Tag: Christ

Come as you are,

Come as you are, just don’t stay that way.

So I’ve been sitting on this one for a while now and just now found the time to write it out.

In our lives we are defined by where we come from and the things that we have done, either by others or it is how we define ourselves.  But when we look at what God calls us to, it is to leave our old selves, leave our pasts behind us, and follow Him as a new person.  We go to God broken and weighed down by our guilt and shame, but we leave different.  We leave walking closer to God, walking whole and new, without the burdens and hurts.

We find ourselves though holding on, we only know ourselves as the person with this problem or that vice.  It’s hard to let go and change.  It’s hard to admin that you have faults…  What is someone else going to think…  Will people still like me if I change…  These are the questions that go through our heads.  But you have to change, you have to come as you are but leave different.

It is the leaving different part, living different, being different part that is the challenge.  The latest series at our church has been on cleaning out your soul and doing all of these things above.  But one point that our pastor made this past weekend was that so many of us, “put on our church face,” we have things that we hide in our lives that we don’t want others to know about, that continually hold us back from being the person God wants us to be.  But it is also putting on this “church face” this act, that make so many people think of Christians as hypocrites.

So I pray that you will leave different and stay different.  Think about what you can do that will show those around you that your different.  What can you do that will show God to those around you and what sets you apart?

by corymcglone

Manual Focus

Retina Reflex SLR

So many times in life we lose our focus.  We need to adjust our lives back into focus, and get back in touch with what matters.

I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking through this post, and reflecting on the start of this year and what the new year means and the new beginnings that it brings.  It is when we take our eyes off of what is most important, that we lose focus and lose our way.  When you look through the Bible, you find many stories of true Bible heroes, that lost their focus, lost their way, and then eventually came back to the life God had called them to.

The first three that come to Samson, David, and Peter. Samson, lost his focus, blinded by the lies of Delilah and feeling that he could go about things on his own, was blinded literally by his enemies.  But with his last breaths, he prayed, that God would bless him with power one last time, and defeated more Philistines in that moment as he crashed the temple.  David, lost his focus to lust for Bathsheba, lost a child, and lost his way.  But in the end learned from his mistakes, and changed.  And the story of Peter walking on the water is to me the prime example of having, losing, and regaining focus, in a very short amount of time.  As soon as Peter stepped out of the boat and had his eyes focused on Jesus he was walking along just fine.  But it is the exact moment that he took his eyes off of Jesus, and looking at everything that was around him, he began to sink.

It is the times that we take our eyes off of what God has for us, and focus in on the chaos around us, that we begin to drown in life.  We get so caught up in the stuff, that goes on day in and day out, that we forget the blessings that are right in front of us.  We have to regain our focus on our families and on what God has for us.  It is the minor adjustments that you wouldn’t think about that make the biggest changes in life.  We must make sure that we are looking to God, and being fully focused on what He has for us.

by corymcglone

What’s your hope?

So last week I started with passion, and this week I want to move on to hope and faith. No not the sitcom, but true hope and faith.
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hope |hōp|noun1 a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen: he looked through her belongings in the hope of coming across some information | I had high hopes of making the Olympic team.• a person or thing that may help or save someone: their only hope is surgery.• grounds for believing that something good may happen: he does see some hope for the future.2 archaic a feeling of trust.verb [ no obj. ]want something to happen or be the case: he’s hoping for an offer of compensation | [ with clause ] : I hope that the kids are OK.• [ with infinitive ] intend if possible to do something: we’re hoping to address all these issues.

faith |fāTH|noun1 complete trust or confidence in someone or something:this restores one’s faith in politicians.2 strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.• a system of religious belief: the Christian faith.• a strongly held belief or theory: the faith that life will expand until it fills the universe.

faith – noun 1 he justified his boss’s faith in him: trust, belief, confidence,conviction; optimism, hopefulness, hope. 2 she gave her life for her faith: religion, church, sect,denomination, (religious) persuasion, (religious) belief,ideology, creed, teaching, doctrine.

hope – noun 1 I had high hopes: aspiration, desire, wish, expectation,ambition, aim, goal, plan, design; dream, daydream, pipe dream.2 a life filled with hope: hopefulness, optimism, expectation,expectancy; confidence, faith, trust, belief, conviction,assurance; promise, possibility. 3 have we any hope of winning? chance, prospect, likelihood,probability, possibility; informal shot. verb 1 he’s hoping for a medal: expect, anticipate, look for, be hopeful of, pin one’s hopes on, want; wish for, long for,dream of. 2 we’re hoping to address the issue: aim, intend, be looking, have the intention, have in mind, plan, aspire.

To me, hope and faith, are the same but different. Faith to me is the belief of things unseen, and hope is what we want to happen. I have faith that the studs in the walls will hold up my house, I have faith that my heart will continue to beat, I have faith that God will provide for me and my family. I hope that my car starts every morning, I hope that my computer works properly everyday, I hope that I save my blog posts… It is also my hope that my daughter will grow up to be a great woman of God, and find a nice christian husband. I hope that I am the father figure that God has called me to be, I am the husband that God has called me to be.

If faith is a belief in the unseen, why do so many people say the the will only believe in things they can see. Do we not have any faith anymore. To me the best description of faith I have ever heard is; “I’ve never seen the wind, but I have seen the effects of the wind… but I still know that there is wind.” So while we can’t see God, we can see his creation all around us. We can see and feel the effects of his presence around us. Just when we don’t know where else to turn, we see a way out. God knows the answers the entire time, we have to look to him to get those answers.

Think about some of the team building exercises that are out there; the trust fall, walking blindfolded while someone else guides you. With all of these exercises you have to hope that people will catch you, and that they will guide you properly. Look at all of the plays that are used during a football game; the quarterback has to hope that his line will keep him protected, and that a receiver is going to get open, and be running the route that he is expected to run so that the quarterback knows exactly where to look.

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It comes down to the fact that we need to have a child-like faith. We just need to trust God that all will be taken care of. As kids, we didn’t care about the things that our parents did, house and car payments, bills, etc. We just wanted to know that mom and/or dad would be there to: pick us up when we fell down, make dinner, and that things were the way they were because that’s how God made it. As we get older, we start applying logic to our thinking, we start questioning faith with logic. It is here that we have to go back to the child-like faith, and realize that the things of God, don’t always make sense in the now. Many times we can look back on situations that happened in the past and see where God was in it, but it is hard to see when it is happening.

The biggest question that I want to pose to you now is, where are you putting your hope? Do you put your hope and faith into people, material things, sports? Do you put your hope and faith in God and Family? Take this time leading up to Easter, and reflect on where you place your hope, and what your passions are.

by corymcglone