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Ephesians 3
This week a real miracle happened and it made me realize that miracles are happening every day and I miss them. I actually tend to assume that all my hard work is getting a certain result but if I stop and analyze the situation, the excellent result could have just as easily been a poor result.
Let's just start with breathing. With all of the knowledge we have today about how our bodies work, there is still mystery. If we start giving God the credit due him for the fact that we are breathing this might help us all realize that so much of what happens is God moving on our behalf.
What happens when we take this approach? We will stop limiting ourselves to work on the things that we think possible and start opening up ourselves to what seems impossible to us but what is easy for God.
In Ephesians 3:12 we read, "When we trust in him, we're free to say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go." There is the key: we have to put our lives in the hands of the one who created us, who loves us and who knows what is best for us.
When you see a chair, you size it up and you decide if it will hold your weight. You decide if you can trust it before you take action to sit down on it. This is what God asks of us. To live a productive, worry-free life, we need only put our trust completely in him. We find this difficult because we might think that the chair can be trusted because we can see it and we have sat in that same chair in the past.
Look now at your own body and realized that God has keep you breathing from the moment you came from the womb. Give God the credit for this miracle that is happening right now for you. Next, commit to see God in everything you do and you'll start noticing the miracles are happening every day for you and people you know.
This builds your trust muscle so you can let God move you to take action on the big, bold plans he has for you.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Too Good To Be True
Go to the home page: Do You Need A Winning Game Plan For Your Life?
Ephesians 3:1
Paul was preaching and writing but it was all so hard to hear. Devout Jews, including himself, found that what Jesus did was too good to be true. When you read Paul it is as if he is pinching himself to make sure he is living and breathing because he is so happy! Where does he find his joy? In grasping and believing that what Jesus said is true.
In this passage Paul is hammering home that what Jesus came to say and to do was entirely fresh. God's plan to put right what had gone wrong in the garden was executed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Paul says that he received this insight directly from God. He says it is like a secret or a mystery revealed and that if each of us trust God the Father and accept this new way of seeking after God, then each of us will receive the mystery and it will be clear to us personally. No more group think. No more religion. No more lists of rules and requirements or duties that one must perform to please God. That is old and simply never worked well.
However, the old way of doing anything is hard to quit. We have habits of doing and habits of thinking that bind us like chains. We become so comfortable in our chains that when someone says, "here's the key to unlock yourself" we assume this is too good to be true. Paul is saying that Jesus came to unlock the chains and only asks that we accept his free gift of freedom by simply believing and trusting in what Jesus did for each of us.
All people throughout recorded history have sought after God. The Greeks had multiple gods they worshiped and just in case they missed something they had the unknown god. The Jews before Christ were given the 10 Commandments and God sent leaders and prophets to point them to himself. But, we all know that the instructions went unheeded by most.
What Adam erased Jesus replaced with the most elegant and simple solution for us. Jesus lived, taught, suffered, died and rose from the dead so it was not simple for him. Because it was hard for him, it is simple for us and really it seems to good to be true.
Invite Jesus to reveal the mystery to you and he will.
Ephesians 3:1
Paul was preaching and writing but it was all so hard to hear. Devout Jews, including himself, found that what Jesus did was too good to be true. When you read Paul it is as if he is pinching himself to make sure he is living and breathing because he is so happy! Where does he find his joy? In grasping and believing that what Jesus said is true.
In this passage Paul is hammering home that what Jesus came to say and to do was entirely fresh. God's plan to put right what had gone wrong in the garden was executed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Paul says that he received this insight directly from God. He says it is like a secret or a mystery revealed and that if each of us trust God the Father and accept this new way of seeking after God, then each of us will receive the mystery and it will be clear to us personally. No more group think. No more religion. No more lists of rules and requirements or duties that one must perform to please God. That is old and simply never worked well.
However, the old way of doing anything is hard to quit. We have habits of doing and habits of thinking that bind us like chains. We become so comfortable in our chains that when someone says, "here's the key to unlock yourself" we assume this is too good to be true. Paul is saying that Jesus came to unlock the chains and only asks that we accept his free gift of freedom by simply believing and trusting in what Jesus did for each of us.
All people throughout recorded history have sought after God. The Greeks had multiple gods they worshiped and just in case they missed something they had the unknown god. The Jews before Christ were given the 10 Commandments and God sent leaders and prophets to point them to himself. But, we all know that the instructions went unheeded by most.
What Adam erased Jesus replaced with the most elegant and simple solution for us. Jesus lived, taught, suffered, died and rose from the dead so it was not simple for him. Because it was hard for him, it is simple for us and really it seems to good to be true.
Invite Jesus to reveal the mystery to you and he will.
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