Amway, Jesus and Rotten Apples....

Amway.  Just speaking aloud that one word seems to send cringes to the faces of everyone I know, like they just took a big bite of what looked like a delicious yummy golden apple only to discover it was bitterly rotten.  Every new "multi level" marketing company has to sort of get past that hump that they aren't like Amway, they aren't a pyramid scheme and that they don't "taste rotten".   A few bad apples ruined Amway's reputation.  Who doesn't get that urge to run when you start to hear the sales pitch from a friend that just "joined the next best thing"?  I would describe this much like how I reacted to anyone sharing Jesus with me.  Just another person trying to get me to go to their Church.  It was a long hard sales pitch for those loving people that God placed in my path.

I love to think back on my PJ times...which in my world refers to "Pre-Jesus" times.  PJ...I used to hear the word Jesus and I would literally cringe!  I would turn that radio station so quick once I realized that it was a Christian station. I would turn quickly the other direction if I saw the neighbor who liked to invite me to his church on Sunday.  Jesus was nothing more than a bitter tasting apple to me.   How or what got me to that response?  It's a long complicated story...but it boils down to that I associated Jesus and God to the people around me that represented Him.  I didn't even bother to get to know Him.  I chose to put blinders on and saw God through the eyes of the Church that let me down and the Christians around me who I viewed as self righteous and hypocritical.  Unfortunately, I only remembered all the "bad apples" I bit into growing up. There were people out there slaughtering the name of Jesus and I bought their sales pitch, hook line and sinker without doing any further research.  What a small world I had created. Do we let others view of God determine our image of God?  Do we really know Him?  Have we taken the time to have a relationship with Him and Him alone?  We can not understand who we are in Christ...unless we really know who God truly is?  So much misinformation has been given to us on God.  I spent years with an idea of who God was without ever opening up the source...the Bible to see for myself or asking Him directly.  I was looking at the world like it was a rotten apple...I was running away from Church like it was Amway and that made my view of God ultimately cringe worthy.  It's heart wrenching that I choose to do that for so many years.  Good news is...it's been five years since AJ....(after Jesus) and my I'm learning about what true love is all about.  I don't cringe at His name, in fact I want to shout, jump or just smile when I hear a great Christian song singing his Glory on the Christian Station.  I can't wait to go to Church on Sundays and be filled with His wisdom.  I want to just praise Him when I hear a story of His redeeming love.  I'm learning to be rid of all the "rotten" views I have of God.  He isn't any old rotten apple.  He is like biting into a perfectly sweet juicy Golden Delicious which makes your taste buds explode times a million. 

Clanging Symbol...

Ephesians 3:18 "...to grasp how far, how wide and long and high and deep is the LOVE of Christ, and to know that love surpasses knowledge...that you may be filled to the measure of all fullness of God."

Do we fully grasp the love of God? It is almost incomprehensible. I know the moment I found out I was pregnant there was a love I hadn't felt before. My poor hubby...I love him to death but with a lot of conditions. (Oops...working on that!!) As Moms and Dad we get a good glimpse of that unconditional LOVE. God is my father and He loves me. Me. He gives me His beautiful gift of grace...wrapped up in Love. What am I doing with that gift? How am I responding to that gift? The more I understand Gods magnificent love...to be seekers of love as He tells us, the more I am able to share that gift of grace with others. Comprehending Gods love will help us with the gift of faith and his gift of grace and will allow us to walk through the door so we can let God empower our lives. Life that is lacking in love becomes ...well...just religious. I don't want to be a clanging cymbal...as Paul mentions in1 Corinthians 1-3.

"If I speak in tongues of men and of angels, but have not LOVE, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not lOVE, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but I have not LOVE, I gain nothing."

I want to reflect his glory...forgive like He forgives, have a heart full of surrender and love like He loves. What better way to live and shine His light.

Matthew 10:39 "whoever finds their life will loose it, whoever looses their life for my sake will find it. 

It's a heart thing....

"I will give you a new heart" (Ezekiel 36:26.)

How do we treat our hearts? To God our heart is valuable and it matters, it is " the wellspring". When we SEE with the eyes of the heart we see a whole new world....we awaken and start to discover a world which wasn't what we knew or how we saw it before.  When people were touched by Jesus, the deaf hear, lame walk, dead are raised.....and the blind see.  Christianity....which is "Christ in us" is supposed to make us whole, set us free, bring us fully alive.  How many of us are walking around fully alive?  In Acts 4:32 it says "all believers were of one heart".  How often do we act as if we have a new heart in us?  How often are we seeing the world with eyes of Jesus?  Do we take time to care for this heart that has been renewed?  Have we even given our whole heart over?  How you deal and love your own heart...is how you will deal and love other peoples hearts.  Are we able to fully live "Love others as yourself" as Jesus commanded?  Our heart is Gods dwelling place.  "Streams of living water will flow within him" John 7:37.   Caring for your heart will keep that water flowing and closer to God.

What does your heart need?  Who or what is manipulating that heart?  How are you going to treat this heart of yours if you truly believe it is a treasure of the kingdom?  Ask God to show you what your heart needs.   This matters to Him....

Eyes that see into the light....

When we see wonders of our world...we always want to share.  Think about a double rainbow- or that beautiful sunset- we run to take a picture or grab a loved one to SEE it with us!!

Imagine. Imagine you are on the edge of a high cliff looking out over the ocean and you are witnessing the most glorious sunset you have ever seen. The blazing view of it heats up your heart as it warms the cool blue ocean below.  Magnificent red and orange hues expand and dance in the full sky all around you reminding you of who made this and His abundant love for you.  It just fills you up. It is so remarkable that you've got to share. You run to grab your friends so they too can witness such a great site! Imagine all of your friends,  relatives, neighbors your "sisters" standing with you on that cliff but they are unable to see any color or feel any warmth as you do?  They aren't sure how you can see those clear colours you describe.  They are stuck in a constant grey, feeling only a damp cool breeze and viewing a dull sky in the dusk of darkness.  Each vision is clouded by a story of their own.  Some strapped to bitterness, stuck in their hurts, disappointments, paralyzed from rejection, forgotten, soaked in sorrows held down by stones that feel like boulders. Dark grey like the rocks they drag around, at best, is all they can see. This is what they know.  You feel desperate for them. You want nothing more than for them to feel that love and to see the colors of the sky.  But how?   You shout out a prayer to the blazing sky and God gently reminds you of His gift..." In Him there is no darkness"...no grey...no cold...just perfect light.  

Imagine, as you experience this light that is so warming, brilliant and amazing that you stretch your right hand high into the sky becoming part of it....with your other hand you reach out and grab hold tight of that precious hand beside you, with love, hold it up high to the light and the sight just flows through you and pierces the darkness of grey and warms her body straight to the heart giving her vision of colour she never could have fathomed. Imagine then...her fingers touching her eyes in joy...wiping away tears and then she stretches her hand towards the heavenly sunset and with her other hand...grabs hold of that dear hand next to hers to share that magnificent peace.  Imagine, all these sisters holding out a hand to the sky and reaching for the hand next to them as the light invades their eyes and love pierces their hearts. No matter how long it takes they just hold that hand, in love. The more they look the warmer it gets and the stronger their vision and love grows...and the more hands they grab.   

Sharing the joy of vision and seeing those hearts being filled with the Light of Jesus would make you feel like the sunset you are beholding.  Awesome. Touch and grab and hold high. Love and share as long as it takes.  Imagine sisters everywhere emerging from the darkness together. Imagine, walking into the light with a clear crisp vision and a heart raging with a fire like the sunset that expands before them.

I was here....

Psalm 16:11

You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

I live in Chicago and only get to go home about once a year.  I've been gone for over 20 years but I still get homesick and can't wait to smell the salty east coast air! As soon as we land in eastern Maine and drive towards my home just across the border in New Brunswick, Canada I start seeing inukshuks lovingly placed all over the sides of the roads, in the deep rocky ditches or high up on the cliffs that engulf the highway. I love spotting them...and I look for them.   The nostalgic feelings set in and I get excited about being close to home. Over the past couple of decades it seems the maritimers have loved to make these inukshuks all over the place. My mother has made a few on her property and any rocky beach I go to I like to build one of my own. They were initially made by the Inuits up in northern Canada as a way of communication and survival. Using large or small stones they would build a structure that would say without words... "I was here" or "you are on the right path".   We all seem to want to leave our mark. 

God has provided us with a multitude of "inukshuks" showing us the right path everyday. If I wasn't paying attention on my road trip home...if I wasn't looking for them, I would probably miss those lovingly placed rock formations as we speed by.  How often has God placed his reminders right in front of us that we just didn't notice? Maybe we weren't looking for them. Was it a person, a song, a verse sent your way or even a whisper ignored?  Maybe we were so busy speeding through life that we missed those reminders from God.   God makes if very clear that He has a perfect path already set before us. He knows exactly where we need to go. He gives us a perfect guide...the bible as our map to show us how to stay on that "right path".  Daily, He stamps his presence on our heart with an "I am here!"  Jesus left a mark on my heart...with His grace and love...and has enabled me to spread His love and to get people to join His path.  Those inukshuks remind me of God...and how he shows me He is here with me.  

Listen to me....

"I am praying to you because I know you will listen, O God, Bend down and listen as I pray"

Psalm 17:6

I initially read through this verse quickly this morning and continued to peruse my emails and devotionals that get sent to me daily. I ventured back to it...and decided to sit and linger on the verse for a bit. One word just stood out to me, grabbed my attention. BEND. Imagine our MAGNIFECENT God, bending down to us, listening as we give our worries to Him. When our k...ids come to us hurt of bruised...the natural tendency is to crouch down to their level and love on them...we get on the same level, eye to eye and ease their pain and give comfort. Why does it baffle me at times to think the God we serve is so loving that He is not beyond this? He has shown me over and over again that He follows, carries, kneels and surrounds me. HE CHASED me down for years before I would acknowledge His love. I know now...those times when I was flat on my face hurting from deep pain that He was there nose to nose with me. It almost makes my heart burst from knowing this when I really take in the truth of this. Before I knew who Jesus really was I never could imagine the Creator of this magnificent universe really thought to much of me. I've been shown how wrong I was over and over and over. We have a God bending to us everyday...listening to our hearts, loving us with His Grace. He is the perfect listener, I'm so thankful I KNOW that He listens to me as I talk to Him and that HE bends down with His comfort. How sweet He is.