Love Lives

Just wanted to share this. True Love by Fellowship Church

 

more about “Love Lives“, posted with vodpod

New equation

E qua tion noun. situation involving many variable factors: a situation that has two or more variable aspects to be considered.

Try this equation in your life and your daily time with God.

Change of Pace + Change of Place = Change of Perspective

Picked this equation up from Mark Batterson’s book, Wild Goose Chase.  Mix it up a little in your quiet time with God.  Don’t always do it the same way or in the same place.  Actually get in the car and go to a new setting to read and pray.  Mountain top or shady park.   Or take a walk and talk with God.  Go outside, go inside, just mix it up.  Something I’ve personally found refreshing is reading different translations.  Today I read Romans 8-10  in The Message and The New Century Version it was….different.  New perspective.  I love when God shows me a different way to look at something and teaches me something new in His word.

He satisfies

Reading yesterday in Psalms 107 and in verse 9 it says:

9  For He satisfies the longing soul, And fills the hungry soul with goodness.

This verse got me thinking about Jeremy’s post.  Yeah I think most Christians hold the view that heaven is all about what they are going to get.  Like seeing loved ones and enjoying everything you ever liked to do on earth and enjoying the sights.  But my opinion is this:  I don’t think our finite little brains can even grasp a small speck of what heaven will be like.  I think all that other stuff will pale in comparison when we stand in the presence of our Creator, God Almighty, in all His glory.  I also don’t think God will allow us to be satisfied any other way by us putting anything else before Him.  Think about your life and other people’s lives and think of the things our souls long for.  What do we hunger and thirst for?  To be loved? To have someone to love? To be wanted?  To have a friend?  Someone who cares?  To shed our worries and burdens of this life? To be clean and good? (a righteousness void of any guilt from sin)  I think Christ will be everything we’ve ever longed for in this life.  Completing us and satisfying us.  Look at Revelation 21:22-22:5:

22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, 25 and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. 26 They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. 27 But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

The River of Life

22:1 Then the angel  showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life  with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

Wow, flowing from the throne of God is life.  Growing on either side of this river is also life.  Look how it speaks of worshiping.  There is no temple. Vs 22 says  God is the temple.  Again I don’t think we can grasp how amazing it will be because all we have is what we experience here in our sin cursed world.  Think of how you feel when you experience an incredible sunrise or beautiful sunset.  Or witnessing a miracle like childbirth or maybe even skydiving for the first time (never done it).  Take that feeling and multiply it by a trillion and that may be just a very small taste of what being in the presence of God may be like.  I think it’s going to be all about God.  God getting all the glory and worship He is worthy of forever. 

 

Make it loud!

Reading Psalms 149 and 150 this morning.  Sometimes worship is loud! 

Psalms 150:5-6

Praise Him with loud cymbals!   Praise Him with resounding cymbals!

re·sound·ing [ri zównding]

adjective

1.	clear and emphatic: clear and unequivocal
2.	echoing loudly: making a loud noise that echoes

New Music

Steve Fee

 

Brooke Fraser

I’ve been counting up all my wrongs
One sorry for each star
See I’d apologise my way to You
If the heavens stretched that far
You are the one I want, You are the one I want[Chorus]
I won’t find what I am looking for
If I only “see” by keeping score
‘Cos I know now You are so much more than arithmetic

‘Cos if I add, if I subtract
If I give it all, try to take some back
I’ve forgotten the freedom that comes from the fact
That You are the sum
So You are the one
I want-  Arithmetic, Brooke Fraser

Interesting thought

Once again a great thought from Mark Batterson’s book, Wild Goose Chase.  The concept of “yawning angels”.  I love it.  Such a great thought.    Are our lives so secure, safe, and comfortable that we are bored and so are our guardian angels?  Faith and boredom are absolute opposites.  Get this book!

Look at 1 Samuel 14:1-14.  Check out this story of Jonathan and Saul.    One is taking it easy under a pomegrante tree and the other is climbing a dangerous rocky cliff with incredible faith in his God. 

1 Samuel 14     The Message

14:1 Later that day, Jonathan, Saul’s son, said to his armor bearer, “Come on, let’s go over to the Philistine garrison patrol on the other side of the pass.” But he didn’t tell his father.

14:2 Meanwhile, Saul was taking it easy under the pomegranate tree at the threshing floor on the edge of town at Geba (Gibeah). There were about six hundred men with him.

14:3 Ahijah, wearing the priestly Ephod, was also there. (Ahijah was the son of Ahitub, brother of Ichabod, son of Phinehas, who was the son of Eli the priest of God at Shiloh.) No one there knew that Jonathan had gone off.

14:4 The pass that Jonathan was planning to cross over to the Philistine garrison was flanked on either side by sharp rock outcroppings, cliffs named Bozez and Seneh.

14:5 The cliff to the north faced Micmash; the cliff to the south faced Geba (Gibeah).

14:6 Jonathan said to his armor bearer, “Come on now, let’s go across to these uncircumcised pagans. Maybe God will work for us. There’s no rule that says God can only deliver by using a big army. No one can stop God from saving when he sets his mind to it.”

14:7 His armor bearer said, “Go ahead. Do what you think best. I’m with you all the way.”

14:8 Jonathan said, “Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll cross over the pass and let the men see we’re there.

14:9 If they say, ‘Halt! Don’t move until we check you out,’ we’ll stay put and not go up.

14:10 But if they say, ‘Come on up,’ we’ll go right up – and we’ll know God has given them to us. That will be our sign.”

14:11 So they did it, the two of them. They stepped into the open where they could be seen by the Philistine garrison. The Philistines shouted out, “Look at that! The Hebrews are crawling out of their holes!”

14:12 Then they yelled down to Jonathan and his armor bearer, “Come on up here! We’ve got a thing or two to show you!”

14:13 Jonathan shouted to his armor bearer, “Up! Follow me! God has turned them over to Israel!” Jonathan scrambled up on all fours, his armor bearer right on his heels. When the Philistines came running up to them, he knocked them flat, his armor bearer right behind finishing them off, bashing their heads in with stones.

14:14 In this first bloody encounter, Jonathan and his armor bearer killed about twenty men.