This Christmas, The Best Christmas

There is a need this season, as there is always that stubborn need. That need which sticks around all year for the families living in poverty. On such a commercial celebration as is Christmas, the poor feel especially left out for they have nothing to give. Those that have no gifts for their children and are planning on making a visit to the hospital with a parent dying from cancer. There is much cause for all children with gifts under the tree and parents who can give them to be joyful and thankful to God Almighty that they should have such a privilege. I know there are many who do not have such a joy. Their worries are not if they have the latest xbox or the coolest clothes, but if they have diapers because they have no means of getting any more without some form of charity from someone who cares.

This Christmas has been the best for me personally. God continues to answer my prayer to use me for His will. There was a need for 27 pairs of shoes for a Christmas gift for less fortunate neighbors in my community. There was a fund raising of the expected funds required for such a gift. By a miracle from heaven, God provided a half price sale the day we just happened to make our purchase by no planning or knowledge on our part. God gave 43 pairs of shoes that day. There were 18 apartments where children have 1 additional reason this year to know they are loved and 18 sets of parents out there know someone cares about them as well.

I think I am hooked on walking with the Lord. I am beginning to see that there is no other way for me. I can find no other fulfillment. I can imagine nothing I would rather do. Who would not want to restore justice in the world? Who would not want to stand up for truth? Who would not want to love others no matter who they are or what they've done to you? Who would not want to do what is right? Where else can you do those things? I have found no other place than this faith.

Where else can my heart be opened up and exposed to people close to me? Where else do you find people who care about life, about family, about community, about marriage, about saving babies from being murdered, about helping the poor, about respecting parents, about respecting women for more than just looks, or for raising the bar on morality? Where else can you prepare for eternity if not in the faith? Where else can we turn but to Jesus Christ? He opened the way for us to follow, which leads us into all those things, such as truth, justice, morality. If we pursue any of those things by themselves, we are pursuing a part of Him, a part of divine things. Those absolute good things are divine, they are heavenly and they are only shadows cast on a wall here on planet Earth. But just because they are shadows here, some say they don't exist. They say truth is relative, you decide for yourself what is true. Just because the shadows are not real does not mean there is not something on the other side of heaven, which is real and does exist, casting those shadows. And anyhow, I would rather die with principles and dreams that I chased and pursued than to die with not having stood up for anything I believed in. If a man firmly believes that life is about partying, sex, drugs, and having excessive material goods....Then let him have all of it he wants, at least he is following what he believes. But if a man catch a glimpse of the possibility that there are things of a divine nature here that can be pursued and lived upon and he not pursue what he believes to exist, than shame on him.

All that to say, I am happy this Christmas. I believe I am more happy, joyful and fulfilled than I have ever been in my life. Thank you Jesus for paving the way. And I look to the future with anticipation for whatever may come my way. Even if it be difficulty and trouble, I look forward to pursuing the truth and living by my convictions for all of my life.

Thankful

I am blown away with what God does in my life. I am now 3 years having been reborn a Christian and I wonder how I could not see God, when He was just as active in my life for the first 25 years as now. I regret that I did not see God so clearly as now. Just think about that, 25 years of living and I was completely oblivious to God. Looking back now, I can clearly see God moving in my life. But alas, I was so focused looking inwardly at myself, I was unable to see Him working outside me and all around me.

One day God intersected my path with a Christian that lived out his faith day by day. He did not profess he was a Chrisitan and make it a label only, but he acted funny (Not in a ha, ha way) but in an alien kind of way. To me he just did not belong among the sorts of people I had known. He was patient and kind. Funny, oh yes, he was. But most of all he lived a higher standard and did not step down to join in the office filth. His language was clean and he spoke in a strange dialect. Now I can recollect, that what he spoke was the truth. He spoke the gospel of peace and love, from our loving Saviour, who has risen above. To me a friend he did become. It was friendship that brought me to a saving faith. That one I knew looked like Jesus saved by grace, changed my heart and selfish ways. So yes today I must proclaim, "I am thankful, indeed, that Christ still saves."

Thank you God for people like Carl and all those courageous Christians you have placed in my life. Thank you that there are those who lay down their life and give their all for the kingdom that is to come. Thank you for love. Thank you for answering prayer and thank you for taking the smallest things we do and making them huge for your glory. Thank you for others in my own family that have stepped closer to the Lord in recent time. May there be much more of that and even strangers I don't know well!

May there be many more like me that become thankful for people like Carl. May we all walk out and be the church not just attend the church. So the lost will see the hope to which we are called, a transformed life, shining like stars.

Every day I have now I am thankful. I delight in waiting on God for answers to His will. I am amazed with the people I seem to encounter and discourse with. So many messages come funneling in through one book after another that just seem to hit my hands at the "right" time to meet me where I am at to help me along my journey with God. Excited I am to see what God has for the future. It is a mystery to me that God would want me and be willing to guide me, may I be so willing to guide others that are undeserving just like me.

God grow my love and let it abound without end, like your Son that showed us where to begin.

Set your Gaze upon God!

O Loving-Kindness so old and still so new, I have been too late of loving Thee. You are young, my brethren; profit therefore I beseech you from my confession, that I cared too little to employ my early years for God. Consecrate all yours to His love. If I had only known Him sooner, if I had only had someone tell me then what I am telling you, I should not have so long delayed in loving Him. Believe me, count as lost each day you have not used in loving God.

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

How many days have I wasted? How much time, how many moments? God stands with open arms every day, every moment hoping for all to seek Him, trust Him, to do His will. I think it is too easy to have too much radio, tv, internet, music, worship services, sermons, work to do, and phone calls to make, AND we can do it all without ever having fixed our souls gaze onto God Almighty. We can do so many things but never be in love with God. We can have so many things coming into our ears and eyes but never take the time in silence to enter into the presence of Almighty God. I declare all things a waste of time if the person involved never enters into the presence of God. After all, that is what this personal relationship with God is. The opportunity through grace that God has wanted us to spend time with Him. That we can find our peace and direction and strength from time with Him.

The words that live on past a life. The words that echo through time announcing the truths of God. Words of life, the Living Word Jesus Christ Himself. So precious are these Words that point us back to God.

One of the things Brother Lawrence based his life on was a continual practice of focusing his thoughts on God, of communing with God continually throughout the day while working. He saw it rather strange to separate out a prayer time from any other time, as God is more than capable of being with us always. I quite agree. But I find myself struggling to attain such a communion with God.

Equality of all in Christ

There is a wall that needs to be broken down. This wall separates those that are being servants of Christ and those that are only watching. There is no Biblical precedent for 1 day a week Christianity. What we do on Sunday, entering into the presence of God, should be an everyday experience. Jesus opened the way for all to have personal relationship with Almighty God. Who is man that God is mindful of him? We have been given much more than we could ever imagine. Is that why it's so hard for most to accept the hand of Christ outstretched for them? That it is so hard to come to comprehend that God had mercy on them in their fallen nature. That the King of Glory wants to spend time with any single person. How great and awesome is that invitation?

We have a Savior who wants to lead us individually. He has a ministry for every believer. He has a love for every believer. He has a gift for every believer. He will talk and tug on the heart of every believer. Do we believe it? Do we really trust Him for our every day waking life?

I say we tear down the wall between clergy and laity. We are all brothers in Christ. We are all one. Jesus is the head. He is building His Church. These walls confuse most on what real Chrisitianity is. There is freedom in Christ. Freedom for all to pursue God with all their heart, mind, and strength. We as "leaders" should not confuse and put up walls but rather break down walls and shine the light on Jesus with His hand outstretched waiting for each person to come to Him on their own.

There are families waiting. There are lost relatives waiting. There are convictions and movings of the Holy Spirit waiting.

God may we see a revival of authentic relationship of every believer with You......

My First Love

He (God) complains much of our blindness, and cries often that we are to be pitied who content ourselves with so little. God, saith he, has infinite treasure to bestow, and we take up with a little sensible devotion which passes in a moment. Blind as we are, we hinder God and stop the current of His graces. But when He finds a soul penetrated with a lively faith, He pours into it His graces and favors plentifully; there they flow like a torrent, which, after being forcibly stopped against its ordinary course, when it has found a passage, spreads itself with force and abundance.

Yes we often stop this torrent, by the little value we set upon it. But let us stop it no more; let us enter into ourselves and break down the bank which hinders it. Let us make way for grace; let us redeem the lost time, for perhaps we have but little left; death follows us close, let us be well prepared for it; for we die but once, and a miscarriage there is irretrievable.

Brother Lawrence (1614-1691), The Practice of the Presence of God

Oh please God, let me not be content with so little. Lord you are the treasure that I seek. Let me find myself in your presence. Teach me how to love you with all my heart, mind, and strength.

Sometimes it is so easy to forsake our first love. The greatest and what should be the most glorious of honors to obey, the command to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, and strength. How often do we loose God in the middle of religious repitition? How often do we go through the motions having not spent a moment with God, because we were so wrapped up in our lives, worries, fears, and events of the day. How often do I have a Bible study time that at the end I hurried and didn't allow myself to enjoy His presence?

It can be so easy to be so busy, to totally ignore God. Sometimes what I am doing looks totally like what I want to be doing, rather than what God wants me doing. Do I even ask anymore what He may want me to do? Or do I follow my routine. Has my relationship with God become stale?

Ignite the fire Lord. Kindle the fire that still smolders inside me. Lord, what is this passion, that feeling, when I am near to you? I have heard it called, the burning heart. It can be so hard to describe when I am in your presence. It feels so good. You have placed a treasure before us, to freely partake of. You have set the table for us to dine at in abundance. Time with you God, that is worth all. To love you and be loved by you. I was made to fall in love with you.

Whats it like?

This is what I see as I walk through a neighborhood today:

Young children playing on a swing set. Two feet from their play lies broken glass mixed with trash. Looks like someone carelessly left it on the ground. Walking through the neighborhood I spy several individuals that look like trouble. Not too far ahead are some more children at play with a young mother swinging her daughter. As I get closer, I can't help but notice the curse words spray painted on the side of the playgrounds slide. The young child is innocently swinging beside it. A young man comes riding his bicycle along the sidewalk. The coat he is wearing comes down to his ankles and he drowns in the coat. A thought runs through my mind, how do these kids stand a chance?

Mark 10:14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these."

The children are innocent. Sure some of the people in this neighborhood made bad choices. Sure some people abuse the system. But don't forget, some people had a bad turn of events. Some of these people are good people on hard times. And some of these people need a little love. Jesus told us: these kids are innocent and are willing to love no holds barred. As we grow older we loose that innocent affection we so freely gave as kids. My heart goes out to these kids growing up in a place they did not choose. I wonder to myself, what would I be this day if I grew up a tough place like this?

I would like to make known to all followers of Christ. There are opportunities in all communities to touch the less fortunate. There are people with problems you and I never have to consider. There are kids and adults who have a sparkle in their eye. Come with me to the Kokomo Urban Outreach and spend some time with these kids. Their eyes sparkle with a hope. There is something that does not see all the junk they live in, it rises above it. It hopes. It loves. It wants to be loved. Whatever that thing is, Jesus was knew it was there. These kids haven't given up yet.... There is an opportunity to impact them with caring. Are you willing to care? As a community, we should wrap our arms around them.

There is something in the air theses days that I am hearing. God is calling us from all different denominations to come together and affect Kokomo for Christ. There is one creed, Christ. There is opportunity. Will you help? Will you walk like you talk? Will you do like you say you believe?

Kokomo Urban Outreach Sunday 4 P.M. - 6 P.M. Location: Trinity United Methodist
North 1 block off Hoffer on Locke Street. Email me if you have any questions dmiracle2003@yahoo.com

If you have any input or a heart for any of these issues, there are also opportunitites to get involved in addressing these things to: Public transportation, Mentoring/getting in schools, Youth/kids opportunities, and Food assistance

God guide us how to best love this city......

Love your neighbor as Yourself

I often wonder about love. The Bible says, "No greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13)." Elsewhere we find, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37)."

I hope one day I can love like Jesus, like God, loved us. A sacrificial love that has no regard for the self. I long for a total abandonment of flesh for true love. The law of the Lord our God can be made so simple, with one word, Love. So simple yet it can be so hard.

When I love, I dedicate my time and energy to whom I am loving. This blog is my love to encourage others onward with Christ. My love for God, that He would have His will done. Oh, if we as Chrisitians could just become more loving. Can you imagine the dysfunction in families that would disappear when love ruled in the household? Can you imagine what would happen to the divorce rate if husband and wife started loving each other with the love of Christ? Jesus has brought us new life. A life that doesn't have to be dysfunctional with people close to you, but rather we can truly, truly start to love and heal our families. We can heal this city. We can heal this state. We can heal this country, with love.

Love can tear down the fatherless families and help them to be loving fathers again. Love can remove the need for drug addiction. Love can lift up the widow and the poor. Oh may we have a little more love. When things get to complicated, keep it simple....Accept the love of Christ. Accept forgiveness for your pride, selfishness, and sin. Accept the mercy that was extended when none was worthy to receive a sacrifice of Jesus life, in love for us while we were still in sin and dead to God. Then go and love, give back what you received for others to KNOW HIM! Share the love Jesus suffered to give to us.