Author: purposeunderheaven

Confessions of a Rabbit Chaser
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Confessions of a Rabbit Chaser

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My words tell of my love for Jesus.
Just ask me and I will rattle on and on about how I love spending time reading my bible or talking to the Lord.  I swear Jesus means more to me than anything else in the world.
My actions not so much.

Each day, I establish a list of things to do.  The top items on my list: prayer, bible study, meditation on God’s word.  Dawn barely breaks before I see a rabbit and chase it.  I tell myself “as soon as I finish this task, I will sit and pray”, but distraction after distraction comes my way until it is bed time and I am either squeezing prayer time in or falling to sleep without praying at all.
Sure, I can justify many of my distractions as doing what God requires of his children, but it doesn’t change the fact, all this busyness results in my growing distant from the one I claim to love.

The other day, I noticed something.  Look at the Gospels.  Jesus valued  quite time.  Before his ministry started, he went into the wilderness and fasted.  Jesus feed the five thousand and then he went into the mountains to pray.  After telling his parables, Jesus went back to the camp and explain everything to those closest to him.  Facing torture and death, Jesus found a quite spot in the garden to pray.  He told his disciples to pray as well.

So where does all this leave me?  What is my great insight?  If I love Jesus as much as I say I do, then I need to follow his example and spend time in the quite places praying, studying his words, journaling and meditating on his teachings. I must discipline myself to be still and know he is God.
This page is being created as a place where I document what I learn when I am still and listen to my Lord.

Advent · Christian. · Christmas · Christmas Traditions · Uncategorized

The Colors of Christmas

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Slide1

European Christians in the years around 1500 AD, developed plays to tell the bible stories to the illiterate population.  Actors traveled across the different regions of Germany and France preforming the plays.

In regions of Europe where they commemorated Adam and Eve Day on December 24, the Paradise Play was preformed on the  eve of Christmas to celebrated  the creation of the world and recalled the fall of Adam and Eve.

The actors went and cut an evergreen tree–the only green trees in December.  They tied apples ( one of the few ripe fruits in the area) on the limbs. This was the major prop for the show.

The evergreen represented the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life.  The apple represented the fruit Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat. One last decoration was placed on the tree.  Pieces of wafer, unblessed eucharist, were attached to the branches to show the coming promise of a savior to take away the sin of the world.

They preformed the play in a circle of candles.  Adam and Eve, in defiance of God’s rules, toke a bite of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  This act cause the couple to run and hide because they saw their sin.  Their sin separated them from God.  They were removed from Paradise, and humankind cursed to face hard lives and death.   But God gave them  a promise of one who would come to save mankind.

The tree remained up for December 25th as they celebrated the birth of that promised savior.  And the tree became known as a Christmas tree and with it the Christmas colors of red, green and white which tell the Gospel Story.

Thanksgiving

And then there was one

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One of the lepers realizes his skin healed.  This man turns on his heals and heads back to Jesus.

15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,

16 And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.

Can’t you see this guy?  I doubt he stopped when the first sore healed.  Not even the second.  But when he realized the ulcerated sores were gone, he knew it was real.

This guy didn’t set there trying to decide why he once was sick but now was well.  He knew.  He didn’t second-guess the source of his healing.  He knew an answered prayer when he saw one.

So let’s look at how he reacted to answered prayer as compared to David’s guide on Thanksgiving.

So the ten lepers came to Jesus crying out for Him to heal them.  So I think we can agree they meet two of David’s points.  We might call this level 1.  The starting point.

2)   Call upon his name

7)   Seek the Lord and his strength

Let’s go to level 2.  Here are some of the points David mentions that I think are part of level 2.

1)   Give thanks to the Lord

3)   Make known his deeds

4)   Sing unto him

5)   Talk about his wondrous work

6)   Glory in his holy name

 (we will get to level 3 and 4  in a little bit)

Only one leper returns.  All were healed as far as we can tell from the scripture.  But only one stops and heads back to Jesus.

Can’t you see him?  This man runs back down the road yelling out loud and praising God.  The heads of people passing by must have been turning.  I doubt there was one person who passed who didn’t know this man had been heal.

I can think of so many times God answered my cries. Those moments when I had hit bottom and had no idea what I would do.  God acted and I knew it was Him.  I thanked him and my heart sang.  But to be honest, I don’t think I told others, I don’t think I called up praises or documented what God had done.

Those moments fade into my history and don’t become a building block for greater faith.  In fact, as time passes, I think I sometimes start second guessing did God act.  At the time, I know only God could have acted, but later I think maybe just coincidence or something I didn’t know about happened.   Those doubts actually bring down faith rather than building it.

Exercise

Earlier we made a list of times when we cried out to God and He answered.  Look at those moments.  How did you react to God’s answer to your prayer?  Did you run through town praising God and telling people what God had done?  Did you sing songs to God glorifying Him for what he had down?

I would like to spend our Thanksgiving working on treating one of those answered prayers as David would have treated it.  Or as this leper naturally treated it.

Thanksgiving

Quick Recap

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Let’s recap for a moment before we move forward on how to live a life of Gratitude

Who

 

Thanksgiving belongs to those who cry out to God in the day of their need.

Thanksgiving is meant to be a major component a Christian’s life because we are people who call on the name of Jesus.

 What

We strive not for prayers or quick whispers of thanks, but for a way of life based on relying on God, recognizing the work of God and praising God for those victories.

 Why

Living a life of gratitude requires a speck of faith and results in a mustard seed of faith.  Jesus told us faith the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain.  A life of Thanksgiving grows mighty faith warriors

Thanksgiving

An Example From David’s Life

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David credited God for acting in his life and through this he was able to obey God’s commands.  How do we know?  Look at his words to Saul when he volunteered to fight Goliath.

 1 Samuel 17:36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them because he has defied the armies of the living God.

At this point, if you stopped reading here, you would be where most of us stop in reality if not in words.

But David continues with the reason for his faith.

 The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of the Philistine.

David has the faith to go out against a giant who makes mighty soldiers quake because he knows God rescued him in the past and will be there in this day.

This is not about saying the words.  It is about building memorials to God that remind you of each time God acted on your behalf.  It’s about re-enforcing your soul and mind with the answered prayers, the miracles, the sweet God kisses in your life.

Faith is required for Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving grows faith.  We are on a wheel moving up that mountain until we have enough faith to move that mountain.  Many say, David wrote Psalm 23 regarding his battle with Goliath.

Exercise

Think about a problem you face today that you are praying to God regarding His intervention.  Has God ever in your past answered a similar prayer?  Has he acted in your life even without a prayer but you knew it was Him?  Start saying your prayer with a recognition of what God has done for you in the past.

Playlist Song for the Day

Psalm 23            2:38            Steve Ivey            Album:  30 Celtic Hymns

Uncategorized

School of David: The Overview of Thanksgiving

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Slide3

I boiled down the lines of the psalm found in 1 Chronicles 16  into what I think are the ten principles David taught his people about living a life of gratitude and as a result a life in deep relationship with God.

I believe these principles were why David was a man after God’s own heart.  Remembering what God has done yesterday shores up our faith today and it fills our heart with love for Him.

1) Give thanks to the Lord

2) Call upon his name

3) Make known his deeds

4) Sing unto him

5) Talk about his wondrous work

6) Glory in his holy name

7) Seek the Lord and his strength

8) Remember his marvelous works

9) Remember his covenant

10) Offering of thanksgiving

.

Christian. · Thanksgiving · Uncategorized

Living a Life of Thanksgiving

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Slide1

Let’s study Thanksgiving in the School of David– the man had a PHD in the Art of Thanking God. King David is one of my favorite people in the bible. He managed to get himself into trouble several times, yet God loved him. Note, I probably view this wrong.  I see a man who failed and God still loved because I fail so often.   But in reality David was a man after God’s own heart because it was David’s desire to do what God commanded. He stumbles and falls, but he always turns back to God crying for forgiveness. He longed to please God. Evidence would indicate David longed to please God because David deliberately recalled when he was down all the things God had accomplished for him.

When you look at David’s psalms and his life, you find a man who lived a life of gratitude—a life continually recognizing God’s actions in his life. Based on this, it makes sense to allow David to teach us about Thanksgiving. And it just so happens, David wrote a psalm outlining a life of Thanksgiving in 1 Chronicles 16. It will be our primary text for learning how to go on a great adventure with God through thanksgiving.

But a quick overview of the process can be found in Psalm 50:15 and call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.

Exercise 1
Find a place to jot down your thoughts: journal,  computer document, notepad.
Write down the times when you cried out to God in a time of trouble.

Write down how God responded.

Do you remember honoring God if he delivered you?

How did you honor him?