new perspective

Over Focused
(we become what we think)

Do you jump to conclusions you don’t know are truth?

We have thoughts faster than our mind can process. They’re not always about others, often they’re about ourselves.

…someone didn’t return our call – they must be mad…
…no thank you for the meal – it must have been bad…

Walking down the street, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned: this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?”

Jesus said, “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do.
John 9:1-4 Message

This blind man was healed with spit and mud. Some thought that impossible and others were upset it happened on a Sabbath. Were they looking at the right thing?

God did not create in black and white. He has great imagination. He likes the word mystery and speaks in parables…not to confuse but because He wants to be the one to help us to understand.

Note to self: stop trying to figure it all out on my own…listen to Him.

clarification

Are you ever confused?

I am.

We expect so much to be predictable. People, the weather, the plans for the day. Things don’t always turn out as we wanted. There always seems to be something or someone that disrupts our “normal” flow.

I was thinking of the “never quit” post and praying through some things. Sometimes we do need to quit before we can move forward on the road He has called us to travel.

The verses lately say, “study how He did it” and “learn to think like Him.” That is the renewing of our minds, isn’t it?

Instead of OUR expectations – HIS expectations.

To Him – 2 fish and a loaf might be enough instead of us trying to take over the whole event. If we’re doing all the planning – where is HE?

Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. Gal 3:2-3

Thank You Lord that You give such grace. Help us to give ourselves grace too.

the gift of earth

Do you ever feel there is so much in the world now that is not natural?

Many are responding in extreme ways…some for the good and others…well…

The highest heavens belong to the Lord,
but the earth he has given to man.
Psalm 115:16

In the beginning God gave us the earth and asked us to “fill it and subdue it.”

Often its one word that grabs me. Today it was subdue.
Control – Overtake – Defeat – Conquer
Seems pretty forceful and yet we seem so fearful of this earth.

No resolution – just some thoughts.

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth. ~Henry David Thoreau
(sorry Henry….)

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money. ~Cree Indian Proverb

receiving gifts with grace

If you get something you don’t work for –
it’s usually called a gift.

The best one I ever received, I tried to ignore for a long………long time. Grace.

I thought to embrace Jesus I had to DO and GIVE UP. You know…that long list of the Old Testament.

I was a skeptic but dared to say yes. The GIFT hasn’t stopped giving!! God’s grace is there even if I didn’t do anything else.

He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! Ephesians 2:5-8 Message

did you miss it

Seek God while he’s here to be found,
pray to him while he’s close at hand.
Let the wicked abandon their way of life
and the evil their way of thinking.
Let them come back to God, who is merciful,
come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness.
Isaiah 55:6-7

I was talking with someone about my unbelieving life. How I blamed God for my dad’s death when I was a teen and considered myself an atheist/agnostic for so long. Thankfully His mercy is still there and 20 years later I found that His forgiveness does change everything!

Even when we abandon Him – God never abandons us.

Seek Him – He is waiting to be found!

…and thanks Mom for continuing in prayer!

ready or not

Did your parents tell you all you needed to know when you were five?

Maybe they did, but you didn’t really understand so it went in one ear and out the other. If you had a spongey mind, maybe in your 30’s you remember and say….ahhhhh!

God works with us in such a similar way.

The Holy Spirit is mentioned in sermons and stories over and over but do we really understand the importance Jesus placed on knowing Him?

I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t handle them now. But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won’t draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said. He will honor me; he will take from me and deliver it to you. Everything the Father has is also mine. That is why I’ve said, ‘He takes from me and delivers to you.’
John 16:12-15

enter in

Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It’s not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you’re already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it’s an initiation ritual you’re after, you’ve already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.
Colossians 2:11-15

The first photo is what was painted during worship last Sunday. Being out of town delayed its finish but “Brilliance” is all around us – God is all around us!

fine tuned spirits

Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven’t stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works. We pray that you’ll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.
Colossians 1:9-12

Have you figured out how God works yet?

Don’t worry…you will learn more and more just as this says.
As we are ready to hear and act on, He reveals.

strength of the message

The Message is as true among you today as when you first heard it. It doesn’t diminish or weaken over time. It’s the same all over the world. The Message bears fruit and gets larger and stronger, just as it has in you. From the very first day you heard and recognized the truth of what God is doing, you’ve been hungry for more. It’s as vigorous in you now as when you learned it from our friend and close associate Epaphras. He is one reliable worker for Christ! I could always depend on him. He’s the one who told us how thoroughly love had been worked into your lives by the Spirit.
Colossians 1:5-8

It sometimes seems the message of Christ changes since we hear so many interpretations. I don’t guarantee mine are even correct but what I feel it saying to me at that time.

Always check the Bible yourself and ask the Spirit to guide you in truth.

If the message is not bearing fruit, building up or showing love – check it. God’s Word may come with some challenges but Jesus did not come to tear others down. He came to show us real love.

learning everyday

I went to the river again…this time a little earlier to catch more sun rising. It was worth it and my lesson for the day…

The fog always goes away.

It might not do it right when we want it but it does lift. Fog can make things seem so far away and yet a gate could be right in front of you and open, you just don’t see it.

Swing wide those heavenly gates…

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
1 Corinthians 13:12-13