Clay in the Hands

Watch with anticipation – that is the topic for this week’s Advent service at our church.  Just as the people we read about in the Old Testament looked for a messiah, we too look for him. We desperately need guidance.  We need forgiveness and the peace that it brings.  We need  redemption – the redeeming of the shambles of our lives back into the lives God intends.  We need salvation – to be saved from our plight and even from ourselves.  We need, in a word, Jesus.

So we look – we watch.  And the key to watching is being alert and paying attention.

Have you seen Jesus today?  Have you been looking?

Jesus, God’s very sone, came as an infant over 2000 years ago.  He lived to teach us how to live.  He loved, showing us how to love and then he made the ultimate sacrifice and died for us.

Scripture teaches that he couldn’t be bound by death and he came back to life in order to offer us a life that can’t be taken away.  It also teaches that at some point, Jesus will return.  So we wait and we watch.

But we must not forget that Jesus is alive.  He is at work everyday all around us.  So not only do we need to be watching for his return, we need to be looking for him on a daily basis at work in and around us.

Jesus is trying to guide your life and give you the life you were intended to have – are you paying attention?

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What are you worth?

There are any number of ways to answer that question.  The first thing you might think of as you ponder the question is your net worth.  How much money?

Or maybe your accomplishments come to mind.  What have you been able to attain in this life to this point?

One very valid way to look at the question is your worth in the eyes of God.  Regardless of how worthy or unworthy you may feel, you are worth the world to God.  You were worth dying for to God.

Think about that for a second.

You are important to God – you are worth everything.

As we enter into this time of thanksgiving – I have a challenge for you.  Consider your worth to God.  Think about what that should mean in the way we live.  If God loved you and me enough to die for us, shouldn’t we strive to live as Jesus taught us to live?  Shouldn’t we try to live up to the worth God places on us?

Perhaps, we should answer the question, “What are you worth?” by saying, “I am worth the difference I can make in God’s kingdom.”

Go be that difference today!

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I read something that blew me away today.  Have you ever read something that was not revolutionary – something you already knew – but for whatever reason, in that moment it had huge impact?

That was my experience this morning.  You can read the full post here, but Max Lucado’s email devotion this morning reminded me of an important fact.

I know that Jesus never leaves nor forsakes us.  I know that he is always present and always leading, but when I read this something washed over me.  A peace came over me – and then conviction.

Max said, “There’s never a time when Jesus is not speaking.  Never a place in which Jesus is not present. Never a room so dark, that the ever-present, ever-pursuing Jesus is not present.”

I have to admit that sometimes I feel Jesus is not speaking.  And I would disagree with Max to a degree.  I think there are times when God is silent.  But what we must never forget is this – regardless of whether or not God is speaking – or whether we hear that still, small voice or not – God is ALWAYS present!

What an amazing thought!

Open my eyes to you today Father!  I want to see you!

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Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,           1 Peter 1:3

A living hope.  Sounds good doesn’t it?  This morning I found those words very refreshing.

So often, I find myself reflecting back to a better time.  I catch myself thinking about a mountain top experience and relishing in the emotions of a time when all was well with God and with the world.  I think back to times when it seemed everything was going just right.  And then the phone rings or my In Box sounds and I am brought back to the reality of today.

But this verse this morning splashed cool water on my weary face.  In Jesus, we don’t have a hope that comes and goes.  We don’t just have to hold on to the memories of a mountain top experience.  We have a living hope.  A hope that is growing and maturing.  And this hope is made possible by God’s great mercy.

Our hope would be non-existent without God’s unspeakable mercy.  The two things are tied together – inseparable really.

You see, God’s mercy is not a single act at one moment in time.  It’s not like we were caught red handed doing something wrong and God decided to forgive us.  God’s mercy is always with us.  In fact, that might be the best way to describe it.  God with us.  When I think that God loves me enough to stay with me even when I do stupid stuff, I get a picture of that mercy.

And that is how our hope can stay alive.

God loves you and his mercy is real!

Live into today reflecting vibrant hope.

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In the depths of silence, where there is no where else to run, we come face to face with God.

Have you experienced God’s presence in that way?  So often, we fill our lives with noise – busyness and tasks and sights and sounds – noise.

When I strive to remove the noise and rest in silence I find my true self – and there I find God already at work.  As believers we know with our heads that God is present but too often we fill our lives with noise and fail to truly experience intimate relations with God.

Find time and space to rest in silence today.  God is already there – waiting for you.

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What are you praying for these days?  With the start of school, many of us are praying more intently for our kids.  Today, we find a part of our nation under the threat of hurricane Isaac.  The storm made landfall twice in the last several hours, dumping water on New Orleans that has power knocked out and is testing the integrity of the levies built after Katrina.   So we are praying for our brothers and sisters enduring the brunt of that storm.

Maybe today you are praying for a change.  Perhaps, you need God to intervene in your job or at home.  Or maybe you find yourself praying for God to move around you – in your church or community.

Whatever you have on your heart that you are praying about today, let me challenge you.  Tonight we will continue our study of the book of Ephesians.  We will be looking at the end of the third chapter.  In verse 20, Paul pushes us to be bold in our prayer.  He reminds us that God can do more than we can even imagine.

Here is how I interpret Paul’s idea.  He is suggesting that we pray for God to work and move in such a way that it will be so mind-blowing people will be talking about it for years!  Do you ever pray with that kind of boldness?

I don’t know about you, but I would love for God to move in such a way that it is life-changing and the talk of people for years.

Join me in asking God to move like that today!

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How frantic is your life?  How much pressure do you feel to get things done?  Do you ever feel you are not doing anything well because you can’t devote enough of yourself to any one thing?

I find myself there much of the time.  And, I am sure, most of that pressure is self-imposed.

But I ran across this quote from Thomas Merton yesterday that has had me thinking.  He said,

Unnatural, frantic, anxious work, work done under pressure of greed or fear or any other inordinate passion, cannot properly speaking be dedicated to God, because God never wills such work directly.

What I take from that is the idea that God intends for us to be productive and to work.  We were created to be fruitful and satisfied in our efforts.  But God never intended for us to take on so much that we cannot be effective in anything.  We were not created to live under that stress and pressure – and further, that pressure is not from God but from other sources.

So today, regardless of how long your To Do list may be, ask God these two questions, “What do YOU want me to accomplish today? Where do YOU want me to focus my attention?”

Give it a try and see what God does in and through you.

I’d love to hear about your results.

Be blessed.

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When is the last time you stopped long enough to really think about what God has done for you and in you?  It is really easy to get wrapped up in our lives and fail to see God at work in our everyday.

In Psalm 86:11-13, David says, “Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.  I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever.  For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.”

This is my prayer today.  Maybe it could be yours as well.  I don’t know about you but I get pulled in all sorts of directions each day and it is easy to become distracted from what is really important.  In fact, over time, the constant pulling can even begin to divide my heart.  I find myself being passionate about a lot of things and the result is often that instead of being effective in a few things, I am ineffective in everything.  Usually, when I find myself in this predicament it is because I have forgotten to keep the main thing, the main thing.

So what is the main thing?  I think David hits on it here.  We need to be laser focused on God and the love, grace and hope God offers to us.  David makes the point that God delivers us from the grave.  Without God in our lives, we are dead people walking – walking around with no lasting purpose, no joy, no peace – no point, just dead.  That was me before God intervened – a dead man walking.  But God delivers us from that existence.

We need to stop long enough today to remember that God is at work in our lives and give thanks.  We need to refocus our attention on the fact that without God, we are dead.  We need to get excited about that fact and offer our whole being back to God in gratitude.

The results: a joy-filled, peaceful existence that will make those around us see something different in us.  And when they see the difference that God makes in us, I believe they will seek God for themselves.

Take a minute and think about what God has done for you and then live today in gratitude.

Be blessed today!

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