Text: Luke 1:6 Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” 29 But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. 30 Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS…..38 Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. (NKJV)
1. An Announcement from God (v26-28)
-Mary was made aware that God was speaking to her. In her case, it was an angel. God has a way of getting our attention when He desires to call us into action for His plans and purposes.
-(List the ways that God can speak to us and briefly share those here in the sermon)
2. A Response of Fear (v29-30)
-Mary was troubled and afraid. We too are initially afraid when God begins revealing what He wants to do. Even God speaking to us can be an intense experience that rattles us.
-(Share a time the Lord spoke to you and you were afraid when you considered what was happening.)
3. A Promise of Favor (v28-29)
-Twice the Lord lets Mary know He has come to favor her. It is important for us to know that God’s intentions for us are always in our best interest. It is a sign of favor when the Lord invites you into what He is doing.
-(share a story of someone who experienced God’s favor because of stepping into God’s plans)
4. A Conception and Birthing
-Mary was told she would conceive and birth a child. With us, there is also the development within us of what God wants to do. It is a step into a process. As we faithfully carry it, it will be brought forth.
-(share how it is important to be patient and allow God to develop things. Use other biblical examples here)
5. A Response of Faith (v38)
-Mary heard, overcame her fear and said "Yes, be it unto me!" She demonstrated faith and obedience.
-Call for people to say yes to what God is speaking to them.
6. A Focus on Jesus (v31)
-Mary’s call was to birth the Christ child.
-When God is at work in us, it is always about forming Christ in us and making him known to others. For us to live is Christ!!!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
What happend in Jail last night?
Text: Acts 16:25 but at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed27 And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. 28 but Paul called with a loud voice, saying, “Do you no harm, for we are all here.” 29 Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. 34 Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with his entire household. (NKJV)
This dramatic event has several elements that make up its fascinating story.
1. Maintain a Faith Filled Attitude Under Pressure
(Paul and Silas were praying and singing instead of griping and complaining)
2. Expect God to Shake Things Up When Crunch Time is On
(Many, many times in the Bible, we see God’s miracles related to timing. There are a lot of earthquakes, but this one happened at just the right time. Some might think this was a miraculous intervention but just a natural occurrence. Hamm? Why did the shackles release them but the place did not fall in on them and kill them. Doors opening and chains loosening sounds like some Angels were pretty busy.)
3. Look for Redemptive Opportunities in the Midst of the Shaking
(Often we miss the greatest opportunities by being distracted. Paul seized the opportunity to step in and minister to the jailor who assumed everyone had escaped which would have meant his life. I personally believe Paul had a word of knowledge about what the jailor was about to do because there was no light in the place. I think this added to the Jailor’s awareness that the God, to whom Paul and Silas had been singing, was doing something extraordinary.)
4. Learn to Receive Good from those Who Once Hurt You
(What a beautiful site to see the jailor washing their stripes. No bitterness in either heart. Wow!)
5. Watch the Ripple Effects of Obedience
(Paul and Silas were able to witness a whole family’s conversion because they kept their faith under pressure.)
Conclusion–What jail or you in this morning? In what way is pressure being placed upon you? How have you been handling it? What changes do you need to make?
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Sermon: Thanksgiving
Luke 17:12-19
The story of the leper in Mark 1:40 this way
"'Hello, I'm a leper!' A man popped out from behind a building and stood right in front of Jesus. 'Please don't run away, Jesus!'
"'What's the matter with your skin?' asked Jesus.
"'Can't You see I'm covered with runny sores and crusty scabs?' No one wants to look at me, my face is so horrible.'
"'What do you want Me to do?'
"'You can make me better. I know You can,' said the man, falling on his knees in front of Jesus. 'If You don't, I'll scratch myself to death.'
"Jesus felt sorry for the poor man.
"'Don't touch me,' said the man. 'That's how you get it.'
"'I'm not afraid to touch you.' Jesus reached down and took hold of the man's arms and pulled him to his feet. The itching was gone. The sores started to dry. The scabs began to fall off.
"'Thank You, thank You, thank You!' shouted the man. 'What can I do to thank You?'
"'You can go to the temple, show yourself to a priest and say a prayer of thanks to God.'
"'Yes, yes; I will, I will!' promised the man hurrying off.
"'One more thing,' said Jesus.
"'Anything, anything,' said the man.
"'You don't have to tell anyone what I just did.'
"'I won't tell a soul,' said the man as he skipped toward Jerusalem; but the man was so happy and the walk to the temple was so long that he forgot and told everyone he met. Then all the other lepers along the road began to look for the wonderful Man with the healing touch."
The story well told of the gratitude of good lepers. Good lepers are those who are healed and never forget the disease they once had. They remember how good clean feels. Bad lepers, on the other hand, are those who are healed and go on acting as if they never had the disease.
Ninety percent of all the lepers in Luke 17 are ingrates—bad lepers pretending they never met Jesus. What a shame! They were so completely healed that there was not a smidgen of their former state of decay left to them. They were se healed, they headed back to the social centers of their communities. These pretenders were free to run for office—any office they might imagine. They were free to return to their former bridge clubs, Kiwanis clubs, golf clubs. Their once former scourge-word-confession, "Unclean!" had been replaced by, "Give me five!" The untouchables were now the embraceables. The infected had become the respected. The isolated tomb-dwellers had become the officers at Toastmasters.
However, for all the joy of their cleansing, we never would have known about them at all, except for the 10 percent of their group who knew the art of gratitude. One of the 10: "when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked Him—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked a most perplexing question: 'Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to give praise to God except this foreigner?'" (Luke 17:15-18).
Sit at the once eroded feet of a thankful, Gentile leper and learn from him. It is the season of the year for us to come before God with the Old One-Hundredth on our lips and give praise to the Him for all of our abundance. I don't know if all lepers are pictured here to indicate that all praiseless people are in the 90th percentile of the blasé lepers who can receive so much from God and mention it so little.
C.S. Lewis said that ancient man approached God out of a strong feeling that he was approaching a judge. "For modern man, the roles are reversed," says Lewis. Modern man is the judge and God is in the dock (cited in A Hunger for Meaning, Inter Varsity Press, 1984, p. 114). Maybe this is why we feel we have no obligation to thank Him. I suspect this is what lies behind the reason we are developing a culture without a sense of thankfulness. For me, our thanklessness smacks of a lazy atheism. Remember, one old definition of atheist is "someone who sometimes feels gratitude, but has absolutely no one to thank for it!"
There are two sides in the issue of all self-righteous abundance. These two categories are the thankful and the thankless. The thankless tend to act as though they and their circumstances are entirely self-made. The thankful see the providence of God in all they hold. The thankful believe that it is not how much we have or have not in life, but what we see as the source of what we have or don't have that is the real issue.
I have sat down with a great many people who fed me more sumptuously, but their sign to begin eating was not a bowed head but the green light signal of a fork which the host picked up.
Back to the lone Samaritan leper, whose thankfulness mandated a bent neck and said, "God, you are the Giver of this feast": The 90th percentile lepers are those who begin to eat when the host picks up his fork. All of this goes to prove the old cliché: Gratitude is an attitude. Gratitude has absolutely nothing to do with what we have but is a lifestyle. It rehearses praise so continually that God is always the Giver, and lepers are cleansed by His giving.
Is Jesus sorry He cleanses ingrates? Of course not; it is God's nature to cleanse, heal and give; but He does ask a very profound question in Luke 17: "Where are the other nine?" It's a fair question! If 10 lepers are healed and only one comes back, where are the other nine?
We were eating out the other night and I happened to look around the restaurant filled with people, 39 percent of whom were born again then saw one person praying before beginning a meal. When he finished praying, I ask him, "Sir, I couldn't help but notice you were praying. Are you a Christian?"Yes!" he replied. "The Lord saved me four years ago. Ever since then I've been filled with gratitude for all God is doing in my life. I cannot cease to thank Him."
This lone believer reminded me that Jesus taught a very practical principle of rejoicing in the things that mean most to me. I enjoy singing the chorus: "Thank You, Lord, for saving my soul." It has old-fashioned words in the new world of upbeat worship. Still, I think about it often. My thankfulness is not rooted in the grace of mealtime, but in the awareness of my own salvation. If this Thanksgiving your own table is more sparse than you'd like it to be, just thank Him for saving your soul. Remember this great hymn:
Could my tears forever flow,
Could my zeal no languor know.
These for sin would not atone,
Thou must save and thou alone,
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling.
Spafford—in that hymn which celebrated the death of all his family—would write that beautiful stanza:
"My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious tho't
"My sin not in part, but the whole
"Is nail'd to the cross and I bear it no more,
"Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!"
Horatio G. Spafford, "It Is Well with My Soul"
Therefore, let us live in a constant attitude of God's abundance along with the writer of Hebrews 12:28, who said, "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably, with reverence and awe."
I know God does not always provide us all the abundance we want, but Psalm 37:25 says, "I am old but have been young and I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread." My suspicion is that this week most of you will sit down to a very fine meal. I hope as you do, Psalm 100:4 will come to you, "Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and enter his courts with praise." God is the Keeper of your feast. He is the Maker of your feast.
Tony Campolo said that as he was eating a meal in Haiti, he started to pick up his fork and eat when he glanced to the window, which was near his table, and saw the faces of little hungry Haitian children, faces pressed against the glass watching him eat, mesmerized.
"For a moment," he said, "I had the awful feeling of guilt and sat poised, not knowing whether to eat or not." Then the waiter stepped over and said, "Sir, don't let this bother you," and pulled the blinds. "I laid down my fork, unable to eat that meal."
He said, "It's so like the American culture to forget to thank God for what we have, to pull the blinds and forget that we are part of the 6 percent of the world that has enough continually to eat again and again and again. ‘Enter His courts with praise; enter His gates with thanksgiving.'"
While you eat your nice food , consider this: 600 people will die of starvation while you're eating that meal. On Thanksgiving Day, 12,000 people will die of starvation. Eight hundred million people in this world have not had enough to eat today. One of every 10 babies born this week will die within the first week. Twenty-five percent of those babies never will reach age 5. I now understand what it means to be a nation upon whom God has rained His blessings.
I understand how Malcolm Muggeridge must have felt when he watched Mother Teresa take from a dustbin a baby someone had cast aside, believing it dead, then suddenly chirping, "See, there's life in it!" Most of the world is not dying under nuclear annihilation; rather by the thousands, many die whimpering in the night. T.S. Eliot's lines haunt us: "This is the way the world ends for most people, not with a bang, but with a whimper!"
We all sometimes complain that God is unfair, but gratitude is an attitude. Habakkuk 3:17-18 shouts our obligation to praise, whatever our financial circumstances:
"Though the fig tree does not bud
"And there are no grapes on the vine,
"Though the olive crop fails
"And the fields produce no food,
"Though there are not sheep in the pen
"And no cattle in the stalls,
"Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
"I will be joyful in God my Savior."
There's no use whimpering. Harold Kushner said he once had an old teacher who said, "To say life is unfair is like saying a bull won't charge a man who happens to be a vegetarian." God has a plan for His world, and that plan is that everybody would know Christ. Somehow we are involved in that plan. If that plan does not speak in our lives a sense of worship and praise, we miss the whole point.
Jesus' lone leper is a picture of great gratitude, a picture of grace.
Those of us who have been redeemed by a living Lord Jesus cannot help but say, "Thank You, God. Thank You for eternal life. Thank You for our daily bread."
Break from that crowd of thankless lepers long enough to remember Somalia. Somalia is a land where there aren't any title holders any more. There are no grain fields. Everyone there lives in extremes. Somalians spend their days waiting on U.N. grain trucks.
Consider children of Somalia. Parents each morning send their children forward for rice. They are cheering and goading their children to be first in the line so they can be part of the 200 of 500 who are fed; 300 return to weeping parents, weeping themselves, because there wasn't enough for everyone.
A few years ago, one of my very favorite poets was picking up scraps of paper in a park in Brazil. Quite a poet she was. She saved the big pieces of paper that she found and wrote poems on them. Nobody really knew it then, but on those big scraps of paper with rough pencil, she wrote a book that was destined to be published in America as Child of the Dark. A woman starving to death with her poor little family wrote these words:
"Today I'm sad. I'm nervous. I don't know if I should start crying or running till I fall unconscious. At dawn it was raining…I have a few tin cans and another little scrap of metal that I'm going to sell to Señor Manuel…to buy food for the children). O Sao Paulo. A queen that vainly shows her skyscrapers as her crown of gold. All dressed up in velvet and in silk…but with the cheap stockings of the slums underneath. Sometimes I imagine I am a grand lady, dressed in a satin gown with diamonds shining in my black hair. But then the smell of the sewers comes in through the thin walls and my satin gown turns to rags, and the only thing shining in my hair is lice."
This Thanksgiving, enter His courts with thanksgiving and enter His gates with praise. "Were there not ten lepers healed? Where are the other nine?"
Then answer, "Lord, I do not know where the other nine have gone…I only know I have received healing and not to praise You is a sin I must not condone. I have been loved. I am clean. I must enter Your gates with thanksgiving. I must come into Your courts with praise."
(This Touched me as I read it..Thought id Share it.)
The story of the leper in Mark 1:40 this way
"'Hello, I'm a leper!' A man popped out from behind a building and stood right in front of Jesus. 'Please don't run away, Jesus!'
"'What's the matter with your skin?' asked Jesus.
"'Can't You see I'm covered with runny sores and crusty scabs?' No one wants to look at me, my face is so horrible.'
"'What do you want Me to do?'
"'You can make me better. I know You can,' said the man, falling on his knees in front of Jesus. 'If You don't, I'll scratch myself to death.'
"Jesus felt sorry for the poor man.
"'Don't touch me,' said the man. 'That's how you get it.'
"'I'm not afraid to touch you.' Jesus reached down and took hold of the man's arms and pulled him to his feet. The itching was gone. The sores started to dry. The scabs began to fall off.
"'Thank You, thank You, thank You!' shouted the man. 'What can I do to thank You?'
"'You can go to the temple, show yourself to a priest and say a prayer of thanks to God.'
"'Yes, yes; I will, I will!' promised the man hurrying off.
"'One more thing,' said Jesus.
"'Anything, anything,' said the man.
"'You don't have to tell anyone what I just did.'
"'I won't tell a soul,' said the man as he skipped toward Jerusalem; but the man was so happy and the walk to the temple was so long that he forgot and told everyone he met. Then all the other lepers along the road began to look for the wonderful Man with the healing touch."
The story well told of the gratitude of good lepers. Good lepers are those who are healed and never forget the disease they once had. They remember how good clean feels. Bad lepers, on the other hand, are those who are healed and go on acting as if they never had the disease.
Ninety percent of all the lepers in Luke 17 are ingrates—bad lepers pretending they never met Jesus. What a shame! They were so completely healed that there was not a smidgen of their former state of decay left to them. They were se healed, they headed back to the social centers of their communities. These pretenders were free to run for office—any office they might imagine. They were free to return to their former bridge clubs, Kiwanis clubs, golf clubs. Their once former scourge-word-confession, "Unclean!" had been replaced by, "Give me five!" The untouchables were now the embraceables. The infected had become the respected. The isolated tomb-dwellers had become the officers at Toastmasters.
However, for all the joy of their cleansing, we never would have known about them at all, except for the 10 percent of their group who knew the art of gratitude. One of the 10: "when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked Him—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked a most perplexing question: 'Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to give praise to God except this foreigner?'" (Luke 17:15-18).
Sit at the once eroded feet of a thankful, Gentile leper and learn from him. It is the season of the year for us to come before God with the Old One-Hundredth on our lips and give praise to the Him for all of our abundance. I don't know if all lepers are pictured here to indicate that all praiseless people are in the 90th percentile of the blasé lepers who can receive so much from God and mention it so little.
C.S. Lewis said that ancient man approached God out of a strong feeling that he was approaching a judge. "For modern man, the roles are reversed," says Lewis. Modern man is the judge and God is in the dock (cited in A Hunger for Meaning, Inter Varsity Press, 1984, p. 114). Maybe this is why we feel we have no obligation to thank Him. I suspect this is what lies behind the reason we are developing a culture without a sense of thankfulness. For me, our thanklessness smacks of a lazy atheism. Remember, one old definition of atheist is "someone who sometimes feels gratitude, but has absolutely no one to thank for it!"
There are two sides in the issue of all self-righteous abundance. These two categories are the thankful and the thankless. The thankless tend to act as though they and their circumstances are entirely self-made. The thankful see the providence of God in all they hold. The thankful believe that it is not how much we have or have not in life, but what we see as the source of what we have or don't have that is the real issue.
I have sat down with a great many people who fed me more sumptuously, but their sign to begin eating was not a bowed head but the green light signal of a fork which the host picked up.
Back to the lone Samaritan leper, whose thankfulness mandated a bent neck and said, "God, you are the Giver of this feast": The 90th percentile lepers are those who begin to eat when the host picks up his fork. All of this goes to prove the old cliché: Gratitude is an attitude. Gratitude has absolutely nothing to do with what we have but is a lifestyle. It rehearses praise so continually that God is always the Giver, and lepers are cleansed by His giving.
Is Jesus sorry He cleanses ingrates? Of course not; it is God's nature to cleanse, heal and give; but He does ask a very profound question in Luke 17: "Where are the other nine?" It's a fair question! If 10 lepers are healed and only one comes back, where are the other nine?
We were eating out the other night and I happened to look around the restaurant filled with people, 39 percent of whom were born again then saw one person praying before beginning a meal. When he finished praying, I ask him, "Sir, I couldn't help but notice you were praying. Are you a Christian?"Yes!" he replied. "The Lord saved me four years ago. Ever since then I've been filled with gratitude for all God is doing in my life. I cannot cease to thank Him."
This lone believer reminded me that Jesus taught a very practical principle of rejoicing in the things that mean most to me. I enjoy singing the chorus: "Thank You, Lord, for saving my soul." It has old-fashioned words in the new world of upbeat worship. Still, I think about it often. My thankfulness is not rooted in the grace of mealtime, but in the awareness of my own salvation. If this Thanksgiving your own table is more sparse than you'd like it to be, just thank Him for saving your soul. Remember this great hymn:
Could my tears forever flow,
Could my zeal no languor know.
These for sin would not atone,
Thou must save and thou alone,
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling.
Spafford—in that hymn which celebrated the death of all his family—would write that beautiful stanza:
"My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious tho't
"My sin not in part, but the whole
"Is nail'd to the cross and I bear it no more,
"Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!"
Horatio G. Spafford, "It Is Well with My Soul"
Therefore, let us live in a constant attitude of God's abundance along with the writer of Hebrews 12:28, who said, "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably, with reverence and awe."
I know God does not always provide us all the abundance we want, but Psalm 37:25 says, "I am old but have been young and I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread." My suspicion is that this week most of you will sit down to a very fine meal. I hope as you do, Psalm 100:4 will come to you, "Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and enter his courts with praise." God is the Keeper of your feast. He is the Maker of your feast.
Tony Campolo said that as he was eating a meal in Haiti, he started to pick up his fork and eat when he glanced to the window, which was near his table, and saw the faces of little hungry Haitian children, faces pressed against the glass watching him eat, mesmerized.
"For a moment," he said, "I had the awful feeling of guilt and sat poised, not knowing whether to eat or not." Then the waiter stepped over and said, "Sir, don't let this bother you," and pulled the blinds. "I laid down my fork, unable to eat that meal."
He said, "It's so like the American culture to forget to thank God for what we have, to pull the blinds and forget that we are part of the 6 percent of the world that has enough continually to eat again and again and again. ‘Enter His courts with praise; enter His gates with thanksgiving.'"
While you eat your nice food , consider this: 600 people will die of starvation while you're eating that meal. On Thanksgiving Day, 12,000 people will die of starvation. Eight hundred million people in this world have not had enough to eat today. One of every 10 babies born this week will die within the first week. Twenty-five percent of those babies never will reach age 5. I now understand what it means to be a nation upon whom God has rained His blessings.
I understand how Malcolm Muggeridge must have felt when he watched Mother Teresa take from a dustbin a baby someone had cast aside, believing it dead, then suddenly chirping, "See, there's life in it!" Most of the world is not dying under nuclear annihilation; rather by the thousands, many die whimpering in the night. T.S. Eliot's lines haunt us: "This is the way the world ends for most people, not with a bang, but with a whimper!"
We all sometimes complain that God is unfair, but gratitude is an attitude. Habakkuk 3:17-18 shouts our obligation to praise, whatever our financial circumstances:
"Though the fig tree does not bud
"And there are no grapes on the vine,
"Though the olive crop fails
"And the fields produce no food,
"Though there are not sheep in the pen
"And no cattle in the stalls,
"Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
"I will be joyful in God my Savior."
There's no use whimpering. Harold Kushner said he once had an old teacher who said, "To say life is unfair is like saying a bull won't charge a man who happens to be a vegetarian." God has a plan for His world, and that plan is that everybody would know Christ. Somehow we are involved in that plan. If that plan does not speak in our lives a sense of worship and praise, we miss the whole point.
Jesus' lone leper is a picture of great gratitude, a picture of grace.
Those of us who have been redeemed by a living Lord Jesus cannot help but say, "Thank You, God. Thank You for eternal life. Thank You for our daily bread."
Break from that crowd of thankless lepers long enough to remember Somalia. Somalia is a land where there aren't any title holders any more. There are no grain fields. Everyone there lives in extremes. Somalians spend their days waiting on U.N. grain trucks.
Consider children of Somalia. Parents each morning send their children forward for rice. They are cheering and goading their children to be first in the line so they can be part of the 200 of 500 who are fed; 300 return to weeping parents, weeping themselves, because there wasn't enough for everyone.
A few years ago, one of my very favorite poets was picking up scraps of paper in a park in Brazil. Quite a poet she was. She saved the big pieces of paper that she found and wrote poems on them. Nobody really knew it then, but on those big scraps of paper with rough pencil, she wrote a book that was destined to be published in America as Child of the Dark. A woman starving to death with her poor little family wrote these words:
"Today I'm sad. I'm nervous. I don't know if I should start crying or running till I fall unconscious. At dawn it was raining…I have a few tin cans and another little scrap of metal that I'm going to sell to Señor Manuel…to buy food for the children). O Sao Paulo. A queen that vainly shows her skyscrapers as her crown of gold. All dressed up in velvet and in silk…but with the cheap stockings of the slums underneath. Sometimes I imagine I am a grand lady, dressed in a satin gown with diamonds shining in my black hair. But then the smell of the sewers comes in through the thin walls and my satin gown turns to rags, and the only thing shining in my hair is lice."
This Thanksgiving, enter His courts with thanksgiving and enter His gates with praise. "Were there not ten lepers healed? Where are the other nine?"
Then answer, "Lord, I do not know where the other nine have gone…I only know I have received healing and not to praise You is a sin I must not condone. I have been loved. I am clean. I must enter Your gates with thanksgiving. I must come into Your courts with praise."
(This Touched me as I read it..Thought id Share it.)
Saturday, November 6, 2010
WHAT DO YOU DO?
Life is not easy, someone told me if it were then it would be boring. Life sucks sometimes it throws things at you that you never could see coming and if you could, you failed to dodge. So when you're beyond being lower than the lowest thing alive..what do you do? Who do you turn to? When things go wrong my first reflex isn't to get down on my knees and pray. No. I try fix it on my own, or tell a friend or drown our sorrows in earthly things.
What do you do when you have lost everything. When you are hurt beyond comprehension. When you feel like looking up and screaming “WHY GOD...WHY MEE!!!!”. Well if not you then who? Life is not easy at all. Awful things happen to the best of people. You read your bible everyday, you go to church and you say your prayers but still you seem to wind up with the short end of the stick. What do you do? Who do you turn to?
What can you do when your world is crashing down and your all alone and nobody understands or nobody seems to care. Where do you start, picking up the pieces. When the road you walk is paved with thorns. And the cross you carry just keeps getting heavier. What can you do when you feel like crying out “WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME LORD?”. You stumble, you fall, you make bad choices and the devil beacons you further into the dark. His offer seems more attractive than the pain you face. What do you do?
What happens when all your strength and will power is gone. When it seems like there is nothing to live for. You could just shout “here take your life back!”. What happens next. When your heart is broken and you feel like a fool. When you have lost so much and given just as much away. What in the world can you do!! How can you master the strength to rise again with your head held high. How? What is it that needs to be done. Who lied to us and said we were destined for greatness. Who lied to us and said we were the chosen people when all we do is struggle and fall flat on our faces. Why is it that the devil is always there. Why is it that we feel like God has turned away from us?
What do you do? Do you get up again, dust yourself off and keep going? I've been told the way to grow strong in Christ is to be weak in yourself. What does that mean? My bible tells me in Isaiah 40:29 “God gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might He increases strength.”. What do you do...you have faith and trust in your God. Let go of the steering wheel for a moment and let Him take over. Its hurts but trust and get down on your knees bare your soul to the one that truly deserves it and believe and know that help is on the way.
What can you do? Be patient and wait for the Lord. We do not serve a dormant God. Yes we are destined for something bigger than us, but it comes at a price. We have to fight to get it just as hard as the devil is to keep it away from us. It calls for patient endurance on our part and persistence in prayer. He will never forsake us. We are the chosen people,and because we were chosen we need to take courage “ be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord” Psalms 31:24.
“Jesus knows that we must come apart and rest a while, or else we may just plain fall apart.”
We need to take heart, and let God take over completely and not only when it suits us. The time to be Christians has come. We must use the little strength that we have even if it means hanging on His robes. Reach out and let Him do the rest. Keep the faith and love you have for him going. Keep praying, because the devil is always there always waiting and being watchful of every step you take.
Turn to our all mighty Father and He will be light at your feet.
by Nicola Manduna
What do you do when you have lost everything. When you are hurt beyond comprehension. When you feel like looking up and screaming “WHY GOD...WHY MEE!!!!”. Well if not you then who? Life is not easy at all. Awful things happen to the best of people. You read your bible everyday, you go to church and you say your prayers but still you seem to wind up with the short end of the stick. What do you do? Who do you turn to?
What can you do when your world is crashing down and your all alone and nobody understands or nobody seems to care. Where do you start, picking up the pieces. When the road you walk is paved with thorns. And the cross you carry just keeps getting heavier. What can you do when you feel like crying out “WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME LORD?”. You stumble, you fall, you make bad choices and the devil beacons you further into the dark. His offer seems more attractive than the pain you face. What do you do?
What happens when all your strength and will power is gone. When it seems like there is nothing to live for. You could just shout “here take your life back!”. What happens next. When your heart is broken and you feel like a fool. When you have lost so much and given just as much away. What in the world can you do!! How can you master the strength to rise again with your head held high. How? What is it that needs to be done. Who lied to us and said we were destined for greatness. Who lied to us and said we were the chosen people when all we do is struggle and fall flat on our faces. Why is it that the devil is always there. Why is it that we feel like God has turned away from us?
What do you do? Do you get up again, dust yourself off and keep going? I've been told the way to grow strong in Christ is to be weak in yourself. What does that mean? My bible tells me in Isaiah 40:29 “God gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might He increases strength.”. What do you do...you have faith and trust in your God. Let go of the steering wheel for a moment and let Him take over. Its hurts but trust and get down on your knees bare your soul to the one that truly deserves it and believe and know that help is on the way.
What can you do? Be patient and wait for the Lord. We do not serve a dormant God. Yes we are destined for something bigger than us, but it comes at a price. We have to fight to get it just as hard as the devil is to keep it away from us. It calls for patient endurance on our part and persistence in prayer. He will never forsake us. We are the chosen people,and because we were chosen we need to take courage “ be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord” Psalms 31:24.
“Jesus knows that we must come apart and rest a while, or else we may just plain fall apart.”
We need to take heart, and let God take over completely and not only when it suits us. The time to be Christians has come. We must use the little strength that we have even if it means hanging on His robes. Reach out and let Him do the rest. Keep the faith and love you have for him going. Keep praying, because the devil is always there always waiting and being watchful of every step you take.
Turn to our all mighty Father and He will be light at your feet.
by Nicola Manduna
Monday, November 1, 2010
When will you start being a Christian??
So I'm on this walk with Christ and we are getting really close. I mean the amount of love between us is amazing. Yet my heart is sore. My mind is troubled. As Shakespeare put it “oh full of scorpions is my mind”. I'm deeply troubled and for what?
The love I thought I had found with someone all gone. Just like all we had didn't matter.
Certain aspects of my life have changed though for the better. I've been called to step forward , yet I'm afraid I wont be able to keep up and do the right thing.
My family slowly falling to pieces.
My friends going through so much heartache and pain. Plagued by peer pressure as they wonder like the lost sheep they are.
Life on earth is not a pretty thing. Was walking the streets of Jo burg and I saw a “common” sight that broke my heart because there was nothing I could do. I saw a elderly woman sitting under the harsh sun on the the filth that we call the streets of jozi. A blind beggar, a woman that could've been my own mother. Sitting there dressed in rags like she had be stuffed into them. There she sat, trapped in her circumstances. She was eating as she sat, but what she ate...her meal for the day was a paper plate of chips generously covered in flies and mould. My heart sank. It became sore so sore. But I did nothing, I carried on walking.
My heart is sore, the tears keep coming, rolling down my cheeks filling my eyes till my vision gets so blurry I feel myself stumble as I walk. I walk. I walk. I continue on my daily walk with Christ. These are but a fraction of the things I face. What do you face or try to escape from. How can we say we walk with Christ when we do nothing in this world to help others?? That's all Christ did, that was His main objective, to help those in need. But what do we do, we keep walking thinking we're walking with Christ, while He's standing there next to the blind beggars in our lives. Waiting on us to be CHRISTIANS!
How many have you walked away from? For how long must it be this way. My bible tells me in Proverbs 19;17 “he who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord”. What will we lack by giving? Yes we have our own problems in life to face our “drama' to deal with. But “ the best exercise for strengthening the heart is reaching down and lifting people up.”. We have become so selfish and self absorbed in things we think matter most. But does the bible not say love thy neighbour as you love thy self.
What are we doing about the beggars in our lives? Literally the poor that need us to share just a bit of what we have. And the poor that are weak in their faith and need us to share our daily bread with them. My heart is sore.. but the love He has for me will make up for the love I lost. My mind is troubled but that call will keep coming, He'll hold my hand and as the light at my feet He will guide the way. But what of those that don't see and haven't learnt what it is that I have learnt on my daily walks with Christ. You can not walk with Him and not be affected by what He stands for.
Yes I do not understand His ways totally, but what would be the point if I did? The point is to grow, and with this growth in turn share it with others. Its time for us to start being Christians. Its time for us to start being active and help those around us that need it. Yes it may seem prayer is not effective but it is oh yes it is. Pray and be active be a vessel that wants to be used. It's time to pull each other up.
When I saw that woman it wasn't the first time I'd seen a beggar. But today I saw through different eyes. I felt, I was moved. Foolish of me to think nothing can be done. I'm reaching down, the beggars in my life are there for a reason and I will not be held accountable on judgment day for walking away. I've started, so I ask you now He wants to know after so long...When will you start being a Christian?
by Nicola Manduna
The love I thought I had found with someone all gone. Just like all we had didn't matter.
Certain aspects of my life have changed though for the better. I've been called to step forward , yet I'm afraid I wont be able to keep up and do the right thing.
My family slowly falling to pieces.
My friends going through so much heartache and pain. Plagued by peer pressure as they wonder like the lost sheep they are.
Life on earth is not a pretty thing. Was walking the streets of Jo burg and I saw a “common” sight that broke my heart because there was nothing I could do. I saw a elderly woman sitting under the harsh sun on the the filth that we call the streets of jozi. A blind beggar, a woman that could've been my own mother. Sitting there dressed in rags like she had be stuffed into them. There she sat, trapped in her circumstances. She was eating as she sat, but what she ate...her meal for the day was a paper plate of chips generously covered in flies and mould. My heart sank. It became sore so sore. But I did nothing, I carried on walking.
My heart is sore, the tears keep coming, rolling down my cheeks filling my eyes till my vision gets so blurry I feel myself stumble as I walk. I walk. I walk. I continue on my daily walk with Christ. These are but a fraction of the things I face. What do you face or try to escape from. How can we say we walk with Christ when we do nothing in this world to help others?? That's all Christ did, that was His main objective, to help those in need. But what do we do, we keep walking thinking we're walking with Christ, while He's standing there next to the blind beggars in our lives. Waiting on us to be CHRISTIANS!
How many have you walked away from? For how long must it be this way. My bible tells me in Proverbs 19;17 “he who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord”. What will we lack by giving? Yes we have our own problems in life to face our “drama' to deal with. But “ the best exercise for strengthening the heart is reaching down and lifting people up.”. We have become so selfish and self absorbed in things we think matter most. But does the bible not say love thy neighbour as you love thy self.
What are we doing about the beggars in our lives? Literally the poor that need us to share just a bit of what we have. And the poor that are weak in their faith and need us to share our daily bread with them. My heart is sore.. but the love He has for me will make up for the love I lost. My mind is troubled but that call will keep coming, He'll hold my hand and as the light at my feet He will guide the way. But what of those that don't see and haven't learnt what it is that I have learnt on my daily walks with Christ. You can not walk with Him and not be affected by what He stands for.
Yes I do not understand His ways totally, but what would be the point if I did? The point is to grow, and with this growth in turn share it with others. Its time for us to start being Christians. Its time for us to start being active and help those around us that need it. Yes it may seem prayer is not effective but it is oh yes it is. Pray and be active be a vessel that wants to be used. It's time to pull each other up.
When I saw that woman it wasn't the first time I'd seen a beggar. But today I saw through different eyes. I felt, I was moved. Foolish of me to think nothing can be done. I'm reaching down, the beggars in my life are there for a reason and I will not be held accountable on judgment day for walking away. I've started, so I ask you now He wants to know after so long...When will you start being a Christian?
by Nicola Manduna
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Inbox (1)
You hurt me but i still love you...I reached out to bring you closer, but you pushed my hand aside. "Not now" you said. Standing by me at that point in your life was not important to you. You hurt me but i still love you. I tried to get your attention, tried to make you see that the love i have for you is not the kind of love the world has blindly perverted. I tried to bring you to me. I still am...waiting for you. You hurt me but i still love you. YOU still mean everything to me..
Yes you there covered in sin and shame
yes you there choking on your lies
yes you there terrorizing your loved ones
yes you there with the broken heart
yes you there who is struggling with immoral temptations
yes you there fighting to get closer yet you feel your unworthy
yes you there with your head down
yes you there that feels so alone and unloved
Yes...You hurt me but i still love you....
Make the decision here and now....get on your knees where ever you are...and reach out; with your hand, with your heart, with your spirit. Reach out. He's right there doing the same...reaching out. We hurt Him but He still loves us, let Him fill the void. Reach out through prayer..and grab on to Him, once you do, your journey as a Christian and your journey to be more like Him begins.
let us pray....
by Nicola Manduna
Yes you there covered in sin and shame
yes you there choking on your lies
yes you there terrorizing your loved ones
yes you there with the broken heart
yes you there who is struggling with immoral temptations
yes you there fighting to get closer yet you feel your unworthy
yes you there with your head down
yes you there that feels so alone and unloved
Yes...You hurt me but i still love you....
Make the decision here and now....get on your knees where ever you are...and reach out; with your hand, with your heart, with your spirit. Reach out. He's right there doing the same...reaching out. We hurt Him but He still loves us, let Him fill the void. Reach out through prayer..and grab on to Him, once you do, your journey as a Christian and your journey to be more like Him begins.
let us pray....
by Nicola Manduna
Thank you
We all got to thank God for :
Who he is
What he does
Why he does it
When he will do what we ask
For friends
FAmily
HArd times
Good times
Happy times
Sad times
Tears & Laughter
Pain & Joy
Poverty & Riches
Nakedness or Clothing
Hunger & plenty
He still remains God, who does what he does to the Glory of His name!!!!
God bless you
Who he is
What he does
Why he does it
When he will do what we ask
For friends
FAmily
HArd times
Good times
Happy times
Sad times
Tears & Laughter
Pain & Joy
Poverty & Riches
Nakedness or Clothing
Hunger & plenty
He still remains God, who does what he does to the Glory of His name!!!!
God bless you
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