Inspired Life: Words To Live By

Job 1:21 – “Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.”

Many, if not all of us experience tragedy at some point in our lives. Someone we love no longer loves us. Healthy, vivacious people get sick and ultimately die. Young people make mistakes and get hurt or killed in the process. I’m sure there are endless examples of such events.

Many times these things get processed incorrectly and end up helping our enemy, the devil to win because someone believed and agreed with the thought that if God really cared, this “thing” would never have happened.

However, God has always allowed tragedy to touch us, but his word says that he will take every circumstance and make it into something good.

How we choose to interpret the event determines whether or not we can see the good that comes. Sometimes we just get angry at God and thus open ourselves to the pain and suffering imposed by the one who kills, steals and destroys for a living.

Recently, a man I’ve known for nearly 20 years passed from this life. This man was a friend and a mentor. He’d experienced an amazing life that ended too soon.

A few years ago he was diagnosed with cancer and the treatment took a lot out of my friend. But his illness was in remission and it seemed he would complete a project he was working on that would have been his life’s “masterwork”.

Unfortunately, his cancer returned and as a result, his spirit could not sustain him.

Where is the good in this? You have to dig deep through the sadness and frustration of his story but God had a plan to make something good from it.

See, this man had a friend – also a dear friend of mine who has had multiple bouts of cancer too, and the lessons he learned have become a book and series of guided lessons on how to lead a fulfilled life even after being treated for cancer.

Very few knew that the two of them were working on and encouraging one another to finish these projects that would be so important to many who suffer physically, mentally, and emotionally long after their cancer has been defeated.

My friend’s passing has given my other friend new strength and another reason to push through to finish his life-changing book and training.

It’s just a fact that in this life God gives and he takes away. It’s all to further his plans for all of his creation and as much as we wish for it, we’re not in on the decisions he’s making. Our place is to trust and believe him at his word when he said that he’d turn every bit of bad news into something good.

If you read, ponder and pray about Job’s story – you’d understand. And even if we don’t want to, our responsibility is to praise the Lord and trust that he’s up to something. And that something will be good

Matthew 22:37 – Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

I, like the almost 112 million others around the world watched Superbowl LI last February. The Atlanta team was soundly beating the New England team at halftime and it looked as if they were unbeatable.

On the final play of the 4th quarter, New England made the play that completed their comeback and won the game. I cheered loudly. Perhaps you did too. Or maybe you were one of those who groaned because you wanted Atlanta to win.

Neither of the teams are the ones I watch and support and I’m really a fan of neither. But of the two, I dislike Atlanta more.

This is because I’m from Florida and we have to play the Atlanta team two times each year. There is a rivalry to be sure.

My point is this – when’s the last time you cheered loudly for Jesus? Can you remember jumping up and down and clapping and yelling for Him? For all he’s accomplished on your behalf? No. Me either. But why?

If you consider what is written all throughout scripture, we have a God who is in pain over what humans had done to his creation. By giving us free will over our lives, we have the ability to do all sorts of things he does not want us doing.

Just the original sin of our ancestors means we were born in bondage to sin. Until and unless we accept that Jesus did die on the cross for the forgiveness of sins – we cannot be saved. God had a plan for radical forgiveness. His plan would allow his creation to return to a loving relationship with their creator. But it involved sending his Son to live a human life and die like a criminal.

Fortunately, the story didn’t end there. God, who can do anything, resurrected Jesus from the dead and brought him back to heaven. Then he placed Jesus over everything in heaven and on earth.

We yell and cheer for our favorite teams when they score points, hit a home run or win a game but maybe today we should muster up a cheer for our Jesus. Without his heroics, we would still be under the death sentence handed down from our ancestors for their sins.

In the text above Jesus tells us how to do it. Try it, both God and you will get a lot of satisfaction when you do…

John 3:16-17 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

This morning I’m sitting preparing to write and firmly staking out ground in my lap is my loving doggie, Coco. He’s the second of my two rescues and has a large need for love and reassurance every day. It stems, I’m sure from the mistreatment he received as a puppy before he was abandoned.

As he sat here, God told me that I’m very much like him in my own ways. No, I don’t weigh around twenty pounds, nor is my body covered with gray and black fur. But I do find that every day I need a lot of love and reassurance from my Father in heaven. After reading the book “The Shack” and later seeing the movie of the same name, I’m fond of referring to him in some cases as Papa.

So I’m thinking about the need my dog has and Papa tells me I too have the same needs. Then he reminds me of what was written about him in John 3:16. That he loved me SO MUCH, he sent his Son to take the punishment for my sins. If you’re familiar with the story, you know that Jesus was God’s son. He was born of a woman and lived a fully human experience.

As he pursued his ministry, Jesus offered freedom from past, present, and future sins in exchange for you simply believing that his story was real. That he was who he said he was.

In time, religious leaders chose to execute him – even though he’d committed no crime. But as is almost always the case, God used something awful to do something awesome. 3 days after his death, Jesus was resurrected and was seen alive and well to countless people in the next few weeks. Then he returned (ascended) to heaven to live once more with his Father.

Because of the evidence that all of this is true (I wasn’t actually there, you know), I choose to believe that this Jesus was and is the real deal. In exchange for believing I’ve been forgiven those things I did in my past and now possess real freedom from my past.

If you ever wanted a loving embrace from your Papa – God himself, all you have to do is ask. Then believe it will happen (have faith!) and you’ll begin to experience his love in new and fresh ways. Just like Coco, who was set free from the bad place he started in life and now experiences love and reassurance every day, it can happen for you too!

Genesis 3:8 – “The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”

I had a teacher once who regularly told a story about the stage of life where children learn to walk for the first time. Through trial and error they eventually learn to stand, balance, walk and then, eventually run.

My teacher would ask, “how long do you give your baby to learn to walk before you give up on them and say “enough – this baby apparently will never learn to walk, so why bother trying?””

It seems ridiculous to think that we would ever give up on our child in their quest to learn to walk, right? Instead, we insist “we will keep at it until…”

So with this as background, I was having a conversation with a friend recently about her prayer life and she admitted she was struggling to get meaning from the message she was studying.

As she was describing her situation, I heard Holy Spirit guiding me to tell her that she was trying to take HER choice of text and what she wanted to hear from God – instead of the part of his word HE wanted her to focus on.

I told her that I’d had a similar experience a few years ago and had been led to read a John Eldredge book called “Walking With God.” I told her that after reading that book, I started hearing more often from God about the things he wanted me to know and what he wanted me to do that day.

Now, I make time to speak with him almost daily. The process of writing these posts for you flows from it as he leads me to a chapter and verse in the Bible that he wants me to use in sharing his word today.

This concept may be a challenge for some, but if you read the Scriptures literally, you’ll find numerous examples of God walking with and talking with his people. To some he appears as a person, but not always. To Moses, he appeared in the midst of a burning bush. There’s never a dull moment with God.

If you want to open a new chapter in your prayer life, I’d suggest that book to you as well and tell you that these regular conversations with my Father, Creator, Savior, and Lord were life changing for me. Ask God to let you in on the change and he will do it.

Matthew 18:20 (Message) – “When two or more get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I’ll be there.”

Summertime is a very good time for us to join together with old friends to eat, laugh and share stories to catch up. Hopefully, over the last few days, you’ve found yourself gathering together with others and enjoying good times.

Many don’t consider it, but a gathering of family and friends is a perfect place for Jesus to hang out and join the fun. As the writer in Matthew told us, when two or more are gathered, he’ll be there.

Our celebration included a feast of fire-roasted foods and the telling of stories, old and new. Each one has had over the years an encounter with Jesus, one that led them to accept him as God’s son – and Messiah and Savior.

I heard a story this week about a woman who’s entire family was outside of Christ’s love – they simply had not been told the good news and so were being crushed by the enemy of their lives. Then one accepted him. Which led others to also accept him. This woman was transformed from being angry and withdrawn to being open, loving and willing to laugh easily.

Joining together with her over a meal is always great because her laughter is infectious. As she is from a generation older than my own, she also has a terrific perspective on things that we see in the world around us today.

The battle on planet earth between good and evil rages on – and the only way to survive it is to wrap yourself in the love of your Savior and let him protect and keep you.

If you get the chance this summer, seek out old friends to eat, share stories and laugh with. Then invite Jesus to come and you can be sure that no one likes a good party more than him – and he will join you.