ONE DAY

Ever notice how one day just seems to melt into the next and the next? You get up, dress, eat breakfast and start your day. Yes, some days are easier and all seems to go right. Some days really suck! But, they do seem to even out. You go from day to day, doing what you have to do, without thinking about it. Then you get a promotion. Or win a vacation. Or meet that special someone.

Something out of the ordinary happens and the day changes from being just like yesterday to becoming the day you remember forever. Something out of the ordinary happens and your life changes.

SCRIPTURE: 1 JOHN 3:1-3

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.

AND NOW

Something out of the ordinary happens and the day changes. How great the love, We are children of God, When he appears.

Wow! Talk about out of the ordinary. I don’t know about you but the day I realized I AM A CHILD OF GOD, my life changed!

Dear friends, now we are children of God -- How great is the love the Father has lavished on us ---- repeat those words. Take a deep breath. Now another. Do you feel the love? Now close your eyes and just relax in God’s love.

LET US PRAY (Please use this as a beginning of your prayer. Finish in your own words, words from your heart.)

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for your love. Thank you for changing my life from ordinary into eternal. Amen

HE’S EVERYWHERE! HE’S EVERYWHERE!

PRIVACY

Credit card and other companies keep updating their privacy policies. The morning paper informed us that tracking devices along the highway will now track our cars. Surveillance cameras watch us as we shop and walk down the street. The government seems to want to know who we call and what our emails say. Facebook monitors our pages.

We post our life in words and pictures on Facebook. Some Tweet their every thought.

PRIVACY? What is that? There is no privacy anymore.

Has there ever been?

SCRIPTURE: PSALM 139:1-13 (The Message)

God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand. I'm an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking. You know when I leave and when I get back; I'm never out of your sight. You know everything I'm going to say before I start the first sentence. I look behind me and you're there, then up ahead and you're there, too - your reassuring presence, coming and going. This is too much, too wonderful - I can't take it all in! Is there any place I can go to avoid your Spirit? To be out of your sight? If I climb to the sky, you're there! If I go underground, you're there! If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon, you'd find me in a minute - you're already there waiting! Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I'm immersed in the light!" It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you. Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb.

HE’S EVERYWHERE!  HE’S EVERYWHERE!

I find such comfort in the fact that there is no privacy in my life. You see, it doesn’t matter what my neighbors know. What my family knows. Nor what my government knows. What matters is what God knows about me. About my life.

And God knows it all. God created me! God loves me! God gave His Son so I can stand before him clean and pure.

Privacy? There is no privacy! God knows everything about my life!

LET US PRAY (Please use this as a beginning of your prayer. Finish in your own words, words from your heart.)

O God, thank you for loving me enough to know me inside and out. Amen

GRADUATION

I am working on Chapter 10 of Matthew so I am ready when the class finishes Chapter 9. It takes work to stay ahead of them and they have been studying very hard. They are like the disciples; they have tried to understand the beatitudes, discussed how you do things like not worry and are amazed at the healing and ministry of Jesus.

We are almost ready for Chapter 10. The disciples are ready for graduation.

SCRIPTURE: MATTHEW 10:1

He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.

GRADUATION

Okay, so it doesn’t say they received a diploma but it is the same thing. They have been following Jesus. Learning from Jesus. And now? He called his twelve. Can you say double WOW? Just imagine being the disciples. Jesus calls you.

Jesus said, “Simon and Andrew, (Can you picture the love in Jesus’ eyes?) come to me. James and John, come. Philip and Bartholomew, come. Thomas and Matthew, come. James and Thaddaeus, come. Simon and Judas Iscariot, come.”

Matthew 10:5 -- These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions:

That is when they graduated. Yes, they would continue to learn from Jesus, but Jesus was giving them their diploma. They were ready to become workers. They were ready to go out and harvest souls for Jesus.

AND NOW

Have you graduated in your faith?

Are you ready to harvest souls for Jesus? If you are, then pray: Jesus, Call my name. Amen

DON’T LOOK BACK

Our Sunday School class has been studying Matthew. Chapters eight and nine are full of healings - physical, spiritual. Healing of Jews, Gentiles, adults and children are recorded one after another. Sometimes the person came on their own. Sometimes they were carried by friends. Sometimes one person came to request the healing of another. Sometimes they even asked Jesus to go to the person that was sick. Or heal the person without even going. And one woman just touched his cloak.

We have talked about these. How the healings made some “priests and leaders” a bit upset. How some thanked Jesus and how some were so thrilled they just told everyone. We discussed how being healed changed their lives. But, I realized we were missing something. There was something important we were overlooking.

I read an article in the Guidepost about a family that moved 22 miles but kept going back to their old church. 22 miles became a long drive and they began to attend a church closer to home. It didn’t go so great. People weren’t as friendly. No one saved them a seat at their church dinners. The author said she couldn’t move past polite chitchat. Until, “something inside me crumbled.”

She said, “I’m reminded that it’s okay to look back on the past, to cherish the memories, as long as you make room for the joy that is right before you.”

Light bulb moment!! That is the common thread we were missing. All the people that came to Jesus for healing had to change. Something inside each had to crumble. They could cherish memories of who they were but they had to make room for change. And in making room, they found joy.

AND NOW

Go back and read the accounts of healing. Look at each person, think about their life and find what they changed. What they let go of. It could be the traditions of their faith they cherish. It could be their pride. It could be their shame. Then think about the joy they received. Joy because they were willing to let go. They were willing to allow their life to change.

SCRIPTURE: Genesis 19:17, 26

As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away.” But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

AND NOW #2

Now talk about someone who could not let go. Lot’s wife was not willing to make room for something better.

On a personal level, what are you holding onto? Afraid to let go of? What is keeping you from having joy? What ties you down? Are you holding onto your memories (good and bad) to the point that you are missing out on the joy right in front of you? Do you make yesterday more important than today?

Look around. What do you see? What are you holding onto that keeps you from receiving 100% of what God has for you?

If an angel told you to flee, would you? Or would you look back? Are you a pillar of salt? Or are you full of joy?

LET US PRAY (Please use this as a beginning of your prayer. Finish in your own words, words from your heart.)

Lord, search me. Examine my life. What am I holding onto? What is right in front of me or what is way down in my little toe that I refuse to let go. What am I looking back at instead of looking to You? What do I need to change so I can have joy? So my spirit can be healed. Show me so I can come to You and be filled. Amen