Humility

 Then the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: “I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. For now I have chosen and sanctified this house, that My name may be there forever; and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man as ruler in Israel.’  2 Chronicles 7:12-18

Verses 14 and 15

if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.  Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place

This verse has come before me several times in the last several weeks.  And all my mind keeps coming to is the 11th word in verse 14. HUMBLE.

I have blogged about humility before (Humility is a Verb 9/19/2019, What Does the Lord Require Of You 8/24/20)

But I can't shake this and so figured it needs to be shared..

People have been quoting this verse especially in times of divisiveness and discord.  

the main points:

1. Humble themselves

2. Pray

3. Seek my face

4. Turn from their wicked ways

If we can truly humble our self....I am not using the plural because it isn't a plural action...each one of us has to individually humble ourselves before our God.

If we can have a humble heart the rest would follow automatically pray, seek His face and turn from our wickedness.  

Humility...true humility of the heart and soul must pave the way for Christ like behavior that has to be evident

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
     even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place 

and gave him the name that is above every name,  that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,  for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.”  Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.  But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.

Philippians 2:1-18

AMEN!

In these times we must HUMBLY serve our God each day, however that looks for each of us.  

MLK Day (Rerun)

Originally posted Monday Januray 15, 2018 (with a couple alterations)

MLK Day, Martin Luther King Jr Day, Martin Luther King Jr Day of Service, MLK Jr. Day of Service

It has many names  but ...
Martin Luther King Jr Day was signed into law in 1983 and first observed in 1986....1994 the King Holiday and Service Act  was signed into law challenging American citizens to volunteer or do other acts of service to honor Martin Luther King and his accomplishments in civil rights and  non violence.

So I hope that today...whether in your job or where ever ...you are able to volunteer or are able to perform some acts of service to help your community or others.

As Christians let's take that further!

Christ came to serve ...and we are called to do the same!

"just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  Matthew 20:28
He gave many examples of how to serve those around us...but one of my favorites is;

 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist.  After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 
“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”
 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”
Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.
 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them.  “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am.  Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. John 13:4-17
In humility, love and compassion we are called to serve those around us, our "fellow man"  whom ever that may be; the clean neat and tidy or the stinky, dirty beggar.

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. Galatians 5:13

Can we all say we have the same "dream" as the Reverend Dr. King?

"I have a dream today ... I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. " (I Have A Dream copyright 1963 Martin Luther King)  which comes from Isaiah 40:4-6.

Do we not dream that one day ALL will see the Glory of the LORD!?!  

Until that day....we can show the glory of the Lord by serving all those around us humbly, in love and in Jesus' name!

Some Things Never Change

 In this time of upheaval and change, our lives..not just globally, nationally,  but right here at home in our work lives and our personal lives, things have changed and we dont know what "getting back to normal" is going to look like.

There is a song in the animated Disney movie Frozen 2 sung by one of my favorite singing snowmen Olaf. The tag line runs through my head frequently;

🎶 "Somethings never change" 

But if we look around us that seems a joke...everything has changed!

BUT there is one thing that is forever, constant;

Our heavenly Father 

📖 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” Revelation 1:8

If we feel He is distant it is us who have stepped away or stepped back.

📖  “I the Lord do not change.  Malachi 3:6a

He is always there.

📖 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
 

and the light become night around me,”

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

Psalm 139:8-12

Though everything around us (or at least it seems that way) is changing and much of it not for the better, we can have faith in our God who never changes!

📖 God said to Moses, “I am who I Am. Exodus 3:14a

Who is always there for us, cares about us, loves us!

📖 The Lord appeared to us in the past,  saying:                  “I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. Jeremiah 31:3

Has even secured our place for eternity;

📖 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish  but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

John 3:16-18

📖 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.

23 They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.” Lamentations 3:22-24

AMEN

So no matter how upside down and sideways things are...He is faithful, we just need to hold on!

🎵 We Will Hold On Paul Baloche

Resolutions

 New Year's resolutions:

1. Loose those pesky 10 ...15....20 pounds.

2. Exercise more

3. Eat healthier

4. Get those projects done that carried over from last year.

5. Start a new projects list

6. Reach out more 

7. 

8. 

The list can go on and on.

And all noble good goals...

But are they what should be at the top of our lists? our main goals?

1. Love God a little more each day.

📖 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Deuteronomy 6:5-6

📖 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. Mathew 22:37-38

2. Learn a little more about Him every day.

📖 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. John 8:31

📖 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.  2 Timothy 3:16

3. Put both in to action 

 📖 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. John 14:12

📖 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. James 2:17

"Dear God, 

If I don't get anything else done today

I want to know You a little bit better and I want to love You a little bit more." 

Rick Warren.  Purpose Driven Life

If I don't accomplish anything else in 2021 but this each day....it will be a good year!❤🙏

What Can I Give?

For the past 4 weeks we have discussed the elements of advent;

Hope, Peace, Joy and Love and how they are evident in the cross of Christ. 

Now my question is ....

Are they evident in YOU?

I think some times  we are quick to notice whether or not they are evident in others...before we worry about what might be evident in ourselves.

While preparing gifts for Christmas I watched the old classic The Bishop's Wife (Cary Grant, David Niven, Loretta Young) black and white of course!

The angel Dudley (played by Grant) "rewrites", by dictating to the old manual typewriter, Reverand Henry's Christmas Eve sermon.

Henry is unaware until he begins to read the words from the pulpit. It's message was about an empty stocking.  The stocking hung  for whose birthday we celebrate.  

We spend so much time preparing and "stuffing stockings with just the right things", even things that are meaningful, we tend to miss the One that is most important.

A line in a song, In the Bleak Mid Winter, comes to me...which actually comes from a poem by Christina Rossetti.

"What can I give Him poor as I am.."

Because no matter what our bank account says, no matter how much our homes are over flowing, no matter what surrounds us, we are all poor, wretched sinners.

📖 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. Revelation 3:17

📖 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!  Romans 7:24-25

So if that is the case what can we possibly put in His stocking?

HOPE - 

our Hope in who He is

📖 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, Ephesians 1:11-13

📖 May your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in you. Psalm 33:22

Give His hope to those around us!

PEACE

📖Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. Hebrews 12:14

📖 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27

JOY

📖 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. John 15:11

📖 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Romans 12:11-13

LOVE

His kind of love

📖 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. Matthew 22:

📖 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. John 15:12-14

Fill the stocking with fruit

📖 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. Galatians 5:22-26

And be generous....forgiving

Everyone's "fruit" may look differently than our own.  Others expressions of joy,  generosity, or  even love may be different than ours.

but if we look at others with a humble heart...believing that they are trying as well. Treat them as if they are, because, I believe, for the most part they are, we will be able to recognize better the "fruit" in others.

📖 Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.  Matthew 7:1-5

📖  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.  Philippians 2:3-4

If we are more concerned how our gifts look going into His stocking then we have a tendency to recognize and see the same in those around us.

What are you going to put in His stocking....

what can we give Him?

In the Bleak Mid Winter   Susan Boyle

Love In the Cross

Because the baby that came into this world with His first bed a manger, so that He could grow up to die on a cross for our sins, to be raised from the dead three days later....

BECAUSE of THAT 

He gives us...(Light each candle)

Hope in the cross
📖 Show me your ways, Lord,
    teach me your paths.
5

Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,

 and my hope is in you all day long.
6 Remember, Lord, your great mercy and love,
for they are from of old. Psalm 25:4-6

Peace in the Cross
📖  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27

Joy in the Cross
📖  I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. John 15:11

Love in the Cross
📖  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16-17

Christ...(light the Christ Candle)

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.  Roman's 5:1-8

Because of THAT cross; a baby came into this world .....that is LOVE

Because of THAT cross; He bled and died, taking the punishment for our sin so that we would not have to suffer that Cross.... that gives us PEACE

Because of THAT cross; He died, but rose again three days later... that brings us JOY

He will return, and will not have to suffer THAT cross again..in that we have HOPE

So at Christmas time the Cross is just as relevant as the manger!
🙏 I pray this Christmas we celebrate all Christ's  Hope, Peace, Joy and Love given to us. Amen!
Have a Hopeful, Peaceful, Joyful, Loving Christmas❤✝️

There is JOY in the CROSS

Joy In the Cross

There is Hope in the Cross (light 1st purple candle)
There is Peace in the Cross (light 2nd purple candle)

The image of the cross of crucifixion seems contradictory to the idea of Joy...
But, if we think about it ...BECAUSE of the cross we are able to have joy.
(Light the pink candle)

Joy that first came with the birth...
📖  And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Luke 2:8-12

There is joy promised if we remain in His love and keep His commands
📖   “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 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.  John 15:9-13
He even alluded to the length in which He would go in His love for us.

Jesus Himself felt joy, being filled with the spirit
 📖 At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. Luke 10:21

Before He was led to the cross to die He prayed...wanting Joy ... His Joy.. for His disciples and ultimately for all of us who follow Him.
📖 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.  John 17:13

Jesus knew He was going to die on that cross...but also knew He wouldn't stay that way....He would rise again and we would be filled with joy...
📖 So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. John 16:22

Because HE is JOY...
No one..not even death can take Him away from those of us who believe!
HE is what makes true Joy possible, full and complete!
AMEN!!

🙏My prayer for you; no matter your circumstances this season you find true Joy, you find Him, in all you do.
❤