Tag: Christ

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A Long Day, But Worth It…

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Yesterday about 10:00 a.m. I checked my email and saw that Shane’s granddad is sick in the hospital. If you are a prayer, please pray for him and Shane’s family…even though you may not know them. This is a difficult and trying time for them.

I had less than 8 hours to prepare a message for the teenagers, because Shane was scheduled to speak. I also had a full days worth of work at the office. I had nothing to speak on except what was on my heart and mind. As I have been posting on here, I have been reading “Chasing Daylight.” I am still in chapter 2 and did not get a chance to read any further yesterday, but I ran with a story from the Bible that Erwin referenced in the book. Rahab.

I called the message, Choose to Live, because that is what Rahab did. She chose to live. She had made many bad choices in her life, she was a practicing prostitute at the time God sent an opportunity for her to choose. She could have chosen to do nothing, because after all, what kind of life did she have to salvage? She could have chosen to live as she had always lived, but she didn’t…she chose to do good and to take a new path, a path pleasing to God. As a result…she chose life…she created a whole new future…things were different!

Well, things are different in 2 students lives today. I challenged all of the students to do 1 of 2 things:
#1 if they were a Christ Follower, but were living their life walking backwards into their future being paralyzed by the choices they have made in their past, to turn around walk head first into their future and choose the way of life when God brings them the next opportunity. (I revealed to them that they cannot see opportunities from God if they are walking backwards!)
#2 I challenged those who were not Christ Followers to choose life, the life of Christ. I told them just like Rahab, it did not matter where they were in their life or even what “wrong” choices they made that day, Jesus wanted to love them and to forgive them…Well 2 students made a choice for life, and they asked Jesus to be the Lord of their life.

Please pray for Shane and his family, as well as these 2 students who are starting a new journey to be a Christ follower.

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Thought for the Day

I have been thinking about this verse a lot lately, not because of it being the Easter season and the natural reflection on Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. I have been thinking about it before this past week. It puts Christ’s love for us into perfect perspective:

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. Philippians 2:5-8

I cannot count the times that I thought highly of myself, or I thought that I had accomplished something great. Yet, Christ had equality with God, he had divine privileges, and he counted it as worthless, because he valued loving us more! Verse 5 is the hard part, “You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.” That’s the verse that lets me know that I am not all that I think that I am at times!

Would I give up divine privileges for someone who would eventually murder me? Would I give up my position in a comfortable, perfect Heaven, and my equality with the Creator of the Universe? I wouldn’t, but Christ did. How can I even come close to that attitude? It’s possible through Christ, or we would not be told to do it, but that is a huge mountain to climb. I know one thing, it will humble us to realize we cannot accomplish such an attitude on our own, but it is through Christ that we can. How then can we think highly of anything that we do?