GOD IN HUMAN FLESH

 

 

Colossians 1:15    [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God.

 

The incarnation–God’s taking upon Himself our humanity and becoming a man–is an amazing truth–and one that gives us a solid foundation for our faith.

 

Both Jesus and the very first Christians clearly asserted that he was fully divine, and over the centuries this truth has remained central to the Christian faith. Long before Jesus’ miraculous birth, the Old Testament foretold that God would enter this world in human form: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him ‘Immanuel’–which means ‘God with us” (Matthew 1:23). When confronted by those who questioned His divinity, Jesus responded, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). The consistent witness of the apostles was that “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3). When Thomas–unconvinced at first that Jesus had been raised from the dead–met the risen Savior, he immediately exclaimed, “My LORD and my GOD!” (John 20:28).

 

Spend a few minutes marveling over this wondrous truth–and thank God for demonstrating His great love for us by taking upon Himself our human flesh.

 

Treasured ones,

  

As hard as it may be to believe, God did manifest himself in human form through his son Jesus. This is the same Jesus that was the Word in the beginning of creation; the same Word that created everything in the universe by God’s command.

 

It does make perfect sense that our Savior would be the same entity that created us and everything that is. That is why Jesus’ sacrifice can personally save each of us. He who created us came to us as Jesus to reconcile us with and justify us to his heavenly Father who allowed creation.

 

As the Word, he created us and as Jesus he saved us. Just as our earthly father and Mother created us and so many times saves us. Jesus came to earth, lived as a human and was the first to be resurrected thereby creating a path to eternal life for all those he created who accept him and believe in him.

 

What a loving God! He sent his only son to save a world of souls so they could become part of God’s family. This awesome, humbling fact can become the most powerful force in our lives if we accept it and follow God’s will.  When we do this, we then become one with God and will become the image of the invisible God here in our time.

 

One with the Father,

Dad

 

Jesus as Lord

 

Luke 6:46    “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”

 

Jesus demands to be Master and Lord of every part of your life.

 

Is he LORD of you mind, of what you think, read, and believe? Of what you dream about, meditate on, and entertain yourself with?

 

Is Jesus the Master and LORD of your body? Are you presenting it to Christ as a living sacrifice? Do your eyes belong to Christ? What about your ears? Your mouth? Your hands? Your feet? Your sexual urges? Our eyes can be covetous and never satisfied. Our tongue can do unspeakable harm. Our hands can do the work of the devil. Our feet can take us where we shouldn’t go. And our sexuality can get us in trouble before we know it.

 

Is Jesus also the Master and LORD of your social life–your friendships, your relationships, your amusements? Always ask yourself these questions: “Can I ask God’s blessings on it? Can I do this to the glory of God? Or will this be a stumbling block to me or someone else?”

 

Are you calling Jesus “LORD” but not doing what He wants?

Beloved ones,

 

After honestly asking myself this question, I had to answer yes in many circumstances. We all fall short of this in some ways. The key however, is to commit every day to live more than yesterday doing what the Lord tells us to do. The other key is to honestly admit where we fall short, repent of it and and ask God to help us do God’s will.

 

Committed,

Dad

Faith vs. Feeling

 

Hebrews 11:1    Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

 

This verse indroduces on of the Bible’s great chapters–what someone has called “The Bible’s Hall of Fame.” Beginning in Genesis–with Able, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham–and continuing through the Old Testament, the author spotlights those spiritual heroes who stayed faithful to God in the face of almost overwhelming odds.

 

Why did they remain faithful? One reason is because their faith was in God and His promises, and not in their feelings. These great men and women of faith faced discouragement and doubt the same way we do. But their trust was in God, not their emotions–and the same should be true of us.

 

Emotions aren’t wrong; God gave them to us, and they are an important part of life. But our feelings go up and down–and if our faith is based merely on our feelings, it too will go up and down. Only when we build our lives on Christ will our faith be stable and strong. Don’t let your feelings mislead you, but base your faith solely on Christ and what He did for us through His death and resurrection.

 

Dear family,

 

Has anyone stopped to think what our lives would be like if everything we did was based on our emotions and feelings instead of our faith, duties and responsibilities? How many times would Mom or Dad just not get out of bed and go to work each day to provide for our family? How many heartaches would we run from rather than

doing the hard things parents have to do to ensure the family’s welfare? And how would our spiritual life fare if our daily walk with God was driven by our feelings that day instead of the unalterable truths in the Bible? How would our children turn out if we do what feels good instead of doing what’s right?

 

Hopefully the answers to these questions are self-evident. Not only would our lives be in chaos, but our hope, future and dreams would be denied to us. Those visions of children growing up in harmony, obedience and commitment to our family, would be never materialize. We would be denied the fruits of our sacrifice and diligence with our kids as they mature and grow into adulthood. Visions of joyful, appropriate love maturing into healthy marriages and more family to love and cherish would fade as distant memories.

 

And our spiritual life would follow suit. Every act would become relative, right and wrong would disappear and our faith and morality would descend into “If it feels good do it”. That path, as we all know, does not lead to joy, peace or communion with God. When we follow our feeling instead of the truth, when we count on our emotions rather than our reason and when we deny the behavior God instructs us to practice, we jeopardize all the good things for which we strive so mightily.

                                                                                                                            

It is hard to trust God, to do the right thing and to follow our faith rather than our desires for comfort and avoidance of difficulty? Yet, it is the price of peace, joy and true faith. Our choice, each of us, each day is whether we love each other and God enough to make the tough choices, do the right thing and stay true to God’s will.

 

Sadly, we have experienced what happens to our dreams when we don’t. Hopefully, our heartaches will steel us and ensure that we avoid such an experience again. However, even though the feelings and emotions we endured during our first experience would be enough to make some folks stay in bed, we will face the future with faith, hope and confidence that we have learned our lessons well and will not repeat them. That is true because our faith is not based on our feelings, but on God’s power to turn even our worst nightmares into a blessing.                                                                                                                     

                        

Trusting faith,

Dad 

ADOPTED INTO HIS FAMILY

 

Ephesians 1:4-5    He chose us in Him before the creation of the world…. to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will.

 

From time to time someone writes me who was adopted as a child, and is now haunted by the idea that they had been rejected by both of their birth parents, and therefore they must have been unloved and unlovable. Those feelings have oppressed them most of their lives.

 

What they have forgotten–and what I always try to point out to them–is that they weren’t unloved and unwanted by their adoptive parents–not at all. That couple had a choice in the matter–and they deliberately chose to bring this child into their family. If anything, their adoption proves that their feelings are lying to them. The truth is, they are loved, and they are wanted.

 

In an even greater way, God loves us so much that He chose to make us part of His family. Jesus’ death and resurrection accomplished many things for us–our forgiveness, our new life, even our eternal destiny. But something else took place when you accepted Christ: You were adopted into His family forever. God loves you that much!

Dearest ones,

 

Sometimes our life together as a family hits some very rough spots. These times can make us want to abandon our family or separate ourselves from our family. During those times we may feel as if being together just will not fit with what we want or is just too much trouble. These feelings can split families apart and damage them so badly that the family cannot recover.

 

These are the times that we should look to God’s example as our Heavenly Father and his instructions to his adopted children, us. God always forgives the repentant child and affirms his love to us. Yet, God still allows us to suffer through our mistakes and selfishness because he knows we must learn better. Then, once we have repented and paid our dues, God forgives and shines his love and grace on us.

 

Likewise, when our family suffers from the actions of one or all of us, we must continue to love each other and allow  each other to pay their dues until repentance is experienced and forgiveness sought. That is when we must shower our love, grace and forgiveness on each other. When we follow God’s example in these things, we can be sure that his hand will guide our family back into communion with each other and with God.

 

Following God’s parental lead,

Dad

BEAUTY OUT OF ASHES

 

 

Isaiah 61:1,3    The LORD has anointed me…to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes.

 

One of the Bible’s greatest truths is that our lives can be different.

 

No matter what our past has been, Christ stands ready to forgive and cleanse us–and then to make us new. “Therefore,” the Bible says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17).

 

When Isaiah wrote these picturesque words about beauty from ashes, he was probably thinking first of Jerusalem, the once-proud city now shattered and burned at the hand of a brutal enemy. Some 700 years later Jesus applied this passage from Isaiah to the ministry God had given Him.

 

Only Christ can bring hope to lives that have been turned into ashes by the assaults of our enemy. Satan. And He doesn’t just restore us to what we once were; He gives us “a crown of beauty”–the beauty of forgiveness, and the beauty of hope and joy and peace. Who around you is experiencing the ashes of a shattered life? Pray for them, and ask God to use you to point them to Christ.

Blessed Ones,

 

Each of us has the opportunity through God to make our lives and everything in them new.  God can create beauty out of ashes and replace our hurts and failures with joy and success.

 

In order for this to happen, we must be in Christ. That means we must live in the way God instructs as we follow our faith down the path God has laid out for us. We do not do this by following the self, but by denying the self  and following God..

 

When we abandon the self and practice our faith, then God flows through us and into our world. That is when we become a new person, and is when we receive our crown of beauty. Until then, we are stuck with the ashes of our self-centered, self-imposed and self-anointed crowns.

 

Let us today claim our crowns of hope, joy and peace as we live in the beauty with which a loving God has surrounded us.

 

Less self,

Dad

SHAPING THE NEXT GENERATION

 

 

Colossians 3:21    Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.

 

His marriage is over, and now, after years of tension and coldness between the young man and his parents, he is back living with them while he tries to sort out his future. “I’m glad he came home,” his father said to a friend of mine. “I’m afraid we didn’t treat him the way we should have when he was a boy, and it’s hurt him.”

 

As they grow older out children become responsible for the decisions they make in life; Parents shouldn’t take upon themselves all the blame if these decisions are bad. But our failures do have an impact on them, making them more open to foolish or evil ways. Harsh, unreasonable discipline…neglect…favoritism…failure to express love…being too busy to give them any attention…failing to teach them the difference between right and wrong…all these and more can “embitter your children” so that “they will become discouraged.”

 

Don’t let this happen in your family. And if it has, ask God to forgive you and help you reverse it as much as possible.

Dear Heavenly Father,

 

Grant to our family the strength, tenderness, forgiveness and trust to lift up one another and to encourage and embrace each other in love, trust and truthfulness. Open our eyes to that which we must change and steady our steps to achieve those changes. Fill us with the patience, tolerance and determination necessary to follow your will in our family. And Father, heal all our hurts, disappointments and weaknesses so we may live together in harmony now  and forever. Amen.

 

Looking up,

Dad

SEEING THROUGH GOD’S EYES

 

2 Corinthians 5:16    So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.

 

When we first glimpse the apostle Paul in the Bible he was called Saul – and his mission in life was to stamp out the Christian faith: “Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples”  (Acts 9:1). But all that changed when he met the risen Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. From that moment on the persecutor became the proclaimer, fearlessly taking the Gospel throughout the Roman Empire.

 

What made him change? First, he became absolutely convinced that the Gospel was true. Jesus Christ was no imposter; He was the risen Son of God, sent from Heaven to save us from our sins. How could Paul remain silent in the face of this profound truth?

 

But there was another reason for Paul’s change: He began to see people the way God sees them. He now saw them in their lostness and confusion–and also as those for whom Christ died. What difference does the truth of the Gospel make to you? And are you asking God to help you see others through His eyes?

Dear ones,

 

My prayer today is that it be God’s will to empower every one of us to see each other through God’s eyes, and through each other’s eyes as well. Each of us, in our own way, experience lostness and confusion. Yet, even in these conditions, the best person in history, God made man, Jesus, gave his life in substitution for us. He saw us as God’s creations, capable of infinite good, yet mired in our individual selves, unable to truly go it alone.

 

Likewise, God knows we are his children and only needs our acceptance and obedience to provide us with clarity, direction and infinite power. God also knows we will err and fall short of our potential, and he forgives us for this and allows us to start anew, fresh and clean every day through his unending mercy and grace. Our duty in this covenant is to yield to God’s spirit and put the Holy Spirit in charge of our human spirit.

 

Then God’s power and reality will flow through us into the physical world, and  and we will see all things not from a worldly view, but through God’s eyes.

 

Seeing spiritually,

Dad

WHEN HOPE SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE

 

 

Psalm 42:5    Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God.

 

How can we have hope when there isn’t any reason to have hope?

 

Some people, I’ve found, are just naturally optimistic; no matter what happens to them, they almost always react with a brave smile and a positive outlook. “We must keep up our hopes,” they say–even when they have no reason to hope. Unfortunately, their hope is little more than wishful thinking.

 

But this isn’t the kind of hope the Bible urges us to have. It tells us to find our hope in God–not in our circumstances, or our natural optimism (or pessimism), or our family or friends–but from God.

 

How is this possible? It happens only when we realize how much God loves us–a love so deep that His Son was willing to give His life for us. It happens too when we realize that this life is not all, but ahead of us is Heaven if we know Christ. Is your hope in Him–both for this life and the life to come?

Dear family,

 

God’s love and hope are always available to us, but we must accept that love through belief in God and through following God’s will.  Just as the rain can only fill the upright bucket which is ready to receive, so God’s love and protection fills those who are upright and open to God’s bounty.

 

When our response to God’s call is yes, all the power and love of the universe fills us with the water of life. Not just life here, full of God’s loving protection, but also life forever with God and all those we love. Hope for this life and hope for eternity. Can you think of anything else in the world which offers such a promise? If so, follow  it. If not, follow  God.

 

In hope,

Dad 

CHOOSING THE BEST

 

Galatians 6:10    As we have opportunity, let us do good to all people.

 

Do you sometimes feel frustrated because you can’t solve all the problems you see around you? It’s easy to feel helpless when you read about a famine or natural disaster in some foreign land that threatens the lives of millions; it’s easy to feel helpless when you read about the dropout rate in your local school system or the number of people who are homeless or hungry in your community.

 

No, you can’t solve everything–but don’t let that keep you from obeying the Bible’s injunction to do good to everyone you can, as God gives you opportunity. It may be by supporting the work your church is doing in your community, or by sending money to an international Christian foundation aid organization. Or it may be through helping a single parent who lives near you…or tutoring in a local school…or simply being a friend to someone who is going through hard times.

 

Jesus said, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

 

Beloved ones,

  

There are times when we are so burdened with troubles or challenges that we feel we have no time to help someone else. During those times it is easy to convince ourselves that we must take care of our selves before we can help another. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, that is when it is most important to turn our attention outward instead of inward.

 

For it is when we offer our hand to someone in need that God offers his hand to us. When we lift our heads to look beyond our own burdens is when we see God at work. We see God is the one who is carrying our load, not us. We see our burdens and our blessings in their true perspective. Then we are filled with gratitude for all all blessings and feel strengthened and humbled.

 

It is then that God helps us shift our load so we can make room for another’s need. And miraculously, our weight is lightened and our problems don’t seem so large. You see, when we are helping someone else, we have little time to feel sorry for ourselves. It is because we have chosen the best way, God’s way.

 

Choosing good,

Dad

The Power Within

 

 

There exists a mystic Power that is able to transform your life so thoroughly, so radically, so completely, that when the process is completed your own friends would hardly recognize you, and, in fact, you would scarcely be able to recognize yourself.

 

It can lift you out of an invalid’s bed, and free you to go out into the world to shape your life as you will. It can throw open the prison door and liberate the captive.

 

This Power can do for you that which is probably the most important thing of all in your present stage: it can find your true place in life for you, and put you into it.

 

This Power is really no less than the primal Power of Being, and to discover that Power is the divine birthright of all men.

 

…. The kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21).

…. Seek ye first the kingdom of God… and all these things shall be added…(Matthew 6:33).

How  often do we feel powerless or trapped in an undesirable situation. What would it mean to have the power to change any circumstance in our lives? What would we be willing to do for such power?

 

The good news is that God will manifest that power through us if we get the self out of the way and let God run the show. The hard part of receiving this power is turning our lives, decisions and priorities over to God.

 

When we turn inward to God’s power within each us, we will receive that which we need to persevere and prevail. That may not mean that we get what we want. It will mean that we get the power we need to fulfill God’s purpose and to live in the garden created for us.

 

Then we can know  infinite power, we can overcome that which appears to overcome us, and we can know the peace, hope and joy that God ser aside for us from the begriming of time. Now that is true power.

 

Looking in,

Z gardener