Cling to what is Good (Romans 12:9)?

 

Paul is describing the worship of our God, and I usually call this, What is your why? Paul goes on to say, we need to be a living sacrifice to our God, giving up seeking what we want from life and learn to know and serve what God wants. What does that begin with? It’s using our spiritual gifts to serve each other in the church and our fellow man. Our goal as Christians is to love and lift each other up. We must focus our expectation on eternity and wait with patience and prayer for our Father to provide. We must refuse to sink to evil’s level, giving good to those who harm us instead of revenge.

 

I thought I knew all I needed to know about being, “usefully good”. I was wrong. I just knew a lot about evil. You see in these polarized times, people live inside their social media echoes of “I” chambers of their own extremism, growing ever more pretentious. Each day, the digital waters we swim in causes us to deepen our entrenchment of our beliefs with a growing willingness to caricature our opponents. When forced into contact with the other side of good, we become repulsed and indignant. How could anyone be so stupid? Are you shocked to discover the one thing that unites us with them is that they feel exactly the same way in return, frightful and not trusting our vulnerability? The human way is to curse those who curse us and try to overcome evil with eviler. But, according to Romans 12:21, we can only overcome evil with good.  God’s goodness is stronger than any evil.

 

‘My friends at Corinth, our hearts are wide open to you and we speak freely, holding nothing back from you. If there is a block in our relationship, it is not with us, for we carry you in our hearts with great love, yet you still withhold your affections from us. So, I speak to you as our children Make room in your hearts for us as we have done for you”. 2 Corinthians 6: 11-13 So, “Why am I so afraid of Vulnerability”?

 

The godless of the world “hate what is good”. 2 Timothy 3:3

Yet, So many of us hide and even feel uneasy just hearing those words; we don’t want to open wide our hearts and hold nothing back. Which is opposite to building real and meaningful relationships. But what we are really uncomfortable with is the unaddressed fears that we associate with the concept of opening wide our hearts.

 

One heartbeat, knowing there’s a risk that the other party won’t reciprocate. “Love must be sincere”? Hate what is evil; cling to what is good” Romans 12:9. Paul points out that true believers love genuinely, without hypocrisy, and overcome evil with good. But God’s children are lovers of good. We hate evil because it is the enemy of all that is good. God Himself is good and the source of all goodness. Mark 10:18 Everything God creates is “very good” in every aspect Genesis 1:31. 

We overcome evil the same way, with good. The Lord says that vengeance belongs to Him and He will repay Hebrews 10:30. So, what does that mean? That we can entrust ourselves to God, just like Jesus did, and know that He will work even those evil acts committed against us for our good. Romans 8:28. When we refuse to respond in kind to those who would persecute us, their evil actions stand alone, whereas retaliation brings us down to the level of the instigators. When two people are fighting especially with their rhetorical words, and one is clearly attacking the other, evil is highlighted for all to hear and see. When we return a soft word, a kindness, or generosity to someone who has wronged us, which is the beauty of being vulnerable, we leave the perpetrator alone in his evil.

 Proverb 25:21-22 says, “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will hear burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.” Paul quotes this passage in Romans 12:20, just before his command to “overcome evil with good.” To “heap burning coals on his head” probably refers to the natural response of the enemy to kindness. Nothing makes us feel more shamed and embarrassed by our actions than someone reacting to our hurtful behavior with gentle forgiveness. Kindness in the face of unkindness demonstrates the stark contrast between the two. The goal of a gentle reaction to the enemy is not to embarrass or get the last word but to help facilitate repentance in the evildoer.

If we remember a few key things, we are on our way to overcoming evil with good:

1. I am not the judge; God is. He will do what is right Genesis 18:25. 

2. As a Christian, my response to evil should not copy the world’s behavior but reflect Christ, who is in me Romans 12:1-2. 

3. Keeping my eyes on Jesus helps me know how to respond when I am treated poorly Hebrews 12:2. 

4. God is always watching and evaluating my choices, and He wants to reward me for obeying Him Matthew 5:43-48. 

Jesus reminded the Pharisees that Satan cannot drive out Satan. Likewise, evil cannot drive out evil. An evil response only doubles the evil. When we respond to evil in humility and grace, we are proving that good triumphs over wickedness. We cannot stop people from doing evil, but they cannot force us to participate with them. It takes no power, might, or wisdom to retaliate against evildoers. But returning good for evil is one of the greatest demonstrations of strength.

 

Do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God” 3 John 1:11; Clinging to what is good draws us into a closer relationship with Christ, which in turn results in Christlikeness of character: “even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. Christians have been promised an end to suffering. Suffering in this life will happen, but it will end, for those who have faith in Christ. Not only that, believers will be “restored” from all the harm done to us.

 He is your example that we cling to. 

 

What is good by clinging to the Lord. Jesus Christ in us is all the goodness we need to be wholly good.

 

Gods Blessings And This Ministry!

 

“My Corn field”

  “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me”. 2 Corinthian 12:9

 

Using the above scripture, I was reflecting this sun rise about my youthful adolescent’s, how I seem to be fixated on being in a mush world without options or opportunities. Was it due to the lack of action on the part of my parents? Was I a victim, “When the state became God”,” Making me/us a victim of my time during ghettoization”? Many of my thoughts were strained by how I viewed things, a lack of cultural intellect maybe, a significant lack of financial resources. All because of being marinized because of my ethnicity? Ah, I soon realized it was a social construction of perception verse reality for the group, that has no objective but rather is what people decide about self-esteem, “oh really”? Insights, different of opinions, “our whatever”, my guidance in a question, “what is the object of the faith by which one should live in this world”?

 

Yet John 3:16 begins, "For God so loved the world. . .." So, God loves the world, but we are not supposed to? Why the apparent contradiction? A peradventure of sin crosses my mind as one of Satan’s demons were offering me/you a deal? In any case, the idea of forfeiting one’s soul in a deal with the devil is much more cultural and literary than it is biblical.

 

 There comes a time to draw a line in the sand and take your lumps and take a stand to,” Live for Christ”. Loving the world is idolatry 1 Corinthians 10:7, 14). So, while we are commanded to love the people of the world, we are to be wary of anything that competes with God for our highest affections.

 

There's no magic formula thought out our journey of favor, blessing and kindness mournfully blurred.

I ask myself is it the change in the way you grasp, “the greatest gifts of grace”. How could you ever accept, as you rummage for meaning in self? Coexisted within the concrete landscape in a daunting City, merely existing in a make-believe utopia, with no practical relevance to “Truth”? 

Let the illusions and falsehoods—of who you thought you were and what you thought your life was supposed to look like wear themselves out. Stay a little longer with pride, you might end up finding yourself? Instead, we are to be selfless, to die to self, and to deflect any attention given to us to the great God who created and sustains us.

 

The maze of life! You have the word of God, which is the lamp for your feet and the light for your path. Just as you would have been lost without a light, in that maze of life without God’s word. It sheds light on all your decisions, so you wanted to see clearly what you ought to do. The scene was high on the delusion with a fiery intellect landscape, “I've never been there, but the brochure looks nice”. So, do you have the audacity for curiosity?

 

“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out. As the heavens for height, and the earth for depth, so the heart of kings is unsearchable”. Proverbs 25:2-3

 

I stood in a cornfield at sunrise just outside the group of buildings, called the Towers, near where my dorm room was as a freshman. Yet for me as an African American student who entered Iowa State University that fall was an awkward experience.  A trip through fertile Iowa cornfields on my football recruiting trip, a kid from the projects of the West End in Cincinnati, I had been both captivated and felt weirded. The warmth of the morning sun offset by a refreshing breeze rustling through the cornstalks. The air was perfumed with the cleansing scent after a light shower, enriched by the fertile soil and the earthy aroma of fresh Iowa corn.  I had never seen corn growing up that close so, it’s glistening for a moment, reminded me of “The Fruit of the Holy Spirt”.

 

I stood before a single corn plant and was struck by its beauty and majesty as it grew purposefully toward Heaven. Its emerald leaves were lined with countless tiny grooves, sparkling with dew like complicated crystals, reflecting prisms of light. Glistening white, and pale and bright gold, kernels peeked through the parted husks sheathing the untouched ear of corn. At the top of the ear, flaxen strands of cornsilk shone in the sun like a young woman’s light-colored afro braids.

 

“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him”. Romans 8:9

 

 

Athletic programs pour resources into making the adjustment of their freshmen as seamless as possible. But you see in the heartland of Iowa some nine years after the 1964 civil Rights Act the live “corn” was utterly in capable, I thought of seeing the source of my human being side of inquisitiveness. I remembered my coaches were always in my ear. They observed me once in the mist of those fields of wonder. Next thing I knew I was invited into the office of worry; being asked are you lonely, because we saw you over by the corn fields. I quickly replied, no, I had never seen corn up close before.

 

Sounds corny (pun intended), but there really are some takeaway points from this misadventure that parallel nicely to our Christian walk. I share these with you now in the hopes that you will glean some fidelity for the future harvest.

 

First, you cannot begin your journey if you do not know where you should start, and you can’t complete your journey if you don’t know where the finish line is. You have got to know where you are and where you are going. How do you know this? Depends on your, corn maze. A life of faith in God with His wisdom.

 

You simply note the “start” and the “finish” on the map and use that as your guide. It’s the same in your Christian walk. Only the start and finish are one and the same, “Christ Jesus”. The Bible says that He is the “author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), “the Beginning and End” (Revelation 21:6, 22:13). We must get this right, because sometimes we think life begins and ends with us or our self-esteem. This does not mean that Christians should have low self-esteem. It only means that our sense of being a good person should not depend on it, but rather on who we are in Christ. We need to humble ourselves before Him, and He will honor us. Psalm 16:2 reminds us, “I said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.’” Christians attain self-worth and esteem by having a right relationship with God. We can know we are valuable because of the high price God paid for us through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.

 

“Like a much-loved mental picture of a cornfield”. This shaped my approach to victimhood, not just live and play the part. But always have hope in God, which will stand out from the rest of the world’s cornfields as we take up the cross and follow Jesus. Luke 9:23, we will not forsake our first love.

 

“May we plant the good seed of his word within our heart and sow it to others, that we may all be transformed from the defeat of death to the victory of eternal life in Christ”.

 

God Bless You and This Ministry!

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Cool Club for Love"

  

 

 

Ask God and stand with Christ!

 

Recently, " I was asked, how do you see America?". My first response was, “America is a spoon full of sugar ". 

Then the fast-food commercial was over and the daily subject of reality that’s literally beyond any one person hit me.

The hopelessness and helpless message of," the hand writing is on the wall " and that’s part of how I’m feeling right now about America. The devil is using my mind as a playground. My emotions are like a ball being bounced back and forth between perception and reality; between belief and unbelief, and all this is being done with no consent on my part. It is polarizing me to scream, “What is reality vs fiction?”

“I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law”. Psalm 119:163

Meaning: “The more we see the beauty of truth, the more we shall see the hateful distortion or bias of a lie”. 

 

Each day, we watch America turn further from Christian values and the core principles of liberty. It’s frustrating to feel we can’t assert biblical truth without facing condemnation, and it’s fearful to witness outrage and victimhood replace respect and reason. Amidst this dissent, how can we not only stay rooted in our own faith, but continue to publicly testify for Jesus? I'm humbled America!

 

I was a terrible sinner when I was young, but I’ve asked God, through the blood of His Son Jesus, to wash my heart clean. Today, I’m anxiety ridden, even though I read my Bible and pray. I believe in the power of God, but I feel helpless against what the enemy of my soul is trying to due to my mind.   Oh, how much we need God’s help to break this vicious cycle.

There is a lot of bad advice going around these days" America". How does this relate to us? What's our role?

 

We don't know the future of America. But the hand writing is on the wall. Once you celebrated those who have been captured; the hand writing is on the wall. Something bad happened to you, then you define yourself by your trauma. This I label or identify as "becoming the book “you just read. Where's the tears. Self-righteousness is not needed here. But Lovely and stand alone and take the consequences knowing God is with us.

 

In Jeremiah 29:11, He says: "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.

 

And if somebody inadvertently did something offensive, did you react as though they had intended to harm you, "pick the victimization language". What's gone wrong brothers and sisters? So, what does it mean to be in the cool club for Love without idols in our lives? Where’s the grace? The spiritual discipline?

 

 "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love". 1 Corinthians 16:14.

 

A thoughtful advice of words as we pray and chronicle the strange turn in our culture. One's fearlessness, to say, tell me something good or as simple as, I love you. As you sway to the music of the world as you try to make sense of this Love thing. Imagine, never understanding Who God is or His created intent for His world, but then trying to make sense of a messy relationship. In reality, one of the consequences of a divorcing love from its only real Source that’s based on Truth, a life once known.

 

According to Ephesians 5:1–2, we walk in love by imitating God just like Jesus did, offering our lives in sacrifice to God: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God”. Take the walk change our behavior and how we act as we join the cool club of hugs telling a friend, stranger with your action We walk in love when we act like God and when we behave like Jesus, Or would you.

 

I rather be in that world that’s just about anyone else’s that tends to skew the growing self-righteousness in our intellectual discourse base on me. At this point my smiling face shows what’s wrong with this kind of narrative focus. The Bible tells us that love originates in God. As I back off, I think about the four loves to compliment my smile of the past readership, The Four Loves identified in C.S Lewis classic book (storge, or affection; phileo, or friendship, eros, or sexual love, and agape, or sacrificial love). You see C.S. Lewis thought true friendship had become the rarest. which eros and agape have become my ride captain ride on this mystery ship, saying have we forgotten how to Love one another. Are we unhappy?

 

Christians have actual good news to offer a culture helplessly obsessed with but thoroughly confused about Love. We can offer a love that reorients and transforms impulse (eros), a love that yells, "good morning America, don’t you know me, and tell them, “I love you" which is that spoon full of sugar message that orders friendship and affection (phileo and storge), and a love sacrificial and self-giving (agape). Is that your radio, wondering what to say? How many simply lack a category for true, affectionate, loving, and yet need something good like a friend or brotherly relationship to speak to you?

 

In the process, image bearers can find their true identity as created, loved, and redeemed by God. As God’s children and members of His family, we are called to deny our own selfish desires and interests for the sake of God and others. Although we are free in Christ, we use our freedom “to serve one another in love. That, more or less, brings the idea of truth, or “reality,” full-circle. According to Christianity, “absolute reality” is truth, “truth” is what actually exists and that corresponds to what is real, and the most important aspects of truth are given to us by God. Reality can be known, and it applies to all aspects of our lives, according to the Bible.

 For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Galatians 5:13–14,). Peter said, “You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart” (1 Peter 1:22,). This wholehearted, sacrificial imitation of God’s divine agape is what it means to walk in the, " Cool Club for love". Here is the bottom line on love: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.… We love because he first loved us”. 1John 4:9-11,19 

 

 

God Bless You And This Ministry!

“Wrestling with Scruples”

 Shakespeare was right when he wrote, “Conscience does make cowards of us all,” (Hamlet, Act Scene 1).

 

As Jacob had no strength before Esau because of guilt, many Christians today are also hindered by memory of their past sins and failings. “Do not be wise in your own eyes;

Fear the Lord and turn away from evil”. Proverbs 3:7

 

As far as mankind goes, it is not what they were long before that interests me, but what triggers “their fire of becoming”.

 

"What causes us to wrestling with God?"

Is it best to answer this question with “why you ask”? Does it help to know, among other things, that sometimes we have deep-seated “Consciences”, human psyche that induces mental anguish and feelings of guilt when we violate feelings of one’s actions; thoughts, and words conformed to, or are contrary to, a standard of right and wrong? As a result of the “battle of the bands” the conscience is a servant of the individual’s value system. An immature or weak value system that produces a weak conscience or a fully informed value system that produces a strong sense of right and wrong. 

 

As an early milk drinker of the Christian life, my conscience was driven by an inadequate understanding of scriptural truths and produced my feelings of guilt and shame disproportionate to the issues at hand. Was that you? You see as a newborn infant, child of god sometimes we reject that very milk we are crying for, at first, until we get a taste of it. And then with the help of the holy spirit, we guzzled it hungrily. This is not to be confused with Paul’s separate metaphor of milk and meat in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3. No Christian reaches the point on this side of eternity where spiritual growth is completed

 

Maturing in the faith strengthens the conscience. 

 

Do you find in today’s world of word hippo canceling, that you think about your own words and deeds and found them to be in accordance with the worlds morals, integrity value system of today leaving you with a question mark of agreement?

 

 You see first, conscience is a God-given capacity for human beings to exercise self-evaluation. As I examine, Paul in, Acts 23:1-3; 24:16; 1 Corinthians 4:4, he refers several times to his own conscience being “good” or “clear” which were, of course, based on God’s standards. His conscience verified the integrity of his heart. 

 

 From Genesis, family hostilities characterized Jacob’s life. He was a determined man; some would consider him to be ruthless. He was a con artist, a liar, and a manipulator. In fact, the name Jacob not only means “deceiver,” but more literally it means “grabber.”

To know Jacob’s story is to know our life as one of never-ending struggles. Though God promised Jacob that through him would come not only a great nation, but a whole company of nations, he was a man full of fears, struggles and anxieties. At a pivotal point in his life, Jacob was about to meet his brother, Esau, who had vowed to kill him. All Jacob’s struggles and fears of past principles were about to be realized. Sick of his father-in-law’s treatment, Jacob had fled Laban, only to encounter his embittered brother, Esau. In fact, he was powerless to control his fate. He collapsed into a deep sleep on the banks of the Jabbok River. With his father-in-law behind him and Esau before him, he was too spent to struggle any longer.

But only then did his real struggle begin. Fleeing his family history had been bad enough; wrestling with God Himself was a different matter altogether. That night an angelic stranger visited Jacob. They wrestled throughout the night until daybreak, at which point the stranger crippled Jacob with a blow to his hip that disabled him with a limp for the rest of his life. It was then that Jacob realized what had happened: “I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared” Genesis 32:30. In the process, Jacob the deceiver received a new name, Israel, which likely means: “He struggles with God.” What keeps you from leaning completely on God with absolute trust and confidence? What helps You?

 

It is crucial that every Christian understands that he/she is in a spiritual battle. There is no way to get out of it. Awareness of the spiritual battle around us is very important. Not only awareness, but vigilance, preparedness, courage, and the right weaponry are crucial elements of engaging in spiritual warfare. As we celebrate wealth, power, strength, confidence, prestige, and victory and at the same time despise fear weakness, failure, and doubt? 

 

Though we know that a measure of vulnerability, comes with normal lives, we tend to view these as signs of victimhood or even a lack of faith. Is this the real life we seek, with candles in the rain, a naïve optimism of an idealized world, which acts to distinguish between performers and the characters they portray? Resulting in a recipe for discontent and despair. Sooner or later the consciences story of a Jacob pulls us back to reality; where we can easily recognize our own elements of relentless wrestling struggles and pain. 

 

But, in truth, God does not want to leave us. What we come to learn in our conflicts of life is that God gives to us a corresponding divine gift, Jesus. It is through Him that we can receive the power of conversion and transformation, the gift of not only surrender, but freedom, and the gifts of endurance, faith, and courage.

A popular traditional Christian song says:

 

All to Jesus, I surrender, all to Him I freely give;

I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live.

 I surrender all, I surrender all, 

All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.

 

And my final and daily verse Said’s, FEAR is,” False- Evidence-Appearing- Real”

I love you Christ, because we are freed from the stranglehold of sin. We are set free to pursue righteousness and purity and become the men and women God created us to be (Romans 6:18). As followers of Christ, we will still commit occasional sin. But, even then, God provides a way for us to have our consciences cleared as we continually confess our sin to God and trust that the blood of Jesus is sufficient to make us right with Him. We stand confident in His promise that, “if God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).

 

God Bless You And This Ministry!!

 

 

“Keep It Simple, Noel”

 

My fond memories as a child were mainly focused on the love during Christmas. We decorated the tree early and took it down late didn’t share many Christmas cards. My mother a great cook, was particular about using the best chocolate cookie recipes (even though I don’t like chocolate, I pretended a lot while eating them), and ate our handiwork all month long. Money for presents was a bit tight, but that didn’t stop us from giving each other homemade, inexpensive gifts usually made at school. 

 

The art of handwriting letters, notes and Christmas cards is a dying art. I’ve watched my wife for over forty years send Christmas cards. Her ritual involves not only selecting each card from the box, but it has to be scriptural and must include a hand written individual message. The great pleasure in sending those cards is matched by receiving them in turn with a graceful smile on her face. 

 

Just recently, I took time to re-read a small collection of letters and special mementos from this year’s Christmas cards. It brought out such a great joy to read about our friends and family. Notes, words of encouragement, the happiness they brought to our lives. For a moment I remember the individual beings and pondered on some distant remembrance before saying to myself, “Ahh, how I long for those simple days not as I feel in this short poem:

 

I'm an artefact of your hate today
Just the one that you'd made a fuss
Is anybody listening to a word I say?
why hate today

You edified us with hope and change
The blame will surely show, 
I try to believe it 

Days have taken years
To conquer all my fear
I stand before you now
Sickened and cut-down

 

“In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matthew 6:7-8)

 

As the autumn leaves dance and twirl, and we get our first twinkle of snow I was reminded truly of our Christian “Why” today with a question from my Friday morning men’s bible study on zoom from Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Lakewood, Colorado; Would you think about an Advent or Christmas memory you could share in sixty seconds? This not only made me think how could I spread the, “good news in simple terms,” as I ruminate of Advent/Christmas memories during covid. This also made me think about those we may label as enemies our “beloved children of God.” Divisions of politics, race, class and even theology are transcended by a love that will not be limited by our human grudges, fears and distrust. At Christmas we celebrate a love that refuses to be bound by COVID — a love that reaches even beyond death, answering, the “why” of a believer, to submit to the will of God and walk in the Spirit everyday throughout the year?

 

Would it be an opportunity to refresh your perspective that God has a grand plan for history that is so much larger than just you and your kin. For all the emphasis on gift-giving and sentimentality that characterizes our cultural holiday, we can tend to focus on our small circles of friends. So, in the midst of a season that might shrink our gaze, This short celebration should remind us to pan the camera back out to the larger scope of God’s purposes for us daily. 

As we walk in the spirit, we find that the sinful appetites have sixty seconds to interrupt, “What would you say”? You don’t have time to civically embellish your political clan. No time to elaborate or explain with contentious words. Just spit it out. How would you cut to the chase? Obediently, here’s an idea. Start by taking a page from the Gospel according to Luke. Luke tells of a blind man who was able to get the attention of Jesus one day. Jesus for me, ever the down-to-earth person, is captivatingly blunt: “What do you want me to do for you?” (Luke 18:41). The man replies in the simplest, most direct way imaginable:

 

“Lord, please let me see” (Luke 18:41). There you have it. If you are wondering how to begin to pray, how to express what is in your heart, how to express what seems inexpressible, look no further. This is how it is accomplished The blind man uttering his innermost petition— “Lord, please let me perceive”— is each of us voicing our own ensuing pleadings simply. 

 

Lord, help me empathize.
Lord, please call my fretfulness.
Lord, please make what is mistaken-true. 

Lord, help me with my Humility and Humanity. 

 

“Please let me see” is a fervent prayer of petition, and it is strikingly, even stunningly, down-to-earth. It also gets results. Jesus acknowledges the blind man’s faith and heals him.

 

 Now the season of Advent, what a four-week mystery for me. My in-laws put the tree up on my wife’s birthday in December and took it down usually on Epiphany or when the tree dried out. In the beginning, I thought what is so important about “The Coming on, Advent”? The “arrival” or “an appearing or coming into place.” Christians often speak of Christ’s “first advent” and “second advent”; that is, His first and second comings to earth. His first advent would be the Incarnation-Christmastime.

 

I’ve come to be grateful of my spouse’s family examples of celebrating, Advent keeping me from missing out on a beautiful season of love in the church year.  You see now, I often wonder, “it should be more. Not just a season to wait — to count the days. It should be a daily time of preparation. A time to re-order our lives and prepare for a fresh incarnation of God’s reign among us. Perhaps in the midst of this wilderness time with the virus and political divide we can look for new ways to practice the justice to which God calls us with a mighty fresh invitation to share the hope, love, joy and peace, giving it a VIP during Advent with a stranger, family or friend.

As John the Baptist quotes Isaiah: “In the wilderness, prepare a way for the Lord.”   

 

So, light one of those candles and artfully send a handwritten letter on Advent each Sunday: One, two, three, four, a reminder of an everyday Noel. Strike a chord to the community, of the stunningly magnificent truths of the birth of Jesus. When nearly every cherished tradition is upended and characterized as a “Wilderness Year!”, may we be called to reflect humbly on what it means for God’s love to enter the world again — making all things new. This Jesus child will grow up to proclaim: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, as we go forth daily, moment-by- with holiness, just as Jesus did when he was “full of the Holy Spirit, into the wilderness to be tempted”. Luke 4:1

God Bless You And This Ministry!

 

 

 

 

“Patience People”

"Don’t Stand so close to me"

Do you love music?  Especially songs during Christmas you see the stress of the holiday’s triggers sadness and depression for many people. This time of year, is especially difficult because there’s an expectation of feeling merry and generous, then there’s the foe or enemy of covid. People compare their emotions to what they assume others are experiencing or what they’re supposed to feel. Then they think that they alone fall short. They judge themselves and feel like an outsider.

Christmas carols can really deepen our appreciation and help us connect with the Christians who passed down their faith to us in song as they battle those enemy sparks. Can you count the number of times that you have thanked God for this wonderful gift? and how it can uplift and encourage when you are at your lowest. Scripture often depicts music as having a soothing and calming power. You can see an example of that in 1 Samuel 16:14-23; a distressing spirit of the Lord tormented Saul, and it was only when David played the harp that Saul found peace. 

 

A faith that is tested is a faith that can be trusted. My first experience with the song “Patience People” was at a young age while attending church with one of my mom’s sister’s. My thoughts were struck by the message of that song. The lyrics of this song were based off of James 5:7-9, 11; Be patient, therefore brothers, until the coming of the lord. See how the farmers waits for precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and late rains. 

 

Not knowing it but the music was dying hollow that day in my heart and I was wondering if God wanted me to hear something that I needed to obey. The problem was that even when I still consided myself a person of God, my worship was fruitless; a worship that had become nothing more than an irritating sound to God:  

 

“Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps, I will not listen.” (Amos 5:23) Worship means so much more than sharing a kind word for a job well done. It means actively bending your knee in submission, praise, and sacrifice to something or someone worthy of your utmost devotion.  Are you devoting yourselves to less than the best that we were created for?   

 

I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” John 8:24

 

Have you ever been convinced that without a shadow of a doubt that you have trials that have become your enemies; from your negative experiences, your hurts and maybe your addictions? Deriving hardships that most believers have faced. The challenge then is to truly learn how to consider each trial joy. Joy is often presented as “true” contentment based on faith. Happiness, in contrast, is often thought of as “false” or “superficial” emotion dependent on circumstances. 

 

Of course, there are different types of joy and happiness. There is a joy that comes from the world, such as “the fleeting pleasures of sin” spoken of in Hebrews 11:25. There is a joy that is part of the fruit of the Spirit Galatians 5:22. There is a temporary happiness and an eternal happiness, but we can call both “happiness. Do you ever split hairs between the meaning of joy and happiness? Sometimes we just need to decide where our joy comes from. Are we happy in the Lord, or are we content with the enemy of happiness the world affords? So, who are your enemies?

 

Pondering all of this as I read Matthew 5. I thought what enemies were there to love when I had so many. Here I am God standing knee-deep in the deepest valley of my life. Breathing my last ounce of faith, wondering how do I finish this race. You see we muster up the courage to stand but yet in the mist of things we are hit with another building of musical notes without a rest. Can you relate to being out of control, and needing that rest, thinking how can we change the narrative,” perceived back to a reality of contentment”?

 

What does our faith in Jesus Christ mean? Come to me and I will give you rest. What is that rest, “it’s the promise that still stands the promise of salvation through God’s provision—Jesus Christ”. Though we desist in our self-efforts to earn salvation and the promised eternal rest, we also “make every effort to enter that rest” by choosing to depend solely on God, to trust Him implicitly, to yield totally to the promises of God through the free grace of His salvation. Why? So “that no one will fall by following their [the Israelites’] example of disobedience” (Hebrews 4:11). We either trust ourselves to save ourselves, or we trust God to do that for us through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. 

 

I said to my enemy, “Don’t Stand so close to me original sin”, meaning that we cannot please God on our own. No matter how many “good deeds” we do, we still commit sin, and we still have the problem of a corrupt nature within. We must have Christ; we must be born again (John 3:3). God deals with the effects of original sin in our hearts through the process of sanctification and turn from sin and turn to him who is the forgiver of sins, take a breath/rest to the giver of new life, and the giver of the Holy Spirit. Bend your knee to Jesus and confess him as the true Lord and Savior that he really is.  Make Jesus the object of your worship as you listen to the song, “Patience People”, and you will never run out of power to worship our good God. 

 

However, almost immediately, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the voice of the Lord speaks to our heart that moment, saying “every time you hear those echoes from your enemies that offend or hurt, I will give you rest. We enter into God’s rest by first understanding our total inability to enter God’s rest on our own. Next, we enter God’s rest by our total faith in the sacrifice of Christ and complete obedience to God and His will. We are to enter God’s rest by faith in Him, faith which is a gift from Him by grace (Ephesians 2:8-9). 

 

God Bless You and This Ministry!