Flight School

Happy Sunday!

Hebrews 5:11-14 says, "I have a lot more to say about this, but it is hard to get it across to you since you’ve picked up this bad habit of not listening. By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one—baby’s milk, when you should have been on solid food long ago! Milk is for beginners, inexperienced in God’s ways; solid food is for the mature, who have some practice in telling right from wrong."(Message).

Dr. Bill Winston retold some stories about his time training to be a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force.  It's so interesting to me how the Lord can use our personal stories to teach life lessons. But you know that's just what Jesus did with the parables. Dr. Winston talked about the different kinds of airplanes he flew.  They started with basic single engine planes and finally progressed to the super sonic jets.  At each level of training he would fly with an instructor for a while then they would land, and the instructor would get out. He would be required to show what he had learned in the lessons by flying solo.  He recalled how fear would try to grip him, and he'd want to beg the instructor to stay with him.  Thankfully, he never begged the instructor to stay.  It would have been career suicide and he would have been dismissed from the program.

We each have been called to greatness.  God has a plan for us to destroy the works of the Devil.  Your calling won't look exactly like mine, but it is equally as important.  The enemy wants us to be distracted.  He tries to lull us to sleep. He tells us we aren't ready, and we don't have what it takes. But he is a liar!  He knows that when we are resting in God, full of the Word, and alert to his strategies we are stronger opponents.  And God has given us everything we need to succeed.  2 Peter 1:3-4 says, "Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust."(Message).

James 1:2-4 says, "My fellow believers, when it seems as though you are facing nothing but difficulties see it as an invaluable opportunity to experience the greatest joy that you can!  For you know that when your faith is tested it stirs up power within you to endure all things.  And then as your endurance grows even stronger it will release perfection into every part of your being until there is nothing missing and nothing lacking."(Passion).  I can't share every version of each scripture, but you know I enjoyed reading them.  For the ending of that passage the KJV says, "perfect and entire, wanting nothing".  That's the goal!

Love and prayers, Cynthia