Are you ready?

Received the following during a six-week-long Bible study, When Godly People Do Ungodly Things, completed last night. Since I sincerely believe this applies to all of us, thought I would share the wisdom with all of you today.

Yes, I am a Christian.

Yes, I can be the biggest hypocrite ever.

I backslide.

I stumble.

I fall.

I stray onto the wrong path.

But God is working in me.

I may be a mess, but I'm His mess.

And He is slowly straightening me out.

And the day will come when I will be by His side,

His work in me completed.

And until that day I will take His hand,

And let Him do in me whatever needs to be done,

No matter how painful it will be for me.

When He is finished, [I am confident] it will all be worth it.

 

When I considered this message, I praised God that we are blessed to be a part of His overall plan.

 

As the apostle Paul penned, we, as true followers of Jesus, are called, justified and glorified. Paul's message appears in Romans 8:29-30 (NIV) ²⁹ For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ³⁰ And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

 

Paul also explained how this can happen in Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV) where he wrote, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

 

Bottom line, it's all about God's grace, grace that ensures us an eternal resting place in Heaven. Grace that allows to us live a full life in Him here on earth.

 

Grace (and mercy) that allows us to accept the direction found in Luke 9:23 (NIV) Then [Jesus] said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me."

 

Have you taken up your cross today? Are you ready to commit 100 percent to His way? Are you ready to follow Him?

 

My prayer for you today is that you are ready, that you will take up your cross, that you will commit your life to Him, that you will follow Him, no matter where He leads you. Amen.

Overcome failure through confession

When we fail, it can be an eye-opening experience. Failure comes in many varieties. Failed marriages. Failed dreams. Failed investments. Failing grades. Failure to communicate. Failing at sports. The list seems endless, doesn’t it?

As most of you who know me know, I am an avid football fan. In fact, I guess you could say I am now experiencing football withdrawal. Being a fan creates innumerable highs and lows. The high point was THE Ohio State University’s undisputed national championship win on Jan. 12. The low point? Yesterday’s unfathomable Seattle Seahawks loss, and to none other than Tom Brady’s Patriots, the perennial nemesis of both Charlie’s Colts and my Bengals.

But, life goes on, and the football diversion goes on the back burner until next year.

In the meantime, my focus to reach the unreached in Jesus Christ’s name continues as we expand this daily blog. Last week my husband and I discussed the future of my blog-based ministry.  His insight proved invaluable.

As a result of much prayerful consideration, Charlie has decided to join this ministry. As such, you can expect to soon see blog posts from a man’s point of view, with Charlie sharing his male perspective of life as a follower of Jesus.

Back to the topic at hand…failure seems to rear its ugly head when you least expect it. But, just like sin invades our lives from time to time, so does failure.

As the followers of this blog probably noticed, personal blog posts were missing last week. Although links to the devotional I read every day were provided to you, I know it was not the same as a daily dose of personal reflection from one sinner to another. Missing even one day of sharing His Word, is, in my opinion, a monumental failure.

When I started blogging on Jan. 1, I made a commitment to not fail, and there I was, less than one month into this ministry, experiencing a colossal failure. Woe is me.

Then I thought about failure and sin and what the Good Book says how failure and sin, at least in my mind, may be related.

Romans 3:22-24 (NIV) says ²² This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of (failed in our pursuit of) the glory of God, ²⁴ and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. [emphasis and parenthetical meaning mine]

The apostle Paul writes that we are saved by grace if we believe in Jesus. But, even though we employ our best efforts not to, we continue to sin. Remember Jesus says that if we sin in our heart…

In fact, in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ cautions against all types of heart-/mind-based sin. Matthew 5 gives the details. Read His instruction on the subject in your Bible or by clicking here.

My take is that I failed Christ in my absence from this blog for the last week. Even though I was ill, I should have at least made the effort to share His Word. I failed as a true follower. I failed. But that does not mean I cannot seek His forgiveness and begin again, does it?

My granddaddy always said, “Cheryl Ann, don’t you know confession is good for the soul?”

As always, granddaddy was right. As the disciple John put it so well in 1 John 1:9 (NIV) If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

According to my study Bible, John wrote this letter to the churches in Ephesus to encourage their journey in the faith. The Bible remains a timeless vessel of unfathomable knowledge as witnessed in this passage which holds true today just as it did more than 2,000 years ago.

Amazing!

In today’s vernacular, God gives us “an out,” a way back to him. A way to process, and confess our failures/sins, a way to return to Him as a true follower.

Dennis Dehaan put it so well when he wrote, “Learning to benefit from failure is the key to continued growth in grace.”

Pray, confess your sin, ask for forgiveness, and work to do it better the next time. Grow in grace. After all, “…with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26(b) (NIV).

May God bless each and every one of you every day in every way. Amen.

 

Calm your comments

This post is about a sin I have been known to fall into, on more than one occasion. Perhaps you too are guilty of spouting off at an acquaintance or a family member, sometimes without provocation. Sometimes, it’s because you demand, in a loud or cruel voice, to make your opinions heard. Sometimes I speak before thinking – making a harsh comment when a gentle one would have made the point without the animosity showing through.  

 

God’s Word says this – A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word sirs up anger. Like yesterday, this passage is again from Proverbs. For me the Book of Proverbs is such a wealth of advice, it’s hard to leave. Find this lesson in Chapter 15:1 (NKJV). While you’re there, consider reading the entire chapter.

 

The New Testament has much to say about the way we talk to one another. In the Book of James, the author devotes several verses to “Taming the tongue.” Chapter 3:8-10 (NIV) admonishes all of us to calm our comments to others, “⁹ With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. ¹⁰Out of the same mouth came praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 

 

Paul calls on an Old Testament passage to make a point about the waywardness of the tongue. In Romans 3:13, the Apostle of Christ quotes, in part, Psalm 5:9 “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit,” and Psalm 140:3 “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” These verses are just two Paul references when writing that no one is righteous.

How about it? Are you guilty of talking before you speak? Are you guilty of voicing harsh words when kind ones would work so much better? My granddaddy always used to say – “Cheryl Ann, you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” He was so right; not that I am in the business of catching flies, but the metaphor stands as written, echoing Proverbs 15:1.

 

Why not come along with me in my journey to fully relying on God, by following his advice here and in many other biblical passages. As with yesterday’s post, this one, if you follow its advice, is bound to make you feel happier and will ultimately serve to make others feel happy as well.

 

Maybe together we can strive for a pleasant, God-fearing, Bible-adhering attitude, one person at a time, one day at a time. How about it? Are you game? I hope so.

 

A careless word may kindle strife,

A cruel word may wreck a life;

A timely word may lessen stress,

A living word may heal and bless.  – Anon.

 

To end today’s post I depart from my regular closing, borrowing an appropriate prayer from Our Daily Bread’s David McCasland – Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. AMEN!                                                        

Do the 180...today

Are you a new creation?

If you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are a new creation according to the Bible. Just take a look at Paul’s second letter to the believers at Corinth where he writes in chapter five, verses 17-19 (NIV) –

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed us to the message of reconciliation.

As a follower of Jesus, your life is not always perfect. I know mine hasn’t been. I accepted Jesus as my savior and was baptized when I was 13 years old. Since that time I have committed a multitude of sins, many of which I believed were unforgiveable. My granddaddy always called this retreat from belief as “backsliding.” But granddaddy always assured me that this temporary condition can be remedied through confession of the sin and doing, “a 180 back to Jesus.”

Even though I wrestled many times over this about-face type of confession and new birth in Jesus, as I read the Bible, I found His saving grace to be a real and prominent message throughout the New Testament.

Recently as I participated with ladies of the community in a Monday evening Bible study, Mercy Triumphs, authored by Beth Moore, Moore’s study was a comprehensive examination of the book of James, an epistle that is believed by most biblical scholars to have been written by Jesus’s brother James.

During the study I found unparalleled confirmation that, as always, my granddaddy had hit the proverbial nail on the head with his 180-plan of restoring sinners to faith and getting back in God’s good graces.

My copy of the Quest Study Bible concurs with Moore’s teachings in this study with its introduction to the book of James, which poses the question, “Why read this book?” explaining, “…James shows it’s possible to believe the right things, yet live the wrong way…”

James’s commentary on how to live life as a Christian was written to the believers of the day, but certainly rings true for us today, especially if you, like me, have been a backslider and fallen away from your commitment to God on more than one occasion.

If you have experienced the same sinful condition, take heart by reading James’s closing, where he assures us of God’s forgiveness in The Prayer of Faith found in Chapter 5, verses 13-19 (NIV) –  

¹³ Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. ¹⁴ Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. ¹⁶ Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
¹⁷ Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. ¹⁸ Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

¹⁹ My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, ²⁰ remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

Our God is definitely an Awesome God, one who understands the human condition He created and is willing to make all of us a new creation in Him if we just confess and believe. If you are experiencing sin that you feel alienates you from God, remember we are all sinners and He is ready, willing and able to forgive.

Confess your sins today; get right with God; adopt the 180-plan. None of us are guaranteed the next second on this earth; make sure you know where you will spend eternity.

Interested in reading the entire book of James? Find it on BibleGateway.com by clicking this link.

 

And, as is always my prayer for you, May God bless each and every one of you every day in every way. Amen!

Jesus saves!

Yes, He does, in so many ways.

Beginning Jan. 1, and each weekday thereafter, I'll list one way my Faith in the Almighty has impacted my life.

You are welcome to comment your story for all to see His marvelous work in your life.

May God bless each and every one of you every day in every way and may He grant you the peace that passes all understanding. Amen.