Serve One Another in Love no. 17

“But you are a chosen people, the King’s cohanim , a holy nation, a people for God to possess! Why? In order for you to declare the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; before, you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and temporary residents not to give in to the desires of your old nature, which keep warring against you; but to live such good lives among the pagans that even though they now speak against you as evil-doers, they will, as a result of seeing your good actions, give glory to God on the Day of his coming” (1 Kefa (1 Pe) 2:9-12). Once I was not a people of God. I was a total mess and that journey is well covered in the pages of this blog. I was drinking a lot. I was looking to the world for solutions. I was always right and everyone else was wrong. I had it all figured out. And I was an unhealthy mess. BUT, the Good News is that I came out of that darkness as if I was told audibly, “My people, come out of her! so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not be infected by her plagues, for her sins are a sticky mass piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes” (Revelation of Yeshua to Yochanan (Rev) 18:4-5). BUT I was called internally, over time, slowly seeing His Truth and accepting His wisdom and Way.

Now that I have received mercy, I give mercy. Now that I have grace, I give grace. Now that I have His love, I give His love in return. Is it a war? Of course. Every day is a battle against the old nature. Every day is a struggle to be more like His example. Every day is a struggle to live in the goodness He has shown. BUT I don’t want to be a hypocrite. I don’t want to be a stumbling block. I don’t want to be the reason someone without His mercy, grace, and love does not experience the same in their lives. I take that really serious. So when folks accuse me of being like the old me, I get really hurt. I take it all internally and I let it get me down a lot more than it should. I let it hit me probably a lot harder than I should. And I worry that maybe I am being that hypocrite. The hypocrite that I wanted to not become in this whole journey. 

When I started this journey, I wasn’t looking for God. BUT He found me regardless and sent me on this path. And even though I wasn’t looking for Him, I knew that when He started me down this path what I didn’t want. I didn’t want to be like the folks that I grew up in church around that were hypocrites. I didn’t want to be like the folks that I saw weekly in Catholic Church. I didn’t want to be the Sunday lunch crowd that were rude and nasty to the wait staff. I didn’t want to live a half invested life in Him. I am all in on Jesus. And maybe it seems a little over the top to most people. BUT I don’t do anything half. When I was all in on the world, I wasn’t half with that. So, there was no way I was going to be half on this either. He saved all of me. He gave all of me a shot at being good and walking out the way of His Kingdom. And I am not going to use Him as an excuse to do things half. I don’t care about a lot of things BUT I do care about how I live my life. And I never want to believe at all that I am being half or a hypocrite. So, I take those accusations seriously. 

When I started this journey, I relied a lot on my own little witty statements of truth to guide me. One of them was, “Courage is choosing to change”, and I still feel that even though it isn’t scripture, it is truth. It took a lot of courage to stop drinking and fighting with folks about politics. It took a lot of courage to eat better and start exercising. It took a lot of courage to build and plant a garden. It took a lot of courage to change from a person that knew Christians were a bunch of hypocrites to becoming an all in Christian. I did a lot in the past four years. And I will not have the Adversary win. I will not let his attacks of lies and destruction move me from being all in on God. 

So, I want to just encourage everyone to remain focused on Him. We do not have to agree on everything theologically BUT we will be known by our love. And there is a lot of room for grace and mercy and love within each of us, especially me. I love a lot of people that hold political, social, and theological views with which I disagree. BUT I still love them and see them as fellow image bearers of God. And if a perfect Jesus could love a bunch of broken and sinful folks all His life, I can find it in me to tolerate folks with whom I disagree. I wasn’t born knowing all this stuff. It took time and study, prayer, meditation and immersing myself in His Word. So I want to encourage everyone that you can get as deep with Him as you want. You can get all in. You don’t have to be half or hypocritical. He is willing to meet you where you are. And He will take whatever you are willing to give, “For God has not intended that we should experience his fury, but that we should gain deliverance through our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, who died on our behalf so that whether we are alive or dead, we may live along with him. Therefore, encourage each other, and build each other up — just as you are doing” (1 Thessalonians (1 Th) 5:9-11). So, let’s encourage each other more going forward. I know that is going to be my focus on the weeks ahead as we move forward in Advent and Christmas and the New Year because the holidays are difficult for many folks, including me this year. So let’s encourage each other as a way of showing His grace, mercy, and love.

Serve His Kingdom by serving one another in love.

Grace and Shalom to your home. The Kingdom of God is now!

I love you. I forgive you. Have a blessed and abundant day!

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoKingButChrist #EmbraceTheWithin #SeekFirstTheKingdom #ServeOneAnotherIn Love #NotMyWayYHWH

Serve One Another In Love no. 16

“Don’t delude yourselves: no one makes a fool of God! A person reaps what he sows. Those who keep sowing in the field of their old nature, in order to meet its demands, will eventually reap ruin; but those who keep sowing in the field of the Spirit will reap from the Spirit everlasting life. So let us not grow weary of doing what is good; for if we don’t give up, we will in due time reap the harvest. Therefore, as the opportunity arises, let us do what is good to everyone, and especially to the family of those who are trustingly faithful” (Galatians (Gal) 6:7-10). No one is more foolish than someone that thinks they are not being fooled. And I have lived that life for decades until God brought me the Truth. I was sowing a lot of things that would demand my ruin in the past. I was sowing the habits of bad physical, mental, and spiritual health. I rarely was concerned about what I put into my body, my mind, and my spirit. I was doing some good out there BUT I was going about it in all the wrong ways. I was living by the world’s idea that the ends justify the means. And I was foolish and deluded. And then God brought me His Truth. That the means are the end.

I was tired, afraid, and unhealthy when I started this journey BUT I was no longer fooled. And when someone really wants the Truth, God reveals it, “If you obey what I say, then you are really my talmidim, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (Yochanan (Jhn) 8:31-32). Knowing the Truth and then doing the Truth, however, are two distinct things. And my daily struggle is living His Truth. 

Living His Truth is a struggle because it takes an entire paradigm shift of how I viewed life. I was worried about so many temporary things that were unimportant. I was worried about my feelings. I was worried about the government. I was worried about my life. And His Truth far surpasses any worldly concerns I might have. I know that. And every day I struggle to live in alignment with His Will to serve Him and to serve others. To “do what is good to everyone” is never easy BUT it is simple. It is simply following His lead and loving others more than ourselves.

Jesus loved us enough to leave Heaven and come to earth to suffer and die. Everything we own is because of God’s grace. And we get concerned about those things like we actually own them. We act like the things we own are actually ours. They all belong to Him. Our homes, our clothes, our food, our planet, are not ours . . . They are His. We are just His custodians. We are His servants. And we need to start acting like caretakers rather than landlords. He owns the deed. He created all things. We get a little to haughty and a little too worldly for our own good. We worry too much and Jesus takes time in His Sermon to address how we can worry too much about the wrong things, “Therefore, I tell you, don’t worry about your life — what you will eat or drink; or about your body — what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds flying about! They neither plant nor harvest, nor do they gather food into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they are? Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to his life? “And why be anxious about clothing? Think about the fields of wild irises, and how they grow. They neither work nor spin thread, yet I tell you that not even Shlomo in all his glory was clothed as beautifully as one of these. If this is how God clothes grass in the field — which is here today and gone tomorrow, thrown in an oven — won’t he much more clothe you? What little trust you have! “So don’t be anxious, asking, ‘What will we eat?,’ ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘How will we be clothed?’ For it is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. But seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Mattityahu (Mat) 6:25-33). Seek First His Kingdom and His Righteousness. Not our kingdom, not the worldly kingdoms and nations, not what we see as right, not what we feel is right . . . Seek His Kingdom. Seek His Righteousness. And He will give us ALL things. Once you have found His Kingdom, His Kingdom should change you. His Kingdom should change your whole perspective. That is kind of what the word repent means. Repentance is a total change in perspective about how we see and do things. And if we see and do things the same as the world . . . Maybe we need to repent.   

Serve His Kingdom by serving one another in love.

Grace and Shalom to your home. The Kingdom of God is now!

I love you. I forgive you. Have a blessed and abundant day!

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoKingButChrist #EmbraceTheWithin #SeekFirstTheKingdom #ServeOneAnotherIn Love #NotMyWayYHWH