Me Last

Sunday’s Monday

Thank you, Lord for the readers of this blog. I pray that your words reach out to the intended and pierce their hearts with revelation, encouragement and hope. I ask you Jesus to lead them to where you would have them be at this time in their life. God, I ask you to teach them to crawl into your lap, feel your arms of security and hear your heart throbs of love. Thank you, God for hearing my desire for your readers and for loving all of us. Amen

Surprise! Here I am on the second Sunday of the new year, still using the same old greeting of the last several years. People ask me, how are you and my standard reply is “wonderful, I woke up breathing this morning!” I thank God everyday that I wake up here on planet earth because He has something for me to do. I use this to enlighten people that today is special because God has left me (and you) here on earth for a specific reason, of His choosing. Wow! The Holy God of all has a reason for us being alive on His earth this day! Ephesians 2:10 (NLT), For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Did you catch it? Neither did I until recently, when God showed me what was wrong with my reply. “I woke up breathing” sounds like I did something and nothing could be further from the truth. God graced me with His breath of life this morning for the purpose of doing the good things within His plans for me. See the difference! I had no control over my waking this morning, even though my remarks could be construed that I was in control, when in actuality I laid down and God did the rest. I am continually leaning that “It’s not about me!” The bible is filled with verses on serving man the way Jesus served then and serves us still today. The best example I’ve found is in, Romans 12:9-10 (NLT), 9 Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. 10 Love each other with genuine affection and take delight in honoring each other. I promise you, this works! If you want to find the best of you this year, live Romans 12:9-10! In the simplest of terms, hate the sin, love the sinner and delight in God. Not one of God’s creations is to be written off by man as a total loss! I believe that Ben Franklin had a real understanding of this when he said, “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of someone else.” We all have an inner-self with a built-in desire to help others, however our problem is, we don’t have a clue of how to operate it. For most of us helping others has a totally different appearance than that of the bible. We want to pick and choose our deeds as to not interfere with our wants and desires. We seek self-gratification, accolades and recognition for our effortless and self-guided deeds. The deed may actually help another person but the helper (you and or I) has been robbed of the reward of God’s pleasure because, it became all about us. The bible tells me in 1 Corinthians 10:24 (NLT), Don’t be concerned for your own good but for the good of others. At this point you will get a glimpse of the insanity of my walk so far, as a sinner I hated me (who I was) yet everything had to be all about me. Once I reached the hopeless stage, everything continued to revolve around me. Even when the realization set in that I am my own worst enemy, I continued to follow my own advice, which was always me first. Crazy right! Well guess what? Now that I have discovered Galatians 2:20 (NIV), I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I still wrestle with the issue of “self” on a daily basis! However, I grow stronger each day through cooperating with the desires of Jesus in the renewing of my mind. I have gained a boat load of little saying to help with this over the years; let go, let God; change play pins and play mates; you will become like those you hang with; you have to want not to, more than you want to; junk in, junk out; and their endless but my favorite has been a little something Helen Jones crossed stitched for me a long time ago and it read; I went outside to find a friend and there were no friends there; I went outside to be a friend and friends were everywhere. You will never understand the true meaning of this until you’ve lived it! I heard this carnal quote from Dr. John Maxwell this week; Albert Schweitzer said, “I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” He got it!

HAVE A BLESSED WEEK BY BEING A BLESSING TO OTHERS!

COMMENTS / ENCOURAGEMENT WELCOMED; 01/13/2019