Genesis 3:21 “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.”

My text for today suggests three powerful scenes.
Scene 1: God slays an animal. For the first time in the history of the earth, dirt is stained with blood. Innocent blood… the beast committed no sin. The creature didn’t deserve to die. Adam and Eve did sin and the couple deserved to die, but they live….

Scene 2: Clothing is made. The maker of the stars now becomes a tailor.

Scene 3: God dresses them… “…and clothed them.”

Adam and Eve are on their way out of the Garden. They’ve been told to leave, but God stops them and says something like, “Those fig leaves will not do.” Then He hands them the coats of skin (from an innocent lamb). He doesn’t throw them on the ground in front of them, and imply that they had to put them on. He stoops down again to dress them like a mother would dress her infant child. God covers them because He loved them… even though they had sinned.

Challenge:
What a blessing to know that I was loved by God so much that He would go to all that effort for me. By-the-way He did that for you too.

We need to remember this wonderful and awesome event in the Garden of Eden, when God demonstrated His willingness to find a substitute for each one of us as He did for Adam and Eve.

I am covered and protected because God truly loves me (and YOU)!

Colossians 3:3 “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

The Chinese language has a great symbol for the truth if this verse. The word for righteousness is a combination of two pictures. On the top is a lamb. Beneath the lamb is a person. The lamb covers the person. Isn’t that the essence of righteousness? It is the Lamb of Christ over the child of God. Whenever God looks down on you… what does He see? He sees His Son, the perfect Lamb of God, hiding you. Christians are like their ancestor Abel. We come to God by virtue of the flock. Cain came with the works of his own hands. God turns him away. Abel came, and we come, dependent upon the sacrifice of the Lamb, and we are accepted. Like the Chinese symbol, we are covered by the lamb, hidden in Christ.

 When God looks at you, He doesn’t see you; He sees Jesus. And how does He respond when He sees Jesus? He rends the heavens and vibrates the earth with the shout, “And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:11)

 Challenge:
How “ya lookin” today?
Are you “lookin” up? If you do you’ll see the Lamb covering you… WOW!
When accepted Jesus you came under the Lamb of God, and God sees you as you are in Christ and you see God through Jesus.

This is true tunnel vision.

1 John 3:1 “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.”

 Worship humbles the smug and lifts the deflated.

Worship adjusts us, by lowering the chin of the haughty, straightening the back of the burdened.

 Worship properly positions the worshiper. And oh how we need it! We walk through life so bent out of shape. Five-talent folks walk swaggering: “I bet God’s glad to have me.” Two-talent folks struggling: “I bet God’s sick of putting up with me.” So sold on ourselves that we think someone died and made us ruler. Or so down on ourselves that we think that everyone died and just left us.

 Challenge:
Treat both conditions with worship.
Worship is putting God in His rightful position in our lives… so that we get down on our face before Him.

Give Him worship today.

John 10:10 “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

 Not many second chances exist in the world today. Just ask the kid who didn’t make the little league team or the fellow who got the pink slip or the mother of three who got dumped for a “pretty little thing.”

 Not many second chances. Nowadays it’s more like, “It’s now or never.” “You gotta get tough to get along.” “Around here we don’t tolerate incompetence.” “Not much room at the top.” “Three strikes and you’re out.” “It’s a dog eat dog world!”

Jesus…. would say, “Then don’t live with the dogs.” That makes sense doesn’t it? Why let a bunch of failures tell you how much of a failure you are?

 It’s not every day that you find someone who will give you a second chance—much less someone who will give you a second chance every day. But in Jesus you find both.

 Challenge:
We have ALL failed… repeatedly, daily, and will fail in the future, BUT what a Savior… He continues to remind us (in the scriptures) that He is a God of forgiveness and restoration.
So… instead of being defeated because you have failed why not look at Jesus who has given you the “abundant life.” ATTITUDE is everything.

Psalm 27:5 “For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.”

What do we do with our disappointments? We could do what Miss Haversham did. Remember in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations? Jilted by her fiancé just prior to the wedding…. She closed all the blinds in the house, stopped every clock, left the wedding cake on the table to gather cobwebs, and wore her wedding dress until it hung in yellow decay around her shrunken form. Her wounded heart consumed her life.

 We can follow the same course… or we can follow the example of the Apostle Paul. His goal was to go to Spain… however, God sent him to prison. Sitting in a Roman jail, Paul could have made the same choice as Miss Haversham, but he didn’t. Instead he said, “As long as I am here, I might as well write a few letters.” Hence your Bible has the Epistles to Philemon, the Philippians, the Colossians and the Ephesians.

 Challenge:
Why don’t you try writing something about God’s goodness in your journal when disappointment strikes today?
Maybe you could look at your disappointments as opportunities to praise God and grow a little stronger in your relationship to Him.

At any rate disappointment WILL COME… but you can be ready in advance, and have victory over ___________.

Colossians 2:14 “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;”

 Come with me to the hill of Calvary….Watch as the soldiers take the arms of the Carpenter and stretch out his arms against the beams. One presses a knee against a forearm and a spike against His wrist. Jesus turns his face toward the nail just as the soldier lifts the hammer to strike it…

 The crowd at the cross concluded that the purpose of the pounding was to skewer the hands of Jesus to the beam, but they were only half-right. We fault them for missing the other half. They couldn’t see it…

Between His hand and the wood there was a list…a long list. A list of our sins: our lusts and lies and greedy moments and prodigal years. Those times in our lives when the Lord was anything but first, and our hearts were so far away from God… a list of all our sins, and the sins of the whole world.

The list, however, cannot be read. The words can’t be deciphered. They are all covered. The sins are hidden. Those at the top are hidden by His hands; those down the list are covered by His blood.

What an awesome Savior we have! Your sins and mine are hidden from everyone sight including God’s… because “when I see the blood I will pass over you.”

 Challenge:
Start out your day remembering that ALL your sins were forgiven when you accepted Jesus as your Savior… don’t get tripped up by them anymore.
You are forgiven by the greatest and most powerful God in the universe… so forgive yourself and live the life of joy… you know the one Jesus wanted you to have.

John 4:13-14 “Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

Deprive your body of necessary fluid, and your body will tell you.

 Deprive your soul of spiritual water, and your soul will tell you. Dehydrated hearts send desperate messages… snarling tempers…waves of worry… growling mastodons of guilt and fear. You think God wants you to live with these?
-     Hopelessness…
-     Sleeplessness…
-     Loneliness…
-     Resentment…
-     Irritability…
-     Insecurity…
These are warnings… symptoms of dryness deep within.
Treat your soul as you treat your thirst. Take a gulp… imbibe moisture… flood your heart with a good swallow of water.

Where do you find this water for your soul?
Jesus said that kind of water comes from Him… since He is no longer here physically then where do we go to get a good drink? (Ephesians 5:26) “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word…” This reference is to the church and the bible, in His body (1 Corinthians 12). Jesus tells us, in our text, that the “water” that He has quenches our thirst on the inside, and it will spring up into everlasting life. John 1 tells us that Jesus is the Word of God and so the conclusion can be made that if you want to quench your spiritual thirst… you must do it through the Word of God.

 Challenge:
Take the time to start your week out will a cool drink of refreshing spiritual water… from the bible.
We are supposed to drink six to eight glasses of water a day then shouldn’t we read at least 6 to 8 chapter of the bible a day?

Rise up and drink and be refreshed.

Romans 14:9-12 “  For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”

Louis McBurney, in a Leadership Journal article, stated there are four reasons people reject accountability.

1) They fear rejection.
2) They feel embarrassed.
3) They resent control by hostile people.
4) They don’t like facing any negative feelings.

Everyone, including leaders, needs accountability through their significant relationships. Accountability is not something we need just when we’re young Christians; accountability is for everyone. Accountability is a powerful tool that can launch many of us into the fullness God has for each of us.

When we say accountability, we’re not talking about intimidation, invasion of privacy, bringing people under the weight of someone else’s preferences or legalism. Biblical accountability isn’t manipulation; but if practiced right, is a blessing.

Accountability comes with a price, and comes with four requirements. If you are truly going to walk in accountability you must be willing to meet the following requirements:

A. Must Be Teachable – Willing to learn; quick to hear and slow to respond.
B. Availability – Willing to be accessible, touchable, open and interruptible.
C. Vulnerability – Capable of admitting ones mistakes.
D. Truthfulness – Committed to the truth, and walks in honesty even if it hurts.

Why does accountability have requirements? The dictionary says accountability means “being responsible to others”. In a biblical sense, it’s developing relationships with other believers which will promote spiritual growth and obedience to God. Therefore, accountability means teaching, challenging, supporting and encouraging one another in ways that promote spiritual integrity in us as believers.

Have you ever wanted to go to the next level and dimension in your life, but haven’t been sure exactly how to get there? Today, I encourage you to pray; and ask God to show you someone who can hold you accountable. If Jesus had twelve accountability partners, each of us should have at least one or two believers that hold us accountable.

But remember accountability also has its rewards:

Accountability builds friendships.
Accountability builds a hedge of protection.
Accountability brings freedom.
Accountability reflects the truth.
Accountability develops Christ-likeness.
Accountability adds responsibilities.
Accountability builds our integrity.

Challenge:
Don’t reject accountability but embrace it.
Walk into your fullness, and watch the power of accountability transform your life.

2 Corinthians 13:5 “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?”

A guy rushed into a service station one day and asked the manager if he’d a pay phone. The manager nodded, “Sure, over there.” The guy inserted a couple of coins, dialed and waited for an answer. Finally someone came on the line. “Uh, sir,” he said in a deep voice, “could you use an honest, hard-working young man?”

The station manager couldn’t help overhearing the question. After a moment or two the guy said, “Oh, you already have an honest, hard-working young man? Well, okay. Thanks all the same.” A broad smile stretched across his face. He hung up the phone and started back to his car, obviously elated.

“Hey, just a minute,” the station manager said, “I couldn’t help but hear your conversation. Why are you so happy? I thought the man said he already had someone and didn’t need you?” The guy smiled. “Well, you see, I am that honest, hard-working young man. I was just checking up on myself!”

If you’re serious about walking with God, examine yourself regularly. Are you praying, reading God’s Word and renewing your mind daily? How about your attitudes? Are they slipping? Your attitudes send a signal before you’ve said a word.

They’re like traffic lights. Sometimes they flash red, which means ’stop, don’t get in my way, I’m too busy to love, help, or care.’ Sometimes they flash yellow, which means ‘I’m touchy and out-of-sorts, I could go either way.’

Sometimes they flash green, which means, ‘Let’s go, I’m with you, you can count on me.’ The Bible says, “Examine yourselves…”

Challenge:
What needs to be examined regularly? “Our ways!”

Matthew 26:32 “But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.”

Remember [Christ’s] followers’ fear at the crucifixion? They ran. Scared as cats in a dog pound….

But fast-forward fifty days. Bankrupt traitors have become a force of life-changing fury. Peter is preaching in the very precinct where Christ was arrested. Followers of Christ defy the enemies of Christ. Whip them and they’ll worship. Lock them up and they’ll launch a jail-house ministry. They were as bold after the Resurrection as they were cowardly before it.

Explanation:
      Greed? No… they made no money.
      Power? No… they gave all the credit to Christ.
      Popularity? No… most were killed for their beliefs.

Only one explanation remains—a resurrected Christ and his Holy Spirit.
The courage of these men and women was forged in the fire of the empty tomb.

Challenge:
We have a challenge before us to live the way they lived AFTER the Resurrection.
We have the same Holy Spirit that the disciples had, and the same opportunity they had, and the same kind of crowd to witness to.

Will you tell them about Jesus in His power or will you think that they wouldn’t be interested?
Let’s seize the opportunity to tell a lost souls about Jesus TODAY!