I am currently reading a very good book titled “Grit: The Power Of Passion and Perseverance”. It asks the question, “What is your Passion?”. I will try and answer that right now.

My passion is to pursue Jesus Christ. Jesus says He is The Way, The Truth and The Life. I believe that. His word is awesome and all encompassing. I want to share that with people through how I relate to them. I want to treat people, especially our youth, with truth and respect. I want to do it expecting nothing in return. I want to give them my time in my everyday doings. I want this to become my life. I want to abide in Jesus. Be the branch. Let him work through me. Its difficult with lots of mistakes along the way. But I am getting better at it and I am determined to stay on the path that Jesus has laid down before me. Its a mystery, and my greatest challenge in life.

God Bless you this week. Take time to think what your passion might be and be grateful to God for all his blessings.

John 15:5….Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.

A leader in Christ knows that we do not become leaders for our own gratification. According to author Dallas Willard……1..Power is not a prize. 2..Position is not for personal gain. 3..To get or hold on to a position is simply not an objective. 4..Leading is not something we need to feel okay. 5..My self esteem is not tied to success as a leader. 6..Fear of failure to keep our position does not cross our minds as we follow Jesus.

My experience with leadership says that Dallas Willard is very wise. For 40 plus years I taught and coached young people in a leadership capacity. I witnessed all of the above and experienced it. I failed and failed again. I have come out on the other side of leadership much wiser. Jesus said it in Matthew 20:28 – “I did not come to be served, but to serve….Once again Jesus’s wisdom trumps man’s.

Philippians 2:3-5…Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.

God Bless You and have a great week…….

I was recently inspired by a short reading from Frederick Buechner on “The Mystery of Your Self”. I was fascinated by his take on this subject. I have long felt that life is a mystery and I would be better off to quit trying to figure it out and accept it as it is. I believe that Jesus is the Truth and his Truth is itself the mystery. As Buechner quotes, “The more you try to fathom it, the more fathomless it is revealed to be. I think people today believe they have to have an answer to everything. I don’t have to have an anwer or feel that I need to solve every mystery. I kind of like the idea of living the mystery. To say that God is a mystery is to say that you can never nail him down. Don’t get me wrong that one should not pursue answers. I search for answers about Jesus daily. I pursue Jesus. He is the creator of Heaven and Earth—The Universe. Its is so crazy to try and put him in a box or think that we somehow can figure him out. We are so foolish. For me, I want to accept God and all his ways even though they are a mystery. I want to learn what I can about him and leave the rest to the mystery about him.

Colossians 1:27….God has chosen to make known…..the glorious riches of this mystery, which is is Christ in you, the Hope of Glory.

God Bless You and have a great week.

Life is an adventure. It is hard to understand a lot of the time. There is a lot going on in this world that is confusing. We wish we had the wisdom to see the big picture, but find that we cannot see it. Some of my favorite scripture reflect this.

Proverbs 3:5-6….Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

John 9:25……….one thing I do know, I was blind, now I see.

1Corinthians 13:12….For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Its hard sometimes, if not most of the time to see God’s big picture. We live on a linear time line, God does not. We need to probably quit trying to figure everything out and be still and know that Jesus is God. Jesus wants us to be courageous and to trust him in all circumstances, to abide in him and Live! Easy to say, but difficult to do. Yet it is the way.

Where is the hope? Thoughts like this bounce around in our heads day after day…week after week. Yet we find it hard to turn to the greatest hope the world has ever known—-Jesus Christ. The bible points to Jesus as the hope of the world. His ways are so good. His burden is light. His love is unconditional. He will meet us right now wherever we are in our life. He brings hope to the hopeless. He is enough for all of us that don’t think that we are. Knowing all of this, yet we turn away. I believe we all know right and wrong. Its in our DNA code. We know that there is a God, but our sin gets in the way. Yet Jesus patiently waits for us.

The greatest threat in our lives today is hoplessness. Jesus is the Hope of the world. Don’t be afraid to find him in your life no matter where you are at. He will not condemn us. He died for us and loves us like no one else. He will give our lives purpose like nothing else in the world can.

Romans 15:13 – May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in Hope.

God Bless You and have a great week.

Eric Liddell’s story was told in the movie Chariots Of Fire. Liddell was an olympic track and field athlete who won gold in the 1924 Olympics. He was a tremendous 100 yard dash sprinter who won a gold medal in the 440 yard dash, a distance he never trained for. More than that though was the fact that Liddell was an even greater person who loved God. He did not conform to the world but followed his heart. My favorite part of his story was a short speech he made to some fans after a race. He said, “I want you to do more than watch the race, I’d like you to take part in it. Its hard, requires concentration of energy and will. You experience elation when the winner breaks the tape, but how long does it last? You go home maybe to a dinner burned, maybe you have lost your job. So who am I to say believe and have faith in the face of life’s realities? I would like to give you something more permanent but I can only point the way. There is no formula for winning. Everyone runs in his own way…so where does the power come from to see the race to the end, from within….. Jesus said, behold the Kingdom of God is within you. If with all your heart you truly seek me, you shall surely find me.”

Life is like a race, kinda like a marathon. We need to see it to the end. And along the way we need the love of Jesus Christ to help us to the finish line….. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and The Life……..Amen

God Bless You and have a great week.

I was reading the book “The Ragamuffin Gospel” and was convicted by the author Brendan Manning’s words on the subject of self-hatred and a person’s own contempt. Manning believes that self-hatred is an enormous obstacle to loving other people. He says that we dislike others not because we love ourselves too much, but because we are not able to love ourselves enough. I believe that. In my life I see people everyday including myself that do not love themselves enough. Of course we act like we got it all together. But when things fall apart we feel unloved and unworthy. We “hide behind anger, sarcasm, or judgementalism because we are convinced that we don’t measure up ourselves”. We are not enough. Today and this week is a good time to start believing that Jesus “appreciates you for wanting Him. That He appreciates you “for giving comfort to another person….for pausing to smile at one of His children…and for learning more about Him”. In Jesus’s World, we are more than enough.

I think it is critical for people, including myself, love not only our neighbors, but ourselves. We all count. Our lives can have purpose. No matter how broken our lives are today we can begin to piece them back together thru our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Remember, He loves us in spite of ourselves. He loves us more than we love ourselves….Amen

God Bless You and have a great week…….

Don’t lean on your own understanding. I admit that there is much about Jesus that I don’t understand. There is much about the Bible I don’t understand. God is Big, really Big ….I am believing in something that is unbelieveable. I really don’t get how really awesome God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are. I am Believing in the God of a universe that I don’t come close to understanding. When I was teaching biology I taught kids about the human eye. Just the eye is a great witness to God. Charles Darwin in his famous book “The Origin of Species” said this….”To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus of different distances, for admitting different amounts of light and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree”.

Jesus came to free us of our sins. He died for us. I guess I am kind of like the blind man who, when asked how Jesus healed him and restored his eye sight, said….”all I know is that I was blind and now I can see.” Thats what my faith is like. I don’t need all the answers. It is simple, “I was blind now I can see.

1cor. 13:12…For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; Then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Have a great week and God Bless You……

It is by Grace you have been saved through faith—-and this is not from yourselves, it is the Gift of God——not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do….Ephesians 2:8-10

Why do most of us have a problem with this free gift from God? Why is it offensive to us? According to writer Tullian Tchividjian the logic of Grace is deeply offensive to our law-locked hearts. Jesus says, “of course you don’t deserve it, but I’m giving it to you anyway”. We wonder…….What is this really about? What’s the catch? This is too good to be true” Grace violates our deepsest sense of justice and rightness. So we choose death over freedom out of fear of losing control. Grace is hard to accept by most of us, if not impossible. Its too good to be true. So we, you and I, continue to resist God’s one way love and miss God’s most precious gift……His son Jesus, crucified on the cross for our sins.

John 14:6 – I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

God Bless You and have a great week…

What did Jesus die for? Singer/songwriter Twila Paris addressed this question in her 1994 song, “What did He die for”. She sang, “What did he die for, when he died for you and me. Made the sacrifice so that we could all be free. I believe that we will answer each to heaven, for the way we spend a priceless liberty. Look inside and ask the question…what did he die for when he died for me.”

I believe that Jesus is exactly who he says He is and did exactly what the Bible and history said He did. Now each of us must look inside ourselves and see where we stand with Jesus and just as importantly we need to find out who Jesus is. We need to pursue knowledge about the real Jesus because believe me there are a lot of false teachings and information about Jesus.

God Bless You in your pursuits………..

John 4:6 – I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life……….