Live the Way You're Made

 

Walking with God resets your mind and will to be who he made you to be. If you are even curious to know how it all works, God is calling you. Once you know him, you know there is no other path but to live the way we’re made. You come up short every other way.

Isaiah 2:1-5 (MSG) 1 There’s a day coming when the mountain of God’s House Will be The Mountain— solid, towering over all mountains.  All nations will river toward it, people from all over set out for it. They’ll say, “Come, let’s climb God’s Mountain, go to the House of the God of Jacob. He’ll show us the way he works so we can live the way we’re made.”

8/29/2021

Ceding Your Authority to Evil

Some people say “I was born a sinner.”  Others say, “People are born good.” Experience of the 20th century alone shows that even the nicest people, given the right circumstances, will cede their authority to evil. This is the definition of being born a sinner. And this is only one example. 

James 1:13-15 (MSG) 13-15 Don’t let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, “God is trying to trip me up.” God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one’s way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.

8/22/2021

The Greater Debt

 

You cannot fake gratitude, even if you think you can. How you think and act proves it one way or another. The Kingdom of God is populated by those who ask Christ to change them into a new person. Gratitude and love overflow there, as only they know how deep is their debt of love.

Luke 7:41-43 (TLB) 41 Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people—$5,000 to one and $500 to the other. 42 But neither of them could pay him back, so he kindly forgave them both, letting them keep the money! Which do you suppose loved him most after that?” 43 “I suppose the one who had owed him the most,” Simon answered. “Correct,” Jesus agreed.

8/15/2021

The Golden Rule Plus

 

World-wide and in all religions the Golden Rule is a shared ethos, but the emphasis on sacrificial, redemptive and forgiving love is distinctive to Jesus. This completeness of love and relationship to God, through Jesus, is unlike any other religion or philosophy. 

Matthew 7:12 (NIV) 12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

8/8/2021