Come Home

He [Jesus] came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. (Eph 2:17)
__________
 
Whether we have been foolish or whether we are wearing the full armor of God, we are at home only with Jesus. Come home. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. (Eph 2:18)
 
Does backsliding bar the way? The Father runs to meet the prodigal who returns! Do days of well-doing grant us access? A thousand times no. How shall we boast? Through Jesus we have access in one Spirit.
 
So then... you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Eph 2:19) as we grow we set our heart more and more... at home with Jesus. Let's pray.
 
Lord Jesus, thank you for being the way. Help me to grow in you, to remain at home before you, to rest in you.
 
Thank you for giving us ability to repent- to change the way we have been thinking. Help us turn to you when we fall. When we walk in freedom it is with you. Amen.
 
Today's very great and precious promise
 
in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Eph 2:22)
 
We have God's Word on it.

First Class Living Todays' truth

"Jesus said, "My purpose is to give life in all its fullness."

Friend To Friend


I will never forget the first time I flew first class. Ann and I were on our way to North Coast for a few days of much needed vacation. We were both exhausted, having just returned from a wonderful but grueling mission trip to Mfangano Island. I couldn't wait to get on that plane, grab a pillow and blanket and sleep my way to North Coast. 

When I spotted an abnormally long line of people and realized it was the check-in line for our gate, my attitude took a nose dive. I was tired. I was hungry. We had missed both breakfast and lunch in order to make our flight and that tiny little pouch of honey roasted peanuts waiting for me on board the plane was just not going to cut it! Oh, and did I mention how much I hate to wait - for anyone or anything? Patience is definitely not one of my strongest qualities.

Suddenly, a man dressed in a pilot's uniform stepped up to the ticket counter. "He looks familiar," I thought to myself, but since Ann was a teacher of a large school in town, we often ran into people who attended one of the five weekend services. My Wife is great at remembering names and faces, but me - not so much. The fact that the pilot looked familiar did not register as pertinent information - until he waved in our direction and said, "Please step forward."

Wait! Was he talking to us?

"Pastor  and Ann, will you please step up to the counter?" the pilot repeated. Ann immediately recognized him as Elvis Masika, a new believer who was attending the church.

"I knew you were a pilot, Elvis, but I didn't realize that you worked for this airline," Ann said. Things were definitely looking up. Maybe I could score two pouches of honey roasted peanuts.   

"Where are you headed?" my new best friend asked. When we told him, Elvis promptly moved us from coach to first class and escorted us past all of the other waiting - and now glaring - passengers. I was a little uncomfortable "cutting" in line, but any hesitation on my part quickly faded as Elvis showed us to our seats and instructed the stewardess to take good care of his "pastors." I love that man!

I soon discovered that I was a real person in first class, assigned to a spacious and extremely comfortable leather recliner where I actually had room to move and breathe without assaulting the person next to me. My meal was not wrapped in paper and they actually trusted me with real eating utensils. I was presented with cloth napkins, hot food, good movies, current magazines and a stewardess who seemed totally committed to my comfort.

I immediately decided that I was born to fly first class! The only problem with that decision is that I simply cannot afford to purchase a first class airline ticket. Someone will have to buy it for me.

You and I were created to live a full and abundant life - a first class kind of life. In John 10:10, Jesus said, "My purpose is to give life in all its fullness."  

The good news is that Jesus has already paid the price, not only for our "ticket" to heaven, but for a life of purpose and power here on earth. We cannot begin to understand all that God's "fullness" holds but I do know that what He wants for me far exceeds anything I could possibly imagine. And I can imagine a lot.

God is calling you to follow Him. He is asking for 100% commitment and, in return, He will fill your life, now and eternally, with the fullness that only comes through knowing and serving the Master. Don't settle for anything less than living life - first class.

Let's Pray Father, my heart hungers for your power to flow through my life. I choose to obey you. I will seek you with my whole heart and I will follow you wherever you lead me. I know that your plan for my life is amazing and I don't want to miss any of it. Today, I choose to set aside my agenda and rest in the abundant life only you can give.

In Jesus' name,

Amen.

Now its Your Turn If you could choose one word to describe your life journey so far, what would it be?  Explain.

Explain the statement that God is your source. What does that really mean in your life? What other "sources" have you counted on? Did they lead to success or failure?

What "wants" have been a hindrance to the abundant and full life God has for you?  What steps of obedience are you willing to take in order to control those "wants"? 

More From The friends It is easy to live an entire life - just doing the next thing on the list. God has so much more for you! Surrender! Give Him permission to capture your heart. Yield to God's abundant plan and experience what it is like to live - first class.

If you or someone you love struggles with depression, I encourage you to read the book, Hope in the Midst of Depression. I have been in that dark pit and know what it is like to long for just a sliver of light. The good news is that there really is hope and a way out of that pit.

Check out My FREE MPs or visit me online store for great deals on books, CDs,

E-Bible Studies and her DVD, Strength for the Storm.

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Need a friend? Connect with me on Facebook or through email. How are you dealing with the sandpaper people in your life? Someone needs to hear your story! Let's talk!

John 10:10 (NLT)

Intersecting Faith & Life:

Completely Improbable, Imminently Possible

And he said to [the angel of the LORD],

"Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house."

(Judges 6:15, ESV)

The Old Testament judge Gideon asked an angel of the Lord how he could possibly take on the mighty Midianites, being a wimp as he was, and God answered every request the man put forth—almost to the point of being ridiculous. On the other hand, Zechariah, a faithful Levite serving the Lord and John the Baptist's father, asked only once how he could possibly have a son in his old age, and an angel told him he'd be unable to speak until it came to pass.

That hardly seems fair—harsh even. Why would God punish one and let the other get away with so much? We might think there's a discrepancy in the treatment—until we examine the differences between the two men's responses.

Let's look at what's the same first. Both of them were dedicated to God—Gideon seems to have been seeking God as he beat out the wheat and he later tore down an altar to Baal, while Zechariah served faithfully in the temple. In fact, you could say that Zechariah had the greater claim to being godly. Both men received shocking, seemingly impossible news from an angel. Both asked very similar questions.

God, however, didn't just look at the questions. He looked at the reason for asking. Obviously, we don't know what Gideon or Zechariah was thinking, but God did. Notice, for example, that Gideon's fleecing of God reads much like Abraham's petition for Sodom. Just as Gideon asks God not to be angry with him as he asks for more proof, Abraham asked God not to be angry as he begged for the lives in Sodom (see Genesis 18).

On the other hand, Zechariah simply doubts. And that's why the angel zings the old priest. He's not asking God for proof. He's not begging for evidence. He's not amazed that something like this could really happen (as Mary was). He just doesn't believe it can happen.

Gideon believed God could do what He said He would do. And that's the key—he believed God to perform something amazing. What the man wasn't sure about was his own ability and his calling. He believed God for the outcome; he questioned the agent, the catalyst. God graciously proved the calling by many unimpeachable signs. 

I'm certainly not suggesting we test God's patience—or test God at all. But God knows humans. He knows our doubts and our fears and our feelings of inadequacy. He's been there and done that—all without sin.

Gideon doubted himself, and God patiently showed the seeming wimp that he was, in fact, a mighty man of valor. If God has given you a calling that seems improbable because of your failings, remember that what God purposes to do is imminently possible. In other words, He doesn't pick the wrong person or give the wrong vision.

Whatever you do, don't doubt the power of God to do whatever it is He's given you. That's where we get into trouble

The Living Christ

Trust amid the Silence

"He answered her not a word" (Matt. 15:23).

"He will be silent in his love" (Zeph. 3:17).

It may be a child of God is reading these words that have had some great crushing sorrow, some bitter disappointment, and some heart-breaking blow from a totally unexpected quarter. You are longing for your Master's voice bidding you "Be of good cheer," but only silence and a sense of mystery and misery meet you --"He answered her not a word."

God's tender heart must often ache listening to all the sad, complaining cries which arise from our weak, impatient hearts, because we do not see that for our own sakes He answers not at all or otherwise than seems best to our tear-blinded, short-sighted eyes.

The silences of Jesus are as eloquent as His speech and may be a sign, not of His disapproval, but of His approval and of a deep purpose of blessing for you.

"Why art thou cast down, O...soul?" Thou shalt yet praise Him, yes, even for His silence. Listen to an old and beautiful story of how one Christian dreamed that she saw three others at prayer. As they knelt the Master drew near to them.

As He approached the first of the three, He bent over her in tenderness and grace, with smiles full of radiant love and spoke to her in accents of purest, sweetest music.

Leaving her, He came to the next, but only placed His hand upon her bowed head, and gave her one look of loving approval.

The third woman He passed almost abruptly without stopping for a word or glance. The woman in her dream said to herself, "How greatly He must love the first one, to the second He gave His approval, but none of the special demonstrations of love He gave the first; and the third must have grieved Him deeply, for He gave her no word at all and not even a passing look.

"I wonder what she has done, and why He made so much difference between them." As she tried to account for the action of her Lord, He Himself stood by her and said:

 "O woman! How wrongly hast thou interpreted me? The first kneeling woman needs all the weight of my tenderness and care to keep her feet in my narrow way. She needs my love, thought and help every moment of the day. Without it she would fail and fall.

"The second has stronger faith and deeper love, and I can trust her to trust me however things may go and whatever people do.

"The third, which I seemed not to notice, and even to neglect, has faith and love of the finest quality, and her I am training by quick and drastic processes for the highest and holiest service.

"She knows me so intimately, and trusts me so utterly, that she is independent of words or looks or any outward intimation of my approval. She is not dismayed nor discouraged by any circumstances through which I arrange that she shall pass; she trusts Me when sense and reason and every finer instinct of the natural heart would rebel;--because she knows that I am working in her for eternity, and that what I do, though she knows not the explanation now, she will understand hereafter.

"I am silent in my love because I love beyond the power of words to express, or of human hearts to understand, and also for your sakes that you may learn to love and trust me in Spirit-taught, spontaneous response to my love, without the spur of anything outward to call it forth."

He "will do marvels" if you will learn the mystery of His silence, and praise Him, for every time He withdraws His gifts that you may better know and love the Giver.