What do you do when you see something about yourself that you do not like but you believe that no matter what you do, you can't change it?
Like my genetics. I look just like my father did when he was my age.
Hair in the ears, growing gut, scruffy face.
Like my attitudes. I act just like my father and my brothers do.
As the baby of the family I have the scary ability to see how I am going to act when I get older on multiple levels.
Like Me. I am my father and my brothers.
I think like they do, I talk like they do, I limp like they do (hip problems)
and while I loved my father and look up to my brothers there are some things that I see in them that scares me a little.
My Father always had Hopes and Dreams and did some crazy things in his younger years, but once he hit 50 it seems as if he stopped acting on them. And my brothers (at least most of them) are following in his footsteps.
I have hopes and dreams but struggle with whether I want to pull the trigger on them or not. The craziest thing I do now is ride a Harley. Five years ago I moved to change this church from what I created it to be to something God created. I was fearless in my pursuit of Jesus and the best for His church. But I look at my family history and wonder, is wisdom comfort, and is it time to begin seeking a rocking chair and as my Brother would say, get out the cigars?
I also struggle with the fact that so many of the greatest things men accomplished for God were after 50.
Moses and Aaron
Joshua and Caleb
Daniel
Zacharias and Elizabeth
Paul
God used them not to maintain but to conquer more.
Psalm 92:12-15
The righteous flourish like the palm tree
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
13 They are planted in the house of the Lord;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
14 They still bear fruit in old age;
they are ever full of sap and green,
15 to declare that the Lord is upright;
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.
The only thing holding me back is what I am full of.
Would you pray this verse for me today.
Ephesians 6: 18-20 Fill Me God
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
Listening through loveless ears
I recieved this quote from my nephew on facebook and really appreciated it.
It speaks volumes.
A very convicting quote from Charles Spurgeon:
"How happy you used to be in the ways of God. Your love was of that happy character that you could sing all day long; but now your religion has lost its lustre, the gold has become dim; you know that when you come to the Sacramental table, you often come there without enjoying it. There was a time when every bitter thing was sweet; whenever you heard the Word, it was all precious to you. Now you can grumble at the minister. Alas! the minister has many faults, but the question is, whether there has not been a greater charge in you than there has been in him. Many are there who say, "I do not hear Mr. So-and-so as I used to,"—when the fault lies in their own ears. Oh, brethren, when we live near to Christ, and are in our first love, it is amazing what a little it takes to make a good preacher to us. Why, I confess I have heard a poor illiterate Primitive Methodist preach t...he gospel, and I felt as if I could jump for joy all the while I was listening to him, and yet he never gave me a new thought or a pretty expression, nor one figure that I could remember, but he talked about Christ; and even his common things were to my hungry spirit like dainty meats. And I have to acknowledge, and, perhaps, you have to acknowledge the same—that I have heard sermons from which I ought to have profited, but I have been thinking on the man's style, or some little mistakes in grammar. When I might have been holding fellowships with Christ in and through the ministry, I have, instead thereof, been getting abroad in my thoughts even to the ends of the earth. And what is the reason for this, but that I have lost my first love."
"How happy you used to be in the ways of God. Your love was of that happy character that you could sing all day long; but now your religion has lost its lustre, the gold has become dim; you know that when you come to the Sacramental table, you often come there without enjoying it. There was a time when every bitter thing was sweet; whenever you heard the Word, it was all precious to you. Now you can grumble at the minister. Alas! the minister has many faults, but the question is, whether there has not been a greater charge in you than there has been in him. Many are there who say, "I do not hear Mr. So-and-so as I used to,"—when the fault lies in their own ears. Oh, brethren, when we live near to Christ, and are in our first love, it is amazing what a little it takes to make a good preacher to us. Why, I confess I have heard a poor illiterate Primitive Methodist preach t...he gospel, and I felt as if I could jump for joy all the while I was listening to him, and yet he never gave me a new thought or a pretty expression, nor one figure that I could remember, but he talked about Christ; and even his common things were to my hungry spirit like dainty meats. And I have to acknowledge, and, perhaps, you have to acknowledge the same—that I have heard sermons from which I ought to have profited, but I have been thinking on the man's style, or some little mistakes in grammar. When I might have been holding fellowships with Christ in and through the ministry, I have, instead thereof, been getting abroad in my thoughts even to the ends of the earth. And what is the reason for this, but that I have lost my first love."
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