How deep will we go when Jesus wants all the things we love?

Will we hold onto something from below and to sacrifice that which is from above?

Oh the things we cling to and cherish so very dear,

are often our favorite idols which should truly make us fear.

For we will sacrifice our gifts from God on the very things that take our life:

our time, our money, our strength, and our heart for pleasure with spiritual strife.

There is a finish line and prize to see,

but only for those who from darkness flee.

Some run with zeal to make it there fast,

but they miss the mark when they run on past.

Other meander and walk very slow,

always lagging behind and having further to go.

From time to time people go off to the right,

into the darkness and way out of sight.

On the other hand some go on toward the left,

away from the safety of the solid rock cleft.

Not so long ago,

I was so very small.

I could barely sit up;

I couldn't even crawl.

I'd lay limp in my father's right arm

without worry of danger or thought of harm

In the darkness

in the quiet hour.

While in stillness,

we see his power.

A beam of single brightness

through the black there is whiteness.

The beam so long yet, so narrow.

From infinity to infinity, an arrow.

The light passes by, not touching one single thing.

All is dark but for the bean and the hope it may bring.

Saved from the Storm

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
(John 1:4-5)

Jesus brought us a life
with an illuminated path
and though we are
surrounded by darkness,
His light remains.

Click, his eyes widened as he almost couldn’t believe what was happening. He tried again, click, click. Smashing his hand against the steering wheel, he heard a hhhaaoo… as the horn started and faded out. Nate Duloss was in real trouble. He wasn’t near anyone who could help him and he had no way of helping himself.

Nate had been in Northern Alaska for almost three months doing research on weather patterns. He was working with one other man name Joshua Fose, who was back at their compound, probably sleeping by now.

The air was getting colder. Nate only had one flashlight and he hadn’t replaced the batteries in it for nearly two weeks. As he watched the flashlight, he could almost see it get dimmer and dimmer. Wanting to preserve the power that was left in the flashlight for a little longer he turned it off. He had been outside for about six hours that day, driving from site to site. Each site had a set of instruments and sensors to measure weather conditions in their specific regions. When he went out to collect the data in the afternoon, he found that the high winds from earlier in the day had caused snow to drift and cover some of the instruments. As a result, he had spent much of his time uncovering the instruments and taking precautions so that they would not have the same problem again.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even while we were dead in our trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ --by grace you have been saved-- (Ephesians 2:4-5)

“Where are you going?” cried James Caris as a man grabbed James’s wallet and started to run down the street. This was not an uncommon thing. James had lived in the inner city of Chicago for almost two years now and people there had cheated and stolen more things from him than he could count or sometimes buy. Turning the ignition of his car, it huffed a few times and then revved up. Applying some gas he started after the stranger. James had wanted to talk to this man when he had first seen him on his front porch. The man had been wearing an old dirty T-shirt and a pair of green shorts. James had seen him on the same porch several times before in this run-down neighborhood and his heart was heavy for him.

Individuality

There are teachings within the body of Christ that the independence of its individual members is bad or at least something to be avoided. This teaching is that Christians should be dependent on each other. If someone is going to make a decision about something then they need to be dependent on the saints to discern the proper choice. If they merely, come to a conclusion by themselves, they are being independent and falling short of the ideal/best. If someone is seeking to be the best they can be, under this teaching they are not free to make decision between them and God. As a result, this emphasis on dependence not only affects one’s feeling of freedom to be different, but also begins to hit at the core of someone’s individuality and can even inadvertently breakdown one’s true connection to the body.

An individual is someone who posses distinct characteristics from others. They are not merely part of a whole, they are something in and of themselves. Take for example a hand and a foot. They are two individual parts of a body. A hand can function independent of the foot. For instance, while someone’s feet are resting from a long walk, the hand can spend time writing a letter to a friend. The feet are part of the same body as the hand, but they don’t always work together. It merely depends on what the direction from the head of the body is instructing. The hand does not need to be in constant consultation with the foot in order to function properly together. Rather both the hand and the foot must be constant consultation with the head. When this occurs the two parts function seamlessly together with the same heart and goals. A hand and a foot’s connection to each other is not as important as their individual connection to the head. In the case of a lame man, the fact that he has a strong physical connection with both his hands to his feet, makes very little difference. For his feet are not properly connected to the head and so they are absolutely useless to the hands as well.

I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. (1 Corinthians 3:6-7)

The dirt was wet and moist as David turned off the hose. He had just gotten done planting a small patch of broccoli near their house.

David called out, “Anny… come here honey.” David’s four year old daughter who was playing outside jumped from a sand box and ran toward her father. It was still cold and Anny’s oversized coat arms drooped down nearly brushing the ground as she dashed along.

“What daddy?” she exclaimed as she looked at him with the deep blue eyes, that she obviously had gotten from her mother. David smiled.

“Did you get a chance to see what I just did Anny?”

Part of the Greatest News and most Powerful News is found in these two very simple words...REPENT and BELIEVE. While meditating on these words I am now finally starting to grasp the great power that exists within them. They truly do have the power to change a person’s life and though it is a great mystery, it is very simple in how it works.

The God of Peace

For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,
(1Co 14:31-33)

Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the LORD. And Gideon said, "Alas, O Lord GOD! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face." But the LORD said to him, "Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die." Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD and called it, The LORD is Peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.
(Judges 6:22-24)