Forgiven By God

Shadows This week was groundhog week. At school we taught the kids all about shadows and we even watched the ceremony to see if the groundhog saw his shadow or not. This got me to thinking about us as Christians. You see a shadow is a reflection of the person that the sun is shining on. A shadow goes everywhere a person goes. It does everything a person does. If I take off walking, my shadow follows. If I jump my shadow follows. If I reach over and hug someone, my shadow follows. We need to be like a shadow of Jesus. We need to do the things Jesus would do. We know that while Jesus was on Earth He helped others. He talked to them, prayed with them, and fed them when they were hungry. He met every need they had. He showed compassion and love for them. If you look at your life are you being a shadow of Jesus? Opportunities come our way everyday to help others. People are hurting everywhere and just need someone to help them. Will you be a shadow of Jesus today?

Killing flies is like trying to defeat the devil. Have you ever noticed that when you don’t have a flyswatter that flies buzz around your head and annoy you to pieces, but get a flyswatter and they begin to fly off. If you actually kill one, the flies disappear completely. Then we think they are gone, we put the flyswatter up and sit back down only to realize that without a weapon we no longer have a defense against the flies. Imagine if we kept our flyswatter beside us all the time. Flies would not fly near as close. In relating this to our spiritual walk, some truths stuck out at me. Sometimes in life we are just ambling along without really a care in the world when BAM! A bunch of flies in the form of tests and trials come our way. At first they may seem like pesky annoyances or maybe even some minor inconveniences and we don’t really think much of it. Then more and more things start coming at us and we begin to look around for something to help us. Sometimes we look to p...

Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Psalm 51:7 I love cleaning my kitchen sink. I fill it up with hot water, pour in some bleach and let it sit for about an hour. You can just see all the crud that has accumulated coming off. After I let it soak, I drain the water and then scrub a little bit and voila it looks like I have a brand new sink. If you looked at the sink before I cleaned it you would have never realized all the impurities that were stuck on the inside, but once it is cleaned it is very obvious that it should have been cleaned sooner. The same is true when we become Christians. We’re like the dirty sink. We may not realize that we have so much crud and junk inside of us until we meet the Savior that cleanses us from the inside out. You see as we accept Him into our lives and ask for His forgiveness He begins to do a work in us and starts to remove all the impurities in our life. Our job is to let Him have the time...

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. James 4:13-14 Each of us has only one life to give. We do not know when that life will be taken away from us. As Christians, we need to be doing God’s business everyday of our lives. You may not realize it, but each one of us has a ministry from God. We may not be called to the pulpit, to teach, or to play an instrument or sing, but each one of us has people that only we can reach on a daily basis. The Bible says our life is like a vapor. Here today and gone tomorrow. With that in mind, we need to be doing all we can to reach the lost. In 2010, our WM group started a prayer box, where we wrote our 10 most wanted things from God in 2010. As I look back over the list it is amazing how many prayers God...

Christmas is a wonderful time of year. We buy presents bake homemade goodies and spend extra time with our loved ones. We do this because we love them and we want to show that love by giving something special to them. The gifts we choose to give cost the receiver nothing. All they have to do is accept the gift and unwrap it in order to receive it. As we celebrate Christmas today, let's not forget about the greatest gift ever given to us. His name is Jesus. He was God's gift, given because God loved us and wanted to show that love to us. The Bible says in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish but have eternal life." This gift did not cost us one single thing, but it cost God His Son. He freely gave His Son for our Salvation because He loved us and cared about us and He wants a relationship with us. All we have to do to receive God's gift is accept it from Him. Too of...

As I look back over this past week I am reminded that God still works miracles. My brother's accident should have been serious if not fatal, however God intervened and Jubil only has a few bone fractures. This is not the first miracle God has worked in my families lives. Over the years God has done many amazing things. He has protected us in serious wrecks. He has healed my son, Cord, when medicine would not work. He has even kept me from being seriously injured when boiling water splashed into my eye. Sometimes I get busy and forget all the mighty things God has done for me, but throughout everything God has been with me and my family. God is there for all of us, not just my family. All we have to do is ask Him and He is there. I don't know what I would do without the Most Holy of Holies to cry out to. He is there when I need Him and He is never too busy to listen.

Have you ever watched the wind blow? Of course we can't see the wind blow, but we know it is blowing by the trees and the grass moving. The same is true for the Holy Spirit. We can't see the Holy Spirit but we know He's blowing in our lives by how we are moving. If we are moving closer to God and doing the work God has for us, then the Holy Spirit is blowing into our lives. The Holy Spirit is the wind that moves Christians. He gently pushes us to step out and move closer to God. The Holy Spirit is our leader, our comforter, and our helper. He will guide us as we try to make it through life. He will help us know what our next move should be. He will also help us grow closer to God. The Holy Spirit will give us boldness and the words to say as we tell others about Jesus. He is a great friend to have. Ask God today to have the Holy Spirit come into your life.