"And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me."
~ John 17:22-23 (NKJV)
From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible describes our sin as shameful nakedness, exposing us as we truly are.
Naked is no way to enter the heat of battle.
The second component of spiritual armor is a covering of righteousness. Ephesians 6:14 and Isaiah 59:17 call righteousness a breastplate. Elsewhere righteousness is called beautiful clothing (Job 29:14; Psalms 132:9; Isaiah 61:10) and fine linen (Revelation 19:8).
Regardless of how many or how notable our good works are, they clothe us with no more than filthy rags. True righteousness is not a put on, but comes only by wearing Jesus Christ. As we increasingly yield our hearts to His Spirit, we exude His character in our thoughts and feelings, words and actions. When Jesus is at work through us, His glorious righteousness covers us as a garment of light.
Shall Darkness overcome such Light?
"O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them."
~ John 17:25-26 (NKJV)
If marks of righteousness can be identified, surely they are love and unity.
Comments are welcome (including respectful disagreement) and will receive a reply.
You may also contact author via Twitter – @anne4JC
or e-mail – buildingHisbody [plus] @gmail.com
Copyright 2012, Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
Spiritual Armor: Truth
"Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth."
~ John 17:17 (NKJV)
The first component of spiritual armor is to gird the loins with truth. The proof of truth is found in the ability of words to impart life (see 1 Kings 17:21-24 and Psalms 119:159-160), even as the loins are both the seat of desire and the place from which physical life springs.
To gird the loins is to hold everything together, to cover what is most sensitive, to encompass the desires with reality, to be ready to run or fight. To give truth a place where it may take hold is to invite life.
"You are of your father the devil … He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it."
~ John 8:44 (NKJV)
To speak falsehood, to contrive deceit, and to give a hearing to lies is to open the door to the enemy and invite death. There is no such thing as "the kind of lie you don't go to Hell for." To entertain lies is to entertain Hell itself.
"Truth is not a system, not a constitution, nor even a creed; the Truth is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself … Our tendency is to make truth a logical statement, to make it a principle in stead of a Person."
~ Oswald Chambers
Comments are welcome (including respectful disagreement) and will receive a reply.
You may also contact author via Twitter – @anne4JC
or e-mail – buildingHisbody [plus] @gmail.com
Copyright 2012, Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.
~ John 17:17 (NKJV)
The first component of spiritual armor is to gird the loins with truth. The proof of truth is found in the ability of words to impart life (see 1 Kings 17:21-24 and Psalms 119:159-160), even as the loins are both the seat of desire and the place from which physical life springs.
To gird the loins is to hold everything together, to cover what is most sensitive, to encompass the desires with reality, to be ready to run or fight. To give truth a place where it may take hold is to invite life.
"You are of your father the devil … He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it."
~ John 8:44 (NKJV)
To speak falsehood, to contrive deceit, and to give a hearing to lies is to open the door to the enemy and invite death. There is no such thing as "the kind of lie you don't go to Hell for." To entertain lies is to entertain Hell itself.
"Truth is not a system, not a constitution, nor even a creed; the Truth is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself … Our tendency is to make truth a logical statement, to make it a principle in stead of a Person."
~ Oswald Chambers
Comments are welcome (including respectful disagreement) and will receive a reply.
You may also contact author via Twitter – @anne4JC
or e-mail – buildingHisbody [plus] @gmail.com
Copyright 2012, Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Spiritual Warfare
"I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one."
~ John 17:9-15 (NKJV)
A warrior who has trained hard and then experiences a few victorious skirmishes might develop a taste for warfare. The seasoned veteran who knows the worst horrors of war may maintain his love of duty, but any appetite for fighting diminishes with his respect for its cost.
At one time, victorious skirmishes made me intrepid enough to think spiritual warfare provided new and welcome challenges. Though I wish to never shrink back from spiritual battle, never again would I welcome it, having now faced its terrors. And I hope I never again take spiritual armor for granted.
Our enemy is real, ruthless, and relentless.
Recent posts have been on the final words of Jesus, and today we enter Holy Week, commemorating the final days of Jesus and the spiritual victories He attained for us. The time is fitting for a series on the seven components of spiritual armor, and it is scheduled to appear for the next seven days.
Lord Jesus, we welcome You into our lives as King. Go before us in battle. Lead us into victory. Please guide me in my testimony and protect me from the enemy as I share this week. Please draw people here who are in need of armor from You. Hosanna!
Comments are welcome (including respectful disagreement) and will receive a reply.
You may also contact author via Twitter – @anne4JC
or e-mail – buildingHisbody [plus] @gmail.com
Copyright 2012, Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.
~ John 17:9-15 (NKJV)
A warrior who has trained hard and then experiences a few victorious skirmishes might develop a taste for warfare. The seasoned veteran who knows the worst horrors of war may maintain his love of duty, but any appetite for fighting diminishes with his respect for its cost.
At one time, victorious skirmishes made me intrepid enough to think spiritual warfare provided new and welcome challenges. Though I wish to never shrink back from spiritual battle, never again would I welcome it, having now faced its terrors. And I hope I never again take spiritual armor for granted.
Our enemy is real, ruthless, and relentless.
Recent posts have been on the final words of Jesus, and today we enter Holy Week, commemorating the final days of Jesus and the spiritual victories He attained for us. The time is fitting for a series on the seven components of spiritual armor, and it is scheduled to appear for the next seven days.
Lord Jesus, we welcome You into our lives as King. Go before us in battle. Lead us into victory. Please guide me in my testimony and protect me from the enemy as I share this week. Please draw people here who are in need of armor from You. Hosanna!
Comments are welcome (including respectful disagreement) and will receive a reply.
You may also contact author via Twitter – @anne4JC
or e-mail – buildingHisbody [plus] @gmail.com
Copyright 2012, Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Comfort Food
Comfort Food. Do you easily lapse into fond thoughts of those particular foods which make you feel as if all is right with the world?
Mine are homemade soup and dark chocolate. I'd happily indulge in the former more often if it were as readily available as the latter. And since one should only have so much chocolate, I'm more likely to indulge in comfort drinks. I like cool water generously laced with fresh lemon, hot black coffee, or perhaps a glass of a not-too-dry Riesling. I needn't even sip of them to feel happy. Simply holding a cup or glass of one is enough to impart harmony with the world.
"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
~ John 16:33 (NKJV)
John gives us an in depth, five-chapter glimpse of that last night Jesus spent with His disciples. Jesus may have spoken at such length on any other night, but it is only these final and fatal hours to which we are privy. We can nonetheless be certain that our Master weighed these particular words with special care, to feed His followers' souls at their Last Supper together.
"So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD."
~ Deuteronomy 8:3 (NKJV)
When conflict churns and chaos clamors all about us, an oasis of calm waters and comfort food for the soul may be found in the every Word of Jesus.
You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
~ Isaiah 26:3 (NKJV)
Comments are welcome (including respectful disagreement) and will receive a reply.
You may also contact author via Twitter – @anne4JC
or e-mail – buildingHisbody [plus] @gmail.com
Copyright 2012, Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.
Mine are homemade soup and dark chocolate. I'd happily indulge in the former more often if it were as readily available as the latter. And since one should only have so much chocolate, I'm more likely to indulge in comfort drinks. I like cool water generously laced with fresh lemon, hot black coffee, or perhaps a glass of a not-too-dry Riesling. I needn't even sip of them to feel happy. Simply holding a cup or glass of one is enough to impart harmony with the world.
"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
~ John 16:33 (NKJV)
John gives us an in depth, five-chapter glimpse of that last night Jesus spent with His disciples. Jesus may have spoken at such length on any other night, but it is only these final and fatal hours to which we are privy. We can nonetheless be certain that our Master weighed these particular words with special care, to feed His followers' souls at their Last Supper together.
"So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD."
~ Deuteronomy 8:3 (NKJV)
When conflict churns and chaos clamors all about us, an oasis of calm waters and comfort food for the soul may be found in the every Word of Jesus.
You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
~ Isaiah 26:3 (NKJV)
Comments are welcome (including respectful disagreement) and will receive a reply.
You may also contact author via Twitter – @anne4JC
or e-mail – buildingHisbody [plus] @gmail.com
Copyright 2012, Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Alone in a Crowd
"Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me."
~ John 16:32 (NKJV)
We have heard the story countless times, of Jesus' final hours and death. But we also know that it ends happily in His resurrection. And so we seek each year to somehow recapture the horror of the tale, so we might treasure it with increasing depth.
If one point captures me, again and again, it is the agony not of Gethsemane, but of a baby Boy's anguished cry:
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?"
~ Matthew 27:46 (NKJV)
Surely every one of us has known the pain of feeling completely alone in a crowd. Jesus would face the extreme contempt of one crowd after another, all alone. Yet the malice of ignorant mortals cannot be compared to the point when the Father turned away from the filth of sin laid upon Jesus, forsaking His beloved Son.
Hours before Gethsemane, Jesus affirmed that "the Father is with Me"—the Father His ever solace in solitude. Then Jesus thrice begged His Father to take away the cup. I cannot help but wonder if the Father mercifully veiled until the last minute that the full cost of our sin included being forsaken.
"I'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross."
~ Chris Tomlin
We who are in Christ shall never know the cost of being forsaken. Though we may taste loneliness—perhaps even persecution—we are never alone.
We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed ...
~ 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 (NKJV)
Father, thank You that I shall never know personally the cost of my sin. Here I am to worship You, to serve You, to love You.
Comments are welcome (including respectful disagreement) and will receive a reply.
You may also contact author via Twitter – @anne4JC
or e-mail – buildingHisbody [plus] @gmail.com
Copyright 2012, Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.
~ John 16:32 (NKJV)
We have heard the story countless times, of Jesus' final hours and death. But we also know that it ends happily in His resurrection. And so we seek each year to somehow recapture the horror of the tale, so we might treasure it with increasing depth.
If one point captures me, again and again, it is the agony not of Gethsemane, but of a baby Boy's anguished cry:
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?"
~ Matthew 27:46 (NKJV)
Surely every one of us has known the pain of feeling completely alone in a crowd. Jesus would face the extreme contempt of one crowd after another, all alone. Yet the malice of ignorant mortals cannot be compared to the point when the Father turned away from the filth of sin laid upon Jesus, forsaking His beloved Son.
Hours before Gethsemane, Jesus affirmed that "the Father is with Me"—the Father His ever solace in solitude. Then Jesus thrice begged His Father to take away the cup. I cannot help but wonder if the Father mercifully veiled until the last minute that the full cost of our sin included being forsaken.
"I'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross."
~ Chris Tomlin
We who are in Christ shall never know the cost of being forsaken. Though we may taste loneliness—perhaps even persecution—we are never alone.
We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed ...
~ 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 (NKJV)
Father, thank You that I shall never know personally the cost of my sin. Here I am to worship You, to serve You, to love You.
Comments are welcome (including respectful disagreement) and will receive a reply.
You may also contact author via Twitter – @anne4JC
or e-mail – buildingHisbody [plus] @gmail.com
Copyright 2012, Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.
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