Journeying with Jesus

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Even as the nails were being driven into his hands and feet, Jesus was saying these words. With every blow of the hammer pounding into his fists.

Were the Roman soldiers sorry? Did the Pharisees express any remorse? Did they offer an apology?

No.

Yet, Jesus offers forgiveness. Unilateral forgiveness or one-sided forgiveness. He didn’t need them to be sorry or ask for forgiveness. 

He showed us what it means to give up your rights. Even your right for retaliation. 

In doing so, he dies free from resentment. He said the words aloud to show us what it means to release people from a hold of anger and, in turn, release ourselves from the pressure cooker of bitterness.

Bringing It Home

Whom do I need to release in forgiveness just as Christ has forgiven me? Am I willing to let go of my right to retaliation? Am I trusting God to vindicate me and my cause?

Lean In

Father God, I don’t deserve the forgiveness that you offer so freely through your Son. I pray that you will help me give up my right of being right, and my right to retaliation. Help me know that when I release people in forgiveness, I am, in fact, releasing myself to live a fuller, freer life. Amen.

Source

3 Encouraging Truths to Remember When Life Gets Hard…

Think about the disciples hanging out with Jesus on a boat when a life-threatening storm erupts on the water. They’re unprepared to face it and, panicking, realize they might die. The entire time this is happening, Jesus is sleeping peacefully.

Instead of looking at Jesus’ reaction to their situation, the disciples allowed their situation to dictate their reactions.

After begging Jesus to do something, He calms the storm… But not before asking them, “Why are you afraid?”

Continued

Imitate Jesus

You hear it often: follow Jesus and life will be better.
Is this the real reason of wanting to become like Him? To have a better life?

In order to answer this question satisfactorily, we need to study His life in the Gospels and discover the type of a man He was.

In the Gospels, it is made very clear that Jesus is the Son of God who pre-existed with the Father before the beginning of the world and everything that was created "was for Him and by Him". ( John 1: 1-3)

Jesus humbled Himself by becoming a man with the intention of reconciling man to God thereby restoring the broken relationship between Creator and Creature that was initiated in the Garden of Eden through disobedience and the consequent Fall of Man. ( Colossians 1: 15-20)

Bottom line of His story is that He lowered Himself to become a Man to live a human life like you and I live with the exception that His life was sinless and He gave it up for our salvation and the remission of our sins.

Throughout His short life, Jesus showed us how to live as a man and not as a God. He grew up learning to obey His earthly parents, He laughed and He cried, He showed love and compassion and at times He exhibited anger in the face of evil, He became lonely, hungry and thirsty and tempted like us but with the exception that He did not commit any sin.

And this is what makes His life a great example to follow. It was possible for Him to live without sinning because He stayed in communication with the Father through prayer and relied on the power of the Holy Spirit to perform His many miracles of healing,  love and compassion.

It was not God who died on the cross but Jesus the man. The nails were real. The pain from torture, the spilled blood, the agony and feelings of despair when the sins of the world were all falling on Him when God the Father turned His face away from His Son, were all too real.

Yes, Jesus felt the ultimate abandonment when He shouted "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27: 46). But despite this He knew His mission was completed when He cried out , Tetelestai, It is Finished !

Therefore, to follow Jesus means to do the type of things that He did. We need to love one another, show compassion, help the needy, fight for justice and be prepared to die if necessary to protect the weak and downtrodden and do the things that are pleasing to God by staying in constant communication through prayer and delving into His Holy Scriptures for guidance and inspiration.

Is life going to be better because of this? Not necessarily. One thing is certain: It will be right and our actions will be pleasing to our Creator and that is good enough for me. Praise the Lord!

John Costouros,
In His Service

Divine Direction by Craig Groeschel ( YouVersion )

Stop

One of the best decisions you can make when you’re feeling an impulse or facing a high-stakes dilemma is the decision to stop. Take a time-out. Pray for guidance. Sleep on it.  Get some godly wisdom from people you trust and picture the possible outcomes. Then, ask yourself, “Is this something I should stop completely?”

Most of us have good intentions or at least some kind of justification for the things we do. And yet so many of us seem surprised when we find ourselves a long way from the direction we want to go. The big changes in our lives—both negative and positive—rarely happen without a series of decisions piling on top of each other like never-ending dominoes.

Do you see how stopping can be one of the most productive things we do? When you stop to take stock of where you are and where you want to go, then you can decide how to move toward your destination.

What can you stop in order to move you closer to God’s divine direction?

Are you doing anything that’s taking you in a direction you don’t want to go (or that God doesn’t want you to go)? What do you need to stop completely? An addiction to social media, alcohol, porn, approval, or work? An unhealthy relationship? A judgmental attitude? What can you stop in order to move you closer to God’s divine direction? Treat each choice like it’s the next stepping-stone toward your destination.

When a behavior or relationship takes us in a direction we know is moving farther away from the story we want to tell, we need to pause not only to consider the consequences but also to choose to stop traveling in the wrong direction. You’ve probably heard the word “repent.” One of its literal meanings is to turn around. When you repent, you stop heading in one direction and return to God and His path for you.

In this sense, stopping actually means stepping in a new direction. You might need to step toward accountability, forgiveness, the right friends, or a new place to live.

Ask yourself:

1. If I make the choice I’m considering, where could it take me?

2. What can I stop in order to move closer to God’s divine direction?

Atheist Professor’s Near-Death Experience in Hell Left him Changed

By Mark Ellis —

In some near-death experiences, people report they were drawn toward “the light.” But in this horrifying near-death experience for an atheist art professor, he was drawn into the darkness of hell, which dramatically altered the course of his life.

“I was a double atheist,” says Howard Storm, who became a tenured art professor at Northern Kentucky University by age 27.  “I was a know-it-all college professor, and universities are some of the most closed-minded places there are,” he notes.

On the last day of a three-week European art tour he led, his group had returned to their hotel in Paris after a visit to the artist Delacroix’s home and studio. As Howard stood in his room with his wife and another student, suddenly he screamed and dropped to the floor in agony.

“I had a perforation of the small stomach, known as the duodenum,” he recalls. At first, Howard thought he was shot, and he glanced around the room to see if he could spot a smoking gun. As he writhed in pain on the ground, kicking and screaming, his wife called for a doctor.

“They said I needed surgery immediately,” Howard says. “It’s like having a burst appendix. I was told that if they don’t get to it within five hours, you’re probably going to die.”

Howard had the misfortune of a falling ill on a Saturday in a country with socialized medicine, and no doctor could be found. “French doctors do seven surgeries a week, and after they do the seven surgeries, they take the weekend off,” he discovered.

Continued, here.

God Protected Future Pastor from Bullets Fired at Point Blank Range

By Sarah Montez —

Todd White joined the Marines to prove to his stepdad he was a man, but on break after boot camp he partied so much with drugs he forgot to report for duty.

“I went home and I stole a bunch of money in a drug deal, went out West and hid in the Rocky Mountains,” Todd says on a YouTube video. “A little while later I got busted and put in jail, extradited across the United States and put into the military prison.”

Today Todd White is a pastor helping myriads of people tripped up by Satan’s snares. But his past was beset with foundering and failure.

He was born out of a hookup when his father came back “messed up” following service in the Vietnam War. Two other siblings arrived from that union and his parents eventually married. It was perhaps inevitable that what started wrong wouldn’t end well, and his parents divorced when Todd was 11.

He was thrown into the foster care system and raised by Free Masons. Frustrated by the breakup of his family, Todd turned to drugs.

“I was rebellious, angry, bitter, so mad,” he says. “I was fully addicted to anything I could get my hands on. It started with weed and it just escalated more and more.”On a dare from his step dad, he joined the Marines to become a man — and to straighten up his life. Boot camp saw him drop 83 pounds and transform into a lean, mean, fighting machine.

Continued

Why Can't We See God - A Scientific Explanation By Frank Lee

Physicists have discovered the mechanism that prevents us from seeing the Kingdom of God by electromagnetic waves.

When I was a graduate student majoring in physics, I was an atheist. To me, God was a product of ignorance, due to lack of scientific knowledge. If people understood natural laws as well as physicists, they would not believe the existence of God. At that time, I did not know that most great physicists were God's believers, such as Newton, Kepler, Planck, Heisenberg and Einstein.

Ten years after I received a Ph.D in physics, I became a Christian - not because I found any hard scientific evidence about God. Like most believers, I felt that there must be a God who had been guiding me, otherwise some events that had happened to me would not be so coincidental.

The existence of God was so real that I had been wondering: where could God be? why couldn't we see Him? how come modern technology could not detect God? Since I was trained in physics, I believed that all natural phenomena should have a physical explanation. If God really exists, these questions can be answered in terms of physical laws. However, I did not know where or how to find the scientific answer. It might be impossible to know the answer at all.

Continued, here.

The Peace of God

Few behaviors sabotage our effectiveness more than worry.

But this pandemic is treatable. After all, worry is internal. No one forces you to do it, no one but you can fix it, and no one but you is fully aware of the extent of it. Our worry is precisely that: ours. 

But worry isn’t merely a psychological problem; it’s a theological problem. The origin of worry is Genesis 3, which takes us back to the primordial sin in the garden. Eve determined to be “like God” (verse 5). She and Adam decided to run the world on their own. Rather than living under God’s authority, they chose to take on his status and responsibilities. They asserted themselves as rulers of their own universe. Consequently, they learned the stress of trying to control time, destiny, and morality. 

No human being is capable of exercising such control. Yet all of us try. We play God and find ourselves overwhelmed by the pressure. 

Worry is toxic to our souls because it blinds us to what God has done and blocks us from what he could do—all because we focus on ourselves rather than God. Our craving for self-sufficiency disables trust. 

All this is neutralized by faith. Both the Old and the New Testaments have a simple solution: trust God. This is not blind trust as much as trusting God’s track record. He has proved himself faithful.

Paul wrote that we must “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). When Satan accosts us with negative thoughts, we wrestle those to the ground and expel them from our minds. 

The trick is that we can’t just rid ourselves of a thought. That leaves a vacuum in its place, and the negativity gets sucked right back in. We must replace negative thoughts with God’s truth. 

Scripture, sermons, and Christian music are powerful resources for mental transformation. The space and place you give to thoughts will grow roots in your brain. What we fertilize most will win the battle for our brains. When we feed our minds with Scripture, God’s Truth, and memories of his care for us, worry fades away and we can take every thought captive again.

When do you struggle with worry most often? What could you put into your mind to replace worry?

Church cancels 9/11 event under pressure from CAIR

Bloomfield Hills Baptist Church was to host a two-day event called “9/11 forgotten? Is Michigan surrendering to Islam?” on Wednesday and Thursday.
A former Muslim who has become a popular speaker, Shahram Hadian, was to speak Wednesday on “How the Interfaith Movement is Sabotaging America and the Church.” And on Thursday, Jim Simpson, a former Office of Management and Budget economist to three presidents and an investigative reporter, was to speak on “How Islam is Destroying America from Within.”
The event was planned by a group called the Detroit Coalition for Freedom.
In response to the cancelation, the organization United West will feature the two speakers in a webinar on Wednesday at 7 p.m. Eastern time that can be viewed online through registration.

‘We don’t hate Muslims’
Last week, the Baptist church’s pastor, Donald McKay, defended the event in an interview with WJBK-TV.

“Islam is a growing threat in the United States of America,” he said. “We don’t hate Muslims, we hate the ideology they are identified with.
Hadian said on his website that his Sept. 11 discussion would “expose the growing deception of interfaith dialogue” and “explain how interfaith ‘dialogue’ is compromising the Gospel & our national security.”
But the Council on American-Islamic Relations along with members of Congress and state representatives pressed the church to cancel the event, and its elders complied.
The executive director of CAIR’s Michigan chapter, Dawud Walid, cast the event’s message as “anti-Muslim bigotry.”
“Though we believe that houses of worship have the right to preach their doctrine, we find it incredibly irresponsible for a church to invite someone who has the objective of spewing clear anti-Muslim bigotry,” Walid told the Detroit Free Press.

Read more at here

In Jesus' Name

Prayer 911

It was the middle of the night when my phone rang. Someone was calling with a “Prayer 911.” Their family was in crisis; their situation was dire. If God didn’t move, life as they’d known it would be dramatically changed forever. Prayer was the only solution to their emergency, and they needed someone to stand with them. They asked for wisdom, strength, encouragement and a renewed faith to believe God’s Word for their situation. We prayed together, and the next day they began to experience a miraculous breakthrough. The Enemy’s hindrances were thwarted, and God broke through with favor and provision! Prayer had made a difference!

 It’s not uncommon for us to arrive at a place of “Prayer 911”—a moment of crisis when the Enemy has done all he knows to do to discourage, disappoint and distance us from the plans and purposes God has for our lives. We’ve become weary from the battle and we need to know His will and clearly hear what He’s saying in the midst of the assaulting fear and confusion. All we can do is stop what we’re doing and pray immediately. It’s at times like this that we need to stand on His Word and apply Ephesians 6:13 (AMP): “Therefore put on God’s complete armor that you may be able to resist and stand your ground on the evil day [of danger], and, having done all [the crisis demands], to stand [firmly in your place].”

 “Prayer 911” situations often leave us in weak, vulnerable places. The Enemy will try to take advantage of our vulnerability by doing everything he can to get our thoughts focused on the impossibility of the situation rather than on the One who can change the impossible. Satan doesn’t want us to remember that “No weapon formed against [us] shall prosper” (Isaiah 54:17) or that “nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37, NLT). Yet it’s during times like these that the Word of God (the sword of the Spirit) sustains us and gives us the ability to say, “In the face of all trials, tests, temptations and tribulation, I cut to pieces the snare of the Enemy by speaking the Word of God.”* We must consciously capture every thought that goes against who the Word tells us God is, and replace it with the Truth. The Bible says to take “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). When we do that, He is able to replace those lies from the Enemy with His empowered truth.

As you take your thoughts captive, you need to delve into the Word of God. These teachings have been preserved for us as a road map through life. All 66 books of the Bible are God-breathed and are there to guide you, to bring answers and to bring comfort. Maybe everything has been taken from you—look up the story of Job. Maybe you’re being forced to sacrifice something precious—read the stories of Abraham and Moses. Maybe you need to get out of a bad situation—turn to the Psalms and read David’s cries to the Lord. In His wisdom and love, God included stories in His Word about real people who experienced real crises, so we could see how He answered in every situation when His children cried out to Him in prayer.


If you’ve been standing strong but have become weary or need encouragement or support, ask friends to join you in seeking confirmation on how to pray about your situation. Then pray, fast and stand firm. Your persistence in prayer and exploration in the Word will not only yield the move of God in your situation, it will craft you to be more like Him. And the more like Him you are, the easier it will be for you to have peace in your time of needing “Prayer 911.” His thoughts will be your thoughts, and His Word, your answer.

The more you pray, the less you’ll panic. The more you worship, the less you worry. You’ll feel more patient and less pressured.

~ Rick Warren

Prayer

Father, forgive me when I get upset when answers don’t come immediately. Replace the lies the Enemy has used against me with the truth of Your Word. Help me to understand that through the process of persistence in prayer and studying Your Word, the Enemy will be defeated, and I will become more like You. Have Your way in me, Lord, and reshape me to look just like You. In Jesus name, Amen.

Source: YouVersion