Just to share with you all an interesting thought that "occurred" to me yesterday. To preface this, I need to mention that my word for 2020 was "Freedom."

Yesterday morning, I was considering how I was failing in some roles in my life and what my loved ones must think of me. Which is my usual concern. Suddenly I realized that freedom for me, and I experienced it for a precious moment, is to stop worrying about what others think of me. To stop trying to be the person I think I am supposed to be and accept the person I am, while seeking out the person God is calling me to be.

That musing stuck with me through the day. Oh, and I should mention that I am reading a called, To Be Told by Dan B. Allender, PhD, which is about discovering "the role God is giving you in His story!" Which also played into all this.

Later, as my son and I were watching Avengers - End Game, this quote hit me like a ton of bricks! "Everyone fails at who they're supposed to be, Thor. The measure of a person, of a hero, is how well they succeed at being who they are." Followed a bit later by Thor saying, "Time for me to be who I am rather than whom I'm supposed to be."

I'm thinking that maybe it is time for ME to find out and live out Whom God has created me to be rather than worrying about how much better everyone else is and feeling such a failure for not being them.

Anyway, I just love how God seems to pull things together in our lives like that. Now, if I can just get hold of that freedom and begin to live it...

But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring about as it is this day, to save many people alive.   Genesis 50:20

I love it!!  We plat, connive and purpose to do our will, many times for evil or for selfish purposes.  Yet God has already planned, purposed, and worked even through our plats to do good!  To save!  To rescue! To redeem others!!

In Acts chapter 7, we read the story of Stephen's address to the Sanhedrin.  The Jewish authorities were so set on putting an end to this belief in Jesus Christ of Nazareth as the Messiah, and they were looking for every opportunity to stop those who were teaching and speaking about Him in Jerusalem.  A group called the Synagogue of the Freedmen, were not able to resist the wisdom and Spirit by which Stephen spoke, so they induced me to lie as to what he had said and stirred up the people, the elders and the scribes to bring him before the council.

After addressing them with an overview of God's great call and work in the history of the nation from it's founding fathers through history.  And continuing on to describe their rebellion and failures, they were cut to the heart and gnashed their teeth at him.  So angry, so unwilling to repent and to see the truth.

At that point, Stephen, full of Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.  He said "Look!  I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!"  And for them, that was exactly what they needed.  They ran at him with one accord and cast him out of the city where they stoned him in the sight of Saul of Tarsus.

This began the great persecution against the church in Jerusalem.  The church was founded in Jerusalem and remained gathered there, teaching, healing, ministering to one another and to the lost.  However, with the beginning of this persecution, in which Saul figured so prominently, the believers were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, EXCEPT the APOSTLES.  

I love this for two reasons.  I see in this situation the plotting of the Jews to silence and destroy this teaching, this growing (over 5,000 by this point) 'assembly,' the church, which was actually God's plan and purpose to move the believers out of Jerusalem, to spread the Gospel outward.  Just as in the plotting to arrest and put Jesus of Nazareth to death to put an end to His work, they accomplished the very plan and purpose prophesied by God throughout the Old Testament.  Here their plotting and conniving fulfilled God's purpose of moving the believers out of Jerusalem and spreading the Gospel outward.

The second reason I love this is because the believers whom God sent out into Judea and Samaria were NOT the apostles.  For me that says that God doesn't use only those in leadership, those recognized as preachers and teachers, He uses those unnamed and unrenowned believers in their unique personalities, giftings and perspectives to reach the world.  God isn't about choosing the great and the talented and the confident, He chooses the weak, the ordinary, the everyman, and then He equips them as He sees fit to reach the world!!!

As I was thinking about this and what we are seeing in our world right now, I began to think about it in the light of these passages of Scripture.  What is being done as part of plans and purposes of evil, God is already at work using these plots to accomplish His purposes!  Keep watching!  As the world and the wicked one rejoice in their works and their successes, I believe God will actually do some amazing things through all of this.  And I believe it may not be done by those we sit back and look to for leadership and guidance and teaching, but rather that God will work through the unknown, the unnamed, the unrecognized believers who respond to all that is going on by stepping out in love and faith and grace to reveal the glory and wonder of our God.  This is not a prophecy, this is just my hope based upon God's goodness and His mercy.

God bless!!!

The Wondrous Blessings of Belief

Jesus, as our first Advocate, prayed for us, even died to justify and free us.  He also came to deliver us from the Pharisaical religiosity and the Gentile paganism of the world to reveal the truth about Who God is and how we can be His!  He worked out the adoption details for us, bringing us in as sons.

Jesus then sends us another Advocate, Holy Spirit.  As Jesus claimed to be in the Father and the Father in Him, so is Their relationship with Holy Spirit.  Holy Spirit dwelling within us is also the Father and the Son dwelling within us! 

Can there be anything at all in this world that comes close to the relationship we have been given in Christ Jesus!?

I've heard people say that if they would rather believe in Christ and be wrong, which if there is no eternity, costs nothing, than refuse to believe and be wrong, which would be eternally costly.  That is of course true.  But I would say that the life even now, in this world, that Christ has given to us, this relationship with His Father is worth all.  But say there is no God, and I am wrong.  I would still say that this life of belief, this joy, this peace, and this living with the goal of love, kindness, and service makes life so much more wonderful and full and joyful.  No wealth, no fame, no power on earth could give me such a sweet life as my faith in Christ and my hope founded on His Word!!!

Did Jesus Claim to be God?

Mark 14:61-64 But He kept silent and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked Him, saying to Him, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus said, “I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “What further need do we have of witnesses? “You have heard the blasphemy! What do you think?” And they all condemned Him to be deserving of death. Jesus here uses the title God uses in Exodus when Moses asked God whom he should say sent him to Egypt to get Pharaoh to free the Israelites. God replied, "I Am that I Am" telling Moses to say "I Am" had sent him. So here, and in other places in the Bible, Jesus claim to be "I Am" is His claim to be God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses. Jesus also reverts back to a prophecy of Daniel "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. Daniel 7:13-14 KJV And Jesus further claims He will be seated at God's right hand (sharing His authority and glory and power). The high priest recognizes that Jesus is claiming divinity for he tears his robes as he says "You have heard the blasphemy.". It is Jesus' claim to be God the Son, that has Him sentenced to die. Either He was a lunatic, a liar, or He was and is the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity.