We are so
in a very, very, big
yet…we
are
Not
We are never
Alone.
In our
little nature
God
In our small view of things
He is…
So why do we
struggle with our
Do we falter
why do we
our
existence?
Here is
a Reassurance:
God.
….
-just a thought.
“Resurrection”
It’s a new television show…but it’s something more than that. Something deep within us longs for just a few more minutes with our loved ones who have passed away. We wish within our hearts that they could see what we’ve become or that they could see how much our children have grown. Life conceivably has a beginning and an end, but in this new television show on ABC, “Resurrection” is happening all over the small town of Arcadia. It is a mystery as to why this is happening, but those who are “coming back” seem to possess intimate knowledge and even DNA coo-berating their identities.
How we wish such a miracle could take place here on earth. Most of us would dream of a scenario where we could once again hold a loved one that we’ve lost and to spend more quality time with them. The ABC producers of “Resurrection” certainly hope that we become transfixed to this concept and keep coming back for more.
Can television shows truly sell us hope? Are YOU in need of hope today?
Jesus knew a lot about life. He lived and He died, but He was also resurrected on the third day. During His ministry He even resurrected one of His friends, Lazarus, who had been dead for four days. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) Jesus holds the keys to Eternal life for all of us and this should give us authentic hope in our lives today!
TRUTH – We all possess eternal souls. We have been created by God himself who formed us in His image, and a part of Him is within us, which is eternal. These earthly bodies will one day wear out because they are temporal. We will one day face death…BUT the expiration of this human existence is not the end of our eternal existence. Life will go on. The real question is what destination will we choose? You see if we want to experience eternity with God and with those who followed Him and have gone on before us, we have to choose Him in the here and now! John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
If we choose to follow and love the Creator of Heaven and Earth, we will experience a resurrection beyond what television or even movies can give us. Real resurrection will happen and we should find hope in the fact that death of the physical body is NOT the end.
Check it out – “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16) It won’t be some horror show, or television script, this will be for real. I don’t know about you, but I want to experience this resurrection and new life with Christ in Heaven as well!
I love supernatural shows, and “Resurrection” looks quite interesting to me. Perhaps it might get some of its viewers to consider how precious life is and also to consider how very real Eternity will be for all of us.
(My review is strictly my opinion and not the opinion of any television network or affiliation)
Anger
Bleeds
Red…
Sometimes
the things
we
said
make
jagged
broken
beds…
we lie in them
the cumbersome
oozing regret.
BUT
Reconciliation
is Not
NOT
too far away.
Make a break
get away
turn your
pride
into
Forgiveness…
clean
the mess
confession
regress into
peace again.
I admit I’ve been addicted to the show “Deadliest Catch” for a few years now.
It’s crazy, wild and it truly is a rugged dangerous living.
I was watching one episode where one of the skippers had to bring their fishing vessel into port because of a mechanical issue. The seas were raging and the weather was not desirable, but they had to get to harbor for safety and repairs. Of course the tv show paints it with great drama and suspense, but in this instance they were extremely worried about getting to the docks and getting out of the storm.
Are you in need of getting out of the storm in your life today?
Has the storm been brewing around you for a while now, swirling and ebbing, crashing against your vessel and threatening to capsize you? Do you feel threatened and exposed, fearful of being washed away?
we all need safe harbor! I think the Apostle Paul felt this way many times in the midst of his persecution and imprisonment. He even knew a little bit about being literally shipwrecked (this happened to him not one or two times, but THREE times!). He even wrote about it; “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” 2 Corinthians 4:8-9
Safe harbor is vital for all of us to have. Do you have a safe harbor? Safe harbor needs to be a place where you can go and find rest. A place that will shelter you from the storms. A place where you know the storms of life can’t harm you. Jesus said;
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
Safe Harbor is available –
But we have got to be willing to act on it…to actually go to the safe harbor. We have to be willing to admit that these storms are more than we can handle. Admit that we need help and our strength just isn’t enough to get us through what we’re going through.
He waits for us to come to Him. He doesn’t just want us to come to Him when we’re in danger…but that’s a start. Sometimes we come to Him only after we’ve hit rock bottom. Sometimes we come to Him only after all of our other resources dry up. Yet He is always faithful! He is always available.
May I offer you a little ticket to the safe harbor? 
It’s just a gentle word of advice and help. It’s a small thing that I’ve learned I’m still learning…
Solitude with God:
It might sound kind of funny, but being silent before the Creator of the Universe really and truly helps! There is no better place to go than to God for guidance and for a re-connection with Him.
We live in a world where we are surrounded by sounds and noise every day. There are distractions in our homes and in our workplaces…so how do we find these moments of solitude with God? Is it even possible?
Yes it is! But the real question then becomes are we truly willing to seek out these moments with God? Are we prepared to sit in silence before Him? Truly finding solitude in God’s safe harbor requires us to devote or set aside purposeful time with Him. Without our dedication to the practice of solitude we will find ourselves hopelessly bored and defeated by it. You have to prepare your mind and your life so that you can actually sit in silence before Him.
Anything worth doing takes work. An Olympian can’t simply show up to an Olympic event without first having spent countless months, days even years practicing and training. So it is with the spiritual discipline of solitude. It’s called a discipline for a reason.
I started with hope –
because I think hope begins things
makes us sing…
but faith and love…they have to be included too.
they just kind of go together don’t they?
You really can’t have one
without
the
Every one needs,
craves, desires,
hopes, wishes,
dreams, aspires
yearns, waits
for 
Songs are written about it
poems are rhythmically charged with it
countless books bleed from the heart of love.
How do we 
?
How do we
|
hug, take/hold in one’s arms, hold, cuddle, clasp to one’s bosom,clasp, squeeze, clutch;….
How do we flourish and thrive in it Love makes the world go around…not money, not fortune and fame…but
It shines in the darkness, paints over our mess helps us confess blesses us…love…
captivates, motivates, escalates, elevates…us.
Love always perseveres! Always, always, always, always…always.
Is it worth finding at all?
True love, God’s love…
It begins here…ends here… If we find it here, and cherish it here depend on it here
Then from here to —————————————–> There
Love will be. Real authentic, no hidden agendas  No… From the source of Love, God. Almighty
We will
to the only real source of love.
Find love today. He is waiting.
With arms wide 
Open.
This. Is. Love. |
Begin with this one simple truth:
You are loved! You matter to God! You are important to Him! He loves you so very much! From this point of reference, may you find Him, and find love!
(These thoughts were written specifically for “Pastorsponderings.org” but they are free so that others might find love and hope through Jesus Christ our Lord! Amen and to God be there glory!)
Sometimes it’s a hopeless world around us and all anyone can seem to do is just survive.
I don’t want to merely survive,
I want to bloom and grow and thrive in the place(s) that God has placed me.
Sometimes though I think that we all can just sort of settle for the “just good enoughs”.
I’m not talking about materialism or stuff but about our life circumstances and our hopes and dreams….
you see
when we were just kids
We dreamed. We welcomed imagination. We hoped to become, and in that becoming the sky was the limit.
We weren’t weighed down by endless doubts, or the “not good enoughs” or the “I can’ts”…
we just imagined and dreamed big dreams…
but…
over time…
we started to believe what others thought about us.
over time…
we bought into the lies that this world told us.
over time…
we accepting the truths of the fallen, instead of the truths of the risen.
So, for just a second, will you accepted this breath?
Will you accept this gift of hope again?
Will you take these written words to heart…
and believe again?
Here is the hope that I have for you for me, for us
today…
This is what I know HOPE to be:
H.elping us
O.pen our eyes to the
P.ower of
E.ternity
This isn’t something readily accepted. This isn’t something generally practiced…even though flowery speeches and whole sections of bookstores are devoted to “self-help”…they can fall short.
Hope lifts our eyes.
Helps us see beyond what this earth
has taught us to know.
When we can begin to look up, accept divine help…
our eyes can become truly open to the possibilities again.
The power
God’s power, brings us closer,
so much closer
to the way things were created to be
in the first place.
Don’t be limited by your hopes and dreams…find hope…
and….
let it….
set…
you…
New beginnings. That’s what some people are hoping for at the start of 2014. Cue the song “High Hopes” (I’m really not being cynical here either…really). I believe in the God of second chances, do you? I believe that when His disciples asked Him how many times they had to forgive Jesus told them seventy times seven (Matt 18:21-22). I know that He wasn’t just giving them a random number out of His head and it wasn’t legalistic in the sense that they only had to forgive 490 times (that’s 70 X 7 by the way for us who had to use a calculator cause we suck at math). I believe the disciples eventually got Jesus’ point. Forgiveness isn’t really about how many times we have to forgive but rather about the conditions of our hearts and the willingness to find grace for others. Isn’t that what God has done for us? We mess up royally and we don’t deserve God’s forgiveness and yet His prevenient grace is offered to us through Christ. He forgives us COMPLETELY!
I don’t wish to imply that there are conditions on forgiveness here but think of it this way: Forgiveness of others and those who have wronged you alleviates the burdens and scorn you may still have in your heart for that person(s). They may not even seek sincere forgiveness from you but when you wipe the slate clean of transgressions done to you, you are clearing the weight of that burdens of wrongs done to you. It may sound selfish, but why live life burdened by the wrongs of others? It holds you back. It holds you captive. You will always be a prisoner to their wrong doings done to you even if they have moved on. So why let it fester? Why let that kind of emotional/spiritual sliver remain? Pluck it out and move on for your own health and well being.
Secondly, forgiveness doesn’t mean that you become naive and trust people who haven’t earned that trust yet, but it does mean that you move on. We must be wise in how we let others effect us coupled with the decisions we make which also impacts others. Forgiveness and trust aren’t always mutually the same. What forgiveness allows you to do (and the offending party) is to move on. I don’t believe that we have to automatically forget but we forgive. Afterall we can’t expect someone who has been sexually or physically abused to forget what was done to them right out of the “forgiveness gate”…it will take time to heal and to cope. In the same way that it may take years of counseling and healing for the abused, those who have been wronged in other ways will find that time needs to pass before trust and “forgetting” can ever take place.
Lastly, I mentioned earlier about what the year of Jubilee meant in the Hebrew culture. It was a year in which all debts were erased and people could start over. Perhaps 2014 is that year of Jubilee for you. Perhaps you’ve been holding onto pains, hurts, and grudges that need to be wiped completely away. Forgiveness heals and lifts burdens of all parties.
Are you willing to forgive? For those also who are seeking to find forgiveness, be strong. It takes a lot of courage to own up to wrong doings so that you can grow and move on. Don’t miss this opportunity on the first of the year to begin on the right foot!
-Just a thought for new beginnings.
Finding salvation and comfort…is that even possible?
In a world that seems so wrought with pain and sadness,
these half-timbered, dimly lit dwellings
plastered with the scabs of hurts and slings of words
how can hope spawn from such a place?
These tall escarpments seem too far,
and we, with reaches far too limited
how can hope ever stoop, low and bending
to such a place as this?
Yet, when the babe, cherubic and glorious
came to this fallen shambles of a place
we now, with arms extended
broken and needy
can embrace this light
beaming and radiant.
Hope? Don’t speak of such a thing,
live it, experience it, vivid and streaked
with Theophonic glory…speak not
of falsities and half promises of this word!
Instead, with hearts extended
grooved and bending
no longer a barren land but
but rich, empirical
blazing in His glory!
In the years that I have lived, loved and groaned
I have never known the hunger pangs of children
I have never witnessed a child dying from the curable
because resources and money was lacking.
I have never found pleasure in a single morsel of rice
because this was all I would eat in a week.
I have never been witness to the slaughter of my parents
because they believed in Jesus.
I have never had to watch as my brothers and sisters
were sold into slavery on the human trafficking market,
loaded up in boxed trucks by the dozens like animals
heading to market…
Yet I know it exists.
I know that many still today find grace in one ray of sunshine
in the midst of hell and fury of hate.
I know children go hungry as militant leaders steal
their wealth and resources and make child soldiers out of them.
I know Aids has killed and will kill entire generations in Africa
leaving orphans in its wake.
I know human slavery hasn’t been eradicated
but is extricating the innocent still to a shortened life of horror.
I know.
But how can we end this?
How can we bring food to the hungry,
safety to the threatened
and cures to the dying?
My heart yearns to help.
My heart groans to give aid.
I want to fight this.
I want to stand in the gap for those who cannon for themselves.
I want to bring the light of Christ into darkened places.
To be a place of safe harbor to the lives clinging to death.
Lord how?
How can we fight this?
How can we go?
How can we soldier on?
How do we shine when all we want to do cry and weep over
the evils of man?
This fight must begin and end with You!
Your strength.
Your peace.
Your discernment.
Your empowering arms of love.
Father, we cry out to You in a world
sin sick and broken.
Be our salve.
Be our shield.
Our fortress.
Our deliverance.
Our Victory.
I’ll fight!
I’ll fight on!
I’ll fight on into your victory!
This is a very sensitive topic, I know.
I don’t know the effects of infidelity (thankfully) first hand, nor am I about to make a broad brush stroke and lump other marital issues such as physical or substance abuse in with unfaithfulness. Let me be clear, my primary purpose in writing on this topic is strictly to confront areas of sinful unfaithfulness within the sacred partnership of marriage within the “Christian Church”.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, this ought not be. I do want to be sensitive with extemporaneous issues which might lead to such a betrayal, but in many cases Christians who are facing these types of issues in their marriage really need to consult professional marriage counseling before it gets worse.
If we can learn anything from the story of Hosea and his marriage to Gomer (which was a metaphor for the sacred yet broken Covenant relationship God had with His people) we should learn just how serious a partnership the marriage relationship was and still is today. After all, even the Apostle Paul wrote of the marriage relationship in Ephesians 5:22-33, and the main focal point in those verses center on resembling how Christ’s love is bestowed and poured out upon His bride the Church.
Husbands and wives, when you make that solemn commitment and say “I do” you are committing to that person FOR LIFE! This isn’t some kind of two year cell phone commitment, where, after two years, you can upgrade to a different model. This is why it is so crucial to get to know your “bride-to-be” or “groom-to-be” before you make that life long commitment! How heart wrenching it is to watch two committed Christians split up over some elicit affair or “moment of weakness”. Many psychologists have ascertained that a betrayal like this can be as devastating as a death in the family. (http://www.alfredadler.edu/sites/default/files/Livingston%20MP%202012.pdf)
One of the biggest public stories recently in Hollywood is of the elicit affair Kristen Stewart had with a married man, Rupert Sanders. Though this isn’t specifically a Christian story, the devastation that this had on both parties has ended in divorce and separation. How horrifying it must be to discover the one you have confided in and trusted your heart and life with has betrayed you. http://www.eonline.com/news/475712/liberty-ross-opens-up-about-husband-s-affair-with-kristen-stewart-it-was-really-the-worst
As Christian people, we are a living example of Christ to the world around us. I believe it hurts the heart of our Lord when marriages fall apart and unfaithfulness is at its center. Beware too…don’t ever think that you are not susceptible to such trappings of temptation! Steer clear of these moments of weakness. Don’t place yourself in compromising situations where you may be tempted! Keep your allegiance not only to God but also with your spouse and life-partner! Hebrews 13:4 Says; “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”
Get Help!
If you and your spouse are facing issues in your marriage, don’t be afraid to seek professional help with a Christian marriage counselor! It is a sign of strength and not weakness that you do so. After all, if there is something worth protecting in this life it would have to be your marriage and family? So take the time, seek support and guidance and don’t put it on the back burner because life is “too busy” right now! Be proactive in your marriage and don’t wait for the bags to be packed and the sofa full of pillows and blankets!
Cherish!
Seek fidelity in your marriage, but go way beyond that! Cherish your spouse! Be attentive, supportive, communicative and loving! Be selfless in your attitude towards each other instead of selfish! Spend time with one another and perhaps plan dates away from the kids and the stresses of work! Invest in your relationship and don’t neglect it! If we are to be amazing representatives of Christ-like living in this world it ought to begin with cherishing and preserving our love for our spouses and family first.
Pray!
Make sure you pray for one another, both privately in your own personal devotions as well as together. Prayer is not only our source of communication with God but it unifies and solidifies our intentions as couples. Never stop praying for your relationship, and also pray that Christ’s love would be demonstrated in how you treat each other.
Just an important thought for all of my married brothers and sisters out there today!
I am certainly not a marriage counselor, but I recognize this very real danger in our Church today and feel I must constantly remind myself and you of how easy these temptations can turn into moments of full blown infidelity if we are not diligent and aware of their trappings.
Blessings on you and your spouse today!
Pastor's Ponderings 