What's our Purpose?

It has been long overdue since the last post and there has been a small still voice saying it’s time to update the blog. Recently a Bible Study group has been studying the book of Romans and there have been a few verses in chapter 12 that really stuck out. So without further ado, Romans chapter 12 verse 1 and 2.

Romans 12: 1,2.

¹ Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

² And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

The first verse appears as though it is a command and the use of the verb urge tells us this. It implies that God is strongly suggesting or compelling us to carry out a specific task. This task, like the verse states, is to present ourselves a living sacrifice, acceptable to God. This is where confusion begins as we may not exactly know or understand what a living sacrifice is. Basically, we must give our bodies up to Him, allow Him to do His work within us, allow Him permission to use us and sculpt who we are becoming. Then we have become a living sacrifice to Him. We have given up our desires and ways as humans to allow for God to carry out His plan for us and mold our lives. This is becoming a living sacrifice.

The question then becomes, what is acceptable to God? Well the second verse of Romans 12 says that we are not to be conformed to this world. Therefore we must not indulge in the pleasures of the flesh or partake in the sin that is so easily offered by this world. We are to lead a tranquil and quiet life, one where God can reside and work within us. This is our spiritual service of worship.

Instead of being transformed by the world, we are urged to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. We must allow our minds to me transformed by God and live a life acceptable by Him. Like Psalm 51:10 says

¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Our purpose here is to prove what the will of God is, to set examples to the non believers and to show the power of His majesty; to be people who live in the new covenant. We are becoming examples that show what is good, acceptable, and perfect. So ultimately our purpose here is to be examples for God, to show people what the nature of God is in our everyday acts.

'Lord take control of me, renew my mind and sculpt me into the person you want me to be. I trust in you and that you have a plan for me. I pray that you would make me an example of your greatness to others. I am all yours Lord!'

When You Don't Need a Bath

John 13: 10-11

¹⁰Jesus answered, "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you." ¹¹For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

It begins with a bath. That initial coming to Christ, in which we take the place of bankruptcy before Him, coming without any vestige of our own righteousness to offer and allowing Him to cleanse us, is likened to a bath in which we are washed all over, completely, from head to foot.

So Jesus is saying, "When you first come to me, you are bathed; you are clean all over." This is what the Bible calls justification by faith. It is a washing away of of all the guilt and sin of the entire life-past, present, and future. But as you walk through life, Jesus knows your feet will be defiled during your walk, and that needs to be washed away. Thus He teaches us that not only do we need the initial, never-to-be-repeated cleansing, but we also need the many times repeated experience of forgiveness, of coming to Christ for the cleansing away of the defilement of our walk. This determines that we have a part with Him.

In other words, the enjoyment of our relationship with Christ is lost when we are temporarily defiled by wrongdoing in our life. We lose the enjoyment of our relationship with Him. His attitude toward us doesn't change, but our attitude toward Him does.

But Jesus teaches us by this whole process we need only one bath. This is reflected in the truth of baptism. You are baptized once, as the initial act. But the Lord's Supper reflects the washing of the feet, the need for cleansing from sin throughout life.

Thank You, Father, that you have washed away all my sin and guilt, and I now stand righteous in Your sight. Teach me to come to You each day, confessing my sin, allowing You to restore me to that close fellowship with You for which I was made.

Amen!

God Almighty

Genesis 17: 1-8 1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. 2 I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers." 3 Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, 4 "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. 8 The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."

After thirteen years of silence God appears before Abram in a new revelation and with a new name- God Almighty. His appearance and new revelation is an indication that Abram has learned from his recent bitter experience with Hagar and Ishmael. God says in effect, “You have been learning for thirteen years the total inadequacy of your own efforts through Ishmael. Now learn a new thing about me. I am God almighty. You have discovered by sad experience how futile your plans and efforts can be without me. Now learn how capable I am to do everything that I desire to do, whenever I desire to do it.”

In this new light from God came a new demand from God. “Walk before me and be perfect, wholehearted, and blameless. Because I am God almighty and I am all-sufficient to make you blameless. Walk before me, therefore, and be blameless.”

We are so constantly trying to please two masters, to please self and Christ. We are quite content to serve Christ, if we can also serve self at the same time. But God says, “This can no longer be permitted. You have come to the place where your dual allegiance can no longer be tolerated. Walk now before me, appropriating what I am, and be wholehearted, be wholly on my side, be mine!” This is Christ asserting his practical Lordship in our lives.

Lord, I see that You are God Almighty. Teach me to submit all that I am and all that I hope for to you. Amen.

How Great is Our God!

There are four stars in our galaxy which can sum up how Big God is.

The first star is the most common, which is the sun and flares violently some 93 million miles away. Psalms 33: 6, by the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host. God created the heavens, earth and all their hosts without lifting a single finger. His word and breath created our Universe.

The second star goes by the name of Betelgeuse and is 427 light-years away, or can be calculated into 5.88 trillion miles away. The size of this star is twice that of Earth’s orbit around the sun. To put into perspective yet again, if the earth were a golf ball, Betelgeuse would be the size of eight empire state buildings standing on top of each other. AMAZING! You could place 262 trillion golf ball sized earths inside Betelgeuse. Remember, this star was created from the breath of God.

Further out in our galaxy, the third star to mention goes by the name of Mu Cephei. This star happens to exist 3000 light-years away from Earth. If the Earth were a golf ball, Mu Cephi would be the width of two Golden Gate Bridges standing end to end. You could fit 2.7 quadrillion Earths inside Mu Cephei. To illustrate how much quadrillion is; a million seconds ago, was 12 days ago; a billion seconds ago, was May of 1979; a trillion seconds ago was 29,700 B.C.; a quadrillion seconds ago, was 30,800,000 years ago. This star is beyond imagination and again, it was all created from the breath of God.

Science has just brought us the largest star found in the universe and has called it Canus Majoris. If earth were a golf ball, Canus Majoris would be the height of Mt. Everest. You could fit 7 quadrillion Earths inside Canus Majoris. That’s enough golf balls to cover the state of Texas in golf balls 22 inches deep.

Understanding the magnitude of these stars should bring about an extremely shrinking feeling. However it’s a good shrinking feeling; because sin has a way of shrinking God down in our minds and puffing us up in our own estimation. But the size of the universe, which God created, should bring into perspective the size of our God, the one we worship, the unrivaled, the almighty, and powerful God where there is none like him. We are the tiny ones who are weak fragile and frail, and we are one of six and a half billion people who walk about this “golf ball” in this massive universe God breathed.

We are marked by majesty and created in the image of God, the one who created this massive universe has fashioned us in His image. Our massive God has promised us, for whoever trusts in Him, He will literally hold them in his hand and carry them all of the days of their life.

Indescribable

God is indescribable.

Walk outside in a dark night and look up, the God we worship is beyond our wildest dreams. The stars are telling the wonders of God. He is amazing and bigger than you could ever dream of and the skies declare the work of our God. He is greater than every thought we’ve ever had.

In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth, you can choose to believe there was a big bang, however, His creation was a big bang. What if the primary purpose of the Universe is to show off the splendor of God’s creation? By the word of the Lord the Heavens were made.

If you were to count a star per second from the Milky Way galaxy, it would take 255 years to count them all. Through the Prophet Isaiah he says, “To whom will you compare me, and who is my equal says the wholly one lift your eyes to the heavens who created all of these?” He answers, “the one who leads forth the starry host, one by one and calls them each by name. Because of his mighty strength and great power, not one of them is missing."

“I remember on the way home on Apollo 11, it suddenly struck me, that tiny pea pretty and blue, was the earth. I put my thumb up and shut one eye and my thumb blotted out there earth. But I didn’t feel like a giant, I felt very, very small.” Neil Armstrong.

When we look at your heavens, the work of your fingers the placement of the moon and earth, the greatness of your power, what is man? That God is mindful of us? For how can God care for something so small?

The greatness of our God knows each and every one of our names; we are miniscule in the galaxy he has created. And he invites each and every one of us to have a personal relationship with Him.

Through Jesus, God created the world for as high as the Heavens are above the earth so great is his love for those who fear him. And as far as the east is from the west, this is how far He has removed our transgressions from us. This is astronomical Grace.

Long before you decided what you were going to do with God. God decided what he was going to do with you; and that was to not give you what your sins deserved but to give His son what your sins deserved and to give you the gift of Himself and the invitation to live forever in a big, big story that is all about Him.

Our God is bigger than we could even begin to imagine, and He knows each star and person by name, and cares for each and every one of us and offers us the gift of a lifetime.

Special thanks to Louie Giglio and his message...

Renewing Your Mind (part two)

In analyzing ourselves, we must talk about how we think, how we think about ourselves, what we think about the world we're living in and what we think about the relationships we have with others. However, what really matters about ourselves is how we think about ourselves in a biblical sense. How we think biblically will translate into how we act on a day to day basis. The first stepping stone in this walk of faith begins with how we think, this will result in how we act.

Romans 12:9. Let love be without hypocrisy. What exactly does hypocrisy mean? It simply means to not fake it, “true blue all the way through.” Despite the easiness of being able to fake love with words and gestures, we cannot fake it with God. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord ¹²rejoicing in hope, preserving in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. This all has to do with the relationships within the body of Christ.

Love rejects sin but doesn’t reject us as people. So how can we express love? We can reject sin by rejecting anything ungodly in our life. We can change the movies we see and change the kinds of associations we have within a relationship, because it’s an ungodly way of doing things. Love puts others above ourselves and keeps going enthusiastically.

“The Lord is able to win any battle, no problem. That’s the power of love.” This is all capable because those of us who serve the Lord, are those of us who depend on Him. The Lord is on our side, and we must trust in Him because he has made a promise that He will turn any evil into good for as long as we trust in Him. There is always a way out, we just need to be willing to trust God in lighting the way for us. This is what love does. When things appear hopeless, love starts praying, and when it starts praying, it starts trusting in God through this hopeless situation. When we start to trust, we start to hope. We can do this because God has an answer for everything. He will never put us in a place that has no way out.

Family

Everybody has their own definition of the word family. For me it has been a gift from God. Countless times they continue to accept me in their life, no matter the amount of lies I’ve brought into theirs. I have been gifted with a close loving relationship with my Dad, Mom, Sister, and Brothers and it’s time to put these relationships in God's hands.

My family’s tree's branches extend a bit further than just my immediate family however. Along with these loving individuals I have cousins, Aunts, Uncles, and Grandparents who have mended this family's tree with roots deep in God, and its branches thick within one another. This is a family that someone like me has been more than fortunate to have, a true gift from God.

There is a branch in this family that will soon be reaching out to India on a mission trip. She will be leading worship at churches and giving sermons to the local people of this continent. This journey to such a foreign land is not an easy way to undergo, one that will bring hesitation and fear. However she has God with her, a force with more than enough power to overcome these misfortunate feelings.

God will continue to light her way and provide her with the strength she needs to carry out the road ahead of her. She will continue to be in my thoughts and prayers and I know she will greatly impact the people of India about the truth in scripture.

Follow my cousin Jenna through this blog... http://lovebreakmenow.blogspot.com/