Ignorant Lese Majesty

Make the Lord of Heaven’s Armies holy in your life. He is the one you should fear. He is the one who should make you tremble. ~Isaiah 8:13

If I could underline just a few things in the verse above, one of them would be the verb Make. It's up to us to make God holy to us. God is holy, but if we can't see that, then we can't see God. The connection must be made, just like when we make new friends here on earth. We make a connection, see a face, call out a greeting, and it feels so natural. Meeting with God won't feel natural at first, because it's hard to see him.

Some people call God invisible, but that is far from the truth. If God were a human, he would be visible as we know the term, but because he doesn't take shape, he can't be anything, but rather he can be in things. God can be seen in people, in nature, in everything he has created, but it takes time. First make the connection, then make God holy in your life by honoring his will.

Tongues of Action

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. ~Ecc. 9:10 (NIV)

Any one part of the church can become a leader to the rest. Leadership simply means guiding the people to new grounds. That's what the pastor does, that's what the guest speakers do, the worship leaders, all the volunteers who provide information and new ideas: they plant a seed that may or may not take flight and reproduce. The difference then, between a church of stagnant waters and a people of action is how the leader leads.

Take the presidents' many roles for example. If all they do is explain what they will do for their nation before election but end up not following through with it in office, they won't be reelected and America won't be as well off as it might have been. As leaders, it doesn't always work--in fact, it almost never works--to just explain an idea to the church during a service or somewhere convenient and expect results. It allows time for the thoughts to settle in, for the already stagnant pool to stir up a few bubbles, and for the devil to twist those motives until everyone forgets the idea again. The truth behind an accomplished president is that they know how to take action responsibly and show the people their thoughts without ever having to explain them first. As leaders, we must take initiative and do. Then, when God works through us to accomplish his will, the people will see it and follow. It's precisely how Jesus worked in his short time on earth, so maybe we should try doing the same in our own lives. Think about it.

Swim At Your Own Risk!

I have held this idea for the past week about how we are rivers, or rather, carriers of an ever-flowing body. Now, there are many different angles you could look at this analogy, and they all might make their own decent points, but for this post, I'd like to bring up just one.

The river of life flows through us as it does through all people. It is a river of blessings that fill us in our darkest days. God is its source; He was the one to start it flowing, and guides its branches through everyone--I have no doubt that he blesses even the unsaved. They simply don't know its source, they brush it aside and call it fate. The point is that we all are gifted with the blessings of the Most High, but we are also faced with the choice of how to use what we are given.

Many Christians today lose such a potentially strong connection with God because they speak to him and never listen, take from him and never give back. We tend to gather the river up in a dam and keep it for ourselves. This causes a problem though, as the river was meant to flow from one being to the next. We are to take the spirit of God and follow it to wherever it leads, helping those it touches. Only then will our connection upstream be strong and healthy. Only then can we truly communicate and coordinate with our Maker.

Celestial, Prevalant Esse

"God's a skyscraper
Every window's just another way to see
Every different floor is just another place to be,
It's all the same its all the same why cant you see
We're family" ~Light Beam Rider

What this verse says to me is that God is in every part of our lives, and that as humans (as sinners even) we are all in the same boat. So just open your eyes world! Can't you see just what we could be? We are all a part of God's family, and God wants us to be united as one! We may all be looking at it differently, we are certainly each on a different floor, but God has always been the answer. And although there are many windows to look through, there is one absolute truth: His word is truth. We need God.

"You know, when I look around at everything it just
Blows my mind to think, "where'd this all come from?"
So I got some questions, like yo...

What's it all about? Why are we here?
If there's no reason, why do I care?
A lot of people put they thoughts in my ear
But I gotta know for myself,
So yo God, are you really there?" ~Andy Mineo

That's No CPU...

Unless your faith is firm, I cannot make you stand firm.” ~Isaiah 7:9

God doesn't play us like a video-game, sitting on a cloud with a controller in his hands. We are not his robots to worship him as he pleases, we have the choice to worship him. Although we are characters of choice and freedom in this life--free from the all-controlling power--God does intercede if and when we let him. So perhaps it's more like we are playing the video-game of our lives, and we can use the God Power for attack, defense, or reinforcement!

Called to Qualification

In life, we are given a single road. Our roads may feel like they are constantly changing directions or that they are too narrow to stand up straight on. Sometimes they will feel dirty and unpleasant. The most important part about following your road however is not the easy or hard parts while on it, but where it will eventually lead to. Roads don't end. There will always be another road to hop onto, meaning that even after this road (life) is over and we have accomplished whatever it is we placed at the end of our road, there will be a STOP sign with only two choices of turning. What you place at the end of your road will determine whether you go left or right (up or down). Sounds easy enough, right? Almost. You see, you can never know when a car might come driving down your road and you have nowhere to go. It'll just push you to the end that much faster, and if you hadn't already planned your route, chances are you'll be taking the wrong turn in the end--down.

You don't have to choose your own road either, because if you listen, your smart phone will be ringing to tell you the way to life...

 

And don't worry, it's not like you're alone...

“Jacob was a cheater, Peter had a temper, David had an affair, Noah got drunk, Jonah ran from God, Paul was a murderer, Gideon was insecure, Miriam was a gossip, Martha was a worrier, Thomas was a doubter, Sara was impatient, Elijah was moody, Moses stuttered, Abraham was old,… and Lazarus was dead. God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the CALLED!” ~Rev Michael Beckwith

  

“The call of God is like the call of the sea—no one hears it except the person who has the nature of the sea in him.” ~Oswald Chambers

God's The Gardener

Say I have a job gardening for someone. They come out and say "Wow, you're great at mowing that lawn! Thank you." Well, I may be, but that's only because I have the muscle-power to push it, the oxygen to keep moving, the eyesight to see where to mow, etc. So, what if we simply responded in truth all the time? Well, what is the truth? It would be like saying, "Hey, thanks for the compliment and all, but honestly, it's only because God gave me all the tools to do this work for you. He's the one you should be thanking." Now, that might be a very different approach than people are used to, and you know what? It would open up a legion of opportunities everywhere you go, whenever somebody asks "Hey, how are you doing?"

A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. ~1 Corinthians 12:7