I keep thinking of what Jesus said to the disciples: " Love others as I have loved you"
As I meditate on this , I realized that the LOVE He is talking about is a love in which one where you must lay aside a fleshly thing called "personal rights". You know "Personal Rights"! The list of what one is entitled to as a human being and make sure that your comfort zone is always in tact. Those wonderful self indulging rights where you always get what you expect from others and allows you to demand your own way. These "rights" even allow you to feel offended and carry a grudge when wronged or preceived wrong occurs.
When Jesus said to love as He has loved, He issued a challenge to set aside these rights and to follow His example. Jesus set aside His "rights" when He came and dwelled among us. He had the right to wear the crown and robes of royality, yet He wore the clothes of a carpenter. He had the right to have people serve Him and wait upon Him,yet it was He who served others. He did good to all,yet He was despised and beaten. He was sinless and yet He bore the sins of all mankind.
I think on this whenever I start to feel that I have not received my "share of the pie" or that I have been wronged in some way. Then I feel ashamed that I have not surrended my "personal rights", but instead held tighly to my dear old flesh. Often I struggle in this area. Struggle with the idea that by surrendering these "rights", I am surrendering control of my life. I am giving up the right to be offended. I am giving up the right to hold a grudge when someone hurts me. I giving up the right to have life be all about ME!
But by surrendering, I am gaining the right to let forgiveness and mercy rule my relationships. I am gaining the right to love as God as loved me: unconditionally. I am gaining the right for life to be about others and not focused on me. My "tent" is greatly enlarged and joyous blessings are multiplied.
I pray that everday, I find myself surrending my "personal bill of rights" that I might gain what God has planned for me.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Looking For A Miracle
Many of us spend our days looking for a miracle to happen in our lives. We are looking so hard for something to happen to us or others that cannot be explained away by science....something that we know could only be the work of God.
I challenge you to look in the mirror! For most of us, a mirror is th last thing we want to look at. In a mirror, we see staring back at us all our precieved imperfections: our nose is either to small or too big...just does not go with out face or we see ourselves too fat, too skinny,too short, too tall....you get the picture. We are our own worst critics .
What if when we look into the mirror instead of seeing the "mess" we precieve ourselves to be. we see a creation of God in its total prefection? What if we realized that God created us to be the mirror? That's right, we are the mirror that God looks into every morning and we reflect Him.
So the question now is, Do we reflect His compassion and love toward His creations? When others look at us do we reflect the love that God has for them so that they are encouraged to receive all that He has for them? When we look into the mirror, are so worried about how our flesh looks or do we fade away until the only reflection we see is God?
Were we not created in His likeness? I hope that when you look int the mirror, you do see yourself: you are a miracle that was created to bring joy not only to God's heart but to His planet and all that He created for your pleasure. You are the miracle for whom He created all of the universe. It is you that He longs for fellowship and company. It is you He chose to bring His Only Son to deliver from sin and it will be you that He will spend eternity with.
I challenge you to look in the mirror! For most of us, a mirror is th last thing we want to look at. In a mirror, we see staring back at us all our precieved imperfections: our nose is either to small or too big...just does not go with out face or we see ourselves too fat, too skinny,too short, too tall....you get the picture. We are our own worst critics .
What if when we look into the mirror instead of seeing the "mess" we precieve ourselves to be. we see a creation of God in its total prefection? What if we realized that God created us to be the mirror? That's right, we are the mirror that God looks into every morning and we reflect Him.
So the question now is, Do we reflect His compassion and love toward His creations? When others look at us do we reflect the love that God has for them so that they are encouraged to receive all that He has for them? When we look into the mirror, are so worried about how our flesh looks or do we fade away until the only reflection we see is God?
Were we not created in His likeness? I hope that when you look int the mirror, you do see yourself: you are a miracle that was created to bring joy not only to God's heart but to His planet and all that He created for your pleasure. You are the miracle for whom He created all of the universe. It is you that He longs for fellowship and company. It is you He chose to bring His Only Son to deliver from sin and it will be you that He will spend eternity with.
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