Jesus Loves the Little Children

We have been having a serious of sermons at church recently on Jesus and Children. He wants us to have faith like a child. There have been three points that have come up within these sermons that are the most important to remember and grow with. First, we have to trust like a child trusts. A child will just trust. They are dependent on their parents and so to we need to be dependent on God and trust fully in Him. The second point is that we need to live in the present like a child does. Children don't fret about the past or worry about the future. Those things tend to come with more age and responsiblity but we have to learn to not be always focused on the past or the future but looking at what is happening and what we have today. The third point is how well a child receives love. They don't over anaylzye it, evaluate it or question it. They just except the love given to them. Adults have a harder time with this as we have put up barriers because of past experiences, our personality, etc. We have to continually be praying to our Father and opening our hearts to receive his love. Don't let the things of this world lead you away from the One who loves you without failing and will love you always no matter what. I really loved the visual that the paster gave in the sermon yesterday with this statement, "All is well when we're holding the Master's hand". We are God's children and we need to be like children and reaching for his hand to hold as we walk along through our journey in life.

Alive to God's Desire

I was thinking about our sermon series bible study. The title/phrase that the church is calling it is Alive to God’s desire. In this weeks study questions, it asked what is God’s desire and what does it mean to be alive to God’s desire. I knew that God’s desire has and will always be that each and everyone one of us, the good, the bad and the ugly, all of us; he wants us to love him back. I thought of that in bed this morning before getting up and tears came to my eyes because I felt so much how similar we really are to God. He made us in his image. I have pondered that and really didn’t grasp what that meant but I believe it all has to do with love. God made us because he loves us and wants to be in a relationship with us. We are SO the same. The greatest need in all of us is to be loved and to love. The world and the sin in it, I think truly hold us back from our full potential to love that God has given each of us. He just wants us to love him back. Tears…. So how does this desire of God’s make me alive. I so want to tell everyone! It’s that simple. God just wants us to love him back. So, it’s our call as believers to help in this cause. We have to fight the sin and the devil at work in our world and overcome so that more and more people can see the truth that all God ever wanted was us to love him back.

Ephesians 2:1-10

I've got an action item I need to create based on our study of Ephesians chapter one from last week. Our study group discussed the lost art of letter writing. Of course, after the discussion, the next day I realized why letter writing is so much more then what you get in an email or especially on Facebook, etc. Letter writing is really much more in-depth which is much more likely to ellicit emotions from the reader. These emotions are what keep us connected not the short here's what I had for breakfast junk you see on Facebook. So, my action item is to start a letter writing campaign. I am going to try to get a letter written to someone once a month and I will be doing more updates, thoughts and feelings emails to the grandparents. I feel disconnected from my parents so I can imagine my kids probably don't feel so connected with them either.
This week's lesson was on the beginning of chapter two and had much to do about grace. The sermon Jim Singleton preached on it was very passionate. He had a coffin out as his "big prop". This is your funeral he said. I already have a good fondation on this concept of what Christ did for us but sacrificing himself on the cross he brought us back to being Alive! We are all dead. It's a spiritual dead but that means when your body dies you won't be going to heaven to live forever. "Dead! We are all dead!",he said. But thankfully we have good news, because of God's great love for us and Jesus' death on the cross we are brougth back out of death into life in the light with Christ. The things that most stood out to me on this sermon were the phrase dead man walking. Most people out there are dead men and women walking. The other word that captured my attention was the word desparate in this quote Jim gave "Salvation is not for the well-meaning but for the desperate. I so remember the time before I came to truley know and accept Jesus when I was in an emotional state of desperation. I was at rock bottom with how to deal with not getting pregnant and the abortions of my past. I had always justified my abortions but finally changed my feelings about that because of the desperation. I needed the forgiveness that only through Jesus anyone can have. Realizing that what I did was a sin was the first step into my new life. So, are there things in your past you are rationalizing. Are you living in denial of what you have done? I thank God for leading me back to him and helping me to understand what I did was wrong but through Jesus I am forgiven and am now ALIVE!

Figured it Out

Okay, so I was driving home last night and it came to me how we were chosen but we have free will thing. God chose all of us, all of mankind. He loves us all, each and everyone of us. He made the choice to send Jesus, his only son to Earth so that our sins attoned for by his death. He made the ultimate sacrifice watching his only son tortured and death on a cross. He chose us! It's up to us to use our own free will to choose him. He loves us but wants us to have the free will to make our own choice. It's all pretty clear now and it will be interesting to see how my pastor explains it and if I am even close to be correct about this.
That word choice seems to have been coming up a lot in my life lately. Maybe I am clearly seeing for the first time how much we can change ourselves simply by deciding to make the right choices. I have for too many moons been using excuses like it's my hormones or whatever but the truth is everything we do is a choice and God gives us the power to not only make that choice but live up to it. I may be grumpy from hormonal imbalance but I can choose to not be grumpy and call on my God to help me ungrumpify. I think you have to come to a place where you realize you need help in pretty much everything and God is the only one out there that will consistently be there and guide you. Choices. What can I choose to do today that would be a reflection of God? I will start by choosing to be positive and have a kindhearted, caring and patient attitude with my children, my co-workers, my husband and my friends. What choice will you make today to bring glory to God?

Waterfall of Blessings

We are starting a sermon series and bible study based on the book of Ephesians. Our first sermon was on Sunday. We are given a "waterfall of blessings". There are 8 gifts based on Ephesians chapter 1. #1 He chose us. This one is a little intriguiging because what about the whole free will thing. Our paster plans on digging more into that in future sermons so I will be waiting to see what he says about that one. #2 We are predestined to be adopted children of God. Apparently the Romans consider any adopted child to get the full rights and everything as a natural child. So, it's the same for us. We are adoopted by God and get all these spiritual blessings because of it. #3. We are favored by God. He explained how in Ephesus they worshipped the goddess Artemis and you had to do a whole lot to be in her favor. We don't have to do anything. #4 Redemption. I like the word ensnared he used. We are ensnared by sin but the blood of Jesus Christ released us from this bondage with sin. #5 Forgiveness. #6 Lavished with Grace. #7 Mystery of his Will #8 Marked by the seal of the Holy Spirit. He plans on digging into these last ones in future sermons. I really liked his story about the 1/2 head of lettuce. A lady wanted to buy a half a head of lettuce. The produce clerk was new and went to his boss, the lady followed but he didn't know it. He says to his boss, "This old bag wants to buy a half a head of lettuce. The boss is horrified. The produce clerk realizes somethings up and turns to see the lady and says with very quick thinking, and this nice lady wants to buy the other half. There was more to the story and the produce clerk was quick thinking again. Quick thinking was the theme surrounding this lesson. I am still not sure how the quick thinking applies to this stuff in scripture except that maybe we should know all these gifts we are given so we can quickly be able to answer questions of non-believers? He also gave a story about Christmas presents and how his 2 year old newphew opened the first present and was so engrossed in it he forgot all about the other presents. Okay, that would not happen in my family but I do see his point. He says we have been given all these gifts but we haven't necessarily opened them all. I think I have opened them all but I also think that you have to open these gifts everyday so you can be reminded and keep all these wonderful gifts we are given in the front of your mind.
This is going to be a very interesting series. Have you opened all these gifts?

Thankful Thankful Thankful

1. for a God who loves me not matter what.
2. for my husband whom I love.
3. for my kids who bring me so much joy. Thanks to Tristan for making the beer bread last night per my instructions. Very impressed that you listened and followed through.

Lesson Learned

Little did I know that after reading about the cracked pot I would be using that visual to help me work through the next difficult challenge that came into my path. I got a scathing email from a board member with my networking group. Being the President, I guess the buck stops with me. It was never my intention to continue being president of the group for another year but nobody else was stepping up to the plate and I didn't want all my hard work over the last year to be wasted and the group fall apart. But leadership is tough and it's even harder when you work full time and have a family and life that you have to keep in balance. In hindsight I can see how she may have felt the way she did but I emailed her back with an apology, another attempt at explaining why decisions were made and to ask for her forgiveness. I was very angry after reading it at first. I was ready to just quit! But I took Faith swimming at the YMCA and distracted myself with a good book and prayed a little prayer that God would work on my heart to let this go and be forgiving for this email that basically critized my leadership ability. I have been struggling with this negative thinking track and I didn't want to let this issue get me back to that. God heard me. She emailed back simply that I was forgiven and thanks for the grace. I don't know maybe she felt bad for sending the email in hindsight. In any case, I had my first real lesson in loving someone you don't want to love, in letting go of judgement and just extending grace and love back. I don't know how I will feel when I am face to face with her possibly next week at our networking dinner meeting but I will be praying that God will prepare me to keep the positive thinking going and keep that visual of the cracked pot. I am not perfect. I have flaws but I have a sneaking suspision that God will use this for something good. Amen to that.