Get What You Give

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 7:12).

A truck driver stopped at a roadside diner for lunch. He ordered a cheeseburger, coffee, and a slice of apple pie. As he was about to eat, three motorcycles pulled up outside. The bikers came in, and one grabbed the trucker's cheeseburger and took a bite from it. The second one drank the trucker's coffee, and the third wolfed down the apple pie. The truck driver didn't say a word. He simply got up, paid the cashier, and left. When he was gone, one of the motorcyclists said, "He ain't much of a man, is he?" "He's not much of a driver, either," the cashier replied, "He just backed his truck over three motorcycles." 

Well there you have the worlds way of dealing with 'you get what you give'. How exhausting to have to live that way.  I don't want to spend my days thinking up creative ways to 'run over motorcycles', live angry, or in a payback existence. So hopeless!

The life of Jesus is the best guide I know on how we’re to treat others.  It's a beautiful way to live and think and be.  When Jesus began His ministry on earth, He didn’t come saying, 'I am God, serve me and do as I say.' When Christ came, one of the many things He showed His disciples (including you and I) was how we’re to treat others. He forgave sins and past mistakes, showed mercy and grace to those who didn’t deserve it, prayed for and served others, helped the poor, healed the sick, reached out to sinners and so much more. If you’re treating people with the love of God, people will not only see your good deeds, but they will also see Christ through you and begin praising Him because of the love of God they’ve experienced through you.

 

On the opposite side of the spectrum, if you’re treating people with anything less than the love of God, people will begin to see your angry flair up and selfish behavior. If you say you love God and have asked Him to be Lord of your life (born again) then you are representatives of Christ here on earth, those witnessing and experiencing your angry moods and self serving actions may begin to have negative thoughts about God.

A pearl to string: How you treat others is a reflection of your relationship with God. You cannot have a growing relationship with Christ and continue to treat people with anything else but the love of God.  The more you read the word of God and the closer you are to Him, the more compassion, love and respect you should have toward others.

'let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in Heaven' (Matthew 5:16). 

Be blessed and encouraged in Jesus name

and know you are loved.

                                   Lyndi

 

by Lizza Baro

Matthew 16:24-26.
Then Jesus said to his disciples,“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.  26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

Jesus did not say we should take up His cross but our own crosses. We deny ourselves when we choose God's will rather than our own. Eventually we will loose our old way of selfish living and find the new one the Christ makes for us. Deny self does not mean forcing your self to do things you hate. It means doing things that God loves. It brings delight to you and more importantly God. We find joy and peace when we in step with Him.

My grandmother always used to say my father was her cross to bear. She was a woman after Gods heart. Even though my father did things that hurt her and caused her much pain she continued to love him.  I remember her telling me that "sometimes our cross was our trophies." Things in life that mean the most. Things were proud of. Things we don't want to give up. She always told me "be careful what you put in front of Jesus. He will take it away not to be mean but so we can focus on Him". She was a wise woman. I leaned a lot from her.

We all have our own things that is our cross, that we must carry and endure the pain. sometimes I just feel like throwing it to the side and walking away. But other days I leave it at His cross and say your will be done. I surrender it all to Him. It's a lot easier to just walk away but I would not be learning the life lesson that God wants me to learn. He wants to grow me into His image. Thank you Jesus for pruning me and making me more like you. May I never forget your cross. You gave it all for me. Thank you Jesus.

Our Heart is God's Garden

In the Old Testament, it is clear that God created the garden and He created man and put man in the garden. In the New Testament, God doesn’t put man in the garden; He puts the garden in man. God made man out of the dust of the earth and God made our hearts the spiritual soil from which we grow. Our hearts encompass our spirit and soul.  When we are born again our spirit is changed instantly into the image of God (John 3:3-8) but our soul is changed in process. 

Our soul includes our mind, will and emotions   Our soul learns through our senses (sight, hearing) so what ever enters our soul by seeing, listening, reading or speaking changes the nature of the soul. First step to change our soul that thinks like the world instead of God is to change the way we feed our soul. Our mind, will, and emotions were all trained by our experiences, our parents, our feelings, our church and our school, the movies and our cultural mores. But what we need to do is to renew our soul. It has to be changed, reprogrammed, re-taught and retrained. We need to teach our soul to obey God and to think in agreement with the Word of God.   After becoming a Christian, the Bible instructs us to “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). 

“A man out of the good treasure of his heart is going to bring forth good things, but a man out of the evil treasure of his heart is going to bring forth evil things.”  (Matthew 12:35)  So, whatever we sow is what we are going to reap. Our heart is going to produce the issues or the harvests of whatever it is that we put into our life. “Guard your heart with all diligence for out of it flow the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:18-20)   

A pearl to string: Christianity is not just another religion.  It is the life of God abiding within and flowing out of the believer. Other religions leave you the same person you were before.  But the wonderful thing about the Christian life is that it will completely transform us.  That's good news to me since I have what my Grandma called , "a wild hair".  My soul needs Jesus. 

He has set eternity in our hearts

Keep growing in Him,

                              Lyndi

His Truth

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths." - Proverbs 3:5-6 

Oh I love that Scripture verse.  It's so practical in my own life. More often than I care to admit I am tempted to rely more on my own understanding than on God. Sometimes I speak too soon; other times not soon enough! Simple, sweet opportunities to be used of the Lord are missed when my focus gets locked on me, me, me, my schedule or routine! And then who do I call?  You got it. Help me Lord! There are times I put limits on God by leaning more on my fears than God's faithfulness. Life can just come too fast and my natural instinct is to figure it out based on my feelings or “what I think”.  That's a dangerous zone to be in for it limits understanding down to life experiences.  "Truth" does not count when scaled to "want".  "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death". (Proverbs 14:12) 

A pearl to string: God has not left us without resource when it comes to understanding His heart and His truth for our lives. He has given us His Word. When you read God's Word you'll have a variety of experiences. There may be times when you study God’s Word that it makes so much sense to you and you find your self congratulating God on His brilliance. Every so often however, studying the truth of God’s Word will just slam you against the wall and wake you up out of your drifting towards spiritual amnesia. Occasionally God’s truth is frustrating because it is such a contrast to your perspective or the perspective of others. Now and then, your tendency might be to lean just slightly into God’s truth….as long as it fits your needs or gets you what you want. Some days it sparks a lot of questions and will disturb your complacency just enough that you will delve deeper into the scriptures around a particular topic.  

All in all, it is that day to day encounter with God’s Word and the power of His Holy Spirit working through that encounter that challenges, encourages, disturbs, inspires, and shapes your heart after God’s own heart.  

God's heart is for you...

You are loved,

                   Lyndi

Here After

The preacher came to call the other day. He said at my age I should be thinking of the hereafter.  I told him, "Oh, I do it all the time. No matter where I am - in the bedroom, upstairs, in the kitchen, or down in the basement - I ask myself, 'Now, what am I here after?'" 

The kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3), the kingdom of the Father (Matthew 13:43), life everlasting (Matthew 19:16), the joy of the Lord (Matthew 25:21), great reward (Matthew 5:12), the kingdom of God (Mark 9:45), the kingdom of Christ (Luke 22:30), the house of the Father (John 14:2), city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem (Hebr., xii), the holy place (Hebrews 9:12; D. V. holies), paradise (2 Corinthians 12:4), incorruptible crown (1 Corinthians 9:25), crown of life (James 1:12), crown of justice (II Timothy iv, 8), crown of glory (1 Peter 5:4), hereafter - the time yet to come, kingdom come, in the sweet by-and-by, following this in time or order or place; in a future life or state. In other words: life after death is everlasting life... eternity. 

Ecclesiastes 3:11  "God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end". The point Solomon is making: Since we were made for eternity, the things of time cannot fully or permanently satisfy. 

James 4:4 Don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Francis Chan said, "Something is wrong when our lives make sense to unbelievers."  

The interesting thing is the Bible is not just a nice book to read in your spare time as some might think. It's not an encyclopedia of religious information, it is not a collection of moral parables, nor is it an assembly of stories about the distant past. The Bible is God's written revelation of Himself and man's relationship to Him through the Covenant bond He establishes with those men and women He calls into a unique relationship. While covenant blessings and curses in the Old Testament were temporal, covenant blessings and curses in the New Covenant in Christ are eternal. 

A pearl to string: Blessings do not depend on your performance but rather on Jesus’ performance.  And because His obedience is perfect and His work is perfectly finished, the covenant blessings for you are guaranteed! You can not be good enough, holy enough, compassionate enough nor can you love enough to be in covenant blessing.

There is nothing left for you to do, but to believe. Don’t try to work for your covenant blessings. Rest in the Son’s finished work and receive them by faith! 

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) 

We're all in His love,

                            Lyndi

Do you hear what I hear?

Five Englishmen travelling across Europe in an Audi Quattro arrive at a border crossing.

The Customs agent stops them and says, "It's illegal to put five people in a Quattro."

"What do you mean it's illegal?" ask the Englishmen.

"Quattro means four," replies the border official.

"Quattro is just the name of the automobile," the Englishmen retort disbelievingly.

"Look at the papers: this car is designed to carry five persons."

"You can't pull that one on me," replies the Customs agent.

"Quattro means four. You have five people in your car and you are therefore breaking the law."

The Englishmen reply angrily, "You nut case! Call your supervisor over.  I want to speak to someone with more intelligence!"

"Sorry," responds the official, "he can't come. He's busy with two guys in a Fiat Uno." 

Life can be frustrating when you are dealing with people who do not make sense to you.  Because you believe differently does not give you the right to dishonor others. We don't all come from the same place in our thinking, in our reasoning or in our life experiences. We react and self talk more than we listen.  The tendency that seems to prevail judges others by their actions and words while we generously judge ourselves by our intentions. Our intentions however do not qualify any of us to judge the heart of another. 

Like the men caught on the stormy Sea of Galilee, have you ever been reeling in the waves of a storm desperately seeking Jesus help?  Then discover you are the storm? The squall of business? The fixer, the controller, the talker? Are Jesus’ words to the wind for you? “’Quiet!  Settle down!’” The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass.”(Mark 5:39^{The Message}). 

A pearl to string: Too many people talk to impress and impose their point of view on another. They drain the life out of their audience and eventually become the old lonely person.  It's possible to actually spend a lot of time with people but unless you spend time listening, you can not know anybody.  A serious result of not listening is boredom for it is really the death of love. It seals people off from each other more than any other thing. 

Listening is the first step to successful communication and the secret component to close relationships.  Listening is an act of love, it is honoring, it refreshes the other person, and more encouraging than a thousand words.  

With a new year upon us it is the perfect time to hone our listening skills with intentionality.

In him we live and move and have our being, (Acts 17:28^NIV)

                                                                                             Lyndi