Peace in the midst of Pain

We all have tribulation or trials which often lead to suffering and pain. Jesus taught in John 16:33:
"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."
His offer is for us to have peace, it is a given that there will be tribulation. Do we have peace in the midst of these storms of life?
The word peace has lost much of it's power in our day. The Greek word, Eirene and the Hebrew word Shalom speak of well-being, order, wholeness, completeness, blessing, peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. God living His Life through us to provide for us what we really need. We think we need to get rid of the tribulations when what our hearts need is peace.
The tribulations and trials of this world cause all kinds of pain. This pain may be the result of our sin, another person's sin, or simply because we live in a fallen world.
The way to experience shalom is through prayer;(Philippians 4:6-7) taking our trial and giving it to God to be used for Christ's sake, for His glory, according to His will.
This is not easy, I often pray for my sake, or my family's sake, for my friend's sake. You see I determine what I believe is best and then I want God to give the answers I think I need. Actually, to give our pain into the hands of our good, gracious and Loving God; to really trust Him, is to find this peace/shalom. His peace passes understanding, His peace is really what we all need and finding that peace that lives within us is reaching to His Spirit.
Today in the midst of the struggles of life...try prayer and may you experience His peace.

Do you want a Fruitful 2012?

As we wrap up 2011 and embark on 2012, we typically pause and evaluate our production. What has gone well and/or what needs improvement? There is plenty to consider when we evaluate the varied lives we live. It is easy to look at the externals in our lives and decide what we want to change, where we want to go, how we think our lives should look this next year naturally focusing on external production. It is another matter to consider changing our internal focus, to focus on our being rather than our doing. Could we consider living our lives bearing the fruit rather than producing the spiritual fruit? Would we benefit if we focused on abiding in Christ rather than producing for Christ?

On this earth the focus is on production, output, externals and performance. As believers in Jesus Christ we do want to produce, we do desire fruitful lives. And yes,we are designed to bear fruit. The temptation is to take on this world's methods of production; oh yes, we are trained to produce! God's fruit is difficult to define and for good reason. We are not to try and produce His fruit, we are simply to bear spiritual fruit.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.(Galatians 5:22-23). This fruit is simply an outward expression of the nature we received when we received the nature/spirit of Christ.

Christ lives in His children, our purpose is to allow Christ to live through us. We are simply branches(John 15:1-5), fruit-hangers. The branches do not determine what fruit they bear, they are not the producers of fruit. Branches do not determine when the fruit is produced, the seasons of fruit production. Branches do not decide who picks the fruit, how it's used, why it is produced or even who is impacted by the fruit. Thus branches are not burnt out, not working hard, they are not even concentrating on themselves or the fruit. Branches Simply Abide in the Vine.

To Abide; to sink into, to depend on,to dwell with, to remain in Christ. The idea is to be filled with the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, to surrender to Christ. Abiding is active, not passive. We must to choose to exchange our life, our agenda, for His. God can and will do things we cannot even imagine! What an adventure life can be, walking with the King of Kings, Lord of Lords on this earth.
How about evaluating if we can simply abide in Christ for the next 15 minutes?
May it lead to 15 more and 15 more..........
May you abide in Christ this day and begin a fruit-filled 2012.

God is not disappointed in you

Have you ever disappointed anyone? I mean really let them down, maybe it was your parents, kids, friends, spouse, boss, employees or your pastor. They were expecting you to come through and you failed, you fell short of their expectations. You were a disappointment.
We have all been in those situations, often what really hurts is the disappointment we feel toward ourselves. We know we let someone down; we can feel embarrassed, worthless, like a loser, shamed. We can wallow in our shame for years, feeling judged by every observation anyone makes about us or our lives. It is easy to take these same beliefs into our relationship with God. We sin, we fail, thus we believe God is disappointed in us. We know we have let Him down. At these times, we become convinced whatever happens, God must be punishing me. He must be judging me, paying me back for my failures.
Today I bring you good news of great joy, God is not disappointed in you!!
To be disappointed by definition means to be sad or displeased because someone or something failed to fulfill one's expectations.
But God knows!!! He is infinite, all-knowing, the Great I AM! God is not bound by time, He is eternal, no beginning, no end, He is I AM.
For God to be disappointed you would have to fail to meet His expectations, but God knows, He expects you to be here now. Take your situation and turn to Almighty God. He knows everything about you and loves you anyway!
Discipline not Disappointment

Changing Seasons

The seasons are changing, summer has given way to fall. The once green, healthy leaves on the trees now are a brownish yellow and they cover the yard(I probably should be raking). The trees stand uncovered ready for the cold blasts of winter that are certainly on the way. Baseball has given way to football, for Viking's fans we endure and begin to already look to next year.
I believe there is a spiritual picture in the changing seasons that is so obvious we often miss it, God works in our lives in seasons. Every season is important and necessary for to us to bear spiritual fruit.

We have seasons of rest, re-staging in our lives, maybe some pruning, like winter. Our role in the winter is to abide.
We have seasons of new spiritual growth, vibrant life appears, like in the spring, our role is to abide.
We have seasons of spiritual maturity, they often involve discipline, pain and heat like the summer. We trust, our role is to abide.
We have seasons of bearing fruit, we experience the harvest, fall...our role is to abide.
As the seasons change around us, we for some reason do not expect our spiritual seasons to change. We expect a continual harvest,it ends. In the midst of pruning and discipline we think it will never end, yet the seasons change. Each season in our lives is designed by our loving God to bring us to maturity in Christ, our role is to abide. To abide; to dwell, to tarry, to live, to rest, to be at home in Christ. Our role is to surrender, to walk in the Spirit....simply to abide.
Whatever season you are in today, decide to look to God and rest in His grace, trust Him, His plan is for our good and His glory.
For all the Vikings fans we can celebrate yesterday's victory and look forward to this week's game(wait a bye week)...next week's game, enjoying the football season as it unfolds with the ups, downs, highs and lows...rather than looking to next year,we can just enjoy the moments of this season.

Strive to take God's Grace too far...

     I believe we are naturally afraid of grace, we are taught there is no free lunch or there is nothing of value that is not earned. Maybe we might be believing.... "If we let this grace thing get out of hand, what will people do?" "Will everyone just go crazy in sin?" " Who will serve God if they don't feel forced to serve?" " Will God's law be trampled?"
     Consider John 1:14-18, Jesus Christ is full of grace and truth.
     We as believers can accept that God is Truth; Jesus is God; He is the Word; He is the ultimate Truth. We can accept that Christ is the One who perfectly kept all of God's law. So what are we to think about all this "full of grace" stuff?

     Jesus Christ is completely full of God's Grace. Consider taking God's Grace too far, imagine if you take God's Grace so far, I mean so far that you are full of it (you can't go any farther than full, right?) Where does this complete and total grace lead? Of course,the only place it can lead is to Jesus Christ. If we are filled with God's Grace, we keep God's Laws, because Christ fulfills the law through us. If we surrender to Christ and allow His Life to live through us, how will He live? Amazing...His amazing Grace!!
More:
Strive to take God's Grace too far

Greater Works

I am convinced that we have a more vivid and real faith in the past work of Christ than in His present work in our lives. We believe the Word, the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of fire that led God's people toward the promised land. We believe God sent the fire to burn up Elijah's sacrifice on Mt. Carmel, we believe that Jesus caused the blind to see, the lame to walk, even that He raised Lazarus from the dead.

In John 14:12 Jesus said " Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he shall do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father."

Have you witnessed these greater works? Consider, Lazarus died again! Consider as believers in Jesus Christ we go from death to life, separate from God, spiritually dead to alive!  Not only a temporary life, but eternal life! Think about all the believers you know, the work that God did in them is greater than physically raising Lazarus from the dead. God has allowed us to experience great miracles. We are living in amazing times, pause today and be thankful. Jesus is in the Father, we are in Him and He is in us, John 14:20. Praise!!!

Worry or Pray #3

Philippians 4:6-7           Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
         We are commanded to be anxious for nothing and to pray about everything. So what do we get? PEACE.
Now we can admit what we usually want are answers, we want results, we want solutions to our problems. We think we need answers, results, solutions, yet we have a Heavenly Father who knows what we really need and what we need is Peace! That's right, what we really need as we face anxiety, problems, changes, challenges and circumstances beyond our control, we need peace.
We need that peace that passes understanding, peace that permeates deep into our souls. His peace lets us know that God is God, that He is in control,that He loves us and that all will be well. This peace  let's know that God is at work that His plan is in place and even when we don't understand, we can trust. This moment on this day, as you face life, be not anxious. Pray and may you be overwhelmed by the peace of God!