Fulfillment Focus

    I hear believers and nonbelievers talk about focusing on the things of this world. It seems pretty self explanatory, but is it really? This matter seems to be one of the toughest things to over come in this world. We have to be super careful in what we engage ourselves in because that is what guides our life. And we can definitely tell when we choose the wrong path of ways of life. But we do not always tell when we get too wrapped up in the things of this world. This makes materialistic things more than just 'things' but things that run our lives as if they will remain there forever.

    What do you do everyday? Everyday we look for ways to make ourselves feel as if we are fulfilled. We can drink all the coffee in the world but it will never truly make us fully awake. We can never full have our eyes open if we use the ways of this world. We could have all the money in the world but yet still not be better off in life. We will always be wanting more because these things do not last. It truly is one of the best feelings to have that moment that you bite into that juicy burger to satisfy your hunger or get that fat paycheck. But those things come and go. So what do we find ourselves doing? We find ourselves eating more and more cheeseburgers which throws us off our diet, fattening our bodies. Our we load up our work hours to the point that we become tempted with cheating with a co-worker or that we never spend time with our families.

A Vision of Ripe Fruit

    "Then the Sovereign Lord showed me another vision. In it I saw a basket filled with ripe fruit. “What do you see, Amos?” he asked. I replied, “A basket full of ripe fruit.” Then the Lord said, “Like this fruit, Israel is ripe for punishment! I will not delay their punishment again. In that day the singing in the Temple will turn to wailing. Dead bodies will be scattered everywhere. They will be carried out of the city in silence. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!” Listen to this, you who rob the poor and trample down the needy! You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over and the religious festivals to end so you can get back to cheating the helpless.You measure out grain with dishonest measures and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales. And you mix the grain you sell with chaff swept from the floor. Then you enslave poor people for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals. Now the Lord has sworn this oath by his own name, the Pride of Israel: “I will never forget the wicked things you have done! The earth will tremble for your deeds, and everyone will mourn. The ground will rise like the Nile River at flood time; it will heave up, then sink again. “In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth while it is still day. I will turn your celebrations into times of mourning and your singing into weeping. You will wear funeral clothes and shave your heads to show your sorrow—as if your only son had died. How very bitter that day will be! “The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the Lord. People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from border to border searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it. Beautiful girls and strong young men will grow faint in that day, thirsting for the Lord’s word. And those who swear by the shameful idols of Samaria—who take oaths in the name of the god of Dan and make vows in the name of the god of Beersheba—they will all fall down, never to rise again.”   
             

-This chapter of Amos 8 was taken from Biblegateway.com-

    This chapter could easily be taken as talking about the end of the world but we are going to focus on this sin in a different light. The words above becomes a blunt force straight to us about what happens if we do not fill ourselves with the Lord. Our minds, hearts, and souls become filled with so many things of this world that we leave not room or Christ. And then we sit back to look at our lives and we wonder why we are not full. Yeah we can be full and satisfy but we have to keep filling that over and over because things around us are not built to last. They simply were made that way and if they were made any differently then who would need Christ? He would get kicked to the curb even more and I feel as if we would still be...empty. 

    We can think as hard as we can to find things in this life to become happy but it needs to start at the root of our hearts. WE NEED that foundation through Christ to be fulfilled. Sure that does not mean that we can't indulge in the things of this world but we need to watch if we depend on it to be the only thing. 

"So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever."  

~2 Corinthians 4:18

Word of the Day: "Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."

~2 Corinthians 3:17

This Easter Love

    Royal maroon and gold trim of a royal cape. Ornate rings on several fingers. Stature of prestige. Beauty of the heavens. A crown of glory, mirroring the wanting world around….These seem to be all the things that might describe a king. And most of the time king would be seen in these things because well, they are royal of course. But what happens when all that comes off? When you can see a king just as they are, as a normal person? Beyond all of the royal tendencies and dispositions, you think you will find a normal person?
Our world saw this first hand when Christ came to earth. It is so hard to see God as a king. When I think of a king I picture the whole red velvet scene and the big fancy chair. Of course Christ is worthy of all of that but He came as something so much more. He is and always will be King but he also came as one of us. Could you imagine if Christ came down as an almighty king and then tried to lead? He would come off as a ruler instead of a guider. We see firsthand of how humble and true Christ is devoted to saving the world as a normal man.
 
    When I sit back and look at the whole ideal about Christ and his passion for us, I see the greatest love story of all time. It is just beyond belief that a man that looked totally normal but yet was a king that came on earth to lead a revival to then be sacrificed. But the thing that gets me is that His death was planned from the very start. As we talked last week about how foolish the Roman soldiers actually looked when they thought killing Christ was all their doing. Besides them physically killing Him…God had planned the sacrifice from the beginning. And the Son of God’s ways on this earth and then a death that a human then would go through gave us a reason to not be afraid for even the king of the earth could go through it.

    Remembering the ways and actions in the weeks leading up to His death and resurrection have given us so much promise and reason to constantly love the Lord. We are constantly reminded of this when we look back at the Easter story. Not the one that is filled with the Easter bunny and overfilled Easter baskets but the story that explains the whole reason we are here. For if He did not die, then who would of saved us all? That’s exactly it…no one..

The Guard at the Tomb

    The next day, on the Sabbath, the leading priests and Pharisees went to see Pilate. They told him, “Sir, we remember what that deceiver once said while he was still alive: ‘After three days I will rise from the dead.’  So we request that you seal the tomb until the third day. This will prevent his disciples from coming (Doubt it!!) and stealing his body and then telling everyone he was raised from the dead! If that happens, we’ll be worse off than we were at first.”(WOW! Would you be bad off if you had Christ in the flesh?) Pilate replied, “Take guards and secure it the best you can.” So they sealed the tomb and posted guards to protect it. (Did NOT hold Him back!)

The Resurrection

    Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb. Suddenly there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it. His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint. Then the angel spoke to the women. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come, see where his body was lying. And now, go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there. Remember what I have told you.” The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened but also filled with great joy, and they rushed to give the disciples the angel’s message. And as they went, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they ran to him, grasped his feet, and worshiped him. (WHAT LOVE!) Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t be afraid! Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there.”

The Great Commission

    Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him—but some of them doubted! Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Readings taken from Bible Gateway from Matthew 27:62-28:1-10,16-20

One of my favorite parts out of that is the vision I get as Christ is delivering the Great Commission. Here was a born King that humbled himself that just so happened to just recently rose from the grave to then sit down His followers to show them the game plan. But that ancient game plan was from all of eternity. We are to make the new disciples as well and live through the love and commands of Christ forevermore. He shows and holds so much love for us and let us have joy and so much pride that we call him….Father.

HIS words: Jesus said to her “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall NEVER die. Do you believe this?” 

                                                                       ~John 11:25-26

Good Friday

    This time of year comes around each year and it seems to be a great time. Spring is right around the corner and everything comes back to life. Then of course we get this holiday that we get a basket full of candy and goodies. Of course I could go on a tangent about how we take holidays as a day of goods and gifts but that is not as important as the meaning of Good Friday.

    Christ died then rose again on the day that we call Easter but why do we call a day that our savior died GOOD Friday? I mean, what is so good about God being brutally murdered by people that refused to follow his beliefs? And it is often that we only see the matter that these nonbelievers killed Christ but did they really? How could they kill someone that has already sacrificed their life? They actually believed that this man that showed true signs of being the one and only God, was false. And they took the liberty of killing Him into their own hands.

    When I came upon the different view on what Good Friday is, I was a little intrigued. We never really take into account about what Good Friday actually means. Try looking at that day beside a day that Christ died but as a day of fulfilled destiny. That day remains a huge milestone for us all and reveals so many emotions about us and Christ. We told his followers that some would deny Him and that He would give His life for us all. And people thought that death would be the solution but instead He gave life and changed the course of all eternity. He showed His loved on the cross but showed his love even more when He roamed the earth. But the key here is that he turned something that we perceive as bad into something good. God uses the reverse of things to show that He is truly the one in power and that he intends for good to come out of all things. 

The Soldiers Mock Jesus

Some of the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into their headquarters and called out the entire regiment. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him.They wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head, and they placed a reed stick in his right hand as a scepter. Then they knelt before him in mockery and taunted, “Hail! King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and grabbed the stick and struck him on the head with it.When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified.

The Crucifixion

    Along the way, they came across a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene, and the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross. And they went out to a place called Golgotha (which means “Place of the Skull”). The soldiers gave him wine mixed with bitter gall, but when he had tasted it, he refused to drink it. After they had nailed him to the cross, the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. Then they sat around and kept guard as he hung there. A sign was fastened above Jesus’ head, announcing the charge against him. It read: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. The people passing by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery. “Look at you now!” they yelled at him. “You said you were going to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. Well then, if you are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross!” The leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders also mocked Jesus. “He saved others,” they scoffed, “but he can’t save himself! So he is the King of Israel, is he? Let him come down from the cross right now, and we will believe in him! He trusted God, so let God rescue him now if he wants him! For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” Even the revolutionaries who were crucified with him ridiculed him in the same way.

The Death of Jesus

    At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for the prophet Elijah.One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding it up to him on a reed stick so he could drink. But the rest said, “Wait! Let’s see whether Elijah comes to save him.” Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit. At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split apart,and tombs opened. The bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the dead.They left the cemetery after Jesus’ resurrection, went into the holy city of Jerusalem, and appeared to many people. The Roman officer and the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened. They said, “This man truly was the Son of God!” And many women who had come from Galilee with Jesus to care for him were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary (the mother of James and Joseph), and the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee.

The Burial of Jesus

     As evening approached, Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea who had become a follower of Jesus, went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. And Pilate issued an order to release it to him. Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a long sheet of clean linen cloth. He placed it in his own new tomb, which had been carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a great stone across the entrance and left. Both Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting across from the tomb and watching.

Readings taken from BibleGateway.com from the book of Matthew 27:27-61

Word of the Day: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

                                ~Romans 6:23

Back to the Basics

    It seems pointless to start out this lesson asking if you ever have those times where you think that you have power over Christ. You know, those times where we jump ahead of ourselves in the matter that we can no longer see the hands stretched out wide which made it all. And no, it’s not reasonable to slink back in our sins because we figure we are going to do it anyways. The very matter that I hope to show you and then pick it apart is the matter of speed racing. Sounds weird right? And to be honest I am not quite sure where or how this lesson is to play out but my inspiration comes from the video which you can watch at the end of the lesson below…so let’s dive in. 

    One of the main things that are eating away at my frustration right now is that I have the hardest time thinking of something to talk about for the daily lesson on this very blog. I sometimes look at all the work I have with school and college and life and work to think, that I can’t just throw something on the blog and call it the lesson of the week. It is a real struggle and its taxing considering I hope to continue my writing career into so much more. I get so caught up in this and everything going on in my life that it gets to the point where I actually never do any of what I say I need to do. And it is no until I hit total rock bottom that I pull myself backwards to take a look at the big picture.

    You know those simplistic things you learn in your elementary Sunday school classes. The little work books or story boards made from fabric that depict the times of Jesus on earth. I mean, of course those Sunday school teachers do not go a whole lot into the depth of religion verses having a relationship with Christ for it is rather shown a couple years later. But how many times have you reverted back to the work books when you have a spiritual roadblock? Sure our teachings are built on what we were first taught from the very beginning. It is just like the ideal that we do not wake up every day to practice writing our alphabet because we know it and we can write sentences and essays and novels or even dictionaries! But when we are unable to think of words to say or can’t convey our beliefs right, which is when we run around wandering where we can find the answer. Do you think we would ever step back and think the answer is in the beginning. In order to understand the hard stuff we have to start at the beginning. 

    In all of your years of reading the bible, how many times have you stop your devotion deep into the bible’s pages to read the very first sentence? You know, maybe the biggest punch is all in the first line. The very answer to all of our prayers.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” ~Genesis 1:1

    That’s it! One sentence that may seem so simple to people that they completely skip over it. Because why would you bother reading that when the bulk of it is between the beginning and the end? You can always skip to the end to hear…

“May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s holy people.” ~Revelation 22:21

    That sentence says it all but the middle is where it is all at. It has all of the stories, all of the testimonies, all the pain, but yet all of the hope. You are now saying…”Okay, you just said the first sentence has all the punch. Get it straight.” You are right, I actually confused myself until I realized how my understanding would be if I never saw or read Genesis. Of course I would not understand the foundation upon which Christ came but the rest of the book would not fit because those details and the rest are meant to fit like a puzzle. 

    So maybe it’s the very beginning. The creation. The love of Christ. The cross. Our sin. The blood He gave us. Maybe that alone is what calms our very storms. Maybe we are the pitcher that keeps our eyes on the hitter and target the whole time before the pitch. Until we have that one second where we turn our heads to release the pitch to then see what we were truly focusing on. 

    So what if it takes us taking a thousand steps backwards to see who the true conductor is. Take yourself and sit down to think, nothing else. Do not feel or look for things around but straight back to creation and the very first move. His first action only requires this straight focus for he will move your desires to the fit place. For if we cannot look back to the very beginning then how can we jump in feet first?

His Words: “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

                   ~Acts 20:35