Moment by Moment

I was thinking about my grandkids (which happens frequently) and how fast time moves. It doesn't seem that long ago my three were that age. 

I thought of the "wisdom" I could impart; "enjoy what you have now", "Don't miss now." "Don't miss what you won't get back", etcetera. I sound like I am old! Which to my grands, I suppose I am! 

These years are so busy, and so much happening, so many goals to be attained, just trying to get from stage to stage with everyone intact. 

But isn't that all of us...we work through today or this week because we have this or that next week or month, or even next year. 

We are so busy getting our lists done, working toward that next stage.

📖  Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”  James 4:13-15

But we are in this moment for a purpose....even if it is a difficult or trying moment. 

 📖 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 13:33

God has stuff for us to do, if we take the time to look at what we are in the middle of...not at our agenda, but His. 

📖  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. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:8-10

The difficult and even traumatic moments can have lessons for us. Even if just to draw closer to God and rely on Him.

📖 Trust in the Lord with all your heart

    and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6

We, of course, do what we do each day because of our belief we will be here tomorrow and next week and have things that have to be done. But we are not guaranteed tomorrow. 

📖  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. James 4:14

I am not saying do not work towards goals and plan. But we must try to notice today, this moment in front of us. 

Recognize that God has allowed us to be in this moment for a reason.

📖 Many are the plans in a person’s heart,

    but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. Proverbs 19:21

A way to do that is to be grateful and thank God for even the little things in the day, in the moment.

Waking up in a warm home (yes warm, spring seems to have delayed here!) 

Waking up!  Amen!?  That means God has a purpose for you today!

For what is around you. I know for me God has blessed me with a wonderful home, full of wonderful stuff. 

Instead of seeing the work that needs doing (cleaning, laundry, cleaning, projects, cleaning, etc) all things that need to be done, but if I just focus on that I can get overwhelmed and then miss the moment. 

📖 This is the day the Lord has made;

We will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

We have been so blessed with everything around us....I don't want to miss that. 

Also, how can we use all that God has blessed us with.

I have a mess in my playroom...but I have an abundance of toys and have been blessed with many children in my home over the years to play with them. And now grand children.  

IF God shows you a way to use what you have to bless others that is wonderful.

But I don't think we can see or hear what God wants us to do with the blessings we have in this stage if we are focused on the next stage. 

📖 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,  since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Colossians 3:23-24

We move through our moments knowing, trusting, that God has our future moments.

📖 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34

 We can focus on what is in front of us, leaving the rest to Him. 

📖 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

🙏🏼Lord, help me to see the moments in front of me right now, leave my concerns for future moments to You. As I do the tasks ahead of me today, open my eyes to the teachable moments and the blessings that I can pass on to others. Help me to live each moment for Your glory.  Amen♥️

While working on this, there was a song that kept coming to mind.

🎵 Keep Me In thr Moment Jeremy Camp

A Fish Tale

As I was cleaning my livingroom and dusting the "stuff"...the memories, I thought about how a person lives on when we talk about them, share stories, even have reminders. My living room has many things that belonged to my grandparents. Fishing poles and reels.

 A great old fishing creel that is hanging, still stuffed with all my grandmother's fishing parifinalia. There is a writing I did in a frame that is about one of our fishing excursions; "A Grand Memory". 

 I thought about how my children and now grandchildren, know who we are talking about when they hear the stories. It is important to tell them. If we don't talk and reminisce about those who have passed...they fade from existance, maybe just to names in a registry or on a memorial. 

The more we talk about them and share their stories the more they are a part of us and our lives. 

And then I thought, it is the same with the most important relationship in our lives. If we have accepted Christ we are a part of His family. 

📖  Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— John 1:12

📖 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, Ephesians 2:19

But if we don't talk about Him, share stories of what He has done for us, talk about our Heavenly Father’s extravagant love for us, How will people know?

If we don't share about what He does for us every single day...we don't talk about His goodness and grace...He begins to fade...from our life. 

Let me clarify

HE DOES NOT CHANGE!

But our thoughts about His importance in our lives fade....as well as the influence we are allowing weakens.

📖  Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth. Dueteronomy 11:18-21

Hopefully, I am telling as many stories about my childhood fishing adventures with my grandparents as I am about my amazing journey with the Fisher of Men.

📖 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,  keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. 1 Peter 3:15-16

📖 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?  And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" Roman's 10:14-15

🙏🏼 Oh Lord, how grateful I am for all You have done for me. Please, keep me bold enough to tell Your stories, to tell the world of the wonderful things You have done for me!♥️

Stiff Neck

 The Scripture that keeps going through my mind today...

📖 “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Acts 7:51

I am literally stiff necked today...following a surgery on my c-spine yesterday.

But it got me thinking. With a stiff neck you literally lose range of motion to the sides...up and down. I will heal and my range of motion will be better than ever.

But what about our spiritual stiff necks; they cause us to stop looking to the right or left. We don't look up or down. We are inflexible in our opinions or thought processes. We dont see the people in our peripheral who are in need or hurting. We don't look up for wisdom and guidance. We don't look down in humility.   

We don't listen to God, choose not to follow His direction or listen to those whom God sends...

📖 But they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their ancestors.’ “When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you; when you call to them, they will not answer. Jeremiah 7:26-27

I think it is important we do a self examination and see if we are indeed becoming stiff-necked and are in need of "surgical intervention"

📖 Necks get even stiffer. And eventually it lead to total destruction. Whoever remains stiff necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy. Proverbs 29:1

 Without intervention we will be destroyed!   What can we do?

First: Can we hang our head down in sorrow for our sins against God, knowing our own lack of goodness. In humility.

Next: Can we look up toward the heavens and cry out to our God for His forgiveness and mercy.

Third: Can we turn to the left and see the poor and hungry. 

Forth: Can we turn to the right and see the lost and broken. 

And if we can, we must love them in Jesus name. We must DO as Jesus instructed us to do. 

📖 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.  My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. John 15:10-15

If you can't seem to move in any or all of those directions, then you must remove whatever is causing the impingement.  Pride, selfishness, anger, bitterness, apathy...

📖  “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. John 15:1-2

📖 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:30-32

Your stiff neck can heal and you can be better than before!  The key is to keep it limber and listen to the Lord and what He has for you.

🙏🏼Lord, help us keep us from becoming stiff necked. Help us to constantly keep moving in ways that serve You and Glorify You.♥️

Upping the Game

Matthew Chapter 5 was used this past Sunday for the message and as I was looking at the chapter I noticed some things.

The version I happened to be looking at was CSB, the Christian Standard Bible. 

My first thought; Jesus came to "step up the game"

to raise the status quo. 

He said that the law was important but that what was in people hearts, what drives them, is more important 

📖 17 “Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all things are accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.

The next thing I noticed was the headings;

Murder Begins in the Heart

Verses 21-26

Adultery Begins in the Heart

Verses 27-30

Go the Second Mile

Verses 38-42

Love Your Enemies

Verses 43-48

In each section Jesus begins by saying "You have heard..." , in other words "what you have been taught concerning the law in regards to..."

He follows with "But I tell you..."

He did not contradict the law, He pushed it to a new level, one that would make many uncomfortable.  

As He stated;

📖  46 For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same? 

He expected followers to do better, to do more, than everyone else. He expected all things be done in love and some people could not get past differences in class, heritage, or position. 

He expected/expects for us to...

📖 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

He said as our "Father is"...not "as I am"..because everything He did pointed to His Father, represented the Father. He modeled His father and we are to do the same.

🙏🏼Lord, we thank you for Your Word, that we have a model to follow. I pray You give us Your insight, Your grace and mercy as we represent our Father in all we do. I pray You challenge us to "up our game" as we serve You and love in Your name!♥️