Idols .... American and Other

I gotta believe that everyone has a pretty good idea about idol worship and God's position on it but lets start here

"You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. ⁵ You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me." - Exodus 20:4-5  (NLT)

That is a big big thought to unpack.  We can bottom line it as God saying do not worship idols! But it is clear there is more to it then that.  This is a big issue and an almost precursor for us, of the possibility of us losing our way and falling victim to the idols!  We are not to worship them, bow down to them.  I think we need to unpack the idea of worship and bowing down.  Let's have a look at the definition of Merriam-Webster 

1 : to honor or reverence as a divine being or supernatural power

2 : to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion

This is a good start! Honour and reverence AS A divine being.  Well we are aware that the only Divine Being is God! So worship should be saved for Him.  Further more, worship means to regard someone with great respect, honour and devotion..  If we start applying these thoughts to our daily lives how often can we be guilty of worshiping false idols! Aren't we often guilty of regarding our favourite celebrity or sports heros with extravagant respect and honour? We have all shown extravagant devotion to our favourite television show, not missing a single episode, dvring, downloading whatever it takes to stay up to date.  Let's not even get started on how we treat money! Talk about extravagant devotion!

"And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles." - Romans 1:23 (NLT)

Geez that is not a legacy I want put on my head! But yet here we are worshiping all the false idols that exist in our world, the pop princess, the athletic superstars, the latest netflix drama. 

I think that worshiping God, keeps our head looking upwards, and not getting lost in the chaos and chasm of this world. The distractions and the greed!

"Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world." - Colossians 3:5 (NLT)

It is easy to see that greed can easily be the distraction that takes us away from God, if the devil did have a secret weapon, it would be greed!  I don't think there is anything that can pull us away from God, distract us from Him, and move us away from Him than greed!  Greed forces us to put "ourself" first, to ignore what God wants from us, and for us!  Greed leads us away from the things we want for ourselves, our hopes, our dreams! Greed takes us away from God!

"They were always greedy and never satisfied. Nothing remains of all the things they dreamed about." - Job 20:20 (NLT)

Greed destroys who we are, we begin to focus on the things we want, and ignore the things we need!

"Such is the fate of all who are greedy for money; it robs them of life." - Proverbs 1:19 (NLT)

Greed and worshiping idols robs us of life, takes away all the God has promised for us. 

"And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires" - 2 Peter 1:4 (NLT)

Just don't let the human desires of greed and idol worship corrupt you and leave God's promises unfulfilled.  I know for me, I have to work hard to curb my own idol worshiping, catch me missing a Patriots game, the latest episode of Big Brother and rocking my Tom Brady jersey! The thing I think I need to focus on is distributing my time, but ensuring that God's time remains God's time.  That I take time to worship my Creator and acknowledge all that He does for me!  Keeping my head aimed towards Him, the distractions of greed and idol worship will not pull me away.  Well, at least I hope so! But let's be honest, I am human and I am so thankful for Jesus!

"Listen! We are here to proclaim that through this man Jesus there is forgiveness for your sins."  - Acts 13:38 (NLT) 

PRAISE GOD!!!!! 

Where's the Love?

Love! Everywhere I look in this world I see it crying out for more love. REAL love, unconditional, unadulterated, unashamed LOVE!!! For God, for our world, for each other, for everything!!
I have heard people say things like the word love is being overused in our society, people love things like food, sports teams, hobbies, cities, buildings or books and other inanimate objects and how can you possibly love those things, I would counter and say it is entirely possible to love those things, because people will fight and defend those things until the bitter end.  Think about it, when was the last time you let someone say something bad about your favourite sports team and you just let it stand? You came to their defence didn't you? I know when people said bad things about Tom Brady and my Patriots I was up in arms, and I have had more than one LOUD argument to stand behind MY team! That is because I can say I love the Patriots, they are my team. How about when someone says something bad about the city you live in, or grew up in? Quick to defend it aren't you? What about when you have a really bad day, is there anything that picks you up more than that food you love so much? Or what about if you are celebrating something really good? Don't you go out to eat that food you love? We all do that, I know I do that! It is because we really do love those things.
Love and as much of it as we can get is what we need in this world. Worshiping God, and loving each other is the whole reason we were put on this planet. Outside of loving and worshiping God, loving each other is the most important thing for us to do.

^" Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’^{[a] 38} This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself " -  Matthew 22:37-40 (NLT)

Jesus said it, specifically, loving each other is EQUALLY important as loving the Lord.  So the two most important things for each of us to do is love, love the Lord and love each other. But where is that love? Where do we show it in our day to day life? If we loved each other the way we love our favourite sports team, would we ever let anyone speak bad about someone? No, we wouldn't.  We would defend them as rigorously as possible. If we loved people as much as we loved that same sports team, would we spread rumors and gossip about them? Probably not.  How quickly does a nasty rumor about someone spread? I mean I know we are all guilty of hearing something about someone and with a gasp, calling all our friends and saying "Goodness, did you hear about so-and-so, they did such-and-such!" Usually with such a frenzied and fevered pitch we drop everything that we are doing to tell someone.  That is not an action of love, in fact, gossip and rumors are pretty much the exact opposite of that. In fact, if we look at Psalm 15, God explains who gets into heaven 

"Those who refuse to gossip
    or harm their neighbors
    or speak evil of their friends." - Psalm 15:3 (NLT)

So now we know, that gossiping is going to get us into trouble, mainly because it isn't an action of love, and truthfully as Christians, who love God and have accepted Jesus as our Saviour, there is really only one thing for us to do, we really only have one job, just one job.  Jesus laid it right out for us.

"So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. ³⁵ Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”" - John 13:34-35 (NLT)

 Nowhere does it say that we are supposed to decide what actions are sinful or what actions are wrong, that isn't my job, I have just one job love everyone! This is the resounding message over and over again from Jesus.

^""But I say, love your enemies!Pray for those who persecute you! ⁴⁵ In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike."" - Matthew 5:44-45 (NLT)

Nowhere are we given the right to judge, or point fingers or even say what is right or wrong. God, gave us a set of rules to follow, His commandments, His Law! Then, He gave us one simple job, love everyone.  Love totally, love completely and love unconditionally.

 ^"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ⁵ or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. ⁶ It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ⁷ Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NLT)

That is still my absolute favourite verse in the bible. Love is the greatest thing God gave us, it is what allows us to reflect the Lord.  When we talk about being made in the image of God, we are talking about love, love is the image of God, we are made of love and God loves us more than we are even able to comprehend.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" John 3:16 (KJV)

God is love, and we are made in His image.  WE ARE LOVE!!!  Shout it out, really feel it! 

WE ARE LOVE!!!

 So, where is the love y'all? It time we really focused on loving one another, let love guide all your actions, no matter the person, the situation or anything just let love guide you.  Let every action you take, every word you speak be from a place of love.  I promise you, if we all start to do this change will come, in our lives, in our communities, in our cities, in our country and in our world.

Love!

PRAISE GOD!!! 

There is something about Jesus

In reaffirming my life to Christ and to God, I have had a few of my friends ask me about Jesus and what the deal with Him is. How is Jesus both man and God? If Jesus is God, who was in heaven when He was on earth? To be honest those are question I struggled with as I was growing up before I was saved. As my spiritual self grew, and I found myself connecting with God the answers started to be provided to me. Faith started opening the door to understanding.

When discussing our faith future with my fiancee at the time, talking about who was going to marry us and whether we wanted to raise our children in faith, we began to explore our options as both of us felt a connection to God (we were both raised Roman Catholic). We slowly began to dismiss a lot of the options out there, for various reasons which eventually lead to Christianity. Which easily became the place we both felt we belonged. Now I can be honest and say that I started going to church and playing the role (sort of) but had not completely bought in to the idea of living like a true Christian. But none the less I had started down the path, and answers started becoming available to me the first in the form of a fictional book called The Shack by William P. Young.

This book began my journey (little did I know I was going on a journey) to an important place, to another book, the book containing the Word of God and salvation. It's funny how God leads you places and you have no idea you are going there until you get there. But let me not digress, lets focus on Jesus and who He is.

The bible tells us that God created us in His image.

"Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." Genesis 1:26-27 (NKJV)

The first thing of note is that God says OUR image, so He is obviously commenting on the fact that there are parts that make Him up. But if we want to ignore that fact based on translations or something fine no problem, lets focus on the word image. Now we like to consider image to mean that we look like God, but there is a deeper message here. His image is a reflection of Him, a capacity to reflect Him. An ability to be like Him. One of the most important things that we as Christians are supposed to do is love, so that means we must be able to love like God, which then implies God must love. Well, before we existed who did He love? This is where Jesus and the Holy Spirit come into play. Jesus is God. Jesus is God because God's love is perfect and the perfect love unites two completely making them one. Jesus exists in a perfect love unity between Himself and God. So that Jesus is God and God is Jesus. Just as in the case of a husband and wife whose love unifies two human beings into one, thus is the perfection of the love between God and Jesus. Jesus is the beloved Son of God who is wholly a part of Him.

"...“This is my Son, whom I dearly love. Listen to him!” " Mark 9:7 (CEB)

So Jesus is God! But, how is God a man seems to be the next big question that everyone asks. This is where the book that I mentioned earlier seemed to pick up my lack of understanding, hopefully I will be able to share it with you as clearly as I was able to understand it. We are all defined by our abilities not by how we chose to limit ourselves. A bird who chooses to walk rather then to fly is still a bird. The same can be said for God. If He chooses to walk on earth as a man, His choice to limit Himself does not define Him. Jesus was born to Mary on earth.

"Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod." Matthew 2:1 (NLT)

Jesus made this choice, to be born and live on Earth as a man, in order to pay the ultimate price for us as humanity. Before Jesus, humanity was forced to live under the law as given to Moses, but as human beings we would always fall short of that because it is our nature to sin.

"In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin." Romans 7:25 (NLT)

We would always fall short of the law because we could not help ourselves. The law would never be able to save us, we would run out of sacrifices before being able to guarantee salvation for ourselves. We needed help, we needed a Saviour. This is why Christ came to earth. He came to be the ultimate sacrifice, the Lamb of God was going to pay the price that none of us could afford.
His life was the price He paid to save all of us. God indeed loved us all so much, that He was willing to make this sacrifice for the world, and for us, us sinners.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" John 3:16 (KJV)

The bible, the Word of God, tells us this in no uncertain terms. There is no ambiguity and no beating around the bush. Jesus was sent to earth as the sacrifice to save us from our sins, because the law as given to Moses was not going to.

"The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins." Romans 8:3 (NLT)

This is the point where I am moved to tears. So this perfect, sinless God sent a part of Himself, His Son, Jesus to earth to suffer and die upon a cross, a death so painful they invented a word to describe the pain. Excruciating was a word that specifically described the pain of dying on the cross, the pain of being crucified. So this sinless, perfect Lamb of God that had been perfectly connected to God since the beginning of time absorbed the sins of the world, the sins past, present and future, into Himself. As He filled up with our sins He was separated from God, so much so He screamed in anguish that He was alone and God was not with Him.

"And about the ninth hour (three o'clock) Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?--that is, My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me [leaving Me helpless, forsaking and failing Me in My need]?" Matthew 27:46 (AMP)

How awesome is the love of our God? He was willing to pay the ultimate price for us, for me for you and for all of us. Willing to suffer and die on a cross, the most painful way to die, in order to pay the price for our salvation. The Lord, our God has paid the price for our salvation. We are saved once we receive Christ. Once we become aware of our sinning nature, God has told us to admit our sins and repent and we are forgiven.

"If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9 (NLT)

We are saved, we have been purchased at a price. Our God loves us. This should inspire you and fill you with joy. That God cares so much about you there was no sacrifice to great for Him to make to get you. There really is something about Jesus, something great!

Praise God!

Grace - Not just for meals anymore

The funniest thing I have found on my journey as a newly saved Christian, is when talking to my friends and family they all have no idea (and well neither did I) what the Grace of God is. Laughingly most admit, that they just figured that grace was that little prayer you said before meals at Christmas and Thanksgiving. WOW what a delusion. How many of us have lived in fear and shame because we were not aware of the Grace of our Lord?

"So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" Romans 5:21

"Because of his grace he declared us righteous and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life.” Titus 3:6-8

Praise the Lord, how awesome is that. We are given right standing with God which results in eternal life through Jesus, simply because of God's wonderful grace. Grace we are given simply by asking for it. There is no prerequisites, no test or exams, no hoops to jump through, no minimums and no maximums. God wants to give you His grace simply for being you. He loves you just the way you are and wants to bring you to salvation just as you are right now. You have nothing to do to get His grace but to ask for it.

"for Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved" Romans 10:13

"And since it is through God’s kindness, then it is not by their good works. For in that case, God’s grace would not be what it really is—free and undeserved" Romans 11:5-7

You have nothing to do but to call to the Lord ask for His salvataion and you will be saved by His grace. That is the best part of our God, He loves us so much that He asks nothing of us, and there is nothing we can do to deserve His Grace, we are blessed with His grace simply because of His kindess and love

I know in my experience there is no feeling in the world like being wrapped in God's grace. In the lowest moment of my life, the moment I was truly saved by God (even if in that moment I didn't know it right away) I felt His grace. It was a feeling of warmth that embraced me like a warm sweater, a tingling sensation that over whelmed me and comforted me. A calm wave that brought peace to my whole person. I try to explain that feeling to those that have asked what grace really is. I have gotten a little feedback from friends who have found those moments of grace when they were surrounded by fear or insecurites and God wrapped his grace around them and let His peace flow. It is in moments like that when we can turn to God, and ask for salvation and turn our lives over to Him, where the promise of life everlasting with Jesus Christ is a guarantee. Really, how great is God? Our God is awesome. His love and grace is never ending and totally unconditional. His mercy is new and fresh every morning.

Glory to God.

I hope in some small way this will help lead you to Him, who ever you are, where ever you, no matter what baggage you bring. God loves you and wants to bring you home.

God Loves US!

As human beings we have a sinning nature. Sinning and doing bad things comes easy, even for those among us who have a strong moral compass. Sometimes it is easier to lie, or to hide the truth rather then face the consequences of our actions no matter how small. We are made selfish and are convinced by the world that we are "special" and "different" from all those around us. This leads us to separation from the whole and separation from God. Through the trials I have been going through over the course of the past few months, which perhaps I will eventually share via this medium, I have learned that we are not that special or different. We are all really so similar, we go through the same things, are tested in similar ways, share the same fears and insecurities, and have the same feelings. Our nature wants us to not believe this, our nature wants us to hold on to the selfishness and turn away from the things that bring us together with each other and with God. The hard part for us is to love, to love everyone as if they were ourselves. This is what God commands.

"Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Matthew 22:37-39 (NKJV)

This is an important aspect of Christianity and of faith. This is the first step towards turning your life to God. To see each person as an extension of yourself. To love them as though they were an extension of you. This goes completely against our nature, that selfish nature I mentioned earlier.
God wants us to love each other, wholly, totally and completely. Love each other with reckless abandon. He even gave us an example to live by, He showed us how to love, and how He expects us to love each other.

"For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16 (NLT)

Praise God, how amazing is that. Not only does God make the ultimate sacrifice for us, His creation, His children, but He gives us the perfect example of how we must love each other. The perfect example of how He loves us. And He LOVES us. Powerfully and unbridled, completely and totally. He loves us exactly how we are right now in this moment. As a sinner, as an imperfect and selfish human being. His grace and His mercy is always available, always waiting for you and always present in your life, all you have to do is ask for them.

"If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved." Romans 10:9-10 (NLT)

By God's own words we can be saved at any time in our lives, by just turning to God and telling Him we are ready to give our lives to Him. Glory to God, what an awesome promise!

Life will fill us with challenges and obstacles and the more we try to fight them on our own, the more overwhelmed we will become, once we turn our lives and our will to God, good thing just start happening!

Go forth and love, love everyone the way God loves you!