That's right, I Still love the Lord!!!!!

Praise God, saints!

God is so awesome, so glorious, so marvelous! I can never thank Him enough not for what He has done or is going to do, but simply for who HE is!

We sing that. But I wonder if we really know who Jesus is????

We sing all the latest praise and worship songs in church or listen to them in our homes or cars. But do we know HIM?

Read Phillipians 3. That is one of the most powerful chapters in the Bible!

Paul starts out by warning believers to beware of 'the concision. Evil workers.' The concision Paul speaks of are those who put much emphasis on the mutilating of the flesh. You see, in those days, circumcision was the thing to do to prove you were really a Christian. Zealous, hungry after God. No doubt these folks were very well versed in the law and very active in the synagogue.

So what's wrong with a few 'religious' folks? They are a little zealous, so what? They are doing it for the Lord, right?

Wrong! Paul called these folks 'dogs!' What would make Paul do such a thing? Was he not one of the concisors back in the day? He was...

5 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;

6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

Yet in spite of all that, he later on declared that all that stuff, all of his righteousness, was dung. Poop. Mess. Feces. You got it!

God declares that all OUR righteousness are as filthy rags before Him in Isaiah 64:6.

Paul was admonishing us to beware of folks that focus on the FLESH!!!!

We go around saying that sinners focus on the flesh. This is true. They have tunnel vision, per se. They can see nothing else but flesh; their spirit man is dead.

But sinners aren't the ones we need to run from. For our very lives, ya heard!

I speak of religious folks.

And there are religious folks in every denomination! So we can't point to one denomination or another and declare they reek of religiosity by association. No. We discern who they are after the Spirit. The Spirit of God will let us know who to cleave to and and who to run from!

Then Paul after sharing his testimony of how he was so religious, how God made him to know Jesus.

Was it from speaking in tongues? Or from dancing the aisles? Perhaps it was reading the Word more, being an advent studier of the Word....

Was it by associating with 'spiritual' folks? Or maybe becoming more active in the church? You know, an idle mind is the devil's......

NO!!!!

We don't get to know Christ in any of those ways!

How do we get to know Him?

10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

We get to an intimate knowledge of who Jesus is when we DIE!!!!!

When our stinking, rotting, deplorable flesh dies to what it wants and craves and yields to the power of God!!!!!!

When we allow ourselves to suffer when we did no wrong w/o retaliation...that is when we are 'conformable to his death....'

Because if we die with Jesus, it is guaranteed that we will be raised up, just as Jesus was!!!!!!

This is why in the midst of my crucifixion, in the midst of my flesh being torn to shreds, in the midst of public humiliation and persecution, I can truly and honestly declare that, as the songwriter sings....

"Go ahead
Drive the nails in my hands
I will rise again
Ain't no power on earth can tie me down...
I will rise again
Just can't keep me in the ground!"

Yes, so I say come on! If this dying is what it is gonna take for me to go to my next level in God, then Go, ahead!!!

But be sure these two things....

One, I STILL love the Lord!!!!!!!

and, Two...

I WILL RISE AGAIN!!!!!!!

With the power and the authority of Almighty God in my hands!

And the devil is gonna regret he ever messed with me!

Cuz this is one who really, really LOVES her God!!!!!!