As any follower of Christ should know, he is worthy.  But, what exactly does that mean?  Do our lives reflect in any way that we believe that he is worthy?

I know that most of the time my own does not.  Sure, I praise him.  I adore him.  I love him.  I talk to him.  I listen out for him.  I look for him.  But am I really serving him like I should, if he is worthy.

To define worthiness is to understand that he is great.  He is excellent.  He is valuable.  He is important.  He is deserving.

We sing about how great our God is.  We know when we need, he supplies, when we hurt, he heals, when we cry, he wipes our tears.  And even though you probably don’t have any doubts, I sometimes do.  And he sends what I need to overcome them.  He loves me and forgives me and accepts me as I am and that is just a small part of why he is worthy.

We celebrate his excellence.  Just look at the magnificence of his creation.  When each of my grandkids were born, I went to see them at the hospital and one of the first things that always caught my attention was their tiny fingers.  So small and delicate, some not much thicker than a matchstick, yet they worked just like my own.  As they grasped one of my fingers, I marveled that something so tiny worked just like mine did and also had a surprisingly strong grip.  And the fingers of a baby are just the beginning.  Even though with twelve grandchildren, that did give me 120 amazing little symbols of God’s excellence.

We all have different ideas about value.  Some find money valuable, some knowledge, some power, and some prestige.  Some find family valuable, some friends, and some pets.  Some find solitude valuable, some a noisy crowd, some a quiet few.  Valuing something or someone is simply seeing it as very important.  Since this is so, God is the most valuable.   He is the one who actually provides all the things that I have listed here and any other thing that anyone values.  And even without those things, he is simply all we really need.

God’s importance just cannot be overemphasized.  Everything I have said so far would not even be, without him.  If you believe in him, and I did not for so very long, then you know that every day that you wake up, you owe to him.  Without him, nothing that exists would or could exist.  And just think of the fellowship with him.  As I said, there was a time when I did not believe that he was real, and I was a miserable, depressed person.  I did not love, except myself, and could not love.  I am still learning how even now.  And he helps me by, and in, his closeness.

What does he deserve then?  He deserves me.  And he deserves you.  He deserves my praise, my adoration and my love.  He deserves my time, my attention and my thought.  He deserves my effort and my ability.  He deserves my obedience and my labor.  He deserves so much more than I am or can give.  So I simply have to give him all of me.  You have to also.

He is worthy and we need to start showing him we believe it.  There are so many ways we can do this better than we do.  Thinking about this, I have come to realize we blow it right at the start.
What is Sunday to you?  For me it is the day I go to church.  I go to serve (teach) and worship.  I go to praise and get fed.  I go to rest and receive from God.  This is probably what a lot of us do.  And there is nothing wrong with this.

If we think about it further, how much preaching and teaching and singing do we allow before we start getting a little frustrated?  Doesn’t the pastor realize I have some things to get done this afternoon?  A little extra work would get me so far ahead next week.  Penney’s has a great sale and it ends today.  The game starts at two o’clock and I still have to eat lunch.  The kids are bringing the grandchildren over.  Just how much time does God need?

But what is Sunday to God?  Some of us confused Christians like to say Sunday is the Sabbath.  I do not think it is.  God began his work on the first day and he stopped on the seventh.  He called it Sabbath and it was for rest.  He did not need rest, but he knew we would, so he set the example.  I believe Saturday is still the Sabbath and we should still be resting on it.  I believe if we truly used the last day of the week as God intended we could have real rest.  The week’s battles could be laid at his feet and he would guard and protect us in our downtime.  (Thoughts from a warfare worldview)

Sunday is the first day, the Lord’s day.  It is the day our work starts.  What we do at church is only the beginning.  We need to get up out of bed with the knowledge and attitude that this is the day we start our weeks work.  And we start by meeting our God and King for his guidance, equipping, and blessing for this week’s mission.  We have to realize our work is warfare.  The work he began by creating has been corrupted and usurped by his and our enemies.  Our work (mission) is to take it back and help to restore it.  By noon or a little after, most of us are done.  We have given almost all we are going to give to God this week.

Let’s show him we think he is worthy by trying to at least give him all of ourselves for that one day.  What might that look like?  I am not sure but I would love to read some of your ideas.

I do know that to serve him is to love.  It is to love him and to love others.  This is all Sunday should be.  A day of love.  If we start the week off with love, the rest will more readily follow the same path.

Love you all.

Tags: Church, Creation, grandkids, Love, Praise, Sin, warfare, Worth, worthiness

There was a time not too long ago when I did not believe in very much, especially not God.  I believed in myself and that was about it.  The belief I am talking about I simply define as the ability to trust, and rely on someone or something. 

I did not know it then, but have come to realize now, that we all are missing something.  There is a place in our “heart” that is empty, until we fill it.  That place is meant to be filled with God.  He is what we are all missing until we get on board with Him.

If we do not fill it with Him then we all find something else to replace Him or we just feel empty.  I have been there and you may have also.  The problem is that the things we fill it with are not everlasting.  They will eventually lose the ability to satisfy. 

When I joined the army I found something bigger than myself to fill that place to a degree.  It’s called patriotism.  I gained a sense of pride for and love of the nation I live in.   Emotions seemed to well up in me when the flag was raised, when the anthem was sung, and when patriots were honored. 

Just a few months after I first got saved and joined my church, on Memorial Day weekend, my pastor called up all the veterans in my church and recognized them honorably for the service they had performed.  It was the first time anyone had ever given me an honorable mention, I believe, in my life.  As I have noted before, I was a loner and as such, just didn’t “belong” or “join” in very much.

But that felt good.  The sense of being a part of something bigger than myself gave me one of the first glimpses of how good it was to “belong”.  And I mistakenly grabbed hold of that patriotism again.  I was newly saved but God had not yet filled the empty places in my heart to the limits.  I squeezed a little bit of that old sense of pride in this nation into the recesses, the nooks and crannies where God was not, yet.

But, as anyone who is actively seeking to grow in relationship with God can attest, He will fill and overfill that place I am talking about.  He will squeeze out all of the empty things we try to fill ourselves with, if we let Him.  And when we do let Him, we will be better for it.      

Thinking of all that I just said, I have come to realize that America is not a “Christian nation”, though at one time it may have been close.  A nation cannot be a Christian.  Only people can.  A Christian is simply a member of the family and the army of God.  A nation cannot be a family member.  A nation is simply a place.  And I do believe we should aspire to be a nation of Christians.  A nation of true Christians, as I have been saying, truly could change the world. 

Some think that just because we are not all Christians then we must allow this country to be the change agent.  That somehow a nation, that has no soul, no morality in itself, can affect change.  The people are the soul of the nation.  And that should show us quickly that this is not a Christian nation because it has been quite a while since the people of this nation were mostly Christians.   

America is not a “shining city on a hill”.   We are a free nation and one of the very best examples of freedom in the world.  We should let our light of freedom be a shining example for the entire world.  But never think that this alone makes us good.  The very freedom we enjoy has also led to the very godlessness that we see on display. 

America is not the “greatest blessing God gave mankind”, though it is a great nation, even somewhat worthy, of our conditional adoration.   But we must remember the greatest blessing God gave man was His Son.  And the greatest benefit of that is that we have become citizens of a new nation, a better nation. 

Patriotic sentiment has its place but we mustn’t let it expand beyond its acceptable borders. We mustn’t let a belief that changing laws, changing elected officials, and changing what political party is in control, is actually going to change people.  Only Jesus changes people. 

We are citizens of both a country and a Kingdom.  Born into the USA but reborn into the Kingdom of God.  And that rebirth is the better of the two.  We must be careful not to confuse the one for the other.

America is not.  It is not going to make you happy.  It is not going to give you peace.  It is not helping you prepare for eternity.  It is not going to get your child, your grandchild, saved. 

America is not. 

Love you all

Tags: America, Belief, Believe, Christians, Church, Eternity, God, Good, King, Kingdom, Law, Lie, Life, Love, Rebirth, Self, Service, Sin, Trust, Worth

Jonathan Wallis was born on April 4 1975.  His father was a steelworker and his mother was a waitress.  He didn’t have much when he was a child because his parents split up early in his life.  But he was a good boy and when his mother had to work at two jobs he had a lot of time alone.  He loved to read and stayed out of serious trouble and after a rough start, did very well in school.  He put himself through college and graduated with two doctorates.  At the age of thirty one in 2006 he developed a laser treatment that removed tumors in the brain without invasive surgery.

Susie Johnston was also born in 1975.  Her parents were in college when she was born and the strain on their relationship was tremendous but, they worked through it and were able to raise Susie in a good, loving, giving environment.  She became a nurse and in 2003 moved to South America to open an orphanage and medical clinic.

Josh Burroughs was born in August 1975.  He was placed in a state home immediately because his mother was in a rehab program and didn’t want him.  He was moved around for a few years and was abused.  But the Burroughs, Bill and Gloria, adopted him at 10 years of age.  With a lot of love and affirmation they motivated him to also finish college and move into research.  Just this year he announced, along with his team, that they had developed a cure for AIDS.

By this time you might be saying to yourself, “Wait a minute.  I haven’t heard of any of this.”  And you would be right.  None of the above happened.  I made it all up.  I was just wondering, what might have been. 

These three fictitious people, born thirty three years ago, might have been real.  They might just be three of the over one million casualties of war that happened in the worst battleground that existed in 1975.  That battleground was the womb of a woman that was told it was her right to kill an innocent.  An unwanted and unplanned child could be slaughtered in the womb and discarded as trash by any woman for any reason.  What an age of compassion and enlightenment we live in. 

Legislation was passed as the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), and signed into law in 1970.  This established the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Council on Environmental Quality

In 1972, the United Nations held the first Human Environment conference which led to the development of special government agencies like the UN Environment Program to help regulate and set environmental standards.  This was so we could make sure and protect this earth we live on. 

In 1973 came the Endangered Species Act.  Peter Singer was also working on his book, Animal Liberation, which was published in 1975.  His main thesis is that if women can have rights, then animals should too. 

Our enemy also won a major victory in 1973.  Around the same time so many came to the defense of the planet and the animals that live on it, a few men sold out to the enemy and overturned many state laws that had protected the innocent child. 

And look at how far we have come.  We have a multitude of laws protecting the environment and animals.  We have groups out to convince us of global warming and animal species extinction.  We can go to jail for inhumane treatment of an animal.  We can’t even, by law, put a dog out of its misery in old age but instead, must let a veterinarian do it, in case we cause it to inadvertently suffer.

Peter Singer has moved on to teaching that a child is not even a person until some elusive time when it obtains, “rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness.” These are required for a child to have the “essential characteristics of personhood.” 

So it’s okay that since 1973, because of some of our most prestigious judges being sold out to the enemy, we, as a nation, have slaughtered almost forty million innocent children in the name of selfishness. 

Imagine the potential that has been wasted.  Some of the earlier casualties of this warfare would be reaching the ages of maximum contribution to society.  God had a plan and a set of abilities and gifts for each one of them.

In the fiction I wrote at the beginning of this article, Jonathan was aborted because the parents didn’t really love each other and didn’t want a kid.  Susie was aborted because her parents found her to be inconvenient and an unfair burden to come from an evening of fun.   And no one was there for Josh’s mother to tell her that she could do something different.  The center she was in just wanted the child out of the way. 

There are many reasons that some think they should murder the innocent.  And I really hate that I sound so harsh.  And I do not judge or condemn anyone that has made this decision.  God loves you no matter what you might have done.  He can forgive you for whatever you might have done. 

I just wanted to point out one thing. 

Satan told Eve a lie.  She believed it and brought all of us into a war we didn’t ask for.  He is still lying.  He is telling some that murder is okay and he is telling some that it doesn’t matter if others do it as long as they don’t.  If anyone is okay with abortion, whether a woman having one, or a politician okay with it, or a person ignoring this by their vote, they are serving the enemy.

Anyone that could be a party to the dismemberment of an innocent, helpless child is deceived by the enemy of all of our souls.

Don’t buy into his lie?

I really love you all

Tags: Abortion, Church Issues, Enemy, Evil, Kingdom, Lie, Lies, Murder, Pain, Selfishness, Silence, Spiritual Warfare, Value, Worth

Psa 139:14  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. ESV

I work in construction; cabinet sales, design and installation; and before this year started I was overwhelmed with more work than I could stand, almost.  It was financially rewarding but temporally taxing.  I had no time to do much more than work and go to church.  I had no clue what a blog was. 

Then the work came to almost a screeching halt.  A lot of people in the construction industry are not doing too well right now. Please pray with us and for us.

But that is not what I want to write about.  It is simply that I have quite a bit more time on my hands and this is how I started finding blogs and forums and online communities.  At first it was not that interesting to me.  People writing about politics and sports, their families and pets, and a vast array of other topics, didn’t hold my interest very long.  Then I found a site called Evangelical Outpost and I read quite a bit of its archives.  I was hooked.  Then I found some others like Parchment and Pen and Theologica.  All of these led to more than I could keep up with.  It made me want to write.

You see, I love talking about God.  What Jesus did for me is just so amazingly mind boggling that I can’t shut up.  So, since I spend more time alone than with people, this is an excellent way to keep me from just talking to myself or to God about Himself.  Although, that has been quite rewarding itself.  But God does want us to do the work He has left us to do.  To fight the battles that are before us.  This is just one of the ways I am following His orders.   

But there was a big problem.  I didn’t feel like I could possibly have any impact.  I wanted to have the writing skill that my brother in Christ, Shannon Mimbs, has.  I wanted to reflect the deep insight I detect in the posts of Dan at Cerulean Sanctum.  I didn’t want to make spelling or grammatical errors that would be out there for all the world to see.  (Like that might happen)  But finally, and I truly believe God told me this, I realized that it didn’t matter.  I was not supposed to be any of those others. 

David wrote the passage in the Psalms that I used above, and it applies to us all.  You and I were fearfully and wonderfully made.  We are precious in the eyes of God.  (1Pe 2:4)  Each and every one of us has a role to play, a part to do, a mission to accomplish.  (Eph 4:16)  We all have been given gifts to use in service to one another.  (1Pe 4:10) We are unique, one of a kind, and this is how God made us. 

We appraise and valuate a thing based on a few criteria.  A gem will be worth more if it is rare and or unique.  Gold’s valuation is determined on its scarcity and beauty.  An original piece of art is worth so much more than the best copy.  It has always amazed me that a forgery of art that is so good it may not be detected for years, once it is exposed, becomes worthless.  Copies are not worth a thing.  Even if almost perfect. 

So I don’t need to be you.  And you don’t need to be me.  We are the way we are and with the help of the Holy Spirit, any changes that need to be made will be.  But His mission is not to change me into you, it is to change me into a better me. 

All of my brothers and sisters rejoice in who you are, in who God made you to be.  You are precious to God and He wants to use you.  Use the gifts and abilities He has given to you. 

Don’t waste time trying to be someone else or envying their gifting and wasting yours. 

Love you all

Tags: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, Identity, Praise, Value, Worth, Writing