People Are Not Easy to Love (no. 2)

“From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us” (2 Corinthians 5:16-19 CSB).

When I started my journey, I didn’t want to change BUT I needed to change. I started out my journey just wanting to start changing things here and there. I started with just wanting to change my physical health and that led to me changing my mental health which then led to me working on my spiritual health. And that is the chance we take when we let God do what He wants. I was content with just getting better for now in this area and that area BUT He was not content with little changes here and there. He was interested in changing the whole of me into something completely different.

And that is what is dangerous about giving your life over to God. You lose control. I have lost control of my life. I have had to quickly come to terms with that reality. I was no more than a few weeks into my journey when I realized this wasn’t going the way I thought it was going to go. And it still isn’t. I just had to give up. I had to surrender. And sometimes I don’t think a lot of us are ready to do that. I know I wasn’t ready to surrender ten years ago. I wasn’t ready to surrender twenty years ago. I wasn’t ready to surrender thirty years ago. BUT I have surrendered now. I have taken Him at His word, “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it’”(Matthew 16:24-25 CSB).

Grace and Shalom to your home.

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

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoKingButChrist #EmbraceTheWithin #NotMyWayYHWH

People Are Not Easy to Love (no. 1)

“Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not practice what I tell you? Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and obeys them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a [far-sighted, practical, and sensible] man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and yet could not shake it, because it had been securely built and founded on the rock. But the one who has [merely] heard and has not practiced [what I say], is like a [foolish] man who built a house on the ground without any foundation, and the torrent burst against it; and it immediately collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great” (Luke 6: 46-49 AMP).

Wisdom is going all in with Jesus. Foolishness is playing around with God. And I am always surprised, although I shouldn’t be, when I find more and more folks that profess Christianity while they are playing around with God. Those folks are often full of judgment for their sinful neighbors without seeing that they are living in a house built without a foundation. A house that is just waiting on its destruction by the obstacles of life.

You need a solid foundation to walk in the Way of the Lord. And the only way to build that foundation is persistent work in building a foundation. I could not have started diving right into ministry when I first started walking with God because I lacked a foundation. I could not be in front of others sharing my testimony when I first started walking with God because I lacked a foundation. BUT too often we try to jump into things without a solid knowledge, a solid faith, a solid practice, a solid foundation in the Lord. We get a little church and we are ready to point out all the splinters out there, “Why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the beam of wood in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a beam of wood in your own eye? Hypocrite! First take the beam of wood out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5 CSB). We are too often ready to judge the world without an understanding of our own spiritual construction. I have a belief without a foundation that is waiting to crash and fall while I am criticizing the floor plan of others.

I need a foundation in reading scripture and spending time with God in prayer. The Bible is a great place to build a firm understanding of God, however, I need to take those scriptures and apply them to my life. And I get the understanding of how to do just that through a daily and constant relationship with Him. Relationship is the foundation I need to walk with Him. There are going to be people and circumstances and situations that are going to come against our walk with God BUT a relationship with Him built on a routine of trusting in His scripture and trusting in His guidance will provide shelter in all that life has in store. Too often we tell people that God will not give us more than we can handle BUT, in reality, God never allows us more than we can handle through Him. And when life gets tough, we either have a foundation to help strengthen us or not. We have a relationship that is tried and trusted or not. We have trust in Him or not. And I find that, surprisingly, there are a lot of folks that do not trust Him. They want to trust in their own understanding BUT we are warned, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; in all your ways know him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6 CSB).

Grace and Shalom to your home

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

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoKingButChrist #EmbraceTheWithin #NotMyWayYHWH