Have We Lost It?

A few days ago I was speaking to someone who was speaking of a gentleman and his downfall into a very scary path in life that nothing good can come from. As I was listening, she said something that got me to thinking about all of us. She has just assumed that he is no longer a child of God and that his prospect of heaven and an eternity with God are now out of the question.

In his past, this man was a devout church going man who loved his God and without a doubt to him, or anyone else, he was headed on the road to heaven. But sin has taken a hold of him and now his walk with God has taken a detour. What does this mean for his future?

What do detours mean for any of us, or our futures? Yes this man seems to have turned from God because his sins are out in plain sight, but what about our quiet, secret detours? The ones we think or do in private. The ones that seem so small and insignificant. What do they do for our future? What do they mean for us as children in the family of God?

Christ knew when He walked this earth that this would be a question that would travel down the course of time. Can our sins take away our secure future?

I think he spoke of this in John 10 as He talked about the lost sheep.....

John 10:9-10

New International Version (NIV)

9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.[a] They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 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 10:27-30

New International Version (NIV)

27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all[c]; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”

In my own thoughts, I believe He is saying here that even though we stray at times, He will always be there to bring us back into the safe fold of His love. Nothing can take us away from Him. Eternal security is a gift from our God.

In Romans, Paul tells of his belief in this promise as well.....

Romans 8:37-39

New International Version (NIV)

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Jesus spoke of us having sin in our lives, every day, as He taught us how to pray in Matthew 6.  We call this The Lord's Prayer....  

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen.

Here, He is reminding us that everyday we need to forgive and be forgiven. In His way I think He is also reminding us that God has the power to always be there for us. Even if we have done things that make us feel like we are undeserving.

I guess that really it is not up to us to judge where any of us are headed as our lives come to an end on this earth. This is hard not to do because we are so close to some. Each of us have a personal relationship with our heavenly father that is between He and us. All we are told to do is to forgive and love. 

It is nice to know, though, that the one thing we do not have to worry about is God and His love. He will never leave us to the wolves of this earth. It is nice to know that even though Satan would love to have the power to take us away from our God, that is something that cannot be done!!! Our future is totally secure!!

Maybe as we pray today, we need to be sure to thank God for this wonderful gift, and know that as we ask for forgiveness and as we forgive others, that that is one less thing to worry about as we live in this very human and sinful world!

Blessings!

Let's Do This!

We had been talking about moving Riley's room around for several days. For many reasons, but one major reason was that we couldn't clean behind his bed, (and believe me this was something that really needed to be done). Things had to be moved around to get his bed away from the wall. It has a built in book shelf as a head board. This makes it very hard to move so we just hadn't gotten the energy to do this yet. That is until yesterday.

While I was down in the kitchen I could hear that Riley was getting up, by the fact he we making noises in his room, and the next thing I know he is down stairs in the refrigerator getting Rodney a Starbucks Vanilla Coffee. I ask him what was going on. He said that Dad needed to get up so he needed his favorite drink. Looking back on it, I think it was bribery. A few minutes later here comes Rodney down the stairs, still very much in sleep mode. He ask me if I knew what was going on. "No, what?" I ask. "I guess we are moving Riley's room around today" he said. "All of the stuff that Riley can move is in the hallway". I just started laughing.

Apparently Riley was tired of waiting on us. So he started the ball rolling on his own, but he could only get so far. We had to help move the heavy stuff and we also had to get everything else moved back in so that we could get into our bedrooms, to sleep, last night.


Aren't we like that with God? We want something to happen and we want it now. God may have a different timing than us on this so we start the ball rolling without Him. We make a cluttered mess, with everything we can do. He then has to come in and move the heavy stuff and put everything back.


I wonder what God thinks of us on this? I laughed at the way Riley got us to do what he couldn't. Do you think God laughs at us? One thing is for sure. Riley needed us and knew he needed us, well at least he knew he needed Dad. He was the one with most of the muscle. We need God for the very same thing. He has all the muscle in the world. We should always depend on Him. We should always know we can count on Him. The people in the Psalms knew this.....

Psalm 33:20
Contemporary English Version (CEV)

20 We depend on you, Lord,
to help and protect us.


Psalm 124:8
Contemporary English Version (CEV)

8 The Lord made heaven and earth,
and he is the one
who sends us help.


We as humans are human. We do make messes. God is always there waiting to put things right even without a Starbucks coffee!

Blessings!


PS: This morning Riley came down to get another drink for Rodney. I wonder what he wants him to do now?

Are we healthy?

Our Riley has been sick for the last three days. I took him to the clinic last evening and he has an ear and a sinus infection. He always gets sick after the first few days of a new school year. His immune system has to get used to the germs of others around him in his classes. Once he does get used to them he usually stays well most of the rest of the school year. Just has to toughen up and get his immunity's strong.

This got me to thinking about a couple of things we as a people need to become stronger against. Things that make us sick and weak in our moral fiber. The list could probably go on forever but here are a few I thought of....

First, I believe, is the lack of preserving our Sabbath. We have so many children's sports teams that require the children to play on Sunday mornings. Also people are just choosing to stay home. Siting that this is the only morning to be together as a family. Sad thing about this choice is, that going to church, as a family, really goes along way at making the family unit stronger than ever. I know that in Mine and Rodney's life there was a time when work in our store took us away from our Sunday worship. We had a restlessness in our beings knowing that this was not putting God first. We had to work this situation out and when we did our relationship with the Heavenly Father came back into line and peace in our family returned...... 



Romans 14:6-9
The Message (MSG)


6-9 What’s important in all this is that if you keep a holy day, keep it for God’s sake; if you eat meat, eat it to the glory of God and thank God for prime rib; if you’re a vegetarian, eat vegetables to the glory of God and thank God for broccoli. None of us are permitted to insist on our own way in these matters. It’s God we are answerable to—all the way from life to death and everything in between—not each other. That’s why Jesus lived and died and then lived again: so that he could be our Master across the entire range of life and death, and free us from the petty tyrannies of each other.

Another thing I think that keeps us weaker is our lack of respect for human life. Abortion is up and the government and our insurance companies have started picking and choosing who gets treatment when we are ill. Which usually makes it harder for our senior adults and our special needs people to get the services they need. 

Even our children seem to not understand the importance of protecting life. There is a theory that this comes from the violence in their video games and the lack of respect for life in their favorite TV shows. I think the saying "garbage in, garbage out"  is pretty true! The scriptures are quite clear on how we should treat one another.....

Galatians 5:13-14

The Message (MSG)

13-14 It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom.

God loves us so much and desires for us to have a healthy life in a world that remembers who our creator is. If we keep our priorities in the order that keeps God first and for most in our lives we will stay strong in our immunity's to the sicknesses of our world. Our morals will show who we truly follow. We will love others around us and feel the importance of life. And a peaceful healthiness that you may never have known before will settle in.   

If we all would remember and follow this scripture our land would be stronger and healthier than ever before.... 

Proverbs 14:34
The Message (MSG)


34 God-devotion makes a country strong;
God-avoidance leaves people weak.

Here's to strong immunity's in each and every one of us!

Blessings!

Too Much!

Ladies, have you ever had one of those days you had so much to do that you didn't get anything done? That seems to be me today. I putzed all day but didn't really get to check anything off my list.   Life is so busy in other areas that stuff at home gets put on the back burner and when a day comes that I can just stay home and work, I look at all that needs to be done and just get tired. I picked at the piles but only brought them down a little. You already know about me and laundry. 

Wonder if God feels like that sometimes. He has so much to do. Like holding the universe in place, creating new life, healing old life. hopefully bringing Spring soon and all the while loving and keeping us. He sees us at war, sees us fuss, sees us destroying, sees us turn from Him. Sees us worry, sees us cry, sees us try to handle things on our own. Sees us gossiping, sees us hating, sees us turn from Him. God loves us so much! From the beginning of sin He has had a plan for us. But the human race just keeps turning from Him and thinks they can handle everything on their own. Has to make Him so tired. I'm sure He wishes we would see He's there for us!
 

Romans 5:7-11

The Message (MSG)

^6-8 Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.
^9-11 Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!

 

Easter is on it's way. The celebration of the completion of God's plan. Christ gave so much. Humbled himself and became human. Suffered more pain than we can even imagine. Was humiliated and forsaken! All for us, this human race, people who keep forgetting to turn to Him.

This Easter is even more special to the group I was with in Israel. We got to be in the area where Jesus suffered and died. but we were also where He left the grave and defeated death. Thinking of the amazement of this and the joy of this miracle takes the tired right out of you!

I have stopped and reminded myself that no matter what I have going on in my life, My God Loves Me, Christ gave all for me and I am not alone. As you are going through your day remember He Loves You Too! No need to go it on your own!!

Blessings!