A Kind Word

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” - Maya Angelou

A compliment, a thoughtful deed, an act of kindness, a blessing and a thank you go a long way in making someone feel seen, heard and valued. Words and actions can create a feeling of being important. We are all created in the image of God and when we recognize that fact, we acknowledge that other people have a worth in Christ. We don't look through people. When someone talks, we pay attention. We don't humiliate, nor do we build ourselves at someone's expense. And if we have done that by mistake or inattentively, we apologize so that the other person feels valued.

It takes a lot of strength, humility and empathy to be genuinely kind, so let us start training today. 

Proverbs 16:24

Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

Proverbs 15:1

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

1 Thessalonians 5:11

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

Colossians 4:6

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Pascal's Wager

Pascal's wager is a philosophical argument advanced by Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), seventeenth-century French mathematician, philosopher, physicist, and theologian. This argument posits that individuals essentially engage in a life-defining gamble regarding the belief in the existence of God.

So, true to form, we humans have evolved a devilishly clever logic to follow God, based on the premise that we have everything to win and nothing to lose.

If that is the motivation, I am afraid that's a no go because belief and love of God is based on faith and faith is based on experience.

Faith follows no logic. God follows no logic either, because our logic is based on the natural order of things in this world which were anyway created by God. Therefore, God created His won logic. For us, the parting of the red sea followed no logic. The healing of the lepers followed no logic. The resurrection followed no logic. If you are peaceful, that is illogical because how can you find peace in this disturbed world? Yet God gives us His peace.

So, if my belief in God is based on a principle of covering all bases, I am afraid that is no basis of belief in God.

Unless I have seen the see the value of life with God where is the basis of my belief? To know Him I need to experience Him, or as the Bible says -"Taste Him". 

The Bible comments thus: 

James 2:19

"You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder...."

1 Peter 2:3

"if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord...."

Hebrews 6:4-5

"For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come..."

Source:https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Experience,-Of-God

Who is your God?

Whatever continually occupies your mind is your God. Your job, worries, burdens, children, wife, husband... whoever comes first.
Why not give God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that place? That is not to say to ignore all others. But Those are responsibilities which we can fulfill with the help of our God.
It's not easy to relinquish control but do remember, every night when we sleep, by default we pass the control to God. It's time we gave Him priority in our conscious time and our attention as well.
Proverbs 3:6 proclaims, “In everything you do, put God first, and he will direct you and crown your efforts with success,”

The Window

How many people across the world live in windowless homes or rooms? I don't think anyone has calculated that simply because we have not yet acknowledged the health risk of living in a windowless room.

One a cold winter day, one of my to do list is to open the window and let the sun and warm breeze warm up the room. The warm breeze and bright sun cheers one up no end.

And then I think of all those people who live in windowless rooms. In those cheerless, unhealthy conditions, how would they feel or survive?

Just like living without a window in the home is unhealthy, living without a spiritual window is also fraught with the danger of becoming spirituality empty and open to becoming a victim in the spiritual war around us, unseen, unheard, but very much there.

Jesus Christ is that window we need. Through Christ we can build a relationship with God the Father. Through Christ we can get the Holy Spirit to help us, protect us and guide us. Thrpugh Christ we can beat the threat of a second death.

Just as the sun streams in through my open window and warms me up, Christ enables us to recieve Gods warmth and let God envelope us in His warm hug.

JOHN 12:32 “AND I, IF I BE LIFTED UP FROM THE EARTH, WILL DRAW ALL MEN UNTO ME.”

In case you missed

 

The Boat with a Hole - A short story. Read it HERE

Quid est veritas: what is truth? Pilate's key question, we are still trying to answer today. Read it HERE

What does Forgiveness from God look like?

Pastor David Jacobs, trying to understand his mothers forgiveness asked her, "Would you be able to forgive me of I had committed murder?"

She answered - "You will always be my son. I would not approve of what you did but I would be there in jail, visiting you whenever I could." So would God! 

This leads to a thought: what does forgiveness from God look like? 

I would guess pretty much the same. When we sin, He would still love us and still guide us, if we wished, but He would not approve of what we had done. David's story is a case in point. He broke the 6th, 7th and 10 commandments and had to pay the price, yet God loved Him. Like David, we sin all the time, yet God sacrificed His son to save us from complete annihilation.

Just as knowledge of the depth of our mother's love fills our heart with joy and gives encouragement to abstain from hurting her, understanding the depth of God's love also gives us that desire to not hurt him, but try and please Him, visit Him and talk to Him. 

Finding God: The First Step

Voltaire once wrote: “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”

There’s a lot of wisdom in that. A man questions what he /she genuinely wants to know, yet a fulfilled life isn’t so much determined by what you know as it is by how willing you are to learn.

We can memorize the Bible and quote at the drop of a hat and answer any question in a Bible quiz and still not know Jesus. Memorizing verses is good, but knowing their meaning in your life is important too.

Knowing Jesus can take a lifetime. It's a lifelong process. Every time one reads the Bible thoughtfully, a new picture of Jesus emerges. Jesus as a son to Mary; Jesus as a son to God; as a friend; Jesus as a carpenter; as an ordinary human; as a God; as a Godly human; as logical; as wise and so on. Different stories paint a new picture of Jesus.

So, today let us determine to learn more about Jesus, studying His life, His character and His thoughts, because He is the ideal we strive to become. That is the first step. 

That is why we are called by His name.