they can be real, authentic, and honest.

Take note, friends. If we choose anything but being and living an authentic life that is in pursuit of Jesus, we end up on our own, often living isolated, hurt, broken, in our own ways, and in our own messes that are guaranteed. Many who reject choosing to be like Jesus in life by dying to your own ways end up becoming that which we despise.

Be who God created you to be!

Ephesians 2:10 tells us that “we are His creation (workmanship), created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.” Your life has purpose, a kingdom purpose, when lived in Christ.

1 Corinthians 6:20 explains that the fact that Jesus has “bought us at a price” elicits our natural response  that “we glorify God.” But beyond magnifying Jesus with the words of our lips, we are to look at verse 19 to understand that the best version of you is when you’re in Christ, yielded and operating as who God said you are to be.

As Paul wrote in Colossians to a church heavily influenced by culture, academia, and various religions, the word picture is painted clearly that our faith in Jesus means we have been spiritually raised with Him because, like Him, we’ve died to self and His Spirit has raised us to a new, resurrected life.

Now, this resurrected life is not some comic book farce of a perfect life with no problems, no struggles, and plenty of wealth and success. Our lives are lived higher than this world’s trappings, temptations, and tests. Colossians 3:2 instructs us to “set your minds on what is above, not what is on the earth.”

The higher life in Christ sees through the drama and trauma to pursue thing of Jesus, His ways, His teachings, connecting with His Body, and serving His kingdom on this earth, not running on the treadmill of life without His Spirit guiding and directing us.

Choosing to Be in Christ is a life “hidden with the Messiah in God”- a life of victory in Jesus, noted in verse 3. Our flesh no longer controls us. Fear no longer hinders us. Instead, faith is the choice that  propels us forward.

As believers and followers of Jesus Christ, we choose to be holy. Stop! Don’t you dare stop reading. When we read something that challenges our lives, we swipe the phone, turn the page, or just “x” out. No. Stop. If we believe in Jesus as Savior, if He is Lord of our lives, we are called “God’s chosen ones, holy and loved...”

Nothing we do makes us holy. Jesus’ blood is that which covers our sins in love and makes them appear to God as white as snow. So, yes! We are made holy – or separated as sacred or a saint – by the blood shed in love by Jesus. But we must choose to live under His covering, obeying His commands and doing what the rest of Colossians 3:12-17 instructs. We are to “put on” Jesus Christ as Paul describes in great detail: heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, accepting one another and forgiving one another...just as the Lord has forgiven you. Above all, put on love – the perfect bond of unity...”

Adorning Jesus as the substitute for our flesh is not just beautiful, it’s the highest of life.

Listen to the full teaching below .

Accept the challenge: Choose to be... like Jesus.  You become that which you choose.

God Empowers Women??

It’s a tired, worn-out song that many in the religious world sing over and over…..women can’t be preachers of the gospel or teach men, or do a long list of things that legalism dictates. But is that just tradition or is that found in the Bible?

Well, let’s turn to the scriptures to find out. In the daily faith walk, we are to live as representatives of Jesus Christ. We are to observe, live and model, as well as teach the values and virtues of His Kingdom that contrast with this world’s (remember the Sermon on the Mount?).

Paul wrote of the citizenry of the kingdom of heaven in Galatians 3:26-28 (NKJV).

For you all are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Wait, that goes against what most religion teaches! But according to the Bible, men and women in the kingdom of God are all treated as first sons whose inheritance is the best and largest portion. Men and women in the kingdom of God are viewed as one, rather than distinct or different based on the demographics of this world – ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, educational status, or gender.

Now, apply this to the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 (NKJV).

And Jesus came and spoke to them [the disciples], saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

Jesus, in red letters, told the 11 disciples to go; make disciples; baptize; teach... to all people of all nations. Not just men, not just highly trained, educated, and lettered people. Not just the affluent and wealthy. Not just any people group or ethnicity.

Jesus said to go to all; make all disciples; baptize all; teach all.

SCRATCH!!!! Imagine you hear the cringing sound of the old-fashioned arm of a record player being pulled across a spinning record. Got your attention?

The New Covenant recognizes that there are no identifying labels to be used in the kingdom of heaven. Instead, as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:16, in Christ, we are not to view each other according to the flesh. Instead, we know each other in Christ.

So why is there such a debate as to whether God empowers women?

Jesus empowered both men and women with this command – Go! Make disciples. Baptize. Teach. Transcending culture, times, and preference, each of us – male and female – will stand before the Tribunal of Jesus Christ, or the bema. Our day of accounting will include whether we’ve declared Jesus Christ as Savior and as Lord. As Savior, we confess our sin, repent, and declare our lives under the blood of Christ. As Lord, we accept His commands to serve and go, make disciples, baptize, and teach!

Jesus empowered women with a connection relative to their proximity to Him in significant moments.

To whom did Jesus first reveal Himself as the Messiah in the gospel of John? John 4 records that Jesus rested at Jacob’s well to meet the Samaritan, or half-Jew/half-Gentile woman living in sin. In their conversation, the woman revealed her awareness of the coming Messiah. Jesus declared, “I am He, the One speaking to you.”

Who extravagantly worshiped Jesus before His crucifixion, pouring out expensive fragrance upon the King of the Jews Who would have this fragrance lingering at the cross and at the tomb? Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, was entrusted to anoint the King for His last meal before His arrest, His death, and His resurrection (Matthew 26:6-13).

After Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the Upper Room on the day of Pentecost was no gentlemen’s quarters. There were women present. “All were filled with the  Holy Spirit” and heard Peter’s sermon declaring the fulfillment of God’s word as written in Joel 2:28-32.

And it will be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out My Spirit on all humanity; then your sons and your daughters will prophesy...I will even pour out My Spirit on My male and female servants in those days and they will prophesy..

Jesus also empowered women with a call on the day of His resurrection. Look at that Resurrection Sunday morning when Jesus appeared to the women at the tomb. “Rejoice! Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see Me there.”

Who preached the first Easter sermon of Jesus’ resurrection? Yes, women.

Watch my complete teaching on this on YouTube (linked below). Just see that Jesus still empowers men and women to be His vessels in this life to bring His kingdom to our own personal lives, our families, our churches, and our communities.

Jesus empowered and still empowers. Do you operate in His authority, believe for His miracles, and faithfully speak His words of love, hope, grace, and mercy? Never forget that we each stand before Christ our King to give an account, not before a denomination, not before a council of church elders, or a group polled for popularity. Speak Jesus!