BEING THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD

 In Ephesians 2:19-22 the church is told, "[Y]ou are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit."

           

The Church is "God's household," on a mission for God in the world. Jesus is the corner stone and the whole building is being fitted together around Him.  The mission is not static but very active, "growing into a holy temple in the Lord."  This temple, this living temple, is the dwelling of God in the Spirit.  As God dwells in His household His Word and works are spread throughout the world.

           

Red, yellow, black, brown, or white, it makes no difference.  We are all precious in the sight of God.  Whoever will turn to Christ will be received by Him.  He will not force Himself on anybody but there is room for all kinds of folks at the table of Jesus.

           

The Good News the Church brings into the world is, "We believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 15:11).  God's grace is greater than race, creed or color.  All the ground is level at the foot of the cross and the atoning sacrifice of Jesus is for everyone.

           

May the Church ever remember the counsel of the apostle Paul, "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them" (Eph. 2:10).  "Walk in them."  Walk in the ways and means of God.  Living and moving and having our being in Jesus, that's how to touch a community for Christ.

Shaped and Formed By Messiah

 Faith in Jesus calls for honesty and truthfulness.  It calls for authenticity and purity and mercy.  Jealousy and selfish ambition have no place in the life of one who is being shaped and formed by the Messiah who emptied Himself of all but love and bled for Adam's helpless race.

                       

The letter of James tells us "God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (James. 4:6).  Humility doesn't go over very well with many people.  Humility, to them, is for the weak.  To Jesus, however, humility brings a smile to the face of God.  It brings grace into the human situation and spreads love to folks who really do need to know they are loved. 

                       

The Christian presence in the cultures of the world is extremely important.  We followers of Jesus are compelled to show by our good behavior the deeds of our lives, carried out with the dignity and clarity of Christ-centered wisdom (See James 3:13).  How we live matters.  We are witnesses of the Good News that is Jesus, and it is important that we live in the spirit of a wisdom that is "from above," a wisdom that is pure and peaceable and gentle and reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy (James 3:17).  In short, it is a way of being that is centered in Jesus and reveals that it is in Him we live and move and have our being.

                       

Many people have written Jesus off, saying that He is anything but a Savior.  We Christians humbly disagree.  We believe Jesus is God's response to the deepest needs of the human heart.  Never will we write Him off.  Always we will bow our lives before Him and seek to live so that His will might be done on earth as it is in heaven.

                       

We believe Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world, the Holy One of God who loves us with an everlasting love.

ONE PEOPLE UNDER GOD

 One of the founders of the Church of the Nazarene was Dr. Phineas F. Bresee.  He was committed to his church being a people committed to a Christ-centered, Christ-driven, Christ-exalting presence in the world.  Bresee understood this to mean that the Church would minister to whoever came across her path.  He said, ”Let the Church of the Nazarene be true to its commission; not great and elegant buildings; but to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and wipe away the tears of sorrowing, and gather jewels for His diadem.”

           

The New Testament letter of James tells us that we are not to be respecter of persons.  The wealthy are not honored above the poor, and the poor have as much right to the table of grace as everyone else.  In fact there is no "everyone else" in the kingdom of God.  All the ground is level at the foot of the cross.  Each of us stands in need of God's Amazing Grace, and each of us is called to live out our lives together in the Mind and Spirit of Jesus.

           

Isn't it great to be a follower of Jesus?  John Oxenham wrote, "In Christ there is no East or West, In Him no South or North; But one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth."  Richard Gillard wrote, "We are pilgrims on a journey; we are brothers on the road.  We are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load."

           

Jesus said, "In everything treat people the same way you want them to treat you" (Matt. 7:12).  This is the way everyday life in the church ought to be.  To the degree it isn't, we fall short.  To the degree it is, we live as a fragrant aroma of Christ in the World.

           

May God help us to take what has been given us by His Amazing Grace and pass it on.

REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE

I've heard it all my life, even as a child, "Practice what you preach."  Good advice isn't it?  Be what you say.  Do what you say you believe.  Let your life reflect your words.

In the New Testament, James tells the Church, "Prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves" (Jam. 1:22).  His reason?  "For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was" (Jam. 1:23-24).

What's the word here?  Remember who you are!  Integrity might just be the word.  Being is as important as saying, maybe, more so.  Words can be a dime a dozen, as they say; Truth be known we live in a words-are-a-dime-a-dozen age. 

As Christians, being is profoundly important to us.  Words are important, too, and they ought to be spoken with great carefulness, clarity, and truthfulness.  In the end, however, people look at our lives -- how we live, move and have our being.  What they observe when they look at us needs to be the real thing.  Hypocrisy has done more damage to the image of Jesus than any other thing.

When Jesus really is the dominating influence in a person's life, it will be seen.  People may or may not appreciate it, but they will see it.  Our role is to live authentic lives, in both our words and our actions.  We adhere not to a system of belief but to a person, Jesus Christ, who empowers us to live as He lived.  We really out to be Christian in all that it means for us to be who we are.                                                                                                           

Dress Properly

 When I was young I learned that certain sports required certain uniforms. Basketball uniforms wouldn't work on a football player, and visa versa.  Baseball uniforms wouldn't work on a swimmer and visa versa. The given sport had its own requirements for that game specific uniform.

And so it is with those of us who follow Jesus.  We need to be dressed properly for the journey.  In Ephesians 6:10-18, the apostle Paul gives us the proper equipment.  He says there are seven discipleship specific issues required in following Jesus.  They are: Truth, Righteousness, Peace, Faith, Salvation, God's Word, and Prayer.  Enter into the spiritual arena where the battle for your life is fought, without the proper clothing, is to assure yourself of failure.

The battle facing followers of Jesus, says Paul, "is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Eph. 6:12).  Don't take this spiritual war seriously and you make a grave mistake.

We are called to "be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might" so that we "will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil" (Eph. 6:10-11).  The way to "stand firm" is to live in Truth and Righteousness and Peace and Faith and Salvation and God's Word and Prayer. 

A good dose of humility wouldn't hurt either.  James says, "Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you" (Jam. 4:10).  This is a God-thing in which we are involved and we do well to live in such a way that God is allowed to be God in us.  Jesus has won the victory for us at the cross; now it is up to us to take that victory, cover our lives in it, and stand firm.

When Others Walk Away

 

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Other would be disciples were walking away because of a hard teaching about commitment Jesus had just given them.  Jesus then asked His twelve men if they wanted to go away also.  Peter spoke for them when he said to Jesus, "Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God" (John 6:68).

           

Peter and the others had a lot of things still to learn, but Peter got it right on this one.  We Christians believe that Jesus is "the Holy One of God."  We believe that He has "words of eternal life."  We don't follow Him because He is nice and charismatic and has a wonderful leadership demeanor about Him.  We follow Him because we truly believe He has words of eternal life and that He is the Holy One of God.  

           

In His redemptive love we have come to have abundant life.  We have come to know the reality of sins forgiven and guilt removed.  We have come to know what it means to be embraced by God's grace and to live with an inner peace that stays with us through the good and bad times, and through the highs and lows.

           

Words of eternal life guide us and lead us and direct us.  The Holy One of God lives in us and makes us adequate to face reality, whatever reality may be in a given moment or situation.  Jesus is with us for the long haul, and He is with us as Savior and Lord. 

           

That leaves us, doesn't it?  Will we be with Him for the long haul?  On the highest mountaintop or the lowest valley will we stay with Him? When everything that can go wrong is going wrong, will we stay with Him?  When to follow Him is difficult, will we stay with Him?  Do we really believe He is the Holy One of God? 

CATCH THE GLORY

 Jesus has a way of getting right to heart of a matter with an upfront honesty that leaves no doubts as to what is in His mind.  Case in point, John chapter six.  He had fed thousands of people that day in a situation where if He had not worked a miracle they wouldn't have eaten at all.  They were impressed.

           

Then Jesus started speaking about following Him and discipleship and the selfless living of those who might call Him LORD.  He used graphic terms that were very taxing to the brain.  He said, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves" (John 6:53).  Eat His flesh and drinking His blood, what's that about?  He said, "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day" (John 6:54).  Then He adds, "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him" (John 6:56).  Hard words to take, aren't they? Go ahead; admit it.

           

When the people heard the words that day they "withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore" (John 6:66).  They knew Jesus was talking about total commitment, about a way of life where they emptied themselves of themselves and committed to Jesus everything it meant for them to be who they were. 

           

They loved Him when He worked miracles that fed them good food.  They didn't like it so much when He called them to live in Him so closely, so fully, that He became the very source and nutrition of their lives.  Let the miracles flow and the people were there, but when they ceased flowing the folks were no where to be seen. 

           

Why do we follow Jesus?  Because He works miracles that make us feel good or because He is who He is?  Jesus calls us to follow Him because of who He is.  Miracles may or may not happen.  Everyday, without exception, Jesus is LORD.  May God help us to be so captivated by who Jesus is that if miracles don't happen we still live, caught up in the glory of this One who is LORD.  Catch the glory and LIVE!

Walking The Walk

 We Christians are not super human beings but we are human beings whose lives have been graced by a Sovereign and Almighty God.  God has done a profound thing by transferring us from the dominion of darkness into the dominion of light, something He will do for anybody who will give him opportunity. 

This is where the Church comes in.  Followers of Jesus have been given the awesome privilege of letting people know that God is not removed from their lives but longs to be front and center in them.  How do we share a message like this?  We share it by living it. 

Ephesians 5:1 tells us to "be imitators of God, as beloved children."  As children of our heavenly Father we look like Him, as a child might look like his or her father.  It might be our eyes, our smile, our mouth, an expression of some kind that leads people to say, "Man you look like your dad." (I get this all the time from people who knew my dad). 

As a child of our heavenly Father we are gifted to reflect the image of God by the way we live and move and have our being.  Paul takes it a step further and says that how we live is like being "a fragrant aroma," an aroma of Christ (Eph. 5:2). 

Go out and smell good for the Christ you serve.  Make God look good.  Show by the way you live that His grace and mercy are real and valid and at work in the world.  Be the light and salt of the lavished grace of God.  Be contagious.  May the character of our lives be a problem for those who don't believe in God, a positive problem that God can use to touch others by His Amazing Grace.  

A New Self

 The Bible calls followers of Jesus to "Lay aside the old self" and to "be renewed in the spirit of your mind" (Eph. 4:22-23).  There is a "new self" to which God calls us and it is a new self that is rooted and grounded in the life of Jesus.

God works His very life into our lives and calls us to live in excellence, an excellence we first see in Jesus.  This miracle of redemption is an awesome act of God's grace and mercy, and lifts one out of the junk and stuff of life and up into the righteousness and holiness of God. 

It is a miracle when a person is enabled to no longer give themselves to the stealing, killing and destroying ways of the one Jesus calls, "The thief" (John 10:10).  The apostle Paul said that what God does in the human life is so dramatic that "if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come" (2 Cor. 5:17).

Isn't it a wonderful reality to know that the past doesn't have to control the present or the future, that the grace and mercy of God can bring into us a new way of being?   I've watched the old ways long enough now to know they are not working out well.  This old world needs a dose of something new.  This something new is Jesus who loves us so much He died upon the cross of Calvary to set us free from the thief and to bring us to life in the glory of God.

An Aromatic Presence

 To those of us who are followers of Jesus how we live profoundly matters.  It is so important that it led the apostle Paul to say to the church, "I…implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called" (Eph. 4:1).  Then he calls for certain actions and attitudes: humility, gentleness, patience, tolerance, peace (Eph. 4:2-3).

           

We followers of Jesus have a high calling to live out the meaning of our faith in a way that reflects the honor and dignity and love of God.  Is there a way to be Christian in this world?  There is.  Paul says it is to live a life reflecting what we see in Jesus -- humility, gentleness, patience, tolerance, peace.

           

I am wondering how well the Christian community has lived out the miracle of redemption, a redemption that has been worked into their lives.  It is easy to talk the talk but a far different reality to walk the walk.  The Bible calls us to walk the walk. 

           

When Jesus called us to follow Him I'm quite sure He meant living in His mind and spirit.  The apostle Paul said it this way, "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma" (Eph. 5:1-2).

           

A fragrant aroma -- what a wonderful way to say it.  We are called to be an aromatic presence emanating a distinctive and pleasant smell, as it were, -- the fragrant aroma of Jesus Christ.

           

We can handle that, can't we?  By the power of the Holy Spirit in us, we can reflect outwardly what has happened to us inwardly. Surely we must.  The reputation of God is on the line.  Let's go out and make God look good.  He is, you know.

Plunged Into The Arms of God

 In her book, My Story, My Song, (Upper Room: Nashville, 2012), Lucimarian Roberts speaks of the difficulties she faced during and after the hurricane Katrina catastrophe. It was a most difficult time.  Her life was upset, she lost many of her possessions, and the pain of it all was almost unbearable.  Yet, the result of it all wasn't anger or bitterness or utter frustration on her part.  Instead, Lucimarian Roberts wrote, "Katrina plunged me into the arms of God" (109)

                       

King David wrote, "Even though I walk through the valley of the deep darkness, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.  Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me" (Ps. 23:4).  Lucimarian Roberts, a solid rock disciple of Jesus, had bumped into God early on in her life and when the deep darkness of Katrina hit she found herself safe in the arms of God.

                       

Life is filled with pain  born of a thousand sources but there is safety in the arms of our God.  He is the Shepherd and He comforts His people with the divine rod and staff.

                       

What is your Katrina?  Are you safe in the arms of God?  Remember that God is present and as Mrs. Roberts says, "Wherever we stand is holy ground if God is revealed and revered there (99)"

                       

May God embrace you today.  Let your Katrinas plunge you into the arms of God.

Grace And Mercy Have Faces

 

I don't recommend cancer to anybody, but if you have to go through it, it is a gift the greatness of which is beyond description, to go through it in the grace and mercy of God. 

                       

In my journey grace and mercy have faces. They are the faces of the people of my little flock who love me and care about me, and who daily pray for me.  Their hugs and notes and gifts reflecting their hearts of love and prayer have touched me over and over in ways I am incapable of expressing.  I just don't have the words.  Bresee Church you may be small but you are great.  You remind me of another church who was praised by a missionary once for her "work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus" (I Thess. 1:3).  Paul's letter made it into the New Testament canon.  I'm quite sure this missive won't have that impact but I am also sure, that out of your lives flow grace and mercy.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

                       

God's grace and mercy have another face, too. Her name is Vonnie.  On December 7, 1968 she said, "I do," and married me for better or worse; Over 43 years later I am quite convinced she really meant it.  Now, in this daunting health journey she has again incarnated God's grace and mercy to me. 

                       

On December 7, 1968 Vonnie didn't really know what she was getting into.  Forty-three years later, she knows it fully; and, get this, she still loves me.  Who would have thought it? I don't think I am missing the mark when I say she loves me even more.  And, as much as I know how to love, I love her with all my heart.

                       

Grace and mercy have faces, don't they.    

The Valley Of Deep Darkness

 

Psalm 23 came alive for me one day when I was getting ready to speak to a group of recovering alcoholics.   I wanted to speak about the shepherd heart of God but I was lost in how to communicate that to a group of men who had hit the bottom, and who were trying to recover and embrace life again with hope and meaning.

           

In my prayers that early morning my eyes fell on an alternate translation of the words, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”  I would have had no problem using this historic translation, but for this assignment the alternate reading crashed into me at light speed and became the theme of the day.”  The alternate reading?  “Even though I walk through the valley of deep darkness.”

           

The valley of deep darkness is all around us. Deep darkness.  I suspect that if you took a moment right now to think about it you would name some people in your life who are going through that valley right now.  Maybe you are one of the people you would name. 

           

My friends with whom I shared the message sure got it.  It became a more powerful image even than death.  We set around for two hours after the message and just talked about light and darkness.  Many of them had lived on the streets of L.A. in a drunken stupor for years.  One day they bumped in to God.  Their darkness was embraced by God’s light, they were adopted into God’s family, and now they were recovering from the darkness, seeking to live in the light of Jesus.

                       

No valley is too deep, no darkness so dark, no person so lost that Jesus can’t shake the foundations and take broken lives and turn them into something beautiful for God.

Routine Acts of Outrageous Generosity

 We Christian folks have been called to be a generous people, not measured by the amount we might be able to give but by the spirit of our generosity.  Jesus shared about a woman who had next to nothing but gave it from her heart.  Her gift probably didn't make much of a difference to anybody but God; but then isn't our whole life about living in response to God? 

The apostle Paul told the early church "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9).  Because of what Jesus has done for us we can't keep it contained.  And, it's not just about money, even though our culture seems to be obsessed (overly obsessed) with money.  It is about living in response to the incredible and amazing grace of God. 

           

Someone said we ought to practice random acts of kindness.  I don't think this is true at all.  There ought to be nothing random about kindness or generosity.  When one knows that he or she deserves nothing from God but judgment but has received, instead, love, acceptance, and forgiveness, heaven, if you would, how could one be random in generosity? 

           

The ways of God in our lives ought to compel us to live lives of outrageous generosity, generosity with our resources, our kindness, our mercy, our forgiveness, our love.  Christians can't be cheapskates and seriously think they are walking in the steps of Jesus. Somebody once said, "Find a need and meet it."  This is the spirit of generosity. 

           

Let's choose to live in response to the self-giving of Jesus.  We can't do everything but we can live in the spirit of generosity, with our eyes fixed on Jesus.

God's Outstretched Arms

 Our God is a reconciling God.  It seems that God is always reaching out in healing and restoring acts of amazing grace, to draw us to Himself.  We don't have to be separated from our Creator.  His love has driven Him to us, in the context of our humanity, and reached into our lives restoring us and reconciling us to His very life.  Jesus is God's supreme reconciling response to our lives.  In fact, Jesus is God's response to the deepest needs of the human heart.  In Him, we are not separated from God, alone because we have been disconnected from our Creator.  Instead, Jesus is God's outstretched arms, extending to us a grace and mercy and love that staggers the imagination.

           

When God could have written us off He included us.  When He could have judged us and rightly sentenced us to the kind of life deserved by those who would sin against God and who, in their nature, fall short of His glory, He died upon the cross of Calvary so as to draw us to Himself and to make a place for us at His table.

           

Now we are called to participate with God In His reconciling life.  His love fills our hearts and moves us to be to others what God has been to us.  He didn't hold our sins against us, and we extend the same grace to everyone in our world.  Jesus is for everyone and we are called to stand with Him as He extends His crucified and resurrected life to the entire world.

           

What a God we serve!  What an awesome God to love us so fully and freely that we are privileged to share with others the greatest news ever to come down the historical pike.  In Him we are free to resign as manager of the universe and become voices of grace and mercy.

           

What a God!

God's Incredible Pledge

 Christians believe we are children of two worlds.  We are of the physical, flesh and blood, mortal world of the cosmos and we are of the spiritual world in which God is covering His people with "a house, not made with hands, eternal in the heaven" (2 Cor. 5:5).  We believe the mortal is a gift from God into which He pours His very life so that even as we dwell today in the world before us, we also dwell in the life of God who at some future moment will work in such a way "that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life" (2 Cor. 5:4).           

I, for one, find this to be exhilarating.  We live in an "earthly tent," experiencing the sense of temporary, moral, broken, and human, a life that can be taken away from any of us at any time.  Yet, we live in this "earthly tent" filled with "the Spirit as a pledge," the Spirit who fills our life with "good courage" (see 2 Cor. 5:1, 5).

Are you living in a spirit of "good cheer?"  Every Monday when I check in for a weekly physical exam just after a radiation treatment, Dr. Moorhouse asks me, "How is your spirit?"  Each week I have truthfully responded, "It's good."  It is good because God is holding me within the embrace of His grace through the abiding presence of His Holy Spirit.

In this "earthly tent" world "we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7).  Some times it hurts to live in the world.  Man's inhumanity to man is at epic proportions.  Wars and rumors of war, countless hostilities both physical and political, and suffering of countless kinds are a part of the story of daily living in the world.

Sometimes we might want to run away from it all, but this wouldn't be wise.  Instead, may God help us to live, whether here or in the heaven of which Paul speaks, with a zealous "ambition" (2 Cor. 5:9).  Heaven holds much intrigue for me, I'll be honest; but so does living in a temporal world embraced by grace, energized by God's power, and filled with the Spirit, who is given to us as a "pledge."

Lets leave the future to the God whom we trust with all our heart.  In the mean time, lets pursue life walking by faith, with a passionate ambition to be pleasing to God.

Life in GOD'S Life

Life within Life.  This is the way of Jesus.  Our lives are lived in His life, covered, if you would, by the amazing grace revealed in Him.  This is good news, according to the Bible.  The apostle Paul reminds us that our life is what he calls an "earthly tent."  It is temporary and mortal.  It won't be forever.  However, "if our earthly tent is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heaven" (2 Cor. 5:1).

           

I have been facing "earthly tent" issues recently because of health issues, very conscious that my body is temporary and mortal.  Even if God should give me many more years, a day will still come when this old body will expire.  As many years or days as I have left God helping me, I will live for Him and Him alone.  On that day when the Life in which I have been living my life is revealed, it will not be a sad day for me. 

           

The abiding presence of the Holy Spirit daily reminds me that my life is covered by the God of all grace, the God who emptied himself of all but love and actually died for me on the cross of Calvary.  Whether I am here or there does not matter.  What matters for me as I live in an earthly tent is that I "walk by faith, not by sight"  (2 Cor. 5:7).

           

I have been asking God to remind me everyday  that "momentary, light affliction is producing…an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison" (2 Cor. 4:17).  I can live with that; I can live in day-by-day victory with that. 

Life in HIS Life.  That is living.  I'll take this every time.

Very Few Obligations

 The Good News of Jesus sets my imagination to running sometimes; and, I need it to do this because, like too many people, I can tend to take things for granted and forget that I have very few obligations to which I must unequivocally yield loyalty.

For instance, did you know that not one of us is obligated to take with us the situation into which we were born?  We may have been born in the pits, but we do not have to take the pits with us into our tomorrows.  There may be things we can't change but we are under no obligation to let the past dictate our future.  We can if we want to, but we are under no obligation to do so.

We are under no obligation to live in the muck and mire of life, either.  We can if we want to, but we are under no obligation to do so.  Also, we don't have to let sin reign in us or continue to make poor decisions or build personal relationships with people who tear us down.  We can if we want to, but we don't have to.

Maybe the most setting-free verse in the entire Bible is the one where the apostle Paul said, "We have obligation -- but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it" (Rom. 8:12, NIV).   As believers in Jesus we can choose differently.  We can give ourselves to a different values system, say no to the things that destroy the quality and meaning of life, and say YES to the setting-free and life altering amazing grace of God.

The future can be different than the past because the past and the future have been invaded by the God of all grace, the God who loves us with an everlasting love. 

Floodgates of Grace

 When I was a kid my family made a trip back home to Missouri, a part of which was to the Ozarks where my mom was raised.  She and her family took us about as far from reality as my young mind could comprehend, to the home in which they were raised. It was August in Southern Missouri, and it was hot (humid hot), I mean hot hot. 

           

As we walked around the old house that had not been lived in for quite some time, someone remembered an old Artesian well they used for family needs.  They began a search and after some time, found it.  It was covered by a piece of wood about two feet by two feet.  As they lifted up the cover, sure enough the water was bubbling away.  And, like everyone else, on that hot and humid August Missouri afternoon, I placed my face right down into the bubbles and I tell you for a moment on that August afternoon I thought I was in heaven.  It was cool and clear and clean and it rejuvenated my body and made August a doable month in Missouri.

           

And Jesus tells us, "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From His innermost being will flow rivers of living water'" (John 7:38).  Greater even than an Artesian well on a hot and humid Missouri afternoon, Jesus opens the flood gates of grace so that the waters of the living God will rejuvenate our lives and quench the thirst that is in us.

           

I wonder how many people are living in hot and humid days in their inner lives, days in which relief seems never to come.  Yet, relief has come.  There is a Savior and to believe in Him is to have let loose in one's life the river of God.  This awesome Savior says, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink" (John 7:37).

           

Go ahead.  Come to Him.  Put your face right down into the fresh, cool, clear, wonderful river of life, a river that flows from the throne of grace, and soak it all in.    

Awesome News

 Can things really be different in this world?  Can people really change?  Can persons really alter their core values?  Is the old Christian teaching about transformation just a lofty and noble sales pitch or is it an actual possibility in a world broken by the harsh realities of sin?

The Bible says something awesome about God, His Word and the ramifications of God and His Word in a persons' life. I John 5:3-5 says, "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.  Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?"

The awesome news is that in Jesus the future can be different than the past.  Priorities and values can change.  Weakness can be embraced in the power of God.  Old things can pass away when Jesus is invited into a person or situation.  There is a way of not being a victim anymore and of overcoming the ways and means of the world.  To "the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" new beginnings and awesome possibilities are a heartbeat a way (I John 5:5). 

Do you feel like you are going down for the third time?  Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired?  Is there a way out of the story that has become your story?  Jesus stands, inviting you into His life.  It's not magic he performs.  It is transforming love embracing you out of the past and into a new and wonderful future.