Watch those emotions...

We are told in scripture, and from the pulpit, that trusting our feelings and emotions can be a problem. Discernment, it seems, needs to come from the Word, the Spirit of Truth and a lack of dependence on our natural human emotional responses.

There is no question that doing anything in the midst of strong emotional activity can possibly lead to a direction that would be different at a different or later time.


However, a problem arises when we limit ourselves to intellectual thinking devoid of our personal feelings, and I would suggest that the problem comes from a true inability to really know God. One cannot know God on a purely intellectual level. We can study about His attributes, we can go to the Bible and  various scripture commentaries seeking an understanding and come up lacking. Why?

Well, because God can only really and truly be understood within the framework of a personal heart relationship! God is not impersonal! God has emotions and He developed emotions in the creatures He seeks. One cannot think ones way to God. One has to love ones way to the Father.

Faith is not factual. Faith in certainly not empirical. Faith is given as a gift that pre-dates the relationship allowed and cultivated by God.

Feelings?
Emotions?

When you reach out to God in prayer, it is impossible to do so without an emotional loving understanding that Someone is listening who cares enough to give His own so that we could be a part of His family.

Yes, it is about emotions.
Feelings. 

It's all about love!
Praise God!!!

God will never give you more than you can handle....

Is NOT Biblical.

It is one of those slogans that many of us, me included, at one time or another have attributed to God's word. It happened again last evening in our small group session.

God, in actuality, frequently gives us more than we can handle simply because that is when we finally, in some cases, surrender to God as the One who can guide and love us through one of life's troubles. Let's take our end times, as an example. We all will experience physical death, and at that point, none of us will be able to overcome the fact. We will be without strength and our bodies will be in the inevitable process of shutting down for the final time. I am guessing that everyone, Christian to "atheist," will call on God to help us through this most final difficulty.

God knows us as not even we do. He will, therefore, present situations wherein we must turn to Him. We grow up being told that We can work it out, We can do it our way, etc. Yet, God will use life's circumstances to draw us to Himself. There would be no good reason to equip us with everything we need for every situation because then there really wouldn't be any reason to turn to God.

The best of all scenarios is to learn, as early as possible, to depend and rely totally on God. That's what He wants. He wants us to follow His rules, speak frequently to Him through prayer and understand that the One who created us loves us and sustains us, yes, even when times are much too tough for us to handle.

What an awesome Creator.
Praise Him!

Don't forget 3-17

Okay, let's start with a confession....
I spend the better part of my adult life knowing only one book-chapter-verse from the Bible. Bet you could guess that it was John 3: 16. The problem was that my knowing that verse came from watching NFL football games when the cameras panned in on the gentleman in the multi-colored afro holding the sign JOHN 3- 16. I am quite certain that I didn't even take the time to look up that verse in the dust-collecting Bibles on the shelves at my home.

Well, things have truly changed, praise God! I'm still terrible at memorizing Scripture, but I can finish many verses when they are started and have gained a pretty fair knowledge of the Bible.  John 3-16 Is a verse that is familiar, I would suspect, to a great many people, whether they are converted Christians or not. It is the declaration of the willingness of God to send His Son into this world to provide the only answer to the rift that exists between God and mankind.

But wait. There's more. John 3: 17:

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. KJV

There will be a judgment. That judge will be Christ on a day when many many people will cower and be afraid. That will be judgment against those who refused to accept the reign of Jesus Christ as Kind, Lord and Saviour. 

His initial trip to this world was for the purpose of doing the will of the Father, a will that provided hope of salvation and restoration of His creatures into a relationship with God. IN a moment before time there was a covenant among the Trinity creating this plan. Jesus was the one who delivered it, giving Him sole power and authority to save His people, as His blessed name suggests.

Condemnation is basically a refusal to give up ones selfish life for adopted membership in the family of the most High God. It is a refusal of everlasting time with Him in a place we cannot see- a place too wonderful to imagine. 

So in light of John 3: 16-17, if you have not opened your heart and surrendered to Jesus Christ, I invite and implore you to do so without delay. Find a church, be baptized and repent those sins that separate you from a God who is all too merciful to refuse anyone with a heart-felt desire to be His own.

Praise our God.

Sinclination

It's always fun to play a bit with words. One of the things most apparent about us human beings is our tendency to sin. It is said that we are sinful in the womb, and though I would probably choose to debate that idea, I believe in the notion of a sin nature that we are born with, dating way back to the original sin.

If we honestly look into our behaviors and into our hearts, we have to agree that we sin. It isn't that we are guilty of the BIG sins, necessarily, but there are countless "respectable" sins, to borrow a phrase, that we deal with daily. These are, it seems to me, the ones that many find most difficult to really repent on. These sins just keep popping up, sometimes without our actually intending them.

Now if we believe that God truly abhors all sin, and we wish to worship Him with our lives, this Sinclination creates an issue. It gets even more complicated when we realize that God knows us completely- He even knows that we are going to sin before the sin occurs.
He doesn't accept any sin; yet, and this is the key, He provided for a way that our sins could be forgiven. He provided for a way for us to be in a relationship with Him through the atoning death of His son, Jesus, on the cross.

It was and is the ONLY way that our sinclination could ever have been dealt with- He became, through a plan devised before the beginning of time, the one to save us from the wrath He holds against evil, darkness, sin. He provided a light, life and an answer that only He could provide. We are blessed beyond words that He has initiated this life-saving and life-changing outreach.

So it is also important, I believe, to understand that even after we accept this Gift, come to believe upon His son and become 'sons' adopted into the church family of God, we will continue to battle this sinclination. We need to work with the Holy Spirit to guard against the problem of sinning, but we also need to be secure in the fact that God has forgiven our sins, past, present, and yes, future. They were forgiven, are forgiven and will be forgiven because God has chosen to love us sinners, not our sins.

Sinclination- a problem, a reality and a battle. Alone, we will not make a lot of progress. With the Spirit, we are on a journey to eradicate sin, a journey of sanctification, a journey of love.

Praise our God!

To Whom Do We Belong?

Well, in my seventieth year, I have become the only surviving member of my nuclear family. My parents and both brothers have gone on from this existence to, I hope, wait for me in Heaven. It is truly a weird feeling.

When one thinks about it, every situation we find ourselves in, as members, is truly temporary. My career was teaching in public schools which I did for thirty-four years before retiring. How weird it felt to walk out of that building realizing that the school would go on without me as a member of the faculty.

I have been blessed with a daughter I truly love, her husband, my son-in-law,and a glorious grand-daughter who I just wish you could meet. I so enjoy being in their presence; yet I get grumpy when I do not see them enough. Yet, I know the time is coming, it is inevitable, when we will no longer be together.

You know the old saying: I cane into the world naked and alone, and I will be leaving in much the same way.

Let's face it- belonging is probably a primary need for almost any person. Being loved and giving love to people who we value and to whom we wish to be of value, in return.

Feeling lonely? It is a bit hard to comprehend.

Yet, we really belong to the One who created us. We are His because He formed us in the womb, stamped His presence on our hearts and sustains us from conception to our last breath. Nothing temporary, here. In some magical way, through the greatest love ever known, He holds us in His hands and brings us, eventually, to Him simply because we
are His children.

As His children, each of us must accept a return to His presence. We must reach out to belong to the One who was always meant to include us. We weren't created on a whim; we were created with a purpose, designed by the Potter. It's all written. It's the eternal
promise and purpose. WE belong, in the end, to Him.

Praise our God!

Being like Jesus

We often hear that we need to be like Jesus, grow into being more like Jesus, be Christ-like.
I need to be careful, here, because the above would be so very wonderful and, obviously, different.

Jesus was and is counter-intuitive. One only needs to read His words in the Bible and follow His actions during His ministry, right down to the very last words to see that He doesn't operate at all like we do. No one has been like Jesus!

The issues are two-fold. One, He is GOD! God, by His own definition, is OTHER. He is totally different from His created to the point of being quite impossible to define or even clearly understand. We simply cannot be God. There are some people who walk this world with the misconception that they, in fact, are like God, but that is not true and leads to a serious set of problems, eternally.

Two, He is sinless and perfect. Sin is in our bones, if you will. Even the most wonderful Christians in this world continue to sin because of the nature of the flesh. Try as we may, we will not eradicate sin from our lives while we walk this planet.

So, here is the rub. To set a goal to be like Jesus is to set a goal that cannot and will not be achievable. I would suggest, and this is just me, that even at the point of Sanctification, we will still not be like Jesus because we will not be God.

The point is that we need to be careful not to define our walk by such an unreachable set of expectations. Do we need to wonder in awe at the very way Jesus lived? Yes. Do we need to pray to the Spirit that He will work with us to be more loving of our fellow man and appreciative of God's blessings? Yes. To emulate is not to be equal. 

The wonderful truth is that we will someday, through no work of our own, be face-to-face with a God who loved us enough to send His Son to die so that we might abide and live in His presence.

Glorious! Praise God!

We all need to Go Back....

Referencing an old Byrds tune, "Going Back." The song essentially refers to returning to the simplicity and innocence of youth. 

If we take Jesus at His word, it appears that we are in need of being like children even to gain the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus frequently admonishes his disciples to allow the children access to Him.  Our church contains a print of Jesus, looking very European, gathering a group of children to Himself. The point is that there most be a set of characteristics found in children that we would want to emulate as adults.

The terms child-like and childish are obviously quite different. For an adult to be childish, one must return to behaviors that I am sure Jesus isn't championing, here. We all know that there is a wearing down of characteristics like trust, surrender, lack of concern and worry and unconditional love that accompanies getting older and dealing with the stresses and responsibilities of this life. 

We cannot say that little ones are not affected by sin; yet, it would seem that their sins, especially at an early age, are innocent of pre-meditation.

So how is it that we can revert or turn back to a more child-like existence, as the Lord Jesus seems to be stressing? I would suggest that those who have accepted Christ and been ind-welled by His Spirit are well on their way to being more Christ-like and, I would add, child-like in their hearts. The Fruit of the Spirit are, in many ways, representations of a heart that thinks like a child. These are wonderful sign-boards that point toward Sanctification of those who are a part of God's blessed Kingdom

Can we make these changes on our own? I would suggest that the answer is 'No." Like so many things, God must be the One who initiates and supports a changed heart and a desire to love others and worship God.

So let's Go Back. We don't give up adult responsibilities and issues. We do look backward to
a living style that is more full of hope and excitement, joy and love. It's not so very difficult.
Just takes a desire to be like a child.

Praise our God.

God's messed up, broken, wonderful creation

It's a messed up world out there! One really can see this, quite easily, while driving in traffic or in interpersonal relationships. God's perfect creation was tainted by sin, broken and cursed. What was it meant to be like? Scripture hints at it, Jesus embodies it and Revelation promises a re-creation, of sorts.

Yet....   There are countless, breath-taking examples of God's magnificent creative abilities. One can see this, quite easily, as well. My favorite scenario: A walk in a piney woods perhaps in the Great Smokies, just taking in the sounds, sights and smells. The peacefulness that comes from siting beside a stream and just taking it in. The smell and feel of a baby, the energy and naivete of a toddler, snuggling along with a favorite pet. Can you imagine the list we could make of the beauty all around us? Want to make one?

The same concepts can be associated with us humans. WE aren't what we were intended to be, are we? We are haunted by our flesh, our sin nature. We were born with it, and with it comes a life-long battle to overcome it. We don't do what we internally realize we ought, as Paul suggests. It is frustrating.

Yet....   There is glorious freedom in knowing that God has created us with a value based simply upon His Glory. We are loved and valued. He has sent His begotten into the world to provide us with forgiveness. He has patiently waited for us to hear his voice, feel His welcome and accept His Grace. So we live with this battle between who we are and who we were meant to be.

There is wonderful beauty and hope in this creation. It will be even better; so much better that we cannot even imagine it. Thus with us. We will be resurrected and new, yet we have inherent value in being God's children. That hope spurs us on to work at living a life that glorifies a most amazing Creator, Father and King.

Praise our God.

It's worth the try, but do not expect success!

Sin.
It's nasty. Pervasive. AND God does not accept or condone any of it!

In His wondrous grace, He fashioned a plan to send His son as the only possible solution for the chasm between Himself and His created. It would only work if Christ was completely able to do His will. 

He Was! Praise God.

So, what do we, then, about the fact that we still sin... daily. We have been changed, forgiven in Christ, who God actually sees when He looks upon us. Righteousness of Christ- not our own flawed righteousness.

Out of appreciation and gratitude for this Grace, we are tasked with joining the Spirit in eliminating sin. We are on a path, with the Spirit, to Sanctification or Holiness, a path that leads towards Christ-likeness.

YET.... WE still sin. Within us remains the tainted flesh, the sin nature constantly in conflict with our attempts to eradicate it. Alone, we cannot do it. Even with the Spirit of God, it remains a conflict- daily.

Do we just give in? Not if we adore Christ!
Do we find guilt daily in our inability to overcome sin? Not if we trust that we are Forgiven forever.
Do we work at every possible means of turning away from those actions that God abhors? Absolutely.

We owe complete effort ,along with the realization that we cannot be separated from the grace of Jesus Christ, our great High Priest.

Keep the fight! You are loved by God.

So WHO really will be saved?

There could not be a more controversial topic, when discussing theology, than the topic of the width and breadth of salvation. I will admit, right here, reader, that I do NOT have than answer, but I do have some thoughts. I will bet that you do, too.

The determiner: GOD. He is, after all, sovereign over creation which includes the events that occur within His domain. It's all His. He can do with it what He desires. That immediately bothers some folks. It used to bother me, a bit, but not anymore.

Because God is in charge, He can play by whatever rules He determines. When we read the Bible, we are faced with the concept of election or predestination. It is there in the Scriptures. God has, it seems, chosen those who will populate His Church, before the beginning of time. He is in possession of the Book of Life, and names will appear there that determine salvation.

Since we are called to go out into a darkened world and seek disciples, it would therefore make sense that those folks we encounter are ones that God has placed before us. He, not we, brings faith and eventual transformation to these people, but He uses you and me to make a connection. We get the ball rolling, as it were. We start the ripple. He then works out salvation through His saving Grace.

Will everyone who calls on the name of the Lord be saved? Not, it seems to me, according to Jesus, Himself. He says that many will say, "Lord, Lord..." There will be many of those who He fails to recognize because He reads their hearts. They, it seems, were not meant to be among those destined to be in God's royal family.

There must be an acceptance on our parts; we must want to be saved, but getting back to God's overarching foreknowledge, He already knew what our response would be. 

Unfair? Only by man's standards. These are God's standards, and He is free to do His will. That child who is still born, that infant who dies before the age of accountability? God has that covered.

IF we have been regenerated, transformed in the heart, made alive in Christ... how wonderful is that? Lucky? No. Fortunate? Yes. Blessed beyond words by a grace that is bigger than any of our sins.

Praise God!

Expect to be heard!

Prayer. It's a very interesting phenomenon. Hopefully you pray often and from the heart.
When one thinks about the very nature of a God who, despite being totally above and different from His creatures, asks that they talk with Him, it boggles the mind a bit.

How can He listen to all those prayers simultaneously? 
How and when will He respond to our prayers?
Do our prayers have an impact on His sovereign plan?
Do prayers have to be spoken?

I could go on, but Spurgeon, in one of his many quotes, suggests an important reality. He basically says that unless we expect God to listen, He will not. According to Spurgeon, God responds to out faith.

I don't know about you, reader, but I struggled for a long time with praying. For the longest time I didn't really feel like there was a Listener. I wasn't really comfortable with what I should pray, what my expectations should be and how I could establish a pattern that would encourage daily communication with our Father. I haven't successfully gotten through all of that, but I no longer have any doubt that my prayers, in whatever form and length, are heard and valued.

So in many ways, we have to depend on the faith that God instills in us to come to a place where, at least in Spurgeon's view, God really does listen. For me, it was a sudden realization that He was there, which, of course, led to more frequent and personal prayers. Like so many things, God provides what we need to accomplish glorifying Him. 

Lately, I have been 'thinking' prayers. I don't even speak them in my head; I just think to Him and know that He can hear those thoughts. For whatever reason, I tend to not get distracted as much a mentally wander off during the prayer.

Okay, enough of me. How about you? Where are you in your prayer life? Trust in the fact that our God seeks your communications. Just talk with Him, you don't even have to be asking for anything. Praise Him and worship Him through your words and thoughts. Just consider how amazing it is that you and He can talk!

Praise our God!!!

God knows!

The pastor at the Sutherland Springs Church where the worst church massacre in US history took place was asked, "Why?"

His answer, paraphrased: "I do not have the answer. But God does."

That is so very difficult to wrap our brains around when we are mourning the senseless deaths in such a situation, coming so close to the unbelievable mess in Las Vegas. We want to cry out and ask God how such things could possibly happen of He is, indeed, sovereign.

It's a bit like the question, "How can bad things happen to good people?" R C Sproul's classic answer: It only happened once, and He volunteered!

This world is upside down. It is wrong. Stained. Evil. The people in it are all sinners because people have a sin nature from conception. The more people, the more evil. It IS difficult to understand that nothing that happens takes God by surprise. Everything, in ways that we areunequipped to understand, is as it is planned and everything, in one way or another, brings glory to the God of all creation.

I just invite you to imagine a world where God wasn't sovereign. Can you imagine uncontrolled chaos? Anarchy abounding? No ethical behavior, whatsoever? Man's ability to be cruel and self-centered is written in the very pages of history, and we are adding pages each day.

I believe the Holy Bible is full of predictions that suggest that things will get Very Bad before Jesus Christ returns to judge the entire creation. Depending on one's eschatology, that could look different ways but He will arrive at the perfect, most needed time to shepherd home His church.

In the meantime, we have to place out trust in God. We have to know that He is good, righteous, light, loving. He IS in control, even if there are times when it is hard to accept.

Praise our God. Trust Him completely!

Ten things!

What if someone challenged you to pick the ten things you most wanted to thank God for? (Can't believe I ended that sentence in a preposition!)

It IS an interesting challenge, isn't it. It is especially interesting in light of the fact that a lot of folks thank God for nothing! Yep. They feel entitled and in charge of a life that actually doesn't even belong to them. If you are still reading this, I would wager that you do not fall into that camp.

So where would we begin? I would start with LIFE. Life is totally amazing. Being alive is a true gift that represents the fact that God placed you and me here for a purpose. Life is precious and fleeting. It has happiness and sadness. So easy, isn't it, to just expect to wake up each day, place those feet on the floor and proceed. Yet, not only did God give us life, He sustains every part of it.

I would thank God for Jesus, His son, our Savior. Only through His thirty-three some years of walking this earth at all times toward a death that would break the curse of sin could those who believe have the chance to be eternally in God's family. Oh how can we thank Him enough?

I could go on, but you know what? This is your challenge. What would start and end YOUR list of thankfulness? I'd love to know.

Praise our Loving Magnificent God!

Just as if I- cation

I'm sure you have heard that little play on words before. It really DOES proclaim a wonderful reality, that God, and God only, has reached out to cleanse each of us destined to be a part of His church. (We have been healed, justified, made alive in the life of Christ, righteous blood covers every sin... Lyrics from: 'We Have Been Healed' from Risen by Sovereign Grace Music) At some wonderful moment in time, an instant that remains forever, we suddenly have faith, belief, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Through this faith, God looks upon us as righteous because He sees the righteousness of His Son. We, it turns out, really had no chance to make atonement for the sins that divided us from a God who cannot forgive any sin. None of us, not one, is righteous on our own. We, therefore, cannot earn God's grace; He has to provide it for us. We can only be righteous when God substitutes the righteousness of Christ. (All our Sins, for His grace, What a glorious exchange!) The faith that brings on justification can only be given by God. We are saved, then, because He allows us to believe, and it is on the basis of this belief that we are made clean. At this glorious moment, the process turns to the life-long journey to sanctification, led by the Holy Spirit of God within us. What a wonderful, unearned gift! By faith alone, through grace alone. Did you notice that God did it all because He gave it all. He IS a wonderful, loving awesome God and we are His children Praise our God!!!

LORD of your life!

It's amazing how many times I hear it said, "Are you ready to make Jesus the Lord of your life? Well, of course, I hope that is the case, but it's a moot point. He IS Lord of your life. The most ardent Muslim jihadist also has Jesus as Lord of his life The Hindu who sees God in everything has one Lord, Jesus Christ. I could go on. You see, the Lord of every person ever created is Jesus Christ for He was given that distinction for the work He did while on this earth with us. Do people realize that He is their Lord. Some do, many don't. Yet, and here it comes... Every knee will bow and every tongue proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord. Count on it. You can take it to the bank. He is God. He created and sustains you. He loves you. He IS LORD OF ALL!

knowing God

We are challenged to learn about, know and enjoy our God. Yet scriptures abound with the feeling that this is an impossible task. He is Holy, Holy, Holy, spirit, totally unlike us, despite the fact that we are 'made in His image.' We are told that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. He is eternal, pre-existent, all knowing, totally righteous and above all things. So how then are we to know Him? His creation certainly is a starting point. When we open our eyes and take in the beauty of a world that is damaged and unlike the one He created, we are struck by the absolute wonder of what we see. All creation shouts His existence and Glory. We have His word and His Word broke into our time-space in the form of a baby to succeed where we could not in forgiving sin and defeating the forces of darkness that broke our relationship with God and ruined this world. He walked this world as the perfect reflection of the Father, like Him in every God-like way. The Bible, through prophets and writers, brings us a picture of God's words and His ways. It is a living book designed for us to read and be read by. It is God speaking to us through the story of His son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you want to find a beginning point for really understanding in your heart who God is and what He is like? The Gospel. The wonderful undeserved gift offered up to humanity because of His love for us. He gave His beloved Son as payment for the sins we have all committed. That, is God. If you know Him in your heart, if you trust and love Him for what He has done, you DO know God. You CAN enjoy Him, always and forever. The veil has been removed. All you have to do is say, Yes, God! Praise Him!!

Not of this world....

But placed in this world!                                                                                                                       They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. John 17


I sometimes get a bit irritated at Christians who point out that they are not of this world. They see themselves, and rightly so, as aliens just passing through. One problem with that exclusivity is Christians who are absolutely no different from any other person living in this broken world. That makes the claims of Jesus lose some of their power and clarity.

Christ was praying to His Father for protection for His disciples, understanding that they would be without Him physically and spiritually until the arrival of the Holy Spirit. He understood the dangers from both people and the devil, having lived through those dangers in His short time on this earth.

One thing that seems to be missing in the declaration is the fact that Christians are placed in this world, not arbitrarily, by God for a purpose. To focus in just being vacationers here for a brief time before really arriving at our destination brings the danger of isolation and complete abandonment of the great commission, sharing the Truth of Jesus to others who may still be lost.

Obviously, to just associate with those who have already accepted the Lord into their lives as the primary focus, eliminates the opportunities, yes, provided by God, to plant the seed of the Gospel in those who are outside of its wondrous message and potential transformation. Time spent outside of the comforts of those just like us, is eternally valuable and a real possible result of God's purpose for our lives.

This broken creation, that still reflects and glorifies God, is absolutely beautiful and filled with those created in God's own image, humans. Each human being is loved by God and given purpose in God. Their value comes from He who placed the breath of life into them. While He knows who those are who are written in the Book of Life, we do not. This means that every single person we encounter is potentially a brother or sister in Christ, a child of God, adopted into His family for eternity.

Yes, we are not of this world, but we are here to purpose God's will in and through us. We need to focus on what we can do to glorify Him while we are here. 

Praise our Holy God!

Consuming our Lord

John 6:54
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life...

Well this was certainly a controversial statement when Jesus uttered it and remains so even now. The reaction initially thinned out His following significantly because many just could not fathom such a statement. The early church suffered persecution for many reasons, including these words. Jesus was not suggesting a theology of cannibalism; He was making a statement, that for me, begins to emphasize our need to injest Christ into the depths of our being.

We are told that we need to abide in Him, we are told that He is in us, if we believe in Him, and we in Him. He has sent the Spirit of God to instruct and begin the process of sanctification. Yet, it is this Christ who is supremely capable, due to His incarnation, to understand the lives we lead and heal our brokenness and sin. To learn about Christ and develop solely an external understanding of who He is, without a relationship of the heart, leaves us wanting and incomplete. We have no chance at the real joy He has promised to us.

This brings me to communion. Now I wouldn't want to wax on the debate of transubstantiation or con-transubstantiation, but I do believe that the process of taking the bread and the juice, in whatever way and at whatever interval, is more than just a chance to remember and recognize the Lord, more than just a few moments of communication with Him on a Sunday. I have come to look at it as an injestion of Christ into my depths, into the parts of me that are broken and sinful. I find that I have come to believe that it represents the true relationship with Him, a genuine abiding into the heart.

Now I have work to do during those moments of receiving Him. Sometimes, I am guilty of taking communion without focusing. It is more, I think, than an opportunity to say thank you, it is a chance to welcome Him, to provide total access to Him, to celebrate His presence where once there was just an empty space. Awaking each day with the clear understanding that He has tabernacled within our hearts brings a very different set of goals and desires. We are being changed into those like Christ. We need never do that without His presence in us. He abides when He is welcomed.

It is where He belongs! We are His!

Praise God! 

Ludicrous 14:2

Now I hope you didn't grab your Bible and look for a book which doesn't exist there, but I am having some fun with the following non-scriptural statement that many folks erroneously make:

"God will never place you in a situation that you cannot handle!"

Well, it is true that God loves you, that He is involved every second in the lives of each of His created and that He is completely sovereign and familiar with our lives. However, when one looks at the above statement, it clearly does not express the reality of our relationship with Him.

He is in control. He is the one driving your life through pages He created long before you became a person. He is aware of the many difficult realities that face each of us in this lifetime; yet, our purpose is to enjoy, learn about and be blessed into an actual relationship with the very God who created the universe. We were created to glorify Him, to be in obedience to Him, and here is the catch, to depend upon Him.

Does He allow for situations to occur which we are incapable of handling? Why of course He does! Were we able to use our own strength to plow through problems, to pull up our bootstraps and fix ourselves, to just put God aside and say, I've got this one, Lord, we would not need Him. Eventually in life, that time or times will occur when we realize that we are too weak to stand up, too helpless to proceed and too fragile to be on our own.

God, as you can see, wants us to be dependent upon Him for this is the only way to truth, real peace and forgiveness. We are naturally cursed by our sin and He has graciously sent His son to pay for that roadblock. Now we just need to realize that in Him lies our ability to cope with life as aliens on this planet.

Seeking to go it alone is... Ludicrous!

Praise our God!!

I am the way, the truth and the life...No one....

John 14: 6.

This is a truly troubling scripture for many people and a very comforting one to others. The key, here, is the determiner: THE. Jesus is closing the options for finding God and communing with Him to one. He isn't saying that He is a way, a truth or a life... 

I will confess that many years ago I was totally turned off by what I saw as the exclusivity of the Christian faith. That, coupled with the teaching of predestination, were road-blocks that I set up to even listen to the gospel message and spend time in the word. When someone posts on Facebook or other social media the question:"Can non Christians get to Heaven?" the focus turns back to the very words of Jesus.

At this moment in time, I find myself convinced that Jesus' death on the cross accomplished, among other things, payment for the sins of mankind against God. He provided propitiation, He balance the books, He broke down the barrier created by the original turning away from the God of creation.

In that sense, acceptance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ became open to all people. It was, and is sufficient for all, effective for some. He calls upon all mankind to come to Him and be His children. So, while Christ has limited the pathway to heaven, He has not limited the number of those who can walk it.

The true limitation rests with us. We have the freedom to choose, both a blessing and a curse. Our sinful natures make it most natural for us to hide from God, run from God, ignore God and feel that we do not need Him. Nothing could be more harmful, dangerous of eternally damaging.

Therein lies the importance of sharing the Good News. God has sent God to save us from God. God loved us to the extent that He was willing to offer forgiveness without it being earned to His created who were still in sin. Now He patiently waits for His Church to become complete, for those who would choose Christ to do so. 

We do not know when the trumpet will sound. We do not know when all who hear it will find their knees and declare Jesus Christ to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is THE way, THE truth and THE life. His arms are open and is heart if immense.

Please do not walk away from His love! Ask Him to be the Lord of your Life, today.

Praise our God!