Trust The Author

Trust The Author…

[looking away from all that will distract us and] focusing our eyes on Jesus, who is the Author and Perfecter of faith [the first incentive for our belief and the One who brings our faith to maturity], who for the joy [of accomplishing the goal] set before Him endured the cross, disregarding the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God [revealing His deity, His authority, and the completion of His work].

HEBREWS 12:2 AMP

http://bible.com/1588/heb.12.2.AMP

Another way of saying it is:

Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus , who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there , in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!

Hebrews 12:1‭-‬3 MSG

http://bible.com/97/heb.12.1-3.MSG

For we are His workmanship [His own master work, a work of art], created in Christ Jesus [reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, ready to be used] for good works, which God prepared [for us] beforehand [taking paths which He set], so that we would walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us].
EPHESIANS 2:10 AMP

http://bible.com/1588/eph.2.10.AMP

Trusting the author of my story; my story is not over yet.

Living for Christ’s sake, beetle

Implant

The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the Philippians.

​PHILIPPIANS 4:4‭-‬9 AMP

Rejoice in the Lord always [delight, take pleasure in Him]; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit [your graciousness, unselfishness, mercy, tolerance, and patience] be known to all people. 

The Lord is near.

 Do not be anxious or worried about anything, but in everything [every circumstance and situation] by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, continue to make your [specific] requests known to God. And the peace of God [that peace which reassures the heart, that peace] which transcends all understanding, [that peace which] stands guard over your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus [is yours].  

Finally, believers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good repute; if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things [center your mind on them, and implant them in your heart]. 

The things which you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things [in daily life], and the God [who is the source] of peace and well-being will be with you.

PHILIPPIANS 4:4‭-‬9 AMP

http://bible.com/1588/php.4.4-9.AMP

A “Spiritual Heart Implant” takes place when someone gets off their high horse and lets God change them from the inside out.

It happen to Saul. He literally got knocked off his horse, he even got a name change. -As he traveled he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him [displaying the glory and majesty of Christ]; and he fell to the ground and heard a voice [from heaven] saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting and oppressing Me?”  And Saul said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He answered,  “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting,  now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” ACTS 9:3‭-‬6 AMP

http://bible.com/1588/act.9.3-6.AMP

May God bless & implant His Words in us.

For Christ’s sake, beetle

HE IS

via HE IS 👈 click here & let it click with all you know.

I’m revisiting a few devoted thoughts I’ve written in the past to help me carry on into the future.

Sometimes you can’t just take things, “one day at a time”, you have to just take it one minute or one moment at a time.

I’m constantly reminded I’m only human and in the mucked up situations, pain & struggles I find myself in causes me to cry out to God, my creator, & rely on Him to help me hold on & keep going.

For Christ sake, beetle

Choice

Joni Eareckson Tada’s book “The God I Love” contains the insight that –

sometimes God allows what He hates to accomplish what He loves.

One of author Jim Butcher’s stories contains this insight:

 “God isn’t about making good things happen to you, or bad things happen to you. He’s all about you making choices—exercising the gift of free will.”

Ya see, God gives us freewill (see blog on Rush song). He hasn’t made us like a puppet on a string or some type of Android Robot or Mechanical device that just simply functions with the press of a few buttons or pre-programming; in addition to that when blessing, profitability, good times come or the oposite of all that we love, dreadful things happen to us or people we love we are presented with a choice on how we respond.

In this mucked up world we’ll no doubt face opposition that tries to drive us in the direction to curse God when we feel cursed. All the while God continually offers every opportunity to rely more fully on Him, not our own strength, abilities & attempts to control every li’l thing.

Living with God’s Spirit in our lives isn’t really about what happens or doesn’t happen to us, it is about the condition & spiritually shape of our souls. That will make all the difference in how we are able to respond to that shit.

Don’t take my word or anyone else’s word on this. Take God at His Word:

Throughout the Bible, it is clear that people have choice:

– If serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. (Josh. 24:15)
– Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her. (Prov. 8:10-11)

Jesus say, “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” (John 7:17)

Christ set the example in His actions, not just words, when going to the cross and He cried to His Father, “Not my will but Your will be done.”

No matter what you are facing remember, you matter & may God always matter to you. I’m confident that following & allowing for His will rather than mine will always turn out best. The end results will ultimately be in our favor.

No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it.

1 Corinthians 10:13 MSG

http://bible.com/97/1co.10.13.MSG

Take God at His Word. We can trust Him especially when we don’t know what to do, how to react or how we’ll recover.

1 final note, regardless of our choices sometimes things won’t always go the way we think they should but through it all God is there & He’ll carry us far beyond this present darkness.

In writing this post I took a few things from day 3 of the @YouVersion Plan “The Lies We Believe About God.” That little reading really clarifies a few things that have some how gotten jumbled up in my mind & heart. Check it out here:

http://bible.com/r/12S

Knowing The Truth Personally

-Excerpts from a short reading plan, the @YouVersion Plan The Lies We Believe About God. –

Check it out here:

http://bible.com/r/12S

Here is what I pulled from day 1.

When it comes to God, there are no limits to His love. 

You can’t put any parameters around the love of God. (Try as we might to put Him & all He is in a box).

The apostle Paul put it beautifully when he said, “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17-19). 

The love of God simply cannot be measured.

But we sometimes think that because God loves all seven billion of us, He doesn’t love each of us individually and personally.

God’s love for us is personal. 

 He doesn’t love you because you are a member of the human race. He loves you as a unique individual whom no one else on the planet is exactly like.

Saint Augustine said, “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” 

God wants you to know that He loves you, that you are His favorite even though He has billions and billions of favorites, and that He is enamored with you. 

God’s love is for all humankind—and for each kind of human.

Personal note: i have to remind myself that, according to His Word, God’s love is not based on what merit badges we may have achieved. His love for us is not based on our status or job title. God also loves you & I regardless of our good or bad behavior. That is probably the hardest thing for us to accept because all of our earthly relationships & conceptions of love are conditional.

God‘s love is unconditional.

I’ll share this again, a good acronym for Grace is

• God’s
• Riches
• At
• Christ’s
• Expense

If you could earn God’s approval, care and pure love then there would have been no need or reason for Him to send His Son, The Lord Jesus Christ. What obeying the law couldn’t do Christ did.

Don’t take my word, or someone else’s, take God at His Word:

“But you, Israel, are my servant. You’re Jacob, my first choice, descendants of my good friend Abraham. I pulled you in from all over the world, called you in from every dark corner of the earth, Telling you, ‘You’re my servant, serving on my side. I’ve picked you. I haven’t dropped you.’ Don’t panic. I’m with you. There’s no need to fear for I’m your God. I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you. I’ll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you.

Isaiah 41:8‭-‬10 MSG

http://bible.com/97/isa.41.8-10.MSG

Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.

Romans 5:6‭-‬8 MSG

http://bible.com/97/rom.5.6-8.MSG

So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us.

 Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture: They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one. None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. 

I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

Romans 8:31‭-‬39 MSG

http://bible.com/97/rom.8.31-39.MSG

If you are frustrated with religion just quit all that attempting to please others & please God with some type of act on your end & just fall in love with Christ. May we all enter into a deeper, personal relationship with Him and allow His Spirit to work from the inside out.

Go with God, beetle.

Some of today’s post was taken from  a short reading plan found in the @YouVersion Plan “The Lies We Believe About God.”

Check it out here:

http://bible.com/r/12S

Preoccupied With Christ, Even Better Than A Cruise.

As I place Christ in the center of my life other things fall into place. Not in my timing but in His.

 I find real peace, lasting satisfaction in my soul, only by continually & completly keeping myself preoccupied with Him more than myself, my interests alone, more than other’s plans for me, the daily news, worries, pain and anything else thrown into my path. 

Even as I’m writing this my very own cat is demanding my attention.

Anything, even Church activities, can misdirect our attention from Christ Himself. God’s love for us God is not based on what we do or don’t do. His love doesn’t come to us by what merit badges we offer. His grace can’t be earned.
G.R.A.C.E. =

• God’s
• Riches
• At
• Christ’s
• Expense

In keeping myself preoccupied with Him I realize this may mean that in other’s opinion I miss out on somethings but I know personally I’ll gain what God has for me. Those things are eternal.

As I read the verse of the day & take a look at the context I highlighted & made a few personal notes.

I identify with what God inspired Paul to write and more importantly I identify with Christ.

Here are the verses:

Galatians 2:19‭-‬21 MSG 
What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So 

I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. 

Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. 

ENABLED ME!!!

I identified myself completely with him. 

Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. 

My ego is no longer central. 

It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and 

I am no longer driven to impress God. 

Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 

I am not going to go back on that. 

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. 

If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

Galatians 2:19‭-‬21 MSG

http://bible.com/97/gal.2.19-21.MSG

He > i.

Complete In Christ, beetle

EXTRAS –

https://youtu.be/6Q4yEoSjl5k

It is no secret how much my wife & I love to go on cruise ships & we are part of a great community of people who share that same interest. In one of the many groups we are in the following pic. was posted:

 I although I see the humor & reality for some in that I also see how Cruisin’ or literally anything else can become the center of our lives. On a soul driven note I must say with all the different interests in my life I keep, hold on & anchor on the only thing that will last, Christ’s Holy Spirit in the center of my life. I’ll continue to be preoccupied with Him.

This ties in good with another post I wrote:

“Above Everything Else, The Maze Below” 👈click here & let it click with you.

Christ is even better than a cruise.

The trip He takes me on will last forever. Cruise on toward and into eternity with Christ.

A Decisive End

Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin’s every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way:

 Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. 

That’s what Jesus did.

Romans 6:6‭-‬11 MSG

http://bible.com/97/rom.6.6-11.MSG

What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word.
Enough said, beetle

God Provides

Watch ““I Love Spooning” 45 rpm w/ Scott Herrin” on YouTube

The frogs don’t starve. They 

Fully

Rely 

On 

God

God provides plent of flies.

Matt 6:26-34

Enough said, beetle

What Chew Got On?!

Chew on this.

Can what you wear ware out?
Another short vlog/food for thought:

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Blessed from my head ‘To-ma-Toes’ and sharing it.

Without thinking, or over thinking, I went out with this shirt on and a ramdom guy sitting outside the store we were in said, “Hey, I love your shirt, TOM.” Calling me by name inclined me to think he knew me so I turned to see if I’d recognize & remember him. Immediately it dawned on me, my name is printed in big bold letters on the back of my wheelchair! We talked awhile & shared our faith together. It was great.

This also reminded me of the saying I’ve read, “If you meet me and forget – nothing lost. If you meet Jesus and forget – all is lost.” Jesus is the greatest example of love. What made Him great wasn’t his clothing, just his name, where he was from or who he hung out with. His actions & His connection to & with God The Father dictated those actions, that is what made Him worth following.

Ya never know who you may meet & perhaps we don’t always consider how our clothing lables may lable us; inaddition to that, our actions can effect, encourage & influence others. 

God knows what paths we’ll cross and His Word says, “Hey, acknowledge Me, represent Me, lift Me (Christ) up and I will draw others to Me.”

“You don’t need a Bible degree. Just lift Him up for the world to see.” From the classic Christian Rock song, “Lift Him Up” by Petra

https://youtu.be/0d4U6ec2Kwc

For other very short message videos go to the play list: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnjQOVtw61egjpVenDLQtmrVA_gWpOsI6

Clothe yourself in righteousness.

A Bomb That Makes People Love Each Other (Music)

https://youtu.be/bLFXqieviyk

https://youtu.be/A1yQ3KmsYZo

Check out Final Approach by Victor Wooten, Dennis Chambers & Bob Franceschini on Amazon Music

https://music.amazon.com/albums/B074CKVWLK?trackAsin=B074CKRRBW&ref=dm_sh_a4Qp4Aofs1UEtlYowXlFk9qfs

Check out Cupid by Victor Wooten, Dennis Chambers & Bob Franceschini on Amazon Music

https://music.amazon.com/albums/B074CKVWLK?trackAsin=B074CJR54S&ref=dm_sh_LxwDBcklHmT3gvIyhfF3OQE8s