[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYKa9E1xzao&hl=en&fs=1&]
“When the rain come. It’s not like they might. They do. It rains in our lives….a lot.” – Rob Bell
I love that line from this video and actually the main reason that I feel the need to blog about this. Rain will come. Storms will come in our lives. You can’t stop them from happening, they just do. The last couple weeks in the sunday school class that I teach we have talked about this every now and then. We talked about it in the story of David and Goliath and this past sunday when we talked about Samson. You see in life there is a path that we are on. Everyone has a path, and sometimes roadblocks get in the way. So, if you can’t stop something from happening. What do you do about it?
In life your gonna make mistakes. Just like rain, they are going to happen. So, what do you do when you make mistakes? Give up? No, when it rains do you stay inside all day everyday that it rains? No, you get an umbrella. Mistakes are gonna happen. In life we are going to fail. That’s not the point though. The point is that we were created by a God that is all knowing and knows everything little you and I are going to make, but He still loves us and has a future for us!
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11
When it rains you get an umbrella and and when you fail you realize that you are still loved by God. You always will be. Always.
Here’s a thought to chew on. No matter what mistakes you make in life or how many you fail, God will ALWAYS be there for you waiting to support as you go on. He is always with you and He will always love you. Always. You can fail everyday of your life and yet He will still love you!
How Christianity is viewed?
“Christianity has become bloated with blind followers who would rather repeat slogans than actually feel true compassion and care. Christianity has become marketed and streamlined into a juggernaut of fear-mongering that has lost its own heart.” -Anonymous-
“Christianity’s image problem is not merely the perception of young outsiders. Those inside the church see it as well–especially Christians in their twenties and thirties. I was unprepared for the research showing that Mosaic and Buster Christians are skeptical of present-day Christianity.” -“UnChristian” by David Kinnamen p. 18-
Something to think about today…
Acts 1:8 says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
God has an agenda for the world because God truly loves everyone on the face of the planet, he has always had an agenda, but now the question is, where do we fit in God’s agenda?
If you go by Acts 1:8, we are the ones that carry out God’s agenda by loving, teaching, and embracing in the way Jesus taught us to. So, where do we fit?
Right in the smack dab middle.
We are the voice. We matter. Even in the worse of times in your lives you will always matter to God, always, and he believes in you and me and that is why he has entrusted us with the care of his creation. People need love. We desire to have love and there is no love like the love that God provides and we have to share it.
I believe it was Francis Asbury that once said, “Offer them Christ.” Cause that is an offer that may be refused but never fades and never disappears. God is always there. Always.
One of the most beautiful moments in the Gospels is when Peter walks on water and then gets scrared and drowns, but what does Jesus do?
He extends his hand and pulls Peter up. No matter what you are going through in your life today, tomorrow, or ever you will always have the hand of Christ extended to you. He loves us and we are His voice. Just some thoughts on an early Sunday morning.
Enough Said.
Psalm 139
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to [b] me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake, I am still with you.
19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
“The Word of God.
For the People of God.
Thanks be to God.”
Living or Existing?
So, what’s the difference? Because when you live and exist, you still have a heartbeat either way, but there is a significant difference and a lot of thoughts on living and existing hit me today as I was listening to Robbie Seay.
“Shine Your Light us so that we may live.” – Robbie Seay
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” – John 10:10
At the very basis of our existence is that uncontrollable nature of sin. We can’t help it. We can’t stop it. We sin, and at one point in time in the history of this world everybody (man, woman, children) all were defined by it. Sin is a very troublesome thing that we can’t control and to God all sins are all the same. To God when we sin, no matter what it is, it is us telling God, “Ok, I got this. What you offer God is good and all, but I found something better.”
Seriously.
Knowing all that and knowing that it is the uncontrollable action of us as human beings, Jesus still came to this earth not to forsake us or even condemn us, but rather to embrace us and die for us. The amazing thing to me is that Jesus doesn’t just embrace us when we are good, but he embraces us all and accepts all.
The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Everything.
All.
And what does he do? Jesus knows everything about us and knows how many times we have “found” something better, and yet it doesn’t matter. Everything that we are as humans is enough for Him. His grace and love look past the times we have “found” something better and look into the eyes of our heart and say, “I don’t care what you’ve done or what your going to do that is against my will, I still love you and I still would die for you.”
So back to my original question. What is the difference? Well, what is the difference between being defined by sin and being defined by grace?
It’s huge. Earth shattering. The difference is the reason we live and worship. Why would Jesus want to look past all the sinning and look to us as His love and children? Because He can. Just by existing we know that we uncontrollably sin, but when we live, then we know that we are not defined by that uncontrollable urge. We are defined by what Jesus did. When he died he made the sinners the justified, the idiots he made brilliant. The difference is crucial, because it is a portal to who we are at our existence. Loved.
Lord, help us to always know that you love us beyond our limited understanding and that you died so that we could live forever. Father God your grace and love astound me to my core sometimes and I cant put into words how much it warms my heart and soul to know that you believe in me. Help us always to search our hearts for you and your will for our lives. In Jesus Name, Amen.