Direction or Directions?

God doesn't always want to guide our lives as much as he wants to be our guide for life. In other words, he doesn't give us a print-out of Google maps with directions on the side telling us how to get to where he wants us to go; instead he gives us a compass. What a compass does is point us in the right direction, leaving it up to us to get there. Even the bible doesn't lay out directions--we have to try to decipher it's specific meanings and applications sometimes. I do believe though, that we all have God's calling written on our hearts, and it's only a matter of underlining and putting feet to the statement which God intends to be our guiding anthem. Let us allow God's magnetic pull to direct every decision of our lives.

"Living life on purpose means letting God's agenda and His heart become the guiding principle for all our decisions."

~Claude Hickman/Steven C Hawthorne/Todd Ahrend on "Following God on Mission" in "Kairos"

Bless to Bless to Bless

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? ~Romans 10:14-15a (ESV)

How many things in our lives can we call blessings from God? Certainly much more than we ever truly consider during our day-to-day lives! We can find something to praise God for in just about everything we see and experience, which shows us just how utterly blessed we really are. The problem with many Christians today is that they want to keep those blessings. They will thank the Lord, perhaps, but then go on with their lives, living comfortably with the things they have been given. It is good to praise God for what he has done for us and in us, but we are also called to bless those around us because we have been blessed. As sons and daughters of the King, we should long to give back to him every blessing he has bestowed upon us, and he would have us do that by using our gifts to impact others. One strong example of this is how we use our money. If we were to take a set amount of our income each year by which we can live reasonably, and give the remaining amount back to God, then even if our income is raised in the future, we will be able to live off of the same amount and give all the more back to him. Lastly, we are called not only to bless others, but to show them the truth behind the blessing. We are to "make disciples of all the nations", so that each individual we bless can then go and bless many more. Christianity should never be a still-water pond, but rather a stream that will continuously branch off and expand the kingdom of the Lord until all the nations can glorify the name of the one who blesses all.

"Every blessing you pour out I'll turn back to praise." ~Blessed Be Your Name

 

WWJD? J.W.N.O.T.W.S.A.C.W.S.R.T.W.N.H.M.I.W.A.T.B.L.H.

Jesus was not of this world, so as Christians, we should reach those who need him most if we are to be like him.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. ~1John 4:7-8 (ESV)

The population of Christians compared to everyone else in the world, we could say, is the minority. We go out nearly every day of our lives and interact in some way with unbelievers. Now pictures the stats, as it would be from (one of) God's point(s) of view: if every Christian said a few kind words to every unbeliever they met...handed out slips of paper explaining God's love...took the time to talk to people, in general -- I'm pretty sure the number of new-born Christians would start to sky-rocket. You see, although Christians are a minority and often feel alone in their communities, they are not. A lot of the world simply isn't aware of God in their lives, of the impact he could have if he was shared by neighboring Christians. If we truly care about people, will we really be satisfied looking back at our past and seeing how many bazillions of opportunities we passed by as we went about our normal everyday lives? I believe we can make an impact for Christ, and I believe it starts by changing our habits, growing more confident in our faith, and talking about God wherever we go.

The reason most people don't know about God and the Godly behavior some people, especially Christians, can have and can show to others is simply because the majority of the people they interact with leave a bad impression. For example, my friend and I were hanging around a park in in middle of the city while we waited for a movie to start, and a police officer drives by to tell us we aren't allowed to be there. Although we sincerely apologized and assured him we would leave, he would not give in or show any kindness until he saw us gone. I believe that the main reason behind his attitude toward us was because he was so used to kids giving him a bunch of bad responses with the worst of intentions. He never expected that we might have been sincere about ourselves, so he wouldn't be convinced that we meant no disrespect. This is unfortunately the way of the world right now, at least in America, and it could be sooooooo easily changed, it is simply ridiculous. God is honestly the only being who can truly move us to act together in this way, so listen to what he has to say and see if you can make a difference in your own attitudes, a difference that will impact those around you.

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. ~Peter 4:8 (ESV)

Back to the Basix

Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak. ~Matthew 26:41 (NIV)

"What sin is is basically, back in the day when people would aim for a target and miss, it meant that they sinned, and the bible says that we've done the same thing. But it just means that we've missed God's target, and just like when there's a consequence for breaking the law, there's a consequence for breaking God's law. Unfortunately that consequence is to be separated from God forever in a place called Hell. But Jesus steps in and says 'I know that you've messed up and I will take each and every bit of your punishment for you.' If you were basically in a car that was heading the wrong direction and someone was screaming at you as you were about to head over a cliff, what would you do? You would stop the car, you'd turn around and head the other direction. God is asking you to do the exact same thing, he's asking you to turn from the way you've been living, turn from yourself and turn to him. And what he offers us is real life, and that life comes through Christ." ~KJ-52

Sin isn't necessarily just missing the mark, but it's also about hitting the wrong one. That's what makes it an intentional act of defiance toward God, even if you aren't looking at it that way when you do the sin. Let's try to at least keep God in our struggles so that when we pull out the defenses we have acquired, we will be defending ourselves for God's sake, not for the sake of convenience or possible embarrassment by other humans. The only law that matter's is God's holy law, so let us imprint it upon our hearts.

I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. ~Psalm 119:11 (NIV)

God-Stencilled

Here is a video I stumbled across called "The Glint" that talks about how, as humans, we put a piece of ourselves into the things we make. When God made us, it was the same concept except that he never needed us for his legacy to carry on; it is simply another way for him to show how wonderful and glorious he is--by letting us use the gifts he has given for his glory and the betterment of his kingdom.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. ~Genesis 1:26-27 (ESV)

God made us in his image, but not physically being that God holds no human form (Jesus was not the basis of our physiology but rather subject to it). We are instead made to represent God in our spiritual, mental and physiological constitutions. God made us to think like him in a very natural way, so if we just put our efforts into becoming more God-like or Christ-like, everything we would need to accomplish that would become evident.

"Man's intellectual gifts are further seen in his ability to design things and then make them, to appreciate beauty, to compose glorious music, to paint pictures, to write, to count to large numbers and do mathematics, to control and use energy for his own benefit (e.g. fire, electricity, nuclear power), to organize, to reason, to make decisions, to be self-conscious, to laugh at himself, and to think abstractly. All this behaviour is non-instinctive, as distinct from animal behaviour, and as such it is of unlimited variety...God endowed man with intellectual ability which was and is far superior to that of any animal. Thus man was given a mind capable of hearing and understanding God's communication with him, emotions capable of responding to God in love and devotion, and a will which enabled him to choose whether or not to obey God. Man was thus equipped, not only to 'love God and obey Him for ever', but also to do God's work on earth" ~Russell M. Grigg

God's Eyes

"When you see through God’s eyes, you will see the invisible" ~Ayobola Fafiolu

We've got God's undivided attention. God is omnipresent, so he is a part of everyone's life...at the same time! He is always listening to us as though we were the only human beneath him. He sees every person no matter how the world sees them. For us to be God's eyes, we need to see people as God created them to be, not as the world has made them. Everyone was created to praise the Maker, and everyone has the potential to use what he has given in order to do so.

Eyes

Eyes are perspective.

Perspective is opinion.

Opinion is thought.

Thought is change.

Change is life.

God is life.

See God.

This (link here) is a fictional short story I wrote about a man who comes to the understanding that even in his perfect life, he needs to see the world through God's eyes to truly see it at all.

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. ~Hebrews 4:13 (ESV)

  

Reality

Reality might be multiple:

Reality is multiple.

Make the best of your current reality,

Close your eyes when you get dizzy, and

See God anyway.

See him because he is real.

God is reality.

 "Eyes" & "Reality" poems by Nathan Titchenal.

Everyday Welkin

Then his wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die." But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips. ~Job 2:10 (ESV)

There is nothing new under the sun. While Job was suffering, the rest of the world was going on as normal, and yet he never said a bad word about God. This is all to say that suffering is not something we should hate, because in every circumstance there is something to praise God for. Even then, how much worse could Job's suffering have been compared to anything we might face in this lifetime?

On the other side of things, I would just like to encourage the thought that when we are not suffering, we might consider looking at life that way anyway. It can be way too easy sometimes to remember God in our suffering...and to forget him in our complacency. Every day we should be striving to make it a new challenge, not dwelling on our past struggles/mistakes and not relying on our past victories, for even a victory can lead to comfortable, complacent confidence. The sun will always be looking down upon us from it's place in the heavens, and everything we do has been done before. We've simply got to wake up every morning and place our hope in God, for only he can help us put down our monsters-of-the-day and continue living for him.

Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault. ~Zechariah 4:10 (NLT)