Tag Archives: Cross

The Car Wash

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Moments with My Father

 

Good morning to you! As I gaze upon our Father’s Word today, it is on my heart to write about the importance of putting off our old self which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires and to be made new in the attitude of our minds – to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. This is a message we have all heard before, meaning our old self is the sinful nature that lives within us, for which Christ died on the cross. This old nature within us misleads us from God’s ways and cheats us from seeing life at His best. Our Father mentions “attitude” of our minds in this passage. The attitude of our old self is one of worry, complaining and grumbling. Upon believing, He has placed His Holy Spirit in us to help us live our new self, to be like Him that is not anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, presenting our requests to God. And then the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things. “Attitude” is something we can all struggle with and a bad attitude is certainly something to work on. I like to think about it this way: When our attitude is bad, we need to think “going to the car wash.” Say what? Yep, I said “car wash.” After all, we are God’s vehicles, so to speak, that carries His Spirit that carries the Good News along the road of life. Our vehicles have a tendency to collect dirt and be unclean (due to our sinful nature). As a result, the view through the front window (our sight) can become clouded over so that we do not see well the way of the Lord. This calls for the need to hose off with His living water (the Spirit in us), to apply the scrubbing bubbles called “Gratitude” as you follow the Word instructions (the Bible) so as to dissolve away the muck of our sinful attitude and then, use prayer wax to help guard (our mind and heart) and the cleanliness and shininess of Him in us (the new self) will be the result. We can then head out onto the road of life with peace of mind and His ride into the world through us will represent Him well. I’m thinking toting a good amount of change is a good thing to do. How about you? See ya on the road. I can do that well with a clean window (a Godly view)!
Eph 4:1,22-24; Php 2:14-16, 4:6-8; Mt 6:25; 1 Co 3:16; 2 Co 5:20-21, Ro 12:2

The Surprise by Sheila and Dad

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It’s Monday – a great day of opportunity and a privilege to serve our Father’s Kingdom! I’m glad we can walk through this day together as His family. On Saturday, we saw in God’s Word that there is a day in the near future that King Jesus is returning to earth and His reward will be with Him. Whoohoo – it’s gonna be exciting! But no one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, only Dad. It’s a surprise! Jesus said “Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It’s like a man going away. He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task and tells the one at the door to keep watch. Therefore, keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back – whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone “watch!” Some could read this passage in Scripture and think “like dude, I can’t not ever tip over for awhile. What do you mean no sleep?” If you were with me when we studied about “The Perfect Storm” on the lake, you will recall that Jesus was asleep in the boat. He done tipped over Himself for a snooze! When Jesus said “do not let him find you sleeping,” He was speaking in a parable or making a comparison to His disciples and what it meant is that each one of us has been assigned to a task in this life and it is important that we be working at that task as we await His return instead of sleeping (being indifferent to spiritual things as believers). Part of our assigned task is taking into consideration all of God’s Word that says He grants natural sleep to those He loves. His Word also speaks of taking care of our bodies as they are His holy temple in which His Holy Spirit dwells and getting enough sleep is important to having good health to keep going as long as we can for His Kingdom’s purpose for our life. Jesus’ assigned task was to endure the cross to take upon Him all the sins of mankind. Wow! How would you like to have that job assignment? It would have to be a divine call on yer heart to do that job and say I love my work which Jesus did! It was done for the joy set before Him of all that it would accomplish to bless the people He loved and His Father. While on earth, Jesus lived by faith and obedience to His Father – this was characteristic of His ministry. Can you imagine the difference it would have made to the world and our Father’s Kingdom if Jesus had slept through His life on earth and didn’t carry out His assigned task? Ok, let’s not imagine as that is too sad! Instead, let us dwell on the idea that each of us should seek to know what our Father’s assigned task is for our life. Here are a couple of thoughts to consider: 1) All of us kids are called to carry out one common task to go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to live by faith and obedience to the Father just as Jesus did Himself. 2) Individually, we are each called to seek first His Kingdom (pray and study His Word, the Bible) and when we do so, we will find His good, holy and pleasing will for our life – our assigned task! Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, Noah, Esther, David, Mary, John the Baptist, Paul and the twelve disciples to name just a few all had their individual assigned tasks in life. What is yours? For some, it may be to help someone else achieve their assigned task. At one point in time, two people had the assigned task of holding up Moses’ arms so that the Israelites would have victory over the Amalekites. Team work is a good thing! The day of Jesus’ return is approaching and it will be a surprise. It’s as exciting as being a kid at Christmas. On that day, I want to be found alert and on guard with a watchful eye. I definitely don’t want to be spiritually asleep when He arrives and I want to wake up as many around me as possible, too! So, I’m up and on the move with ya, working towards the very end of the age. Have a great Monday!
Mk 13:32-37; Mt 6:33, 28:16-20, Lk 8:22-25; 1 Co 3:16; Ps 127:2; Ex 17:8-13; Ro 12:2; Pr 8:17

How Great Thou Art by Sheila

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Good mornin’ brothers and sisters. I have a question for ya. Have you ever found yourself in an argument with someone and afterwards felt extremely embarrassed about it? The disciples can relate because they were arguing on the road to Capernaum and once inside a house, Jesus asked them what they were arguing about and they kept quiet about it because they had argued about who was the greatest. Hmmm, I wonder – is this kind of like keeping up with the Jones? This desire drives people in so many ways in their work, their families, in how they spend their money, how they dress, where they live, what cars they drive, what toys they own and it even produces quarrels among people. The world has a motto that he who dies with the most toys wins. The true reality is that you can’t take anything with ya in the end except your service to others. Jesus set an example for us in that He came to earth to serve, not to be served and while we should not make ourselves out to be idols, this does not mean that we shouldn’t accept encouragement to keep serving.  We all need that and Satan works very hard to discourage us so that we give up serving for Dad’s Kingdom!  To keep serving, it is good to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus’ lowly service on the cross that was despised by society as it brought Him great position in Heaven – seated at the right hand of the Father! Great reward is given to the one who says “I’ll be the last, I’ll be the least!” Jesus says to consider a small child who has not been able to work for position; they are the least in earned greatness by man’s striving standards. Yet, Jesus said whoever welcomes one of these little children in His name welcomes Him and whoever welcomes Him does not welcome Him, but rather His Father who is truly the greatest. John the Baptist had the right mindset when he said with Jesus arriving on the scene, “He must become greater (Jesus) and I (John the Baptist) must become less.” Therefore, I’m asking myself this mornin’, is there someway I’ve positioned myself over Jesus in how I’m living my life – not letting Him be my Lord? How do I need to not argue and let Him become greater in my life and I become less? My ways always leave me so embarrassed in the end and I hate that. So my focus this day is “Oh, Dad – how great THOU art!”  Mk 9:33-37, 10:35-45; Jn 3:30; Gal 5:13-15; 1 Pe 4:10-11; Php 2:5-11; 1 Co 3:10-15

Hurtin So Good

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A friendly Friday greeting to you all this morning! I’d love to share with you a great love story today. It is a story with mixed emotion. Upon hearing from the disciples that they understood and believed in Him as the Christ, which I’m sure greatly blessed Jesus, Jesus went on to explain that now that they knew that, they needed to understand that He would have to suffer many things including rejection by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law and that He must be killed and after three days rise again. You may be thinking, ok, Sheila, I thought you said you were presenting a friendly greeting this morning?” Please stay with me and we will see Jesus was indeed very friendly in all of this. As it turns out, Peter wasn’t too crazy about Jesus’ mindset either and after Jesus spoke very plainly about this, he pulled Jesus aside to let him know that he thought he was out of line. Can you imagine man in all his wisdom telling the God of the Universe that He is out of line? Ok, I have to say here that I so admire Peter’s heart in that he would have the courage and boldness to say the difficult to Him and it also stands out to me that Peter pulled Jesus aside from the others. He did not rebuke Jesus publicly. This shows me that Peter really cared for Jesus and he wanted to spare Jesus from harm. Jesus responded by turning to the disciples and publicly rebuking Peter saying “Get behind me, Satan!” “You do not have in mind the things of God, but rather the things of men.” There are times when saying the difficult things are better left between two individuals and there are times when it needs to be discussed as a group. In this case, Jesus discerned that the other disciples may be struggling with the same mindset as Peter and they were all needing to be helped with the idea of His coming suffering and death. This was another opportunity for Satan to try and convince Jesus that He could be an earthly King and not have to go through the cross which the way of the cross was the ultimate gift of love towards us as it rescued us from sin and death. I so admire Jesus as His mindset was to do the will of His Father no matter what the cost to Himself and as hard as it may have been for Peter and the disciples to hear it, Jesus spoke the Truth and spoke the will of the Father. When you choose to be in relationship with someone, things can sometimes get pretty messy or difficult. Yikes!!! Having said the difficult, Jesus then saw the opportunity to teach the crowd and He called the people around Him and told them that if they were truly wanting to follow Him, that they would need to deny themselves and follow Him by enduring their own individual crosses (hardships of life). He said that people that want to protect themselves, their own lives as they see fit would in the end miss out, but those who were willing to forget about themselves, their lives as the flesh, the enemy and the world would want of them – these are the ones that will have eternal gain in the end. He asked the people “What good is it if you gain the whole world (what the flesh and the enemy desire), but it costs you your soul in the end?” He asks what can a man exchange that is really worth losing his soul over? Yikes!! It’s good to think twice about the choices we make and consider the ultimate cost of them as we make our decisions in life. Sometimes following Jesus will mean public embarrassment to our flesh and if we give in to that, living for the world and in being ashamed of and in rejection of Christ, we will experience in the end our Father being ashamed of us. Ouch! Oh, I so want to make my Daddy proud of me in my choices. Like Jesus, Satan tempts us to forego our crosses (hardships and difficulties) in life. Like Jesus, we need to rebuke Satan and resist Him so he flees from us and so that we have victory in the end. Jesus chose to bear His cross, to live out the difficult out of His love for us. What a love story! What a true friend! I ask myself “Am I willing to do the same for Him – to live out the difficulties in my life out of my love for Him?” What an example of loving one another Peter and Jesus set for us all in this story. They loved each other enough to say the difficult to each other and work through it to accomplish the Father’s will in both of their lives. It’s like going to the gym – it hurts so good! Victory for Peter and Jesus’ relationship came as a result of both of them fixing their eyes on the cross and embracing all it meant for them both. Ohhhh, I just love a good love story that has a good ending, how about you? Well, here’s ending with love to ya’s! Mk 8:31-38; Ja 4:7; 1 Pe 5:1-11; 1 Co 13; He 6:1-12, 12:1-13; Jn 3:16; Pr 3:3-4; Php 3:7-11