I read something today that spoke about my discovering my point of need. That when it becomes clear to me that I am not the source of all that I need, that I must reach out and ask for help, then help will come. What kind of help would it be that I cannot give to myself, I ask? Have you found that answer for yourself yet?
I read this reflection today and looked over the scripture readings in the Message version of the new testament. I found there what it was that I cannot supply for myself. It is the making of the new me. The new me that God said would be done for my good and for the good of my friends and family. The new me would reach out to others in ways I do not know how. The new me would look different and talk different and would not hold grudges against others for their wrong doing against me. The new me would allow others to not only find a new friend in me but reach out of the wounded person that emerged from the world (me) and become someone that I only dreamed of being. I ask you, have you become new? Do you want to? Everyone tells themselves that they are just fine the way they are and no need to change. Change is painful and brings only discomfort and with that uncertainty. "What will I become with this new change, who will I become and will others still accept me?"
Does it always have to rely on what others think of us? Should it? If the ones closest to us truly love us and they do, then when we open ourselves to a new life will they not change with us? Maybe they want to change too? Maybe they are waiting for you to make the first step and that will give them license to move also?
Read here: http://www.myutmost.org/10/1006.html
Read scripture here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%201:%2014-17&version=MSG
As is always heard by the slogan on Niki - Just do it!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Are there some things worth hating?
Luke 14:26 (The Message)
Figure the Cost
25-27One day when large groups of people were walking along with him, Jesus turned and told them, "Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters—yes, even one's own self!—can't be my disciple. Anyone who won't shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can't be my disciple.
Jesus stated this passage in another way that many are familiar with but do not like to contemplate.
Luke 14:26 (New International Version)
26"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.
In today's reflection of My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers, Oswald states that if there are places within us that are still hardened, still stubborn. Places inside us where we still believe we are right and they are wrong all of the time, places where we are quick to anger and slow to forgive then those are places where Jesus has not shined his gaze. When Jesus told the rich man to sell everything and follow him scripture states that he looked upon the man in a loving way. Are there places within you that have changed, that are no longer stubborn? Places that are now kept vacant for the Son of Man? Are there places in your mind where you no longer pretend to know all things but have settled down to the realization that what you knew was of the world and now it has been cleaned blank by the hand of God. Those places are now reserved for the hand of Jesus to right on. Then you too have discovered that you can hate something. You reject the world's influence, you reject the dictates of society and no longer strive for the most toys but instead seek austerity because it no longer feeds your soul. You are on the right path my friend, you are feeling his loving gaze.
Figure the Cost
25-27One day when large groups of people were walking along with him, Jesus turned and told them, "Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters—yes, even one's own self!—can't be my disciple. Anyone who won't shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can't be my disciple.
Jesus stated this passage in another way that many are familiar with but do not like to contemplate.
Luke 14:26 (New International Version)
26"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.
In today's reflection of My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers, Oswald states that if there are places within us that are still hardened, still stubborn. Places inside us where we still believe we are right and they are wrong all of the time, places where we are quick to anger and slow to forgive then those are places where Jesus has not shined his gaze. When Jesus told the rich man to sell everything and follow him scripture states that he looked upon the man in a loving way. Are there places within you that have changed, that are no longer stubborn? Places that are now kept vacant for the Son of Man? Are there places in your mind where you no longer pretend to know all things but have settled down to the realization that what you knew was of the world and now it has been cleaned blank by the hand of God. Those places are now reserved for the hand of Jesus to right on. Then you too have discovered that you can hate something. You reject the world's influence, you reject the dictates of society and no longer strive for the most toys but instead seek austerity because it no longer feeds your soul. You are on the right path my friend, you are feeling his loving gaze.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Vote and Pray
http://www.libertyaction.org/319/petition.asp?rid=22258394&PID=&P=1&Ref_ID=3986#N1
Hello and good afternoon, this link will take you to a video that is well put together. The idea being put out by the video is Pray and Vote. At this point in time we are very near the November 2 elections. These elections will either create a grid lock government and Obama will be stopped in his tracks or the progressives will plow forward with their communist agenda. We as God loving and respecting Americans can ask Him for all the help He can give us but it will be our feet that will take us to the voting pole. It will be our mind that considers who we believe to be the best candidate both locally and nationally. It will be our hand, yours or mine that will feed that voting ballot into the counting machine. We must do our part in order for God to do His. We cannot afford for America to sit home and wait out another election again. This November is critical. Please consider watching the video at the linked page and consider using it to pass along to friends and neighbors to encourage people to get out and vote. If two people reading this e-mail and watching the video change their minds and get out and vote on November 2 because I sent out this e-mail then that is all that I can ask.
We must become active, at this point in our country's history approximately 50 percent of registered voters exercise their right as American citizens and vote. That means to me that back in 2008 half the country sat home and let the other half decide their fate for them. I say fate because nothing is on automatic pilot here. Not everyone who goes to Washington has the same morals and values that you and I may have. We must realize that in this day and age more Americans do not attend church. They do not actively pray or invest in a relationship with God. They may seem to be friendly and helpful to most but they have no respect for the lives of the unborn or they do not see the harm that is being done to our society by allowing guidelines of moral and sexual decency to decay. That may sound narrow minded or old fashioned to some of you but I believe in it and stand by it. Each decade since the turn of the twentieth century our country's moral decline has been obvious and not going in a "level of higher mental superiority" but rather in spiritual and intellectual decline. Who could have thought twenty years ago there would have been people who made and produced a movie called "Jackass" 1 and 2? Who would have thought that in the state of Rhode Island that it would be legal for girls of the age of 16 to work in strip clubs and pole dance? Bathing suits are required until they reach 18 but still, they can take the bus home from school and do their homework and out the door to do the shimmy shake and earn a few bucks...I'm sure they are all saving up for that college education ;-)
Folks, this is your country as much as it is mine and we need to take back the management and oversight of what our society turns in to. Please tell your friends they are needed on November 2nd. Also, if you have not looked in to early voting let me tell you and Lola and I took advantage of it in the primary last month and it is great! Check with the Supervisor of Elections office and look for an early voting place nearest you and take advantage of the short lines and convenience of voting early. We are paying for it with our tax dollars we might as well use it to change the face of America. Thanks for listening and please pass along the information. Vote, it is still your right, preserved for you within the Constitution of the United States of America, your right to choose self governance, we are the only country in the world like this. We must protect it.
Lou.
May you have a Jesus filled day
*******************************************************************************
"Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you: Jesus Christ and the American Soldier. One died for your soul; the other for your freedom. " Author Unknown
Though defensive violence will always be 'a sad necessity' in the eyes of men of principle, it would be still more unfortunate if wrongdoers should dominate just men. Saint Augustine »
Mother Teresa, Roman Catholic nun
"It's the greatest poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
"The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
-Abraham Lincoln (17 September 1859, speech in Cincinnati, OH)
"There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right." — Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King
Hello and good afternoon, this link will take you to a video that is well put together. The idea being put out by the video is Pray and Vote. At this point in time we are very near the November 2 elections. These elections will either create a grid lock government and Obama will be stopped in his tracks or the progressives will plow forward with their communist agenda. We as God loving and respecting Americans can ask Him for all the help He can give us but it will be our feet that will take us to the voting pole. It will be our mind that considers who we believe to be the best candidate both locally and nationally. It will be our hand, yours or mine that will feed that voting ballot into the counting machine. We must do our part in order for God to do His. We cannot afford for America to sit home and wait out another election again. This November is critical. Please consider watching the video at the linked page and consider using it to pass along to friends and neighbors to encourage people to get out and vote. If two people reading this e-mail and watching the video change their minds and get out and vote on November 2 because I sent out this e-mail then that is all that I can ask.
We must become active, at this point in our country's history approximately 50 percent of registered voters exercise their right as American citizens and vote. That means to me that back in 2008 half the country sat home and let the other half decide their fate for them. I say fate because nothing is on automatic pilot here. Not everyone who goes to Washington has the same morals and values that you and I may have. We must realize that in this day and age more Americans do not attend church. They do not actively pray or invest in a relationship with God. They may seem to be friendly and helpful to most but they have no respect for the lives of the unborn or they do not see the harm that is being done to our society by allowing guidelines of moral and sexual decency to decay. That may sound narrow minded or old fashioned to some of you but I believe in it and stand by it. Each decade since the turn of the twentieth century our country's moral decline has been obvious and not going in a "level of higher mental superiority" but rather in spiritual and intellectual decline. Who could have thought twenty years ago there would have been people who made and produced a movie called "Jackass" 1 and 2? Who would have thought that in the state of Rhode Island that it would be legal for girls of the age of 16 to work in strip clubs and pole dance? Bathing suits are required until they reach 18 but still, they can take the bus home from school and do their homework and out the door to do the shimmy shake and earn a few bucks...I'm sure they are all saving up for that college education ;-)
Folks, this is your country as much as it is mine and we need to take back the management and oversight of what our society turns in to. Please tell your friends they are needed on November 2nd. Also, if you have not looked in to early voting let me tell you and Lola and I took advantage of it in the primary last month and it is great! Check with the Supervisor of Elections office and look for an early voting place nearest you and take advantage of the short lines and convenience of voting early. We are paying for it with our tax dollars we might as well use it to change the face of America. Thanks for listening and please pass along the information. Vote, it is still your right, preserved for you within the Constitution of the United States of America, your right to choose self governance, we are the only country in the world like this. We must protect it.
Lou.
May you have a Jesus filled day
*******************************************************************************
"Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you: Jesus Christ and the American Soldier. One died for your soul; the other for your freedom. " Author Unknown
Though defensive violence will always be 'a sad necessity' in the eyes of men of principle, it would be still more unfortunate if wrongdoers should dominate just men. Saint Augustine »
Mother Teresa, Roman Catholic nun
"It's the greatest poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
"The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
-Abraham Lincoln (17 September 1859, speech in Cincinnati, OH)
"There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right." — Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King
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