Love covers

Above all, love each other warmly, because love covers many sins. 1 Peter 4:8

This morning as Sam and I were putting out the trash and recycling, my neighbor, Jean, came around the corner with a wagon in tow. She started across our yard. I walked her way to see what she wanted. Nothing. She was giving this morning. 

We are new to the ways of the neighborhood trash pick up. The pile of tree limbs and brush that we put out two weeks ago(bad timing) was more pine needles and cherry bombs than limbs, which means they probably will not get the pile as they come by. More work in our future it seems. 

Here comes Jean, not asking for help, but giving evergreen limbs to cover up our mix of stuff in hopes that the truck will see the limbs and feel compelled to stop. She said as she as was walking back across the yard. Maybe these limbs will do the trick even for one scoop to save us from having to come out here and bag it all up. "Save us" she said. "Us". 

Thanks Neighbor for being Christ to me today!

"Hosanna, Glory to God in the Highest." 

All in,
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Relationship Rules

A wise man once told me that in God's economy relationship rules.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart & Love your neighbor as yourself. How much more should we love and look out for the interests of our brothers and sisters in Christ. 

As I say goodbye to Christmas decorations this week. I remember the angel's proclamation "Peace on earth. Good will to men."

Lord fill my mind and heart as your good will overflows through me to those you love o dearly especially those in the family of believers. 

1Corinthians 2:9

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Compelled

Clearly, Christ’s love guides us. We are convinced of the fact that one man has died for all people. Therefore, all people have died. He died for all people so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for the man who died and was brought back to life for them. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15 GW)

I memorized this verse standing beside my daddy on the banks of the Jordan River in Israel. The version I learned says " Christ's love compels us." I have not looked up the difference between guide and compel but in my heart it has a different feel to it. Both are right and of God, I believe. 

This is also the verse that my bible was opened to on the day I was ordained. 

My prayer today is that my life in character and in action would live up to and lean into this reality of purpose. Jesus gave His all to us. Can we not trust Him with our EVERYTHING?

Luke 1:38

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See Jesus in the Church

⁴³ After spending two days in Samaria, Jesus left for Galilee. ⁴⁴ Jesus had said that a prophet is not honored in his own country. ⁴⁵ But when Jesus arrived in Galilee, the people of Galilee welcomed him. They had seen everything he had done at the festival in Jerusalem, since they, too, had attended the festival. John 4:43-45

John set the scene telling about one of the miracles of Jesus. Jesus heals the son of an official from Capernaum. It is easy to skip over the setting or attitude. Jesus had just traveled to Jerusalem for a festival along with others from His hometown. The result was increased faith. At the end of this miracle, John 4:54 states, "This was the second miracle that Jesus performed after he had come back from Judea to Galilee." Faith was on the rise. What changed? 

The hometown people saw Him in a larger context. They saw Him in the reflection of other believers who knew Him from a different perspective than they did. 

When I read this passage, my heart leaps for the international and district assemblies of my denomination(one of many who make up Christ's Church. I love watching people who show up from our local congregation for the first time at district assembly. Their vision of who Jesus is and what He is doing in the CHURCH is greatly increases. With such a perspective shift from that glimpse, our faith, our hope, our love for Christ, God's people and the world increases. 

My prayer is that in my local church, the announcement to become a local representative at district assembly will not fall on deaf ears...for their sake and perspective, for the district's sake and enrichment, and for Christ's sake and His Kingdom. 

Step up Church, let's lean in and allow Christ to give us His eyes in a deeper way!

James 3:18,

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Lose Faith?

How horrible it will be for the world because it causes people to lose their faith. Situations that cause people to lose their faith will arise. How horrible it will be for the person who causes someone to lose his faith! (Matthew 18:7 GW)

Oh be careful little eyes what you see,

Oh be careful little hands what you do,

Oh be careful little tongues what you say,

For Your Father up above is looking down in love,

Oh be care full...

God loves the world. He is always at work drawing people to himself. Jesus is the author, pioneer, and finisher of our faith. Throughout the journey in between we can encounter and can become people who encourage faith or who cause people to lose faith. So put on love, which holds us all together in holy faith.

James 3:18,

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Write On My Heart

For 40 years I was disgusted with those people. So I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts continue to stray. They have not learned my ways.’ (Psalms 95:10 GW)

So glad today that my righteousness does not depend on my learning, but rather on my leaning. How gentle sit my kind God, who writes love with love.

James 3:18,

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Love vs Sin

I have not posted in a while not because I do not have anything to say, but I have so many thoughts going through my mind, I barely have time to think them.:)

Here is one... 

I have been going through and made aware of many trials and troubles in my life and in the lives of those I love.

I do not remember feeling this worn by emotion since I was in the depth of sin. I know a harsh contrast but go with me a minute.

When I was bound by sin I was exhausted with feelings of inadequacy, heartache, loneliness, isolation, regret, and even apathy. While the sin I was involved in made me forget for a while, I still woke up to these feelings in increasing measure. They piled on with no relief. I did not know the end at the time just the reality of sinking in every area of life.

Recently because of relationships in my life that are filled with love, feelings of inadequacy, heartache, loneliness, isolation, regret, and compassion ( which takes more emotion than apathy) flood my heart. While all of these different circumstances collide, I wake up in the Presence of my Heavenly Father, but with each passing moment of the day, the reality of each situation settles in on my heart and well pile on. If I did not love most, if not all of these emotions would not be very intense. If I did not care, we'll things would be different, but I am understanding being bound by love in a new sense. I not only weep under my own reality, but the reality of those I love as well.

Sin vs Love ... I am reminded today of the similarities, BUT I am also reminded of the differences.

Each day I wake in the comfort of my Heavenly Father. My inadequacy is strength as I yield yo Him. My heartache reminds me this is not my home. My loneliness begins the feeling and prayer of need that welcomes the Spirit of the Living God into my heart with gates open wide(doors would be an understatement for my need). My isolation compels me to proclaim the reconciliation that we can have in Christ Jesus. My regret has ebbed and now flows with the continual debt of love that I have to those around me. Finally, my compassion is not mine, but the reality that the God of all creation is still at work in me and through me. 

Not to mention the end of these two roads. Sin leads to death (Romans 6:23), but Love leads to dying(John 15).( I warned you my mind is continuous these days.) I am thinking a lot on this, but for now suffice it to say. Sin death is final separation...BUT Love dying is yielding your life to and for the One who holds true life everlasting in His Faithful Hands.

James 3:18

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Jesus, There is No One like Him!

Oh the Cross of Christ…It is good thing to go over on a regular basis the sacrifice that was made to us. To remember the depth of Love that was poured out for us. Not out of ritual, obligation or duty, but out of our faith, gratefulness, and love. A few ways to remember is to meditate on songs that recount His journey, or read and read and read through the scriptures that tell of His sacrifice. His Life given for you and then to you. Nothing withheld. There is no one like our God.

“He came from heaven to earth, to show the way. From the earth to the cross, my debt to pay. From the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky, Lord we lift Your Name on high.”

Isaiah 53:3-5

He was despised and rejected by people.
    He was a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering.
    He was despised like one from whom people turn their faces,
        and we didn’t consider him to be worth anything.
⁴ He certainly has taken upon himself our suffering
    and carried our sorrows,
        but we thought that God had wounded him,
            beat him, and punished him.
⁵ He was wounded for our rebellious acts.
    He was crushed for our sins.
        He was punished so that we could have peace,
            and we received healing from his wounds.

1 Corinthians 5:21

 ²¹ God had Christ, who was sinless, take our sin so that we might receive God’s approval through him.

John 19:16-18

¹⁶ Then Pilate handed Jesus over to them to be crucified.So the soldiers took Jesus. ¹⁷ He carried his own cross and went out of the city to a location called The Skull. (In Hebrew this place is called Golgotha.) ¹⁸ The soldiers crucified Jesus and two other men there. Jesus was in the middle

1 Peter 3:18

¹⁸ This is true because Christ suffered for our sins once. He was an innocent person, but he suffered for guilty people so that he could bring you to God. His body was put to death, but he was brought to life through his spirit.

Colossians 1:20

²⁰ God was also pleased to bring everything on earth and in heaven back to himself through Christ. He did this by making peace through Christ’s blood sacrificed on the cross.

Click here for a list of 200 Bible verses to rediscover the depth of His Love for You.

James 4:14,
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It's Hereditary...

Someone asked me a question since my dad's recent heart operation. "Is this hereditary?" I really do not know, but it did get me thinking. I then had a conversation with my older brother about his father, who also had some heart problems at one time. We talked a bit about needing to be proactive in knowing if there was anything that ran in the family.

It got me thinking though, as we talked about family life and what is passed down to our daughters. My spiritual health is also somewhat hereditary. How I respond to life, how I love, how I show compassion, how I live.

Philippians 2:14-18 "Do everything without complaining or arguing. Then you will be innocent and without any wrong. You will be God's children without fault. But you are living with crooked and mean people all around you, among whom you shine like stars in the dark world. You offer teaching that gives life. So when Christ comes again, I can be happy because my work was not wasted. I ran the race and won.

"Your faith makes you offer your lives as a sacrifice in serving God. If I have to offer my own blood with your sacrifice, I will be happy and full of joy with all of you. You also should be happy and full of joy with me."

Do you hear the generational sacrifice in this passage. Paul is talking to the believers in Philippi, but I might as well be talking to my daughter. I know that my faith is what makes me serve, but it is the love of God within me for others, especially those closest to me that would cause me to offer blood on top of it.

Am I healthy? Spiritually? Am I doing all that I can to pass along faith and not fear, action and not complacency; hope and not despair, encouragement and not discouragement; love and not apathy, obedience and not idolatry. "And now these three remain: Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is Love." I Co. 13

James 4:14,
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