HAVE YOU EVER...loved your enemy?

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.  Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  Luke 6:35

At school, we just talked about how disobeying God is doing the opposite of what he wants us to do.  It is not easy to do what God wants us to do all of the time.  Especially, when God calls us to love our enemy or even just our neighbor.  Even so, God works in our lives even when we tell him no.  We can learn about this from Jonah.  My favorite part of the Jonah story is how the people on the boat learned about the one true God when he caused the storm and miraculously stopped it too. 

There is more.  Jonah is a prime example of crabby obedience.  I find myself saying yes to God, but griping the whole time too.  Jonah preached to the Ninevites and they were forgiven, even though they didn’t deserve it.  Then Jonah goes and pouts about it.  God sends a plant to shade him in his sulking, and then sends a worm to kill it too. 

I have a terrible green thumb.  My green thumb is nonexistent.  I kill all plants.  When I try to grow them or people give them to me, they don’t last long.  I have a few plants around my house that are HEARTY!  I don’t know why they are still alive.  Every time my mom visits she says, your plants need watering.  Even my youngest son has started to take the initiative. 

God tells Jonah that he did nothing to keep the plant alive!  He did not plant it or grow it himself.  Why was he so upset?  He was having crabby obedience. 

Then the LORD said, “You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there.  It came quickly and died quickly.  But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals.  Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?”

JONAH 4:10-11 NLT

Most translations say that the people of Nineveh couldn’t even tell their left from their right, comparing them to children.  Would you wish harm on children?  Shouldn’t we be seeking people out like this?

God calls us to obey him.  God calls us to love everyone. 

God calls us to preach his word to EVERYONE!  God calls us to do it with joy!

HAVE YOU EVER had joyful obedience?

Psalm 16:9, Luke 15:7

HAVE YOU EVER...seen the 'Bible'?

I am sure many of you have watched ‘The Bible’ on the History channel over the last month.  I love to “see” how people portray God’s word.  Many with good intentions have made movies about the Bible.  Others had no intentions; maybe money, but still it had to have sewn some seeds. 

So, the show is 2 hours each time it is played.  We Tivo it and watch it later.  Tivo is a way to usually fast forward through the commercials and save time.  Watching ‘The Bible’ still takes us at least 2 hours to watch.  We are following along with our “real” Bible’s from our phones to remember the true stories and compare.  I am thankful for the discerning heart the Lord gave me. 

The second episode had the story of Lot.  It didn’t tell the whole story and what was shown was not how I have always pictured it, but Lot’s wife is what stood out to me.  God has been teaching me to be more of a submissive wife.  This woman was not portrayed as submissive in any way.

The book of Genesis tells us that Lot’s wife; who is nameless, was a Sodomite.  We learn that Sodom was a horrible place.  So horrible that God eventually sends down fire and brimstone from heaven to destroy it.  First mistake, Lot married a woman from Sodom.  Second mistake, they had two daughters.  Third mistake, Lot’s wife turns back to look at the city of Sodom after a warning from the angels.  They save her family, but the mistakes continue even after she is gone.

Legacy.  The Moabites and the Ammonites.  Lot and his wife’s daughters were Sodomites.  Then their grandchildren became more “bad -ites”.  You can read the terrible story in Genesis.  My point is that even after she was gone she left a dreadful legacy.

Lot’s wife turned back and turned into a pillar of salt.  Are you looking back at your mistakes or looking forward to what you need to be preparing for your family? 

Lot made mistakes but was said to have a righteous soul.  My husband makes mistakes, but I know he has a righteous soul.  I pray that the two of us with God are creating a great legacy for our two sons?

HAVE YOU EVER thought about your legacy?

Proverbs 22:6, Ephesians 5:24-25

HAVE YOU EVER...had writer's block?

"Don't be alarmed," he said, "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified.  He has risen!  He is not here.  See the place where they laid him."  Mark 16:6

I was having writer's block while preparing for my Easter blog.  I even looked up in the back of my Bible the word “resurrection”.  These were the small headings underneath…appearance after, evidence for, meaning of, Paul and, prediction of , and that of believers, theories about, timing of.  Praise the Lord that I grew up with these stories.

I believe every word of it.  Jesus is alive!

All I could think about were these words in my head.

He Lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today!
He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.
He Lives, He lives, salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know He lives?
HE LIVES WITHIN MY HEART.

To me, that is all that needs to be said on this Monday after Easter.

All I need is Jesus in my heart.

HAVE YOU EVER…needed more than Jesus?

 

Isaiah 52-53, 1 Corinthians 15:3-5