Be Mine

We just celebrated Valentines Day.  A lot of people received Valentine cards that said, “Be mine!”   The person receiving the card had the opportunity to respond to that invitation.  It’s sometimes risky to give a Valentine card and expect a response.  Sometimes, the feeling isn’t mutual, or the Valentine is ignored because there are other offers out there. However, the card can lead to or enhance a loving relationship.

God has said, “Be Mine!” in a variety of ways – especially by sending Jesus.  We, too, have an opportunity to respond.  Unfortunately, some are not interested.  Others are too busy or preoccupied with other loves or interests.  However, when we respond to God’s invitation, a tremendous – forever relationship can develop – bringing blessing to us and those around us and glory to our heavenly Father who said the original “Be Mine!”

Neighbor Loving

This week we’re celebrating with Bob Smith who recently received a kidney transplant and was able to discontinue the dialysis that he was on for over three years.  How was that possible? He has great neighbors!  Four of his neighbors volunteered to donate a kidney to him!  They went down to Indianapolis and were tested to see if they were a match and were healthy enough to donate.  One of them was the best choice – Deb McMurtrie. She gave Bob one of her kidneys, and it started working right from the start. No more dialysis!

Talk about putting actions to your words!  We’re going to honor these neighbors as we challenge ourselves to get better at neighbor loving.

Celebrate!!!

One of the spiritual disciplines that we are talking about this weekend is celebration.  As     Christ-followers we have a lot of reasons to celebrate; but we often focus on the things that we don’t have or the things that we want to have – so we don’t take time to celebrate what we do have.   The old song says “Count Your Many Blessings.”  We should slow down and take that advice and celebrate those blessings – celebrate the people in our lives; celebrate our standing in Christ; and celebrate the every day pleasures of life.

Sex and End Times Sell

I was reading an excellent post this a.m. by Ed Stetzer entitled “5 Tips for Talking About Sex in the Church,” and I was laughing out loud when he said this: “As John Ortberg jokes, to draw a lot of people, you should teach on three subjects: sex, the end times, and will there be sex in the end times?”

I agree with the comment; but my question is:  What are we doing to while we wait for Jesus to return – not only in our sex lives but with the rest of our lives as well? That’s what we want to continue to discuss in this message series, The Life You’ve Always Wanted.

Consistency

Starting this blog seemed like a great idea. It worked well for a few days; but things got busy, and I got distracted. I haven’t made an entry in over a month!! Obviously, this is going to take a bit of discipline. Somehow, if I want to blog, I need to develop some new habits. It may take a few tries and a few different ideas; but I need to keep seeing what works best.
We’ve begun a new series called “The Life You’ve Always Wanted” based on a book by John Ortberg. It’s about spiritual disciplines – spiritual training – so that we can continue to grow and become the people that God has purposed us to become.
Hopefully, some of what we learn can be applied to this blog!

Love

This second week of Advent, we are considering how God reached out and touched us with love when He sent His only begotten son to this planet. As I was studying for my message, I ran across this quote by Steve May that mentioned about all the disagreements that Christians have between each other – not to mention the disagreements that we have with the rest of the world.  He then made a statement: “We do this because it is a lot easier to debate than it is to love.”

That got my attention because I am usually more ready to debate with someone than I am to express love to someone.  So this week, when I am ready to debate, I’m asking God to help me to find an appropriate way to express love to that person.  I’m finding that expressing love and debating are seldom if ever the same.

 

Reach Out and Touch Someone

Back in 1979, AT&T began a very popular advertising campaign for their long distance service called “Reach Out and Touch Someone.”  It was so popular that a takeoff was used in 2003 when AT&T began the “Reach Out” campaign. It is targeted at helping people be in better communication with one another when they can’t be in a face to face situation. I’m pretty sure that these ad campaigns have sold a lot of minutes for AT&T. However, while this type of communication is a lot better than no communication, it can’t replace face to face, person to person contact and communication.

For thousands of years, God had communicated long distance with His creation through His servants, the prophets, and sometimes people listened and many times they did not.  The result was that people were not enjoying all the blessings that God wanted to bring into their lives.  In fact many times, their lives were downright miserable because of their poor reception of God’s message.

But God had a plan all along, and that plan involved reaching out and touching humanity – not with just His voice, but in person – face to face.

“So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.”  (John 1:14 – NLT)

The Word – the second person of the Trinity – took on a human body, was born in Bethlehem in a stable, and Mary and Joseph named him – Jesus.  This was all part of God’s plan to reach out and touch us so that we might enter a personal relationship with Him that would last forever.  God is still touching the lives of individuals who follow Jesus and allow themselves to be transformed by the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives.  In turn these people are touching the lives of others in their families, communities, and the world.