The Beauty of Salvation

Rayonnant rose window in Notre Dame de Paris. In Gothic architecture, light was considered the most beautiful revelation of God.

John 10:9-10 “Yes, I am the gate.  Those who come in through me will be saved.  They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy.  My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”

I chose to believe that the most beautiful revelation of God is a human and the most beautiful thing He has ever done for us was provide Salvation through His Son Jesus.

The word beauty means different things to different people.  For me, beauty is living the life of a believer, a follower of Jesus Christ. I am free to live my life as He purposed. I love to look up at the sky and watch the clouds change shapes.  Some days the blue of the sky looks bluer and the clouds like gigantic cotton balls, beautiful!

There are times when I hear birds singing and their songs sound like melodies from heaven.  Think about it, who taught them how to sing?  Who taught them harmonies?

The beauty of salvation gives me the ability to look at someone and see beyond the color of his or her skin.  I can also choose to ignore the flaws in their character reflects the beauty of our Savior within them.

I suppose it is easy to fall back on my carnal nature when someone says or does something to hurt me, but it is better to remember how often God has to forgive me, and I should forgive others.

Some people spend too much time focusing on religion, but Jesus didn’t bring religion to this world, He came so that we might have life.  That includes being able to focus on the beauty around us and in each other.

I will tell you something else that is beautiful to me, trusting God to work out anything and everything concerning my life.  I don’t have to spend time being angry when people try to sabotage me, not to say that I do not get angry.  I don’t have to wallow in self-pity when someone says hurtful words to me, that does not mean that I my feelings don’t get hurt.  I don’t have to focus on the negative or paranoid even though I am one of those people who believe in conspiracy theories, I just don’t allow them to consume me.

Because of the gift of Jesus, I choose to see the world through His eyes and yes, I believe the human race is beautiful.  No matter how ugly we can be to each other, we were created in the image of God and He makes everything beautiful in its time.  Ecclesiastes 3:11a “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time.  He has planted eternity in the human heart…”

Seek and Live

Isaiah 55:6 “Seek the LORD while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near.”

I was searching the book of Isaiah for a verse that has been ringing in my spirit all day.  Isaiah 55:8-9 ⁸“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. ⁹ “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

I was searching for these scriptures because the Lord had to remind me that He is so much bigger than I could ever imagine, yet He loves me enough to pay attention to what concerns, frightens or threatens me.

He reminded me also that He does not see me the way that I see myself.  I often pray and ask Him to allow me to see myself as He does.  That’s because I have high expectations and tend to beat up on myself when I make a mistake or don’t complete a task.  I have to remind myself that it is not the end of the world to make a mistake or tell someone no.

I don’t aspire to be the brightest, biggest or best at things of this world, and often think there is something wrong with me because I do not.  When I detour and take that side road, the Holy Spirit lovingly reminds me that my thinking isn’t lining up with God’s word or His plan for me.  Therefore, I must then choose to align my thoughts about myself with His word.  I must purposefully seek scriptures to rid my brain of stinking thinking.

There is no way I want to live my life thinking my thoughts and doing things my way apart from God.  I cannot allow a day to go by without getting on my knees and surrendering my will and ways to His.

I am one of those people incapable of shutting down my brain.  I live inside my head way too much, but I am so grateful that God’s thoughts are higher than mine are and I am thankful that His ways are superior to mine.

After reading, those verses and meditating on them I felt led to read several other chapters of Isaiah but 55:6-7 would not leave me, so I began to mediate on them.  The first portion of verse 6 captured my attention, “Seek the Lord while He may be found.”  Most of us know the word seek refers to locating or trying to discover something.  I believe the seeking God wants from us is the kind where we crave, thirst or hunger for Him so much we begin to pursue Him. We set aside time just for Him so that we may develop a close and personal relationship with Him in order to live as He purposes each of us to live. Jesus came to give us eternal life, but also an abundant life here.

The second part of that verse spooked me a little, “while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near.”  I know there will come a day when the God will remove Holy Spirit from the earth.  All I could think of is what a dreadful time it will be for those still on the earth.

Our world is in a dangerous decline right now.  America has welcomed Apostasy with open arms and that has pierced the heart of God.  He is not going to allow wickedness to go on too much longer.  Consider what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah or the nations God drove from Canaan.

I’ve tried to imagine what our world would be like without God and it is too horrible to think about.

There are those who think they have won battles because they think they have booted God out of schools, places of employment, and off government grounds. Those same people who boast of atheism will get that for which they have worked so hard a world without God and I do not believe they will be as pleased as they think. I for one will not be around to see it because I plan to be with Jesus.

Forgetting Those Things

Philippians 3:12-14 “^12-14 Yet, my brothers, I do not consider myself to have “arrived”, spiritually, nor do I consider myself already perfect. However, I keep going on, grasping ever more firmly that purpose for which Christ grasped me. My brothers, I do not consider myself to have fully grasped it even now. But I do concentrate on this: I leave the past behind and with hands outstretched to whatever lies ahead I go straight for the goal—my reward the honor of being called by God in Christ.” (Phillips)

Is there something wrong with me because I have forgotten a lot of my past?  It drives my friends crazy when we are reminiscing and they bring up a particular event, place or people that I do not remember.

Is it selective memory or a defense mechanism?  A blessing in disguise?

I sometimes look at my forgetfulness of past things as a blessing because I used to dwell on hurts and wrongs done to me to the point it damaged my relationships and it caused me to become cynical and hard.  I did not believe I could trust anyone.  I thought people around me were sabotaging my life.  To my dismay, I discovered it was I.

I was the one too afraid to love.  Too afraid to trust someone because I believed ultimately they would let me down or leave me.  It seemed as if death followed me because so many family and church members were dying.  People that I felt I needed to help me grow.  When they died a part of me died with them.

There were abuses that I chose to bury along with hurtful memories, thinking they would go away only to discover that they had made themselves a home deep in my subconscious.

There was a turning point in my life where I had to take a hard look at the woman in the mirror and admit that I needed help.  My life was a sham.  I pretended all was right with my world when it was not.

I began to fast and pray because I wanted God to fix me.  I wanted a clean heart as well as a clean life.

A therapist helped me face the ugliness, guilt, shame, and self-destructive behavior and the Holy Spirit worked on healing me from the inside out.

There are chunks of things I still do not remember, some good and some not so good. I ask my friends to remind me of the things that have meaning and affect our current relationship, not our past.

We cannot change the past, but we can repent and make amends.  We can ask for forgiveness if necessary, but we must not allow anyone to hold the past over our heads like thick black rainclouds.  We cannot allow anyone to do anything, which will hinder our journey.

As needed, I pray and ask Father to help me remember, that which is important to my spiritual growth and to those close to me.  The rest I am leaving in the past so that I can become the woman God created me to be.

Heaven is my goal and I will not weigh myself down with the past.  I must run this race with my eyes forward, not looking in my rear view mirror.

Why We Assemble – Part Two

Why do believers go church week after week?  Some people go to church two or more times each week, why is that?  It’s as if they can’t get enough of church.  I personally think some people are obsessed or addicted.  I’m sorry if that sounds blasphemous, I do not mean it to be.

If I took a survey of one hundred people, I am sure I would receive very interesting answers.  Following are a few I’ve heard personally over the years, “I go to church because I’ve been going since I was a child; I’m used to going to church, what else would I do on Sunday? I’m a Christian, I would feel guilty if I didn’t go to church; Gotta give the big guy some of my time, I don’t want to block my blessings.”  Here is one that I find to be the most irreverent reasons some women go to church, “I’m going to church to meet Mr. Right.”

“⁴ Then they went from town to town, instructing the believers to follow the decisions made by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. ⁵ So the churches were strengthened in their faith and grew larger every day.”  Acts 16:4 & 5 (NLT)

There are many reasons for going to church, but not for any of those I’ve listed above.  It is the desire of the Father that we grow in our faith so that we grow into mature Christians and present Christ Jesus to a dark and dying world.

The believers in the various towns were instructed to follow the decisions made by the leadership. The people didn’t fight the leadership or try to rebel and they were rewarded with growth because of their faith.

“And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage and warn each, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near.” Hebrews 10:25 (NLT)

This scripture points out the importance of meeting.  It does not instruct how often, what day,  what time, or how many times, just that we should meet.  We should not allow ourselves to be tricked by the evil one and neglect our duty as followers of Christ Jesus.  God instituted families, relationships and fellowship. It is the desire of the enemy to keep people apart because these are all things that he hates.

As I said in part one of this message, I love going to church.  I love being around true believers.  I love the way our unapologetically preaches the word of God and I love it when we are on one accord singings songs of worship to our Lord.  There is nothing like it, especially when we experience His sweet presence.   Christians are set apart as God’s holy people and we must treasure the awesome responsibility bestowed on each believer.  We are in the body and we have a responsibility to the body.  We are instructed to encourage people, but also warn them that Christ is on His way back.

Let each of us examine our own motives and if we go to church for any reason other than that which will cause us to become more like Christ; to worship our heavenly Father;  to serve our brothers and sisters; or to preach Christ to the lost, we go for reasons that will one day burn up in the fire of the Holy One on that great and terrible day.

My Pastor often tells us that we don’t need church to go to heaven, we need Jesus.  We do need the living church, the body of Christ because we are all members of that one body and need each other to function as the Lord purposes.

“The words of the godly encourage many, but fools are destroyed by their lack of common sense.” Proverbs 10:21 (NLT)

He Chose A Woman

The highest honor ever bestowed upon humankind was given to a woman.  Yes, she was young, just barely in her teens, but she was still a woman chosen of God to bring forth His essence into this world.

She was submissive, humble and obedient to the will and purpose of her Lord.  She who was handcrafted by the Creator, “²² And the rib or part of his side which the Lord God had taken from the man He built up and made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.” (Gen 2:22 AMP)

The Great I Am(emphasis mine) could have burst upon the scene of this world in all His splendor, majesty, power and glory but He did not.  He put his stamp of worth and value upon she whom He built.  He chose a woman, fearfully and wonderfully to bring forth His gift to all mankind.

Giving Keeps Getting Better

For the past five years as Christmas approaches, I tell myself that I need to shorten my Christmas list and spend less money.  Somehow, each year I find myself caught up in a shopping whirlwind, buying more gifts than originally planned.  Before buying that first gift, I tell myself that I need to focus on reducing debt and increasing my savings.  I try to ignore my love for the pretty lights, cinnamon scented pinecones, colorful ornaments and my favorite song, “Merry Christmas Baby” by Otis Redding.  Who am I kidding? Trying to ignore those things is like trying to deny my love for chocolate, impossible!

My list normally consist of family; two daughters four grandchildren, my biological mother and brother I reunited with a year ago, friends and co-workers.  This year I had two Secret Santa parties to attend, so that made the list a bit longer.  I also like to adopt a less fortunate child or two and give to two of my favorite charities.

This year, as in years past, my Christmas list took on a life of its own and grew beyond my plans, expectations, and even my bank account.  I found myself purchasing gifts for people that the Lord obviously wanted to bless.  Now that the dust has cleared, and every gift has been given I am in awe of His provisions. I am humbled by his Love.

I should have known the Lord would take over my Christmas shopping because I could hardly wait to put up the tree in my office.  Thanksgiving dinner was still a pleasant memory and I was like a little girl again.  Christmas was the next holiday we would celebrate.  We would celebrate God’s precious gift to the whole world.  This season is about giving.

After placing my first order on Amazon, I felt it, joy bubbling up in my soul. After unloading bags and boxes, I’d tell myself, ok, I’m done only to find myself shopping again the following day.  I took that as a sign that Father was not done.

I remember what Christmases were like for me before meeting my mother.  Bittersweet days of watching my grandchildren open their gifts via Skype and feeling sorry for myself because they were miles away.

My mom, daughters and grandchildren are still miles away, but I am blessed.  I am blessed to share the bounty of God’s love with those who don’t know Him.

Each year giving gets better.