Childlike

 Happy Sunday!

In John 16:33, Jesus says, "I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace and confidence. In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]! For I have overcome the world. [I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you.]"(Amplified).

Most people love babies.  Well, at least we love other people's babies.  We can love on them, smell their necks, and give them back to their parents.  Have you ever noticed that the world around them can be chaotic but they can sleep as if nothing is happening?  Perhaps, that's what we really enjoy about babies...seeing peace in action.  The baby is forced to trust the people in whose care they are placed.  They must trust that their parents and care takers will be loving, compassionate, and forgiving especially when they make smelly messes.  They must trust that they will be given sufficient provision, and kept safe.

We are the Children of God, not the adults of God.  Jesus rebuked the disciples for trying to prevent the children from coming forward in the crowd to be blessed.  He said, "Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.”(Mark 10:14, Message).  Don't miss this!  It's so simple, not complicated at all.  Proverbs 3:5-8 says it this way, "Place your trust in the Eternal; rely on Him completely;  never depend upon your own ideas and inventions.  Give Him the credit for everything you accomplish, and He will smooth out and straighten the road that lies ahead. And don’t think you can decide on your own what is right and what is wrong. Respect the Eternal; turn and run from evil. If you depend on Him, your body and mind will be free from the strain of a sinful life, will experience healing and health, and will be strengthened at their core."(Voice).

Isaiah 26:3 says, "You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You."(Amplified).  The God's Word Translation of this scripture says, "With perfect peace you will protect those whose minds cannot be changed, because they trust you".  Amen.

Love and prayers, Cynthia

Winning

Happy Sunday!

Proverbs 11:30 says, "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise."(KJV). 

Are you winning?  Are you winning souls for Christ?  If you were arrested and taken to court, would there be enough evidence to prove your Salvation, or your Christianity?  God has called us and commissioned us.  Jesus said, "You, then, are to go and make disciples of all the nations and baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you and, remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”(Matthew 28:20, Phillips).

Are you leading others closer to God, or are you causing them to move away from God?  Jesus said, "But if anyone abuses one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for him to have a heavy boulder tied around his neck and be hurled into the deepest sea than to face the punishment he deserves!"(Mark 9:42, Passion).  Ouch!  We don't want to be on the wrong side of this scenario.  It makes sense then that the Apostle Paul encouraged the Thessalonians to, "Abstain from all appearance of evil."(1 Thessalonians 5:22, KJV).  Other translations of this scripture say, "Keep away from every kind of evil."(Living Bible).  Not that he wanted us to be disingenuous, but we have to be unselfish.  God cares about me, but it's not all about me.  You may want to read that again. 

John 3:16 says, "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."(KJV).  We learned this scripture in Sunday School, but do we take time to feel the weight of it?  God loves everyone.  His love is not superficial.  It's not just a sweet thing to say, or emojis in a text message.  He put His love and His Son on the line with no guarantee the love would be accepted, or reciprocated.  He wants everyone to experience everlasting life.  In Ezekiel 33:11, "The Lord God says: By my life, I swear that I don’t enjoy seeing people die—not even evil people! I don’t want them to die. I want them to come back to me. I want them to change their lives so that they can really live."(Easy-to-Read Version).  We are here to show that love to the world, and win others for Christ.

2 Corinthians 2:14 says, "But I thank God, who ALWAYS leads us in victory because of Christ. Wherever we go, God USES us to make clear what it means to know Christ. It’s like a fragrance that fills the air."(God's Word Translation).

Love and prayers, Cynthia

Shift to High Gear

Happy Sunday!

2 Corinthians 3:18 says, "We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him."(Message).

Dr. Veronica Winston recalled the first car she owned right after college.  It was a 1979 Toyota Corolla with manual transmission.  She beamed when she spoke of the power she felt shifting the gears, and anticipating shifting to a higher gear.  When she wanted to go further and faster, she knew she had to "shift up".  She knew that she could not stay where she was.  In the same way in life, and in our Christian Walk change is inevitable.  God wants us to advance, to increase, to prosper in every area of our lives.  He has provided His Word as a guide and given us everything we need to live a godly life.(2 Peter 1:3).  God expects us to be passionate about living for Him.  In Revelation 3:15-16, He rebuked the Laodiceans, "You’re not cold, you’re not hot—far better to be either cold or hot! You’re stale. You’re stagnant. You make me want to vomit."(Message).

The sermon was entitled, "Time to Shift Into High Gear".  She referenced 2 Peter 1:1-10 as her starting point.  The Apostle Peter used these beginning lines of the letter to encourage believers and remind us of all we have in Christ.  He wrote, "Because you have these blessings, do all you can to add to your life these things: to your faith add goodness; to your goodness add knowledge; to your knowledge add self-control; to your self-control add patience; to your patience add devotion to God; to your devotion add kindness toward your brothers and sisters in Christ, and to this kindness add love."(2 Peter 1:5-7, Easy-to-Read Version).

The Apostle Peter goes on to say, "For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."(2 Peter 1:8, KJV).  Verse 9 gives a vivid description of the opposite.  It was so hard to pick one version to share with you.  The Phillips translation says, "The man whose life fails to exhibit these qualities is short-sighted,", the Easy-to-Read Version says, "But those who don’t grow in these blessings are blind.", the Message says, "Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books."(2 Peter 1:9). OUCH!

What we are experiencing in life right now may be unique, but it is not the first time.  It's not the first time a nation has been divided, not the first time a nation has experienced civil unrest, not the first time a new strain of virus has been discovered, and not the first time we have been given the choice and the chance to trust God. 

Love and prayers, Cynthia

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

Hearing, and Hearing

 Happy Sunday!

Isaiah 55:8-11 says, "This plan of mine is not what you would work out, neither are my thoughts the same as yours! For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours, and my thoughts than yours.  As the rain and snow come down from heaven and stay upon the ground to water the earth, and cause the grain to grow and to produce seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry, so also is my WORD. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It shall accomplish all I want it to and prosper everywhere I send it."(Living Bible).

Don't miss this!  God's Word Always Produces Fruit!  No Ifs, Ands or Buts!  If God said it, that settles it.  Faith is believing the Word.  Romans 10:17 says, "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."(KJV).  My girls and I laughed as I recounted standing in the next room in fear trying to remember what my mother told me to go in there and get or do.  I had heard her voice giving me instructions, but I had not listened and concentrated on the instructions.  This explains why the scripture says, "hearing, and hearing".  We need to hear the Word over, and over, and over again.  We need to become skillful and confident with it.  We need to be so full of it that when the enemy says anything opposing the Word we are able to refute it.

We are in a battle, a battle for our lives and the lives of our children.  Ephesians 6:12 says, "For our fight is not against any physical enemy: it is against organisations and powers that are spiritual. We are up against the unseen power that controls this dark world, and spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil."(Phillips).  2 Corinthians 10:4-6 says, "The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity."(Message).

God's plans will prevail.  God's Word will come to pass.  Will you participate and partner with Him? Or will you side with the Devil?  There are only two sides; good and evil.  Proverbs 16:25 says, "Before every man there lies a wide and pleasant road he thinks is right, but it ends in death."(Living Bible).  Proverbs 3:5-8 says, "Place your trust in the Eternal; rely on Him completely; never depend upon your own ideas and inventions. Give Him the credit for everything you accomplish, and He will smooth out and straighten the road that lies ahead. And don’t think you can decide on your own what is right and what is wrong. Respect the Eternal; turn and run from evil.  If you depend on Him, your body and mind will be free from the strain of a sinful life, will experience healing and health, and will be strengthened at their core."(Voice).

Love and prayers, Cynthia

Strength Training

 Happy Sunday!

“So, Jeremiah, if you’re worn out in this footrace with men, what makes you think you can race against horses? And if you can’t keep your wits during times of calm, what’s going to happen when troubles break loose like the Jordan in flood?"(Jeremiah 12:5, Message).

I love the Word!  You already know this.  It shows us just how real people lived, learned, and loved God.  Jeremiah talks to God openly and without fear, and God responds as the loving father He is.  In short, He tells Jeremiah to "Man Up".  Read the first part of the chapter yourself.  Sounds like what we are experiencing today.  We believe the promises of God, and we have His Word on our futures but what we see with our eyes is so very contrary.  But just like 2 Corinthians 5:7 we must remember to, "walk by faith, not by sight:"(KJV).

Since the quarantine started, we've been inside much more than we were in the past.  I would generally get a mile or more of walking in each day without even trying.  Walking to the bus stop, walking from a downtown bus stop to the Subway, walking from the train station to the next bus, and then most days I'd walk over to my favorite Meijer Grocery to get lunch or supplies for the work day.  I live just over a mile from Lake Michigan.  That was one of our requirements when searching for a place here in Chicago. It had to be near the lake.  I was flabbergasted to find that many people live here for decades and never visit the lake.  We are not those people!

A good friend who lives in Prescott, Arizona asked me what I was doing for exercise.  I sadly talked about my cycling classes being canceled due to COVID-19, and not getting out as much.  She expressed that getting her walk in everyday was top priority.  I was certainly encouraged and began walking to the lake very early each morning.  The first day I had trouble breathing.  I don't have asthma, or any other health issues but being in the house for so long had taken its toll on me.  I had to sit down several times during the 5 mile walk.  I remember walking a mile comfortably in 15 minutes a few years ago.  Currently, I'm doing a mile in around 24 minutes.  Each day it gets easier and I get stronger.  We go early enough to catch the sunrise.  Each one is different and makes me remember Lamentations 3:22-23, " of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."(KJV).

What has that got to do with you?  Great question!  I'm so glad you asked.  Physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially we need to be strengthened.  We know our weak points, and if we are unsure the Word says, "If you don’t have all the wisdom needed for this journey, then all you have to do is ask God for it; and God will grant all that you need. He gives lavishly and never scolds you for asking."(James 1:5, Voice).  We have to do our part.  Getting in the Word, hearing faith-filled ministries, being open to learning new things, and fighting complacency, procrastination, and laziness.  I use Proverbs 6:10-12 to remind myself of the perils of laziness. "You say, “I need a rest. I think I’ll take a short nap.” But then you sleep and sleep and become poorer and poorer. Soon you will have nothing. It will be as if a thief came and stole everything you owned."(Easy-to-Read Version).  OUCH!

I picked 5 miles because 5 is the number of Grace, and I sure need it to stay motivated. I'm excited for the day when I can do much more much faster.

Love and prayers, Cynthia

We Don't Get What We Deserve

Happy Sunday!

Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;"(KJV).

Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."(KJV).

I heard someone say that a certain person "didn't deserve to die".  Although, we may be saddened by the seemingly senseless death of another person, we have to come back to the Word of God as our guide and standard.  Based on the Word, we ALL deserve to die for our sins.  Without the saving work of Jesus the Christ, we all were doomed to die because of the sin released on mankind by Adam.  1 Corinthians 15:22 says, "For as in Adam ALL die, even so in Christ shall ALL be made alive."(KJV).

That is the Good News!  Jesus came to give us a chance to live an abundant life here on earth, and life eternal with Him.  But he won't force himself on us.  Revelation 3:20 says, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."(KJV).  Don't miss this!  If you don't want to die and spend eternity in Hell, open the door to Jesus!  Let Him in and let Him change your life. 

Jesus had a good friend named Lazarus who became ill.  You know the story.  By the time Jesus got to their home Lazarus had been dead for four days.  His sisters told Jesus that things could have been different if he'd only arrived sooner.  Jesus told them not to worry, Lazarus would live again.  "Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day."(John 11:24, KJV).  Then "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:"(John 11:25, KJV).  Jesus went to the tomb and called Lazarus forth!  What a testimony!  You do realize that this was a huge spectacle!  John 12:17 says, "There were many people with Jesus when he raised Lazarus from death and told him to come out of the tomb. Now they were telling others about what Jesus did."(ERV).  There was so much publicity about this that John 12:10 says, "leading priests made plans to kill Lazarus too."(ERV). 

"Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It’s not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws.

No, you’re already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin.

If it’s an initiation ritual you’re after, you’ve already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ.

When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ!

Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets."(Colossians 2:11-15, Message).

Love and prayers, Cynthia