Peter was Like Me?

The Good News Today Is...Peter was impetuous and strong willed and much loved by Jesus. Maybe we should read that again. Peter was always questioning why, was strong willed, impetuous AND he was in the inner circle of three apostles that accompanied Jesus even on the most sacred and private missions. Peter was nicknamed the rock - we understand from scripture it was because of his unshakable faith, yet perhaps it was also because of his propensity to be stubborn. (I will not deny you, I will not deny you, I will not deny you...) So, Peter was a questioner, strong willed, impetuous and stubborn - and Jesus loved him. Wow - there is hope for us!

Two Steps Forward

The Good News Today Is...we do grow in our faith. The scene is where Jesus is asking "Who do you think I am?" Finally Peter says, "You are the Christ!" One step forward. Jesus has been with the disciples nearly three years at this point and Peter is finally looking at him with open eyes. Yet Jesus tells him he must not share that news. One step back. Just minutes later, Peter is telling Jesus he has it wrong. He will not die and suffer, he will be their king. Jesus rebukes him, "Get behind me Satan!" Another step back.

Some days are like that for us. We take one faith step forward and two steps backward. Just remember that Peter, even after this denied Jesus three times on the journey to the cross, yet Peter is recognized as the founding father of the church. We all have times in our life when our faith journey is rocky. Remember to keep your eyes set on the goal and to continue on even though we may stumble occasionally. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, get on your knees and ask forgiveness and start over on the right track.

The original saying was two steps forward, one step back. We have allowed the Satan in our life to convince us that we take one step forward and two steps back. Push Satan behind and travel on making sure and steady progress. If once in awhile you slip backwards a step, be certain you are still moving forward overall. Your faith will see you through.

Bucket List

The Good News Today Is...God wants us to succeed. For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jer 29:11) Recently my husband made a "bucket list." He was dismayed when I said I might burn it. He misunderstood and thought that I didn't want him to succeed. That isn't true, but more than success I want his happiness and contentment in this life. I am a glass half full person and he is a glass half empty person. I would make a list of all my blessings and find joy in every one. He has made a list of everything he doesn't have and while right now it encourages him to achieve some of the goals on that list, I know that eventually he will become disillusioned with his list and start becoming depressed because he is not ever going to get everything he wants or do everything he wants. I pray that he will come to know that if he seeks God's plans for his life that he will find everything he ever wanted. It may not be what was on his bucket list, but he will be more than happy and he will be content. Each one of us has a special purpose and plan in God's eyes. He wants us to prosper and have hope for our future. He wants us to have faith in Him to supply that.

Passionate Preaching

The Good News Today Is....they do start young.

This video has been viewed going on 2 million times...if only all of us could be so passionate about getting out the word.

Making a Difference

The Good News Today Is...we do make a difference. Sometimes I get discouraged at how many people in the world are mean, miserable and out for themselves. It seems that there is nothing to be done about the downturn and destruction of the human race. Then I remember that every time I smile at someone, do a random act of kindness or simply give someone a hug, I am doing something that God can use. It's not up to me to change the world, it is up to me to bring the message of God's love and be the vessel God can use to show His mercy and grace. God can change the world. The stumbling block most of us face is that we can't see the results and we don't have enough faith to realize that what we have done has made a difference, because God can use it. We want to see the results ourselves, because we want the glory of knowing we were the catalyst to make the difference. Well it just doesn't work that way. God sees the big picture and God gets the glory! That's just another aspect of our faith walk, to trust that the spirit shining through us is getting God's work done, whether we can see the results or not.

Decisions, Decisions!

The Good News Today Is...I have a big decision to make. Big decisions can be fearful for some people, but for me they usually represent opportunity. Without big decisions in our life we can not figure out what is important to us. If God is the center of every big decision, God is what is important to us. If we are the center of every opportunity, then we count ourselves more important than God. When we turn to God for guidance and for divine knowledge of His will for our lives, than the decisions we make have a way of turning out to be amazing adventures with amazing results. The only way to have the best (or what is best for us) is to trust God when we make choices of taking the path on the left or the path on the right.

Moments

The Good News Today Is...I live for the moments. The moments that are like no other moments - the moments that I can be on Holy Ground. They come fleetingly and not too often but they pack an unforgettable punch. These are the moments in our lives when we come face to face with an awesome God. There's no predicting when it will happen. We might be having our morning coffee and all of a sudden - Bam!!! God is present. We might be praying with someone and then like a thief in the night, God shows up. Perhaps we are ministering to someone and out of the blue we are saying words of wisdom that only they could understand - it's God again! Holy Ground is wherever God is meeting us with an undeniable presence and we can tell that it couldn't be anyone but God. It is a time of revelation in our lives, a time of change brought by the Holy Spirit, a time of comfort we needed when no other comforter would suffice. Holy Ground is precious and fleeting. I suspect if we were able to walk on Holy Ground all the time it would lose it's panache and we would lose our awe of a great and mighty God. I am happy to live for the moments.

And the Title Is...

The Good News Today Is...there are people who choose to be Christian authors. I read a lot and today as I was looking through some titles of Christian books I was struck by how much the title of the book can draw me in. Some books just sound great by their title. Sometimes I get encouraged just by reading the titles - I think, "wow, there are others out there that think like me, or have the same problems as me." I'm just going to list a few titles here to see if you like them. These are not books I've read before - just books that intrigue me simply by their title:

Expressions of Comfort and Joy
The Strange Romance
Ragged-Edge Faith and Reckless Generosity
Do Hard Things
When God Winks at You
What in the World is Going On?
The Bait of Satan
The Magnificent Obsession
Bad Girls of the Bible

I could make a list pages and pages long. The titles fascinate me and draw me into wanting to read more books. I'd like to take a moment to pray blessings on all of these authors and thank them for sharing their insights. May God be glorified by their works and may they find contentment and peace in their writing. Thanks for writing!

Worship Him

The Good News Today Is...we have a purpose in life. We are a created being with a purpose to worship our creator. "Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water."(Rev 14:7). When we get to the end of the times, God will be the foremost in our minds and in hearts as we will be commanded to worship Him. We are to do all that we do for His glory and honor, each and every day as we faithfully await the return of our Savior. As we go forth and follow the footsteps of the Lord and learn to walk in His ways, worship Him. As we pursue the godly goals in our lives, worship Him. When you wake up in the morning and have your coffee, worship Him. For God is great and greatly to be praised!

Huge Goals

The Good News Today Is...God wants us to succeed in the goals He has set for us. This is something that I struggle with almost daily. First I ponder at great length if I understand what the goals He has set for me are. Sometimes they are right in front of my face but they seem so big and daunting that I feel I must be looking at them wrong. I must be thinking of what I want, not what God wants. Then when I'm half convinced that the goals truly are what God has in His plans for me I am overwhelmed and don't know where to start. I can rationalize that if I don't start I can't succeed, you have to be trying to do something to actually get it done. Yet sometimes the goal seems so big, how can God expect me to succeed at that? This is when I go back to my small anecdote from Mother Teresa. Yes she said, I can do nothing with three pennies (all the money she had to her name), but with God and three pennies I can do anything. Then her great ministry was born and succeeded beyond all her dreams. So to get started all you have to do is start, because with God you will succeed

Start Your Day Right

The Good News Today Is...I am reminded of who and whose I am. Reading the Proverbs 21 devotion this morning I read these questions and realized that I had forgotten that I was a child of God.

"Do you realize God wants to do amazing things among you each day? Are we ready each morning to wake up and join the story of God?"

Most days I do not get up and realize that I am about to join the story of God. I get up and think about getting ready for work, packing my lunch and trying not to be late again. I need this reminder to start my day in wonder and awe instead of the routine and boring. God wants to do amazing things among us each day! Are we ready for that?

Signs

The Good News Today Is...God has made many promises. Throughout the bible God has promised many things. I believe we can stand on the promises of God as we continue to prove them to be true in our lives. I've added this interesting video, my comment being - God will come again! We are to live each and every day as if that were going to happen at any moment. Live your life always ready to meet God anytime, anywhere. Don't get to wrapped up in when!

.Encourage One Another

The Good News Today Is...we are meant to encourage one another. Today I am going to recommend another blog to you - Proverbs 31 Ministries Daily Devotions. I read it every day as a bit of encouragement and I often take ideas from this blog and make them into my own encouraging entry on my blog. Today as I was reading the entry about contentment I was so touched by its truth that I just wanted to share it with anyone who reads my blog. When we encourage one another our problems fade into the background and we have a lasting contentment in our lives. Peace be with you this day.

Enjoy What God Has Created

The Good News Today Is...we are not meant to get stuck in a rut. There are times when my days are the same over and over and over again. Get up, go to work, come home and make dinner, do dishes and laundry, go to bed - then do it all over again the next day. I was at a workshop this past week-end where several questions were posed to us. We were to answer them with a list of twelve answers. The questions went like this: Where are have you been? Where would you like to go? What activities have you done? What activities would you like to do? You get the gist of this. The questions are meant to keep us from getting stuck in a rut and seeing life in a bigger picture than we usually do. There is a whole wide world out there that God has created for us. He is in the east, west, north and south. It would keep us from getting stuck if we made an effort to enjoy the things God has put on earth for us to enjoy, meet the people he has put on earth for us to meet and share his love abundantly and freely.

God is in the Practical

The Good News Today Is...God is in the practical. I found this quote by Evelyn Underhill who wrote The Spiritual Life - "MOST OF OUR CONFLICTS and difficulties come from trying to deal with the spiritual and practical aspects of our life separately instead of realizing them as parts of one whole." I actually laughed out loud when I read this. I am the master at dealing with the practical...without asking God for any help. It is my realm as far as I am concerned. I forget to invite God into the picture with the everyday mundane tasks and problems that I encounter. I take charge and get it done. That has always been my way, to meet life head on and take care of all the little obstacles during the day. I usually have a list of items I need to complete and I just go about getting them done. Notice the "I" word used over and over. There is no room in life for God if everything is all about me and how I take care of life. Today I will try to put God first in the practical and see how that works out for me. You may get some stories later as I recount the day and anything that happens out of the ordinary...stayed tuned.

A Bad Day

The Good News Today Is...God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."(Heb13:5). Thank goodness I can stand on this promise. My day started out on a sour note. First, I got up late...always a bad thing. When I got up this morning I was going to move my laptop from the kitchen table into the back room where I had finally cleaned off the computer desk and gotten it ready to set up to work at. But, because I was running late I didn't get that done and the dog tripped over the power cord and yanked the computer onto the floor, along with my coffee cup. I went into the kitchen to find my laptop sitting upside down on the floor in a puddle of coffee. Ugh!!! My desktop computer was already down due to contracting one of those wonderful viruses that someone with too much time on their hands created. Now, my laptop was in a heap. I carefully lifted it up and the coffee was dripping off from it. I had no inclination that I would have anything left to work with here. Unbelievably the sturdy little thing was still working. The screen is cracked and may fall apart any moment, but I was able to pull of some of the more important files. At least I didn't lose all of the information. Anyway...I've tried not to let this get me down and I will stand on the promise that I am not alone, even in my trials! The hard stuff is easier to swallow when you have someone holding your hand. Thank you Jesus for staying with me and helping me not to feel lost when the whole world seems to be falling apart around me!

Word of God

The Good News Today Is...we have the word of God.

The Giver

The Good News Today Is...we can trust the Giver more than the gifts. We have all been given gifts of the spirit. Some are to be teachers, some are to be encouragers, some to be evangelists...whatever your gift is..don't become too dependent upon it. The gifts we have are meant to be used for the glory of God. We are not to become so wrapped up in the gift and all we think we can accomplish with it, that we forget that we need God every moment of every day. It is through our need of God and our recognition of that, our gifts become truly powerful for His kingdom. Don't worry about trying to use your gift and do everything you can with it. Over volunteering for church functions because you have the gift they need can lead you to burn out. Look to God the Giver of the gift and seek to glorify Him. That's all you have to do, you can trust the Giver to do the rest.

Knowledge Brings Forgiveness

The Good News Today Is...we are able to write our history down. Words of wisdom are passed by mouth generation to generation. Yet it is the ability that we can keep a recorded history that gives us the opportunity to learn from others in the past - not just by chance but by design. Take for instance this quote by Catherine The Great; "The more a man knows, the more he forgives." These profound words ring true and make me think about forgiveness in a new way. So many of our petty grievances are held onto tightly because we do not see the big picture around a situation. We get hung up with the focus on ourselves and our hurts and we cannot find the forgiveness that we know God would have us give. If we step back from our hurt and try to learn what caused the situation, really come to know the whole picture - seeing things from a different perspective, we can find the forgiveness. God forgave our sins in Jesus name, let us do the same for others.

90 Minutes in Heaven

The Good News Today Is...the book 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper was listed on Guideposts top seven books to read this summer. A lot of people read this book to find out just what 90 minutes in heaven is like. While that is interesting, it's not what this book is about. First, I don't think we are supposed to figure out what heaven is like, we are to believe by faith. I'm not sure that one person's recollection of a near death experience even gives us anymore idea about heaven than we ever had. However, in this book, what we learn from is the perseverance and ministry that we see after Don's near death experience. Wracked with pain, wishing he had died, Don Piper rallies to continue his life and use his suffering for the glory of God. Now that's a story! If you haven't read this book yet you're missing out on a great source of encouragement.

Lord or Savior

The Good News Today Is...Jesus is Lord and Savior. We sometimes try to get around this bit of information because we want a Savior but we don't want a Lord. We know we can't earn our way into heaven, we've admitted we're sinners, we need a Savior. Jesus is right there and we want Him (as a Savior). Sometimes, that's as far as it goes. We want to be saved, no strings attached, no duty on our part, just save us and get us into heaven. Wake up people, that is a pipe dream. If we have accepted Jesus into our hearts and He has become our Savior, then He has also become our Lord. We are to serve Him and follow where His footsteps lead us. In fact, if He is our Savior we will have a desire to submit to Him as Lord. It is in this submission to our Lord that we find our true freedom, our true being and our true happiness. The joy of the Lord is our strength!