Something that I've been learning is that I am not who I think I am. I have an idea built up in my mind of who I am and who I should be. I have an idea in my mind of how the world is and how things should work. Many of my ideas may be the naivete of youth, but I'm learning. Despite my best efforts to learn, God teaches me and I am beginning to find that the largest hindrance to my learning is - me. My ideas and knowledge are not always advantageous, but almost adversarial. I am also learning that I must become very cautious of how I label myself and others. If I say, "I'm just outspoken." - it's no surprise that I end up speaking my mind without a thought to my words. If I say, "I am depressed." - I fall into the pit of despair where depressed people reside. I believe that God desires for us all to realize that we are nothing but who He says we are. As His children, our identity is wrapped up in Him. For me to say that 'I am this, or that' is to remove myself from who He has called me to be. I find that by applying a label to myself I apply myself to fulfilling the label. I don't know if this is absolute truth, but as far as I am in my walk I am finding it to be helpful and convicting. I believe we must all take great pains and care in watching what and who we label. Our actions will reflect our attitude and our attitude will come from what we hold in our heart. I pray that the joy and peace of Christ abounds in the hearts and mind of all our family. I hope that no matter what it is that we are experiencing we do not identify with it. What is happening is a situation - who we are is in Christ. Pray for one another. Hope with each other. Cry with your friends. Rejoice with the Body of Christ. Do not be troubled with the matters of this world but take heart in the life and love that overflows in us that is from God.
Romans 8
Friday, September 18, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Hope
Why do we hope? That is a question that I would like to know the answer to. Of all the things that God has blessed us with why did He see fit to allow us to hope? My hopes are at the root of many of my fears, hurts, and pains. I don't lie awake at night knowing something will happen - I lie awake hoping that it doesn't, or hoping that it will. My hopes run me ragged. My hopes tie me down. I seldom feel that liberating freedom that comes with hope in all of those movies I watch. Whatever a hope that becomes realized is supposed to bring me is minimal in relation to all the unfulfilled hopes I still have, or the higher hope I now have in light of hope that has become real. Hope. That word is not positive. That word, the very concept of hope, brings fear and trepidation with it. When I feel hope looming on the horizon and the lure is so strong that I begin to run towards it I know that it hangs at the edge of a cliff. I run, head-long, after it and just when I'm about to grab hold of it I completely understand how Wile E. Coyote felt every time he tried to catch the Road Runner. I look down at my feet and find that the ground beneath my them has disappeared. Soon I am resolved to nothing more than that tiny poof of dust at the canyon floor. Yup, I know all about hope.
I think God did understand that this would happen to me. In the Old Testament of the Bible the writer of Proverbs had this to say:
Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. - Proverbs 13:12 NIV
So, if that is the way hope works then what's the point. My life has taught me so far that hopes will be deferred more than they will be fulfilled. I'm gonna see more things I put my hope in not happen than happen. I feel tempted to do more that scream and pull my hair out. What is the point! To put it mildly: This sucks!
God knows all of this. He has pointed the way. Read these following scripture passages and come up with the answer for yourself:
To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul;
in you I trust, O my God.
Do not let me be put to shame,
nor let my enemies triumph over me.
No one whose hope is in you
will ever be put to shame,
but they will be put to shame
who are treacherous without excuse.
May integrity and uprightness protect me,
because my hope is in you. - Psalm 25:1-3,21 NIV
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint. - Isaiah 40:28-31 NIV
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. - Romans 5:1-5 NIV
Hope. If I hope for something I care about it. If I didn't care about it why would it bother my thoughts and emotions. Fear. If I fear something there is a certain amount of care there, too. My hopes and my fears can cause me anxiety if I place them in things that are uncertain, or worldly. Peter urges us with these words:
Cast all you anxiety on him because he cared for you. - 1 Peter 5:7 NIV
We must give God all that we care about - our hope and our fears. If Christ is our life then those things are His. We must place our hope in God. When we do that we can rest in peace knowing that He loves us and will never harm us.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. - Romans 8:28 NIV
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint. - Isaiah 40:28-31 NIV
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. - Romans 5:1-5 NIV
Hope. If I hope for something I care about it. If I didn't care about it why would it bother my thoughts and emotions. Fear. If I fear something there is a certain amount of care there, too. My hopes and my fears can cause me anxiety if I place them in things that are uncertain, or worldly. Peter urges us with these words:
Cast all you anxiety on him because he cared for you. - 1 Peter 5:7 NIV
We must give God all that we care about - our hope and our fears. If Christ is our life then those things are His. We must place our hope in God. When we do that we can rest in peace knowing that He loves us and will never harm us.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. - Romans 8:28 NIV
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 NIV
We can hope in a God who loves us beyond our understanding. We must trust and be patient. It is not God who is messing around with us - it is the fact that we have placed our trust, our hope, in things of this world. The things of this place are no good. They cannot make us truly happy or satisfy. My timing is hardly ever perfect - except from my perspective: I want what I want when I want it. When we place our hope in the the proper place our focus becomes renewed. Our hopes and desires change - something we fear happening - but once there we realize that it is all for the best. For those of us who are broken and hurting. For those of us who have hoped and now hope that we never hope again think on this:
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD : "Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message." So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
Then the word of the LORD came to me: "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. - Jeremiah 18:1-6 NIV
Friday, April 24, 2009
Worth
What are we worth? What is worth, anyways? What does it matter to be worth something? Does it even matter at all?
Worth is something that is placed upon something by something else. Right? A bird places worth on its nest and its food. To the bird, the worm is worth something. In that same thought, worth is placed by the bird on its own life. The bird will pay some price – expend some energy – to attain the worm. It will give time and a certain amount of effort to get that meal. Depending on the worth of that morsel, weighed against the worth of its own life and wellbeing, the bird will even fight for the right to have and eat the worm.
I place worth on inanimate objects that cannot save or augment my life in any way that truly matters. I will fight for them. Break fellowship over them. Cry over them. I may even laugh with joy for them. I can place worth on something and that thing now effects me greatly in my life. It comes to this: something of worth has value. I may hold something in high personal worth that you don’t value at all! So now worth is subjective! Humans placing worth on things amounts to golden stars and gray dots in a world of Wemmicks. Our concept of it has been twisted such that it must be processed through our own, personal, set of beliefs so that we can be self-empowered to label a person, place, thing, or idea.
If I want to be worthy to you I must jump all your hurdles – I have to meet all the requirements on your checklist. I might even have to change who I am so that I can be worthy of you and in attaining that worth I place worth on myself. The sad thing is that no one is immune. We all do this. Our worth is based on our values and what we value. On top of this our values change. What I value today may have no value tomorrow. All of a sudden, you have no worth. You, and I, have become worthless – more often than not – through no fault of our own. Our value determines our worth.
MATTHEW 10:29-30 (NIV)
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of you Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”
God – our Father – the One to Whom we all belong – we are children of the Almighty – we are members of His household – He places great worth and value on us. Jesus explains this in a way we can understand. He takes something that we have placed a small value on. He takes this object of our low worth and says that they are so worthy of our Father’s attention, care, and energy that not one – NOT ONE little bird out of them ALL, throughout the whole earth – will fall from the sky without His say-so. He is completely invested in the lives of ALL these little birds. They have great worth to Him. And He says that we are worth MORE than many of them. When the Alpha-and-Omega says many – we must understand how large His scope is. Many is a very large number when the One who knows them ALL is concerned. Worth. Value.
LUKE 12:23-24 (NIV)
“Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!”
We are more valuable than birds. He takes care of them all and we hold more value than they do to Him. He places a high value and worth on things we do not – and places higher on us.
JOHN 3:16 (NIV)
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
ROMANS 5:6-8 (NIV)
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
While we were worthless God placed a high value on us and expended some great energy, paid a high price, to give us the option to believe. To many, and especially me, this makes little to no sense. Unless, of course, you and I – for a moment – let go of ourselves and our world. We must relinquish hold of our belief systems for just one moment. If we could imagine to understand something about God’s ‘belief system’, for lack of a better term, I believe that we would see that it is pure love. His value of things is base in, and on, and around the concept of TRUE LOVE!! “For God so LOVED the world…” “But God demonstrates His own LOVE for us…”
Worth is something that is placed upon something by something else. Right? A bird places worth on its nest and its food. To the bird, the worm is worth something. In that same thought, worth is placed by the bird on its own life. The bird will pay some price – expend some energy – to attain the worm. It will give time and a certain amount of effort to get that meal. Depending on the worth of that morsel, weighed against the worth of its own life and wellbeing, the bird will even fight for the right to have and eat the worm.
I place worth on inanimate objects that cannot save or augment my life in any way that truly matters. I will fight for them. Break fellowship over them. Cry over them. I may even laugh with joy for them. I can place worth on something and that thing now effects me greatly in my life. It comes to this: something of worth has value. I may hold something in high personal worth that you don’t value at all! So now worth is subjective! Humans placing worth on things amounts to golden stars and gray dots in a world of Wemmicks. Our concept of it has been twisted such that it must be processed through our own, personal, set of beliefs so that we can be self-empowered to label a person, place, thing, or idea.
If I want to be worthy to you I must jump all your hurdles – I have to meet all the requirements on your checklist. I might even have to change who I am so that I can be worthy of you and in attaining that worth I place worth on myself. The sad thing is that no one is immune. We all do this. Our worth is based on our values and what we value. On top of this our values change. What I value today may have no value tomorrow. All of a sudden, you have no worth. You, and I, have become worthless – more often than not – through no fault of our own. Our value determines our worth.
MATTHEW 10:29-30 (NIV)
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of you Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”
God – our Father – the One to Whom we all belong – we are children of the Almighty – we are members of His household – He places great worth and value on us. Jesus explains this in a way we can understand. He takes something that we have placed a small value on. He takes this object of our low worth and says that they are so worthy of our Father’s attention, care, and energy that not one – NOT ONE little bird out of them ALL, throughout the whole earth – will fall from the sky without His say-so. He is completely invested in the lives of ALL these little birds. They have great worth to Him. And He says that we are worth MORE than many of them. When the Alpha-and-Omega says many – we must understand how large His scope is. Many is a very large number when the One who knows them ALL is concerned. Worth. Value.
LUKE 12:23-24 (NIV)
“Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!”
We are more valuable than birds. He takes care of them all and we hold more value than they do to Him. He places a high value and worth on things we do not – and places higher on us.
JOHN 3:16 (NIV)
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
ROMANS 5:6-8 (NIV)
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
While we were worthless God placed a high value on us and expended some great energy, paid a high price, to give us the option to believe. To many, and especially me, this makes little to no sense. Unless, of course, you and I – for a moment – let go of ourselves and our world. We must relinquish hold of our belief systems for just one moment. If we could imagine to understand something about God’s ‘belief system’, for lack of a better term, I believe that we would see that it is pure love. His value of things is base in, and on, and around the concept of TRUE LOVE!! “For God so LOVED the world…” “But God demonstrates His own LOVE for us…”
Love.
1 CORINTHIANS 13:4-7 (NIV)
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
We are loved despite our apparent worth. God loves everyone: Christian, un-Christian; Saved, un-Saved; Believers, un-Believers – all LOVED. It is rare for someone to die for another who is righteous. Someone may die for a good person. Christ Jesus died for us all while we were filth and slime. His love is so great for us all that He places worth and value on us despite how we would value one-another. This love causes Him to offer the gift of eternal life with Him to EVERYONE. Love does not force. Love offers.
Love was a good enough reason to come and die so that we MIGHT live – to offer us a chance to believe in Him and not perish but to have eternal life. Love allows for rejection. Love opens your arms and exposes your heart. Love holds on tight – it doesn’t chain you down. TRUE love is always available and waiting. Love allows for choice.
What is a Christian? I’m not sure. Christian is just a word. Whether or not I belong to Christ is a choice. When we belong to Christ, and are in Him and He in us, it is apparent that He has brought about a change in us. We become more and more Christ-like the longer and closer we walk with Him.
JOHN 15:8 (NIV)
“This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
Before long, we must take a look at our faith. Are we Christian? Or, do we let Christ be our life? Do we call out to Him, or do we call out in faith? Have we placed the full weight of our trust in God? Does our life bear the mark of God? Do we say we believe, or can we not contain the actions of a Christ-follower due to the fact that our faith in Him – in answer to His great love for us – has resulted in our letting Jesus be our life?
JAMES 2:18-19 (NIV)
“But some will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.’ Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder.”
Are you a follower of Christ? Do you accept what He has done for you? Do you trust in Him? Do you cling to Him? Do you put your whole weight upon God who, through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ, has demonstrated His unyielding love for you in the crucifixion of your sins? In Him there is light and life. He is the most excellent way.
JOHN 14:6 (NIV)
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”
He loves you, and even me. Out of His unimaginable love He places great worth and value upon us all. Jesus shows us the way to the Father through faith in Him and what He has done for us. We cannot gain this worth. We can’t change who we are to fulfill His checklist. We can’t act a certain way to make Him place high value on us. You can’t make Him love you more – and He will never love you less. So, what is worth? What is Christian? All I know is that He loves me more than I know. Because He loves me I have let Him into my life and He has changed me, and is changing me. His love that brings around this change in me causes me to bear good fruit. I don’t try to act good at church and do good deeds to earn points – I just can’t help it. I have worth.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)