Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Some Kingdom ABC’s

Some Kingdom ABC’s

We are called to Abide:

You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. (Jn 15:3-5 NKJV)

  • What are some signs that we are not abiding?
  • What are some things that help us abide?
We are called to Belong:

He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. (Ep 4:16 NLT)

We are designed to live in community, to be a part of something larger than we are. If we are not part of a community, the community is not complete and we are not complete, and we will never fulfill our destiny in God.

We are called to Color:

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. (Mt 5:14 NIV)

  • How much color can you see in a room without light?
  • Light reveals color.
  • We are to reveal, to add color
Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.  (Mt 5:14-16 MSG)

Monday, January 24, 2011

This Year

I see 2011 as a year in which God will present many opportunities, but only those who are willing to take a risk will be able to walk in them.  John Wimber used to say "Faith is spelled  r - i - s - k".  We seem prone to want a sure thing before we will take a chance, before we will step out.  We would rather play it safe like the person with one talent who buried it, rather than use it.

This year let's be willing to look foolish in the eyes of man.
This year let's be willing to take a chance of failing.
This year let's be willing to step out and use our gifts for the Kingdom of God.
This year let's be willing to believe that God is speaking to us about Kingdom possibilities.
This year let's be willing to use our talents, gifts, finances, and time in His Kingdom purposes.
This year let's be willing to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
This year let's be willing to believe that the Bible is true.
This year let's be willing to believe God's promises.
This year let's be willing to be dependent upon God.

As long as we react to opportunities and circumstances based upon our own abilities, talents, and finances, we will play it safe and miss out on the greater than we can hope, think, ask, or imagine of Ephesians 3.

As long as we play it safe we will never fully enter into our destiny, our calling, the God way of living and being and doing and relating, for we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. (Ep 2:10)

As long as we are not willing to take a risk, we will not venture into the God adventure we are destined for.

This year let's be willing to take a risk ... to take a chance ... to step out ... to speak up ... to stand, ... to do ... to live.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Ignored Warnings Bring Unwanted Results

In recent days I have visited a journal I kept for a while back in 2004.  I recorded on 01/01/2004:

 A quite beginning to a new year.  A thought today...we want explicit direction from God, what He wants is for us to trust Him.  Lord, help me to trust You even when I can't see, hear, or know.

In repentence and rest is your salvation, in quiteness and trust is your strength...(Is 30:15).

A quite and gentle stream goes only where it is directed; in rest its purpose is accomplished with a quiteness that cannot be ignored.

The last part of Is 30:15 I did not record on that day, however it is the last part that stands out to me today.  The end of that verse is but you would have none of it.  OUCH from 01/08/2011.


Friday, November 12, 2010

The Reality Is

These are a shadow of the things that were to come;
the reality, however, is found in Christ. (Col 2:17)

The reality is that in Christ we are free from all religious activity, rituals, regulations, etc that would supposedly bring us into good relationship with and keep us in good relationship with God, His favor, His grace, and as it were, His smile.  The reality is that we are already in right relationship with God, and are under His grace, His mercy, His favor, and His smile through Jesus Christ.  We can't be in a better relationship with Him than we already are in Christ.  All the grace and mercy and favor we can experience from God are in Christ., and all of that by grace. The reality is that in Christ we are free of all religious activity that would supposedly make us more right with Him or more pleasing to Him.  Not only are we free of those things but also the institutions and people that would try to impose those things upon us so that we may be more godly in their eyes.  The reality is that in Jesus we are free of all self effort to be right with or maintain rightness with God.  The reality is that in Christ we are free form sin and all efforts we attempt to make up for, pay for, or pay the price for sin.  We have what religion and rituals can't give us. We have what regulations and penance can't give us.  We have been set free of those activities and delivered into the freedom of a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. The reality is that in Jesus we are free from the shadow of religion, and have free access to God and all that implies through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Alive, Forgiven, and Triumphent

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,  having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Col 2:13-15)

We must live out of our new nature as those who are alive with Christ.  Our sinful past is not to cast shadows on our present nor our future because we have been totally forgiven  The list that was against us has been erased, removed, nailed to the cross, our debt cancelled. Demonic principalities, powers, and authorities that had to us because of our sins, no longer have those rights - they have been stripped bare and are without authority or power against us.  We have entered into the triumph of the cross over them.  Yea God!

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Some Things That God Delights In …

His people and rescuing them and crowning the humble with victory (Ps 18:19; 149:4)
the well-being, prosperity of his servants and in blessing them with peace (Ps 35:27)

every detail of His peoples lives (Ps 37:23)

those who love Him and put their hope in His unfailing love (Ps 147:11)

those whose ways are blameless (Prov 11:20

people who are trustworthy (Prov 12:22)

the prayers of the upright (Prov 15:8)

mercy (Micah 7:8)

kindness, justice, and righteousness (Jer 9:24)

honesty and integrity (Prov 11:1)

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The Butterfly Effect

The Butterfly Effect by Andy Andrews

In 1963, Edward Lorenz presented a hypothesis to the New York Academy of Science. His theory, stated simply, was that: A butterfly could flap its wings and set molecules of air in motion, which would move other molecules of air, in turn moving more molecules of air – eventually capable of starting a hurricane on the other side of the planet. Lorenz and his ideas were literally laughed out of the conference. What he had proposed was ridiculous. It was preposterous. But it was fascinating!

Therefore, because of the ideas charm and intrigue, the so-called “butterfly effect” became a staple of science fiction, remaining for decades a combination of myth and legend spread only by comic books and bad movies.

So imagine the scientific community’s shock and surprise when, more than 30 years after the possibility was introduced, physics professors working from colleges and universities worldwide came to the conclusion that the butterfly effect was authentic, accurate and viable.

Soon after, it was accorded the status of a “law.” Now known as The Law of Sensitive Dependence Upon Initial Conditions, this principle has proven to be a force encompassing more than mere butterfly wings. Science has shown the butterfly effect to engage with the first movement of any form of matter – including people.

On Friday, April 2, 2004, ABC News honored a man who, at that time, was 91 years old. The news program was running a regular segment called “Person of the Week.” Usually the honoree’s accomplishments are listed in advance and by the time the name is announced, most folks have already guessed the identity of that week’s recipient. In this instance, however, the pronouncement left many viewers puzzled.

“And so…our Person of the Week is…” the anchorman finally said, “Norman Borlaug!”

One can only imagine the frowns. Who? Who did he say? Norman…what was the last name?

Yet, despite our unfamiliarity, Norman Borlaug is a man who is personally responsible for drastically and dramatically changing the world in which we live. You see, in the early 1940s, Norman Borlaug hybridized high-yield, disease-resistant corn and wheat for arid climates. From the dust bowl of Western Africa to our own desert Southwest, from South and Central America to the plains of Siberia, across Europe and Asia, Borlaug’s specific seed product flourished and regenerated where no seed had ever thrived before. Through the years, it has now been calculated that Norman Borlaug’s work saved more than two billion lives from famine.

Actually, it was never reported, but the anchorman was misinformed. It was not Norman Borlaug who saved the two billion people, though very few caught the mistake. It was Henry Wallace.

Henry Wallace was the Vice President of the United States under Franklin Roosevelt. Over his four terms, Roosevelt had three different Vice Presidents and the second man to serve was Henry Wallace.

Wallace was the former Secretary of Agriculture who, after his one term as Vice President, was dumped from the ticket in favor of Truman. While Wallace was Vice President, however, he used the power of that office to create a station in Mexico whose sole purpose was to hybridize corn and wheat for arid climates. He hired a young man named Norman Borlaug to run it.

So Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Prize. And Norman Borlaug was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But considering the connection, it was really Henry Wallace that saved two billion people!

Or was it George Washington Carver? You remember Carver, don’t you? The peanut?

But here’s something that very few people know: When Carver was 19 years old and a student at Iowa State University, he had a Dairy Sciences professor who, on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, would allow his six-year-old boy to go on “botanical expeditions” with the brilliant student.

It was George Washington Carver who took that boy and instilled in him a love for plants and a vision for what they could do for humanity. It was George Washington Carver who pointed six-year-old Henry Wallace’s life in a specific direction – long before he ever became Vice President of the United States.

It’s amazing to contemplate, isn’t it?

George Washington Carver flapping his butterfly wings with the peanut. There are currently 266 things he developed from the peanut that we still use today. He flapped his wings with the sweet potato. There are 88 things Carver originated from the sweet potato that we still use today. And while no one was even looking, George Washington Carver flapped his wings a couple of times with a six-year-old boy. And just happened to save the lives of more than two billion people…and counting.

So maybe it should have been George Washington Carver – Person of the Week! Or the farmer from Diamond, Missouri?

His name was Moses and he lived in a slave state, but he didn’t believe in slavery. This made him a target for psychopaths like Quantrill’s Raiders who terrorized the area by destroying property by burning and killing. And sure enough, one cold January night, Quantrill’s Raiders rode through Moses’ farm. The outlaws burned the barn, shot several people, and dragged off a woman named Mary Washington who refused to let go of her infant son, George.

Now, Mary Washington was a friend of Moses’ wife, Susan. Though distraught, Susan promptly set to work writing messages and contacting nearby farms. She got word through neighbors and towns and two days later managed to secure a meeting for Moses with the bandits.

Susan looked on anxiously as her husband rode off on a black horse. His destination was a crossroad in Kansas several hours to the north. There, at the appointed time, in the middle of the night, Moses met up with four of Quantrill’s Raiders. They were on horseback, carrying torches, and had flour sacks tied over their heads with holes cut out for their eyes. There, the farmer traded the only horse they had left on their farm for what the outlaws threw him in a dirty burlap bag.

As the bandits thundered off on their horses, Moses fell to his knees and there, alone on that dark winter night, the farmer pulled from the bag a cold, naked, almost-dead baby boy. Quickly he jerked open his own coat and his shirt and placed the child next to his skin. Covering him with his own clothes and relying on the warmth from his own body, the man turned and walked that baby home.

Moses walked through the night and into the next morning to get the child to Susan. There, they committed to that tiny human being – and to each other – that they would care for him. They promised the boy an education to honor his mother, Mary, who they knew was already dead. That night, they gave the baby their own name…and that is how Moses and Susan Carver came to raise that little baby, George Washington.

So when you think about it, maybe it was the farmer from Diamond, Missouri, who saved the two billion people. Or was it his wife who was responsible? Certainly it was Susan who organized the effort – it was she who demanded immediate action.

Unless…

Is there an ending to this story? Exactly who was it that saved the two billion lives? Is there a specific person to whom we could point? How many lives would we need to examine in order to determine whose action saved two billion people – a number that continues to increase every minute?

And how far forward would we need to go in your life to show the difference you make?

There are generations yet unborn whose very lives will be shifted and shaped by the moves you make and the actions you take today. And tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

Every single thing you do matters.

You have been created as one of a kind. On the planet Earth, there has never been one like you and there never will be again. Your spirit, your thoughts and feelings, your ability to reason and act all exist in no one else. The rarities that make you special are no mere accident or quirk of fate. You have been created in order that you might make a difference.

You have within you the power to change the world.

Know that your actions cannot be hoarded, saved for later, or used selectively. By your hand, millions – billions – of lives will be altered, caught up in a chain of events begun by you this day. The very beating of your heart has meaning and purpose. Your actions have value far greater than silver or gold.

Your life and what you do with it today matters forever.

Adapted from The Butterfly Effect: How Your Life Matters by Andy Andrews, © 2009 Simple Truths LLC