ONE OF JESUS' MORE REMARKABLE TRAITS

We believe in Jesus. We believe that he was born upon the earth in order to walk our trails and valleys. Jesus is the Highest of the highest of humanity and the Star of Heaven. Amazing is a word we will continue to use as descriptive; yet there is unfathomable beyondness that goes with it.

Jesus relates to us. God experienced our walk as He wore the robes of His Lamb. Suffering to the point of death, our Father walked the walk and talked the talk through His dear Son. God was the Missionary and Jesus was His interpreter.

Due to such holy teamwork, God knows full-well the multi-challenges that you and I face. And.....He's got us!

May we continue to be worshipfully excited and enthused over the One who lived on purpose in order to die intentionally. He did exactly that for you my friend. He. Did. It. And. Did. It. Well.

I know that many of you are walking some rugged paths these days. Please know that I am sympathetic. But more so, know that God was tenderly pre-sympathetic before you ever hit earth.

So...in thinking about you...I wish to remind you that Jesus totally gets you! He got here before you and I did in order to map out, with incredible precision, just what it would take to see that we have that wonderful possession of Eternal Life.

One of Jesus' most remarkable traits is that, even though he was God's only begotten Son, he knew that the ultimate sacrifice of horrific punishment upon the Cross would be what it would take to give us assurance that we could actually live beyond the grave.

Be encouraged my friend. Be very encouraged. Jesus wipes away our failures with His blood and empowers us to live with incredible hope due to His being raised...FROM. THE. DEAD.

 

TRY NOT TO MISS THE HEALING PATH

I deeply desire to be a voice of courage and hope for your heart and mind today. Stress and distraction run major interferences to every person. There are no exceptions as in NO EXCEPTIONS.

We, at times, find ourselves between a rock and a hard place, huh? While our intentions are to be loving and productive, some of our days are turned upside down. When that occurs, we must try not to miss the healing path.

Author Sharon Hersh has a grasp of where we find ourselves living from time to time. Her statement can even seem to cause us to wonder if she might, perhaps, be living in our neighborhood. Take a listen.....

"We all get lost in our workaholism, people pleasing, and numbing behaviors as we try to escape the pain of life and the messiness of loving others. But some of us appear more whole than others, and that may be the greatest danger of all. It results in the last addiction: we rely on ourselves to heal ourselves, and so we miss the healing path." (Sharon Hersh...The Last Addiction)

Note her first five words. We. All. Get. Lost. In. We all...get lost! What I wish...deeply wish...to do is to encourage you that you are not the Lone Ranger nor the Lone Rangerette in the pestering challenges of life.

May we make significant progress in recovering the fantasticalism of getting to be alive by the powerful hope God supplies in perpetuationalistic force! Each of us has reason to be encouraged and hopeful for our Father is alive and He is the Great Healer for our path-etic disruptions that tend to jump out at us.

Have an encouraging day...for God surely is a fan of yours!

 MAKE UP YOUR MIND

From the above title, I'm not suggesting that you make up your mind due to a decisional opportunity that is awaiting. That could be the case; but not this time.

No, I'm wishing to urge us to go with a bit of adjustment. I wish to cheer your forward and upward that you....you are the one who selects what you choose to allow to dwell in your thought processes. Such is of major significance for those elements will consistently combine to "make up" your mind.

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, think about these things." Philippians 4:8

We face daily opportunities, struggles, hopes, and challenges. A power guide from God is that we be very attentive to the ingredients we stir into our thoughts which will "make up" (build) our mind.

While the term "make up your mind" is understandably calling for a decision as to what or which or when or where or.... Yet the Philippians passage calls for us to contribute "make up" thoughts to flow through our brains. "Think" on these things, the Apostle Paul penned. What we choose to "think" about begins to create our daily atmospheric attitude.

So....to make up one's mind isn't always about determining a direction. It can also refer to the ingredients we permit to flow through our heads which will be positive, faithful, and strong on hope. Sooooo....I repeat....

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, think about these things." Philippians 4:8

....I repeat because such guidance really does have favorable impact for each of our days ahead.

 JESUS DIDN'T ENDORSE SIN

The very central theme of Christianity seems to be amazingly perplexing. Strangely, it is so because of its extreme simplicity. Perplexing? Simple?

Okay...which? The answer is very uniquely.....Yes.

One of the factors of seeking Jesus is that one's faith is not to be built upon hearsay nor habitually repeated religiously-invented tradition. Our faith is to be constructed upon the format that both our sin and our salvation are real. As surely as is the first, there is full expectation that one is to experience the latter.

No...Jesus most definitely did not/does not endorse sin. But through His most extreme sacrifice, He endorsed the sinner by representing us before the Father. This "shocker" must not be overlooked; but rather absorbed for its remarkable and stunning reality.

God rejected the sin while accepting the sinner. He did so, not by spouting sermons over Heaven's boisterous microphone. No, He did so by clothing Himself with humanity's sinful garb in order to get a genuine grasp of the ultimate need; how to offer legitimate salvation to humanity that would stick!

When the Day of Judgment arrives, our sinful portion will be completely rejected while we will be equally accepted. Rejection and acceptance...both are major and stunning factors which we will celebrate as we live with Him in the Heavenly realm forevermore.

Due to the Cross, sin is whole-heartedly rejected while the guilty one(s) are whole-heartedly saved. Such is brought about because of Jesus volunteering to hang from the Cross.

This truth motivates a powerful praise and worship from within the restored body of Christ...His church. Plus...plus such brings about a clarity as to just why it is that He has required of us to pick up our Crosses...and follow Him.

We don't endorse sin; but we surely endorse the sinner as valuable and precious in the sight of God.

 RELEARN TO LOVE LIFE!

As you age, be devoted to living in the realm of being purely fascinated. I read or hear of far too many individuals who are bored. And then such a mood leads to frustration and then later to deep discouragement....often.

I cheer you forward and upward to renew your energetic enthusiasm for L I F E ! Relearn to love life!

I'm not penning this in criticism of anyone. Rather, I'm wishing to convey a supportive sympathy coupled with a solution. I think that society in general is so very busy trying to work with an "over-scheduled" patternism that...well...many just aren't able to keep up.

Thus the problematic, and often daily, demandilistic conflict.

It's one thing to be wowed by life's events. It's quite another to miss the joy of such amazing events because we have allowed a pattern of "keep up" with others to shoot our lifestyle in the foot...or in some cases both feet. The fruit of such a "hurry-up because we have a loaded and very busy agenda" can be very exciting for awhile. However, when we can't keep up we start to find that the load begins to take on a crippling weight.

Please hear me. I'm not calling for laziness. I'm calling for a move that will increase one's productivity by being involved in fewer things in order to see that our activities really have room to PRODUCE!

Therefore, I sense that too many are trying to keep up with a schedule that is so overwhelming that eventually it becomes boring because one is merely abiding by the loaded calendar rather than thoughtfully engaging in fewer tasks which would/could bring renewal of life to us.

You...are valuable. Do what you can to build an active system of involvement that will be fascinatingly exciting instead of treacherilisticly boring! I'm wishing us to increase our productivity by eliminating a few of the distractions which tend to rob us.

Let the increase in our productivity BEGIN!

 QUIT EXPECTING A LIFE OF THISTLELESSNESS

If a farmer wants to have a harvest of corn, he plants corn. If the farmer's wife wants tomatoes, she places tomato plants in the garden. God professes that we reap what we sow. The idea is simple: what is planted determines the anticipated crop.

Now...do remember that with every crop (as in 100% without exception) weeds and thistles arise in the very center of one's hopeful harvest. In Farm-History, there has never (like in NEVER) been a planting that did not experience the need to deal with weeds and thistles in the very midst. My point?

Quit expecting your life to experience thistlelessness! You have not been singled out as the one to be picked upon by the struggles of life. Every person as in EVERY has to deal with disruptive thistles; sometimes on daily basis. One must not look at another individual and wonder why they seem to have escaped troubles. No one escapes such deep and painful stress.

So...what are we to do? We are to plant what we need to experience life to the fullest with the clear understanding that disruption and even disappointment will spring up here and there. Our secret is that regardless of hurt/painful moments, we will not give up on the harvest which is on its way!

Thistles of discouragement? Thistles of hopelessness? Many times! And yet...and yet we are not to get caught off-guard as if we have been neglected in life. No, we are to awaken to the wonder and reality that weeds are simply a part of the process (and progress) of harvest fulfillment.

Therefore, may we band together to encourage one another to quit expectng a life of thistlelessness! Regardless of weeds, continue to work toward the wonderful and amazing harvest coming your way!

Have a very...like in VERY...nice day!

 THE "AND THEN" CONFLICT

We find scriptures where God said, "Do"; but we realize we don't.

AND THEN

Other scriptures say, "Don't"; but we find that we do.

Each of us should find that we often fit into the above conflict. By "often", I mean day by day...by day. A key element which will help us make spiritual-life progress is to realize (and then do what we can to remember) that each of us wages deep war in this zone of

CONFLICTIONISM.

This post is not a call to deny sin nor to deny the need to confess it. Rather, it is a call for us to awaken to our own failures in order to be a legitimate and effective help to our colleagues who, likewise, severely struggle. It is the very essence of the work which Jesus displayed.

Conflictionism is a call to realize our own sinfulness (and the heaviness of it) so that we can better understand those who live within these identical borders. Jesus was and is impactive because he experienced us firsthand...before we ever got here!

As we each make strides of grasping our own lack, we then become better equipped to identify with the role that Father hands us. He first experienced this in His human Son in order to pave the way for each of us to be of authentic help to our neighbors. Until we do, we will forever be condemning others with our judgmental chatter.

The very beginning of our personal journey is to be handed a Cross to carry from which we are to live. When living upon that Cross, our attitudes and our chatter shifts....enormously so. We learn to die for opponents rather than speak from the pulpit of criticism. Such is a daily walk of an incredibly rigorous and challenging responsibility.

May we increase in the ability to condemn the sin while accepting the sinner....for such is the call Jesus makes from his Cross.